A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle

by Christi Caldwell

  A twinkle lit her aunt’s eyes. “Why, do not be silly, girl! Reformed rogues make the best husbands. Your uncle was proof of that.” Some of the woman’s earlier amusement died, misted over by a sheen of tears.

  Emotion wadded in Eleanor’s throat and she leaned over and covered Aunt Dorothea’s hand with her own. “Oh, Aunt Dorothea.”

  The duchess cleared her throat. “None of that.” She drew her hand back and dashed it discreetly over her cheeks. “And we were discussing my rapscallion godson. The boy will wed.” She wrinkled her nose. “Now it is just a matter of determining who he’ll wed.” Muttering under her breath, she leaned over and rustled through the stack of gossip pages on the table before her. She shoved aside her barely touched plate that rested atop the cluttered collection.

  Eleanor quickly shot her hands out and steadied the porcelain dish, preventing the buttered bread and sausage from toppling to the floor.

  “Ah.” She removed a particular sheet. “See,” she said, tossing the copy to Eleanor who automatically caught it. “Read there,” her aunt jabbed a finger at the page.

  The Viscountess W shared with Lady J that a certain Viscount W, notorious rogue, has settled his sights upon the Incomparable Lady MH…

  A vise tightened about her lungs squeezing off airflow. He’d found a lady. A lady no doubt deserving of him. Seeing those words written added a permanency of truth; a reminder that time had continued on and for the changes between them. Of course Marcus would wed and, by that accounting, it would be one day soon. He’d wed a woman who was proper and polite and innocent, and all things a nobleman required in a wife. The agony of that gutted her in ways she’d thought herself long past caring.

  “Well, anything to say, gel?”

  What was there to say? Eleanor picked her head up from the page. By the look in her aunt’s clever eyes, she expected…hoped? That Eleanor would be that woman? Only Eleanor never could be that young lady. Marcus, as she remembered him, deserved more in his viscountess than a tarnished, dowerless merchant’s daughter. With steady hands, she set the page on the table before them. “I am here as a companion to accompany you to ton events. Who,” Marcus, “the Viscount Wessex courts is not my concern.”

  Her aunt gave her an assessing look. “Will you still feel that way when he attends my ball this week and you watch him dance attendance on those simpering, colorless debutantes?”

  Oh, God. Agonizing pain lanced Eleanor’s chest and made it impossible to draw breath. To read the reports of Marcus and all the scandalous ladies he’d been tied to through the years had been a special kind of torture. But she’d not had to witness him charm and woo the lady reported on those pages. In coming to London, she’d thought there could be nothing more horrid than attending the ton events with her aunt. So many of her worst nightmares harkened back to one of those proper, well-attended balls.

  But to bear witness as Marcus courted his perfectly pure, proper miss would crush those foolish pieces of her soul that clung to the dream of what they’d shared. Aware of her aunt’s probing gaze on her face, Eleanor dug around for a response. Any response.

  And came up empty.

  “I thought so,” her aunt said with a pleased nod. The duchess, however, was not through with her daily torture. “I’ve the boy’s mother coming over for dinner tonight. With the sister.” Lizzie. When Eleanor had last seen Marcus, the plump, dark-haired girl was just ten. She’d be a woman now. Eighteen. The same age Eleanor had been when she’d had her world torn asunder.

  Then her aunt’s words registered. Her heart sped up. “Do you?” those two words emerged choked to her own ears.

  Aunt Dorothea nodded once. “Yes.”

  Marcus would come here. She would be seated across a dining table from him.

  Footsteps sounded in the hall, followed by the clip-clop of sharp nails on the hardwood floor, and Eleanor was promptly saved from formulating any further response.

  Her daughter reentered the room with a wide smile and a snorting, heavily breathing pug in tow. “Who is coming to dinner?” With eager eyes, she looked back and forth between the two women seated at the table.

  Eleanor winced. “Marcia,” she chided. They’d resided in the quiet of the Cornwall countryside so long, there had been little need or time to practice her daughter’s social graces. Now, Eleanor regretted the failure of not imparting those necessary lessons. “It is not polite to—”

  Her aunt banged the table with a fist. “Ignore your mother’s scolding. I like a young lady with spirit and boldness.”

