“Was he?” his voice came as though down a long corridor, a terse utterance belonging to another. In this moment, Eleanor’s hasty flight, at last, made sense. In the note she’d left for him, but a handful of sentences long, she’d spoken of her heart belonging to another. She’d, however, failed to mention the name of the man whose heart she’d missed with such intensity, she’d fled in the dark of night. Now with Marcia’s revealing words, he knew Eleanor had wed a man in the King’s Army. That important piece somehow made his dead rival all the more real.
“Oh, yes,” Marcia said with a solemn nod. “He was very brave and I miss him greatly.” She wrinkled her brow. “Even though we never—”
“Come, Marcia,” her mother said sharply.
The little girl sighed and then sidled over to her mother. “Well, it was very nice meeting you, sir.”
“My lord,” her mother whispered. “He is a viscount.”
“Marcus will suffice,” he insisted, not taking his gaze from the small child who by rights should be his, and was near enough in age that she could have been his, if life had played out differently and Eleanor had not chosen another.
“That wouldn’t be proper,” Eleanor said, with a slight frown on her lips.
Once again, he wondered at what had turned the giggling, bright-eyed girl of his youth into this guarded, hesitant woman before him now. “I insist,” he said, looking pointedly at Eleanor. “After all, your mother and I were once friends.”
Eleanor’s body jerked erect as though he’d struck her. Good, she should feel something, even if it was guilt for not having had, at the very least, the courage to confront him in more than a letter and admit her defection. She’d owed him that.
The little girl alternated her stare between them. “You were, Mama? So it would be fine to call him by his name, then, wouldn’t it?” Marcia continued on over her mother’s quick protest. “I do like your name.” She captured her chin between her thumb and forefinger and eyed him contemplatively. “Not the Wessex part.” His lips twitched with his first amusement since their entire exchange. “But the Marcus part.” A wide smile wreathed her plump cheeks. “It reminds me of my name. Do you like my name?” Each question and admission from the child’s lips jolted him, throwing his once well-ordered world into greater tumult. “I was named after a powerful, mythical queen who ruled Britain long ago.”
He forcibly reined in his emotions and offered a bow. “I think it is a splendid name, Miss Collins,” he said, spreading his arms wide in a way that made her giggle. Marcus returned his attention to an unmoving Eleanor. Tension poured off her slender frame in waves and he welcomed the further crack in the lady’s veneer. “In fact,” he confirmed, deliberately needling, “I once said if I were to have a daughter, I would name her Marcia.”
The little girl’s eyes went wide and she yanked at Eleanor’s hand. “Did you hear that, Mama?” She raised wide, innocent eyes to his. “My mama told me the same thing. She said she’d always known she would have a little girl named Marcia.”
The muscles of Eleanor’s throat moved, the first crack in her otherwise remarkable composure. And suddenly with Marcia’s innocent admissions, his deliberate attempt to rile Eleanor only jabbed at his own heart with regrets for the way her life had turned out and the way his had not.
A small yap jerked him to the moment. The duchess’ liveried footman adjusted the leads in his hand. Marcus cleared his throat. “I will leave you ladies to your afternoon.” He sketched another bow. “Miss Carl—” He cut his words short. For she was no longer Miss Carlyle and yet, that is who she would forever be.
“My lord,” her whispery soft voice was nearly lost to the carriages rumbling by.
With that empty parting, Eleanor turned on her heel with her daughter’s hand tucked in her own, and her small contingent of servants, and did what she did best—left.
“I liked him, Mama.”
Eleanor pretended not to hear her daughter’s insistent words. To acknowledge them only opened the gates for regrets she’d rather not let in.
“Mama,” Marcia sighed, tugging at her hand. “Did you hear me? I liked the viscount.”
Everyone had always adored Marcus Gray, Viscount Wessex. He possessed an inordinate amount of charm that was safe to no lady, young or old; her own daughter, included. “You do not even know him,” Eleanor said, her gaze trained forward on the pink façade of her aunt’s townhouse, her feet desperately aching to take flight. She concentrated on each carefully taken step.