  A warm blush heated Eleanor’s cheeks at the pointed look the duchess shot her way. Yes, one time Eleanor had, indeed, been lively and spirited—and careless—and it had cost her nearly everything, including her sanity.

  “My friend, Lady Isabelle.”

  “May I come?” Marcia piped in. She swiped a piece of bread from the sideboard and offered it to Satin.

  “Sweet, it isn’t done,” Eleanor said regretfully, wishing there was a similar rule for children and companions.

  “Of course you will attend,” her aunt said with a glower for Eleanor. Her daughter brightened under the older woman’s defense. “Don’t allow your mother to make you conform and do everything and anything Society wants. You hear?”

  Eleanor winced as her daughter gave a firm nod. Eleanor had spent the better part of eight years seeing that she and Marcia blended as much as possible with ordinary Society. She’d gone out of her way to avoid notice and focus, content to be the quiet war widow who’d loved and lost and now lived with her father.

  “But the boy will not be there,” her aunt said with a huff of annoyance. “Gone out of his way to avoid my dinner parties.”

  Eleanor’s heart started and she scrambled forward to the edge of her seat. Why would he avoid her aunt? Then she sank back in her seat. Likely, he blamed Aunt Dorothea for having brought her fickle niece from the country.

  The duchess gave her an assessing look and, unnerved by the knowing in those wise eyes, Eleanor attended her forgotten strawberry tart. Your lips remind me of a summer berry and I want to lose myself in the taste of you…

  The confectionary treat fell from her fingers and toppled to the floor, raining down bits of sugar and crumbs. It landed on the Aubusson carpet with a soft thump, a corner piece breaking off the tart. Eleanor jumped to her feet and the duchess looked at her askance. “Will you excuse me a moment? I—” Except she had no reason to account for this urge to run away. With her heart thumping hard in her chest, she fled.

  Then, wasn’t that what she’d always done best in life?

  Chapter 5

  Marcus stood at his office window and surveyed the darkened streets below. How very much had happened on this particular street. Of course, it was the townhouse he’d resided in as a boy. But the happiest memories he held were of the cobbled roads below.

  …Surely I should know the identity of the lady who shares the townhouse beside mine…?

  …I am Eleanor Carlyle…and surely I should know the name of the gentleman who’d so boldly wish to know the identity of the lady who shares the townhouse beside his…

  She’d returned, risen from the ashes, and gone was the wide-eyed, smiling girl. That young woman who’d claimed his heart had been replaced by a guarded, wary woman with a woman’s frame. Was the gentleman she’d thrown him over for responsible for that transformation?

  Marcus raised his glass to his lips and took a sip of brandy. This time, he did not stop the flow of memories, but let them in. He’d met the lady in that very street by happenstance almost eight years ago as they’d reached the front steps of their neighboring homes. She’d been the unfamiliar lady who’d stolen the breath from his lungs and who, with her boldness and spirit at first greeting, had captivated him.

  The crystal windowpane reflected his visage; the wry grin on his lips. How apropos that she should reemerge and crash into his world with the same intensity all these years later. And as glorious as she’d been as a girl just
turned eighteen, the woman she’d grown into was the stuff of golden perfection artists toiled over at their canvases, trying in vain to catch even a shimmer of such golden beauty. The breasts he’d once cupped in his hands, and only through the fabric of her modest satin gowns, were fuller, her hips wider, but her waist still trim. And yet with all that had come to pass, his body still ached to know her in the ways he’d longed to, but never had.

  Marcus swirled the contents of his snifter in a slow, deliberate circle. This hungering was based on nothing more than a masculine appreciation for her delectable form. At one time, he’d been hopelessly bewitched by her beauty and spirit. No longer. For he was no longer the boy he’d been; a young man ravaged with grief and despair over the death of his friend; riddled with guilt, who, amidst the blackened darkness of death and sorrow, had found a glimmer of light in an otherwise bleak world.

  “The duchess is expecting us shortly, Marcus.”