“Do you not like him?” Confusion underscored her daughter’s relentless interrogation. “He said you were friends.”
Emotion clogged Eleanor’s throat and a sheen of useless tears coated her vision. No, she did not like him. She loved him. Eleanor drew to a stop and, despite herself and good sense which she’d demonstrated a remarkable lack of for the better part of her life, she glanced back to the him in question. Alas, he was gone. Did you expect him to be standing there staring after you like a lovelorn youth? “I like the viscount just fine, love. He—” Is a good man, honorable, charming. Or he had been. A shiver raced along her spine. The man she’d loved was no more. Instead, he’d been replaced with a cold, emotionless stranger she no longer recognized. Which was for the best. In that way, she could keep Marcus properly buried with her broken heart and hopes she could have for them.
“He is what?” Marcia asked impatiently.
“He is perfectly acceptable company,” she settled for.
Eleanor’s daughter scrunched her nose up, indicating just what she thought about that rather empty endorsement of the viscount.
“Now, come,” she urged, tugging Marcia’s hand toward the townhouse.
A pained groan escaped her little lips “But you promised we could spend the day at the park.”
Eleanor bit the inside of her cheek to keep from saying that she’d in no way promised a day at the park or even a trip from Aunt Dorothea’s townhouse. She ruffled the top of her curls. “Don’t you wish to tell Aunt Dorothea of the excitement this afternoon?”
“No, I want to stay outside in the sunshine,” Marcia said with such a child’s blunt honesty that, for the tension of the morning, a real smiled pulled at her lips.
“Another day,” she promised as they reached the front doors. They made their way up the handful of steps and the door was opened almost immediately, admitting them and their small collection of servants and dogs.
“Why are you here, gel?”
Eleanor winced as Aunt Dorothea’s stern voice boomed off the cavernous foyer. She looked up the spiral, marble staircase to where the older woman stood, poised at the top. She thumped her cane, demanding an answer.
“Mama said we had to come and tell you of the excitement.”
Some of the duchess’ disapproval faded, to be replaced with a spark of interest. “Excitement?” she asked, her tone gruff.
Eleanor shrugged out of her cloak and with a murmur of thanks, handed it off to the butler, while her daughter filled the silence for them.
“Oh, yes. It was very exciting, Aunt Dorothea.” She folded her arms across her chest and gave Eleanor a pointed frown. “Even if Mama insisted on ruining all our fun.”
With a little grunt, Aunt Dorothea eyed them with renewed interest. “Well, come along you two.” She gave a jerk of her chin.
No further urging required, Marcia sprinted up the stairs. Eleanor winced at the less than decorous display. Alas, the smile on the woman’s aged cheeks hinted at approval for the girl’s spirit. At a slower, more deliberate pace, Eleanor mounted the stairs while Marcia’s eager prattling occupied Aunt Dorothea. All the while, Eleanor welcomed the distraction, using it as an opportunity to try and right her tumultuous thoughts.
Of course, their meeting had been an inevitable one. His townhouse was on the same strip as the one she would occupy…until Aunt Dorothea no longer required Eleanor’s services. Yet, in all the possible exchanges she’d run through, those had been coolly polite passings be
tween two people who’d once known each other, but were now nothing more than strangers. By the reports she’d last read of him in The Times, he had become a shell of the man she remembered and admired. And so, in the meeting she’d fashioned for them, he would have tipped his head, perhaps with an icy disdain for the country miss who’d returned to a world she didn’t belong to. She would have dropped a curtsy and continued hurrying by with regrets for what might have been and that would have been the extent of their exchange.
Eleanor reached the top of the stairs and paused, resting her hand upon the bannister. Except, the flash of ire in Marcus’ ice blue eyes and the set hardness of his mouth hinted at a rage that belonged to someone more than an indolent lord. She pressed her eyes closed a moment. His reaction had been that of a man who’d cared very much that she’d left. Of course, he’d not feel any of that vitriol toward her if he knew the truth, knew the shame and humiliation she’d spared him from.
“What is the matter with you, gel?” At the suspicious question barked from halfway down the hall, Eleanor snapped her eyes open. “Are you distracted?”
“No,” she lied. A warm heat suffused her cheeks. Her aunt and daughter stood in matching poses; hands planted akimbo, and if she weren’t so humiliated at being caught woolgathering, she’d have found her daughter’s mimicking the older woman rather endearing and more than a bit comical.
“She is. She has been that way since the excitement.”
“Humph,” Aunt Dorothea grunted once again. She angled her head toward the hall. “I, of course, must hear more.” Without waiting to see if they followed, she turned on her heel and started down the hall to one of her many parlors. Marcia skipped after her.
With far greater reluctance, Eleanor followed along. She would not think of him. They’d seen each other but once. Nearly to the date of their first meeting. An innocent, naïve young lady would see that meeting through romantic eyes and blame fate and fortune. Eleanor sighed. She, however, had come to see fate as a cool, fickle, mocking creature that took minutes and moments and manipulated them in a cruel way. And those glorious meetings were then fatefully transformed into horrific exchanges that forever altered the course of one’s life.
“Get in here, gel.”
She jumped at her aunt’s booming voice and hurried into the pink parlor. From the velvet curtains to the upholstered sofas, every last piece, parcel, and scrap of this room were pink. As a girl of eighteen, she’d been in awe of the cheer of the room. Now, she found the shade a nauseating reminder of her naïve days. Her daughter sat perched on the edge of one of the pink sofas, swinging her legs back and forth as she was wont to do. Eleanor hurried over and sat beside her.
Aunt Dorothea gave a pleased nod and then claimed the sofa opposite them. Then, to draw out the moment, she leaned over and poured herself a cup of tea, added three lumps of sugar, a dash of milk, and then held it up. Eleanor waved off the offering with a murmur of thanks and, with a little nod, her aunt settled back in her seat. “Now what is this about excitement?”
“Devlin broke free,” Eleanor cut in before her daughter could speak.
A rusty chuckle escaped the older woman’s lips. “Your mother changed my dogs’ names, has she?” Eleanor mustered a conciliatory smile. “Well, Satin and Devlin will do just as nicely,” the duchess said with a wink. “They don’t seem to mind, do they?”
“No, Aunt Dorothea.” Marcia shook her head enthusiastically.
Of course, Eleanor should feel some compunction, and yet she could think of nothing other than foolish regrets at the roguish man Marcus had proven to be.
Her aunt looked back and forth between her two guests. “Never tell me, that’s the excitement?” Her tone was the same as one who’d been told the intrigue of the day was attending Sunday sermons.
Without awaiting permission, Marcia plucked an apricot tart from the silver tray of confectionaries set out. “Oh, that is not all,” she mumbled around a mouthful of sugared treat.
Eleanor touched a hand to her daughter’s knee. “We do not speak with our mouths full, dear.”
Marcia brushed the back of her hand over her mouth and dusted away traces of sugar.
With a sigh, Eleanor retrieved a napkin and handed it over.
Where most matrons would have looked on with horror at the girl’s manners, an appreciative light lit the unconventional duchess’ eyes. “Tell me more about this excitement.”
“Devlin ran away.” The little girl proceeded to tick off on her little fingers. “He managed to slip by me, and then Mrs. Plunkett, and then the footman,” she paused, scratching her brow. “I don’t know his name.” She gave her head a shake. “And then Mama,” Eleanor winced at the heavy emphasis placed on that two syllable word, “went running after him.”
Her skin went warm at the attention fixed on her by the duchess. “I did not run, per se,” she muttered under her breath.
“In the end, a gentleman saved him.” She took another bite of her treat. “A Mr. Marcus.” Then around yet another mouthful of her tart she added, “A viscount.”
Aunt Dorothea leaned forward in her seat. By the light in her eyes, she was suddenly very eager for the telling of the story. “Oh?” She had, of course, long ago hoped for, even urged, a match between her niece from the country, a mere merchant’s daughter, and her godson, the Viscount Wessex.
Eleanor remained stoically silent.
“Yes.” Marcia nodded excitedly. “A Viscount Wessex. Though I greatly prefer the Marcus part to the Wessex part and he did say I was permitted to call him Marcus.” She beamed. “Because he and Mama were friends.”