  He stiffened and shot a look over his shoulder as his mother swept into the room in a whir of silver satin skirts. In a bid for nonchalance, he took a sip of his drink. “You did not mention we’d be joined by the duchess’ guest.”

  “The duchess’ guest?” His mother slowed, but did not break her forward stride. Then she widened her eyes. “Oh, yes,” she exclaimed and clapped her hands. “Eleanor! How did I ever forget to mention, the duchess’ niece has arrived?”

  Then, why should she have noted it? All the stolen interludes in the gardens between Marcus and Eleanor had been their private secret, shared only with the fragile stars and moonlight.

  His mother crossed over and stopped beside him. “Very sad, very sad, indeed,” she said, making a tsking sound.

  He frowned. Long ago he’d come to expect his mother’s flare for the theatrics, which extended to her veiled words intended to elicit intrigue. Never before had it grated more than it did in this moment. “What is sad?”

  She gave a wave of her hand. “Oh, Mrs. Collins’ situation. Very different now than it was seven years ago.”

  Eight years. For his indifference toward the lady and the anger he’d carried for her all these years, the muscles of his stomach knotted involuntarily at his mother’s words. The lady’s circumstances should not matter; she was not his concern, and yet… “And just how is it different?” he asked infusing boredom into his tone.

  Ever the consummate gossip, his mother stole a look about and then dropped her voice to a furtive whisper. “I do know Dorothea has never minded her family’s mercantile roots.” She furrowed her brow. “Quite the opposite. I’ve often jested that she finds a perverse pleasure in them—”

  “Mother,” he said impatiently.

  “Oh, yes. Right, right,” she said, lowering her voice once more. “Mrs. Collins’ husband died some years ago, leaving her destitute.”

  For all the years he’d spent hating Eleanor, he should find a perverse glee in her recent circumstances. And yet, as his mother prattled on about the heroic Lieutenant Collins’ tragic death, a pressure weighted on Marcus’ chest. Eleanor had returned as a poor relation. Only she’d not returned alone. She’d come with her daughter.

  “…and then there were some terrible investments on Mr. Carlyle’s part,” his mother said, yanking him to the present. She paused and tapped a finger against her chin. “All bad form speaking of trade, but let me think what it was…” Then with a far too casual shrug she lifted her shoulders. “Regardless, Eleanor is here, as a result.”

  There were many reasons a person would come to London and, yet, a niggling settled in his thoughts. The lady was here, in the heart of the Season…

  He tightened his fingers hard about his glass. “The lady has come husband-hunting, then?” Marcus could not tamp down the acrid bitterness burning his tongue. He would have given her his name and, yet, here she was, no doubt, in search of wealth…just like any other grasping woman. Marcus took another swallow of his brandy.

  His mother gave a shake of her head. “But that is what is peculiar about Mrs. Collins’ arrival.”

  “Return,” he corrected. Eleanor had arrived eight years ago. She’d returned eight years later. A widow. And still as gloriously beautiful in all her golden splendor as she’d been. The heart-shaped planes of her face, while the sun glinted off curls more gold than the riches unearthed by Cortez, flashed behind his mind. No, she was more breathtaking now than she’d ever been as that eager creature straddling girlhood and womanhood at the same time. It mattered not what, if anything, was curious about Eleanor’s sudden appearance, and yet; “What is peculiar about her return?” he forced the question out past tight lips.

  His mother waved a hand about. “Well, she is here as a hired companion.”

  “A companion?” he repeated blankly.

  “A hired one,” his mother clarified, as there was a vast difference between the two. “She’s here as the duchess’ companion.”

  Something wrenched inside at the idea that Eleanor found herself a poor relation dependent on the charity of a kindly, older woman. He balled one hand into a fist at his side, leaving fingernail marks upon the palms of his hand. That was the fate the man she’d wed had consigned her to. Marcus braced for the gleeful response to Eleanor’s current circumstances, but found none. Had she been his, he would have draped her in the finest satins and silks and seen her dripping in diamonds. Then, those things hadn’t mattered to Eleanor. It was one of the reasons he’d so fallen in love with her. The fact that she’d gone on to wed a soldier in the King’s Army who’d left her uncared for, spoke to hers being a true love match—not the mere flirtation she’d practiced on Marcus.