Tamping down a sigh, Eleanor, to give her fingers something to do, grabbed a tart.
“Marcus?” her aunt asked.
“The same,” Eleanor managed.
A pleased smile formed on the woman’s lips. “He’s a good boy.”
“He’s no longer a boy,” she felt compelled to add. Just as she was no longer a girl. The stranger in the street a short while ago had been broader, taller even, than the lean youth of her past. She’d once believed there was no one more handsome than Marcus Gray. Seeing the broad-shouldered, thickly-muscled gentleman he’d become, proved she’d been wrong. With his unfashionably long blond hair and raw strength, he harkened to thoughts of warriors of old.
“He’s still not married, that one.” Her aunt waggled her eyebrows in a conspiratorial way. All relief at those words was fleeting when reminded of the man Marcus had become.
No, a gentleman the paper purported to carry on with scandalous widows and lightskirts likely wouldn’t be. Instead, he’d relish in his freedom. Pain lanced her heart. She was better off with the memories of the good boy her aunt spoke of than having remained in London to bear witness to the person Marcus, in fact, was.
Eleanor’s heart raced under the knowingness in the other woman’s expression. “Marcia,” the older woman said, not taking her gaze from Eleanor. “Will you fetch Satan? My pup deserves some of the morning breakfast.”
What could her aunt possibly wish to speak with her about? Under the shelter of the table, Eleanor balled her hands on her lap.
The little girl eagerly hopped to her feet. “Do you mean Satin? Of course. What of Devlin?”
Her aunt looked in her direction once more. “If you can get that stubborn dog to comply, then bring them both along.” She said nothing further until Marcia had gone.
With the little girl easily dispatched, her aunt pressed ahead. “Do you expect I shouldn’t have known you were more than half in love with my godson all those years ago?” At Eleanor’s muted silence, she waggled her eyebrows. “Hmm?”
All these years, Marcus had existed in her mind and memory as her secret alone. There had been something protective in that; something that made him real to only her, and as such, more dream than man. She gave her head a hopeless shake. “I don’t—”
The other woman scoffed. “I would have had to be a blind bat to fail to see the way you two smiled and wink
ed at one another all those years ago.”
Eleanor curled her hands so tightly her nails dug painful crescents into her palms. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” she said with forced calm. Under the woman’s piercing scrutiny, she sat there, exposed in ways she’d never been. How casually her aunt ripped open those painful pieces of her past and spoke of them with the calm and ease she might discuss the morning weather or the daily fashion. Unnerved by her aunt’s faintly accusatory stare, Eleanor shifted. There was something wrong in lying to this woman who’d only shown her kindness through the years. At the very least, she was deserving of a kernel of truth. Eleanor wet her lips and spoke quietly. “I was young.” A child who thought all that mattered was love. “He was very young.” And not this hardened rogue the papers gossiped about; a nobleman who graced the beds of some of the most scandalous widows in London. “Time changes a person, Aunt Dorothea,” she said, the truest words she’d ever spoken. Life changed a person.
Her aunt eyed her for a long while. “He is a good man,” she said at last.
I would battle armies for you, Eleanor Elaine…
And I would never ask that of you…
The whispered words of long ago danced through her mind.
Yes, he had been, and she preferred, even in the pain of losing him, to have him forever frozen as that honestly smiling young man. Eleanor forced her fists open and smoothed her skirts. “It matters not. Time goes on. People change.”
“And my dear godson did, indeed, change,” her aunt said wryly. “A rogue he is, that one.”
Her heart tugged and Eleanor glanced down at her lap. At one time, she’d only seen him in her life. He had represented the dreams in her heart.
The duchess probed her with a stare, but did not press her. “And even rogues marry.”
The matter-of-factness of those words cleaved her heart. And yet, in a bid to stifle any further talks of Marcus and some proper, innocent miss, Eleanor gave a droll smile. “Do they?” The hard, commanding gentleman in the street struck her more as a man to seek out his clubs and his pleasures, without any intentions of tying himself to respectability.
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 5