  How could he have known her so well and not known her enough to gather there had been another murky shadow of a man between them?

  It’s because I didn’t truly know her.

  Footsteps sounded in the hallway. Lizzie’s plump frame filled the doorway. “Hullo.” She looked to Marcus and her perpetual smile dipped.

  He schooled his features. With her skill at reading a person, she could have trained the Bow Street Runners. She’d always seen too much.

  “Oh, splendid,” their mother said with a smile. “Shall we?”

  “Of course,” he said, his tone flat. The sooner he could have this evening over, the sooner he could carry on with his own life. By his mother’s revelation this evening, there was no need for him and Eleanor to move in the same circles. She was here as a hired companion. He was in town to wed.

  Wordlessly, he followed after his mother. For the first two years of attending this intimate dinner party hosted by the Duchess of Devonshire after Eleanor’s absence, Marcus had sat through each course, smiling politely, all the while feeling as though he’d had his heart wrenched from his chest. By the third year, he’d given up on the hope of her and succeeded in becoming a rogue who no longer cared—about Eleanor Carlyle, what they’d shared, and her betrayal.

  Eleanor might now grace that same table, but she may as well have been any other woman. His love for her had died somewhere between the parting note handed him by the duchess’ servant and the eventual realization that Eleanor Carlyle was never coming back. After that, he’d pasted on a smile and worn a proverbial grin ever since.

  His sister matched her stride to his. “It could be a good deal worse,” she said from the corner of her mouth. “We could be attending a horrid soiree or ball.” She tapped his arm. “And I do like the duchess.”

  He took a noncommittal approach. But for the occasional appearance at those dinner parties hosted by the duchess through the years, he’d taken care to avoid Eleanor’s aunt. Oh, the pain of Eleanor’s betrayal had receded, but neither was he a glutton for forcing himself to think of what he’d once dreamed of.

  Lizzie stalked over, a frown on her lips. “You are not your usual affable, charming self.”

  Marcus mustered a grin. “Aren’t young ladies supposed to enjoy balls and soirees?”

  “I despise them.” A twinkle lit her eyes. “And I’m clever enough to know
that you’re attempting to change the topic, big brother.”

  “Perhaps a bit,” he conceded as they reached the foyer.

  They were helped into their cloaks and then Williston pulled the door open. A few moments later, they were ushered inside the Duchess of Devonshire’s townhouse. Marcus shrugged out of his cloak and turned it over to a waiting servant. As they were shown their way to the receiving room, he contemplated Mrs. Eleanor Collins; so coolly unaffected by him in the street.

  He’d suffer through this dinner and then he could be free of her, at last.

  He flattened his mouth into a hard line.

  Then, would he ever truly be free of Eleanor Collins?

  Chapter 6

  From her spot over the by the windows in her aunt’s parlor, Eleanor fiddled with her spectacles. According to Aunt Dorothea, Marcus hadn’t come to her small dinner gathering in five years. Pain twisted in Eleanor’s belly. By that small detail and the fury in his eyes just yesterday afternoon, she gathered he’d not forgiven her flight. In his mind, she was likely the traitorous, capricious creature who’d engaged in a mere flirtation and then tired of him. Then, isn’t that what she’d hoped he’d believed of her? For neither of the alternatives she’d run through in her terrorized mind would have ever been good. Had Marcus discovered the truth of that night, the young gentleman she’d fallen in love with would have either risked his life on a field of honor, or worse, shunned her for the shame that had befallen her. Both prospects had shattered her inside.

  It was best he did not come tonight. Or any night. Seeing him earlier today had only roused the dreams she’d once carried in her heart—of him, them. Happiness. Love—

  “You’re fidgeting, gel.”

  Startled to the moment, Eleanor quickly donned her glasses and followed her aunt’s pointed gaze downward searching for Marcus. Unwittingly, she fisted and un-fisted the fabric of her skirts, hopelessly wrinkling the drab, brown muslin. With alacrity, she let them go. “I’m sorry,” she responded. Following that horrific night almost eight years ago, she’d taken to the odd habit of scrabbling at her skirts.