“I’ve learned there is sometimes no accounting for some fears,” he said pulling her back. “But I’ve also learned, more often than not, there are reasons for those fears.” He paused. “We all have them, my lady.”
Eloise thought of the muscle jumping at the corner of Lucien’s eye. “Yes,” she agreed. “We do, don’t we?” She appreciated his admission when everyone else had only seen in her an unfortunate young widow, but not thought much beyond that loss to know all the collective losses she’d suffered, the ones that all together kept her awake.
“And for that fear, you came back.” He shifted his body, angling the empty place his arm used to be and she imagined if he’d still possessed his arms he would have held a hand up to her. Her heart wrenched unwittingly at his loss.
Yes, she had. For what would be the alternative? Dwelling in a lonely world with melancholy reminders of who they’d been before they’d matured into somber, altered people?
The door opened. She looked to the front of the room. Her breath caught at the cherished figure who strode through the doors, commanding in his black attire. With his long, graceful strides, this man bore every hint of the noble birthright he’d been born to.
“That is Lieutenant Jonas,” Lieutenant MacGregor said, noting her interest. “Though he prefers to be called Jones,” he added more as an afterthought to himself.
She said nothing, instead a voyeur as Lucien paused beside a bed to speak to one of the men.
“…He comes every Sunday,” MacGregor was saying.
“Does he?” she asked. Hope slipped into her heart. This was the man he had been. Not cold, not unfeeling, but one who’d been a boy of twelve and shrugged out of his jacket to give it to a girl who’d been pushed into the lake by his older brother.
“I imagine it is his day off. I understand he is a butler to the Marquess of Drake.”
Lucien stood conversing with a balding gentleman leaning on crutches. He nodded at something the soldier said, that increasingly familiar hard set to his unsmiling mouth held her transfixed. What would it be like to teach those lips to curve up in that teasing half-grin as they once had? The same muscles, the same lips, and yet, a gesture seeming so impossible with the hardened stranger he’d become.
Even with the space between them she detected his whipcord muscles go taut with awareness, noting her scrutiny and she jerked her attention away from him, back to Lieutenant MacGregor…
Whose gaze was now fixed elsewhere. The young gentleman angled his head in greeting. “Hello,” he called out.
She swallowed hard, having little doubt who that greeting was intended for.
Bloody hell.
Bloody hell! What was she doing here?
Lucien moved with determined steps along the white walls he’d called home for too many years. First, she’d infiltrated the Marquess of Drake’s townhouse, his place of employment. Now, she’d wheedled her way into this place he visited on the lone day he called his own. He stopped before MacGregor, a debt-ridden baronet’s second son, who’d fought alongside him in the Thirty-first Regiment. “MacGregor,” he drawled, deliberately fixing his gaze beyond the crown of riotous blonde curls.
“Jones,” the man called out with his usual, unexplainable cheer. He’d never understood how the man could smile after all he’d seen and all he’d lost.
“It is good to see you,” he said, very deliberately ignoring Eloise, though attuned to the nuances of her body’s every movement.
“I must warn you, if you’ve come to fleece me today in a game of faro, I’ve lovely company instead.”
A becoming blush stained Eloise’s cheeks.
“I see that,” he said, reveling in the pale pink that flared to a crimson hue. “My lady,” he murmured.
Eloise sprang to her feet. Her skirts snapped noisily about her feet. “Luci…” She cast a sideways glance at a curious MacGregor. Her blush deepened. In all the years he’d known her, she’d never been one of those blushing, fainting ladies. She’d possessed an indomitable spirit and boldness. Had the unknown Lord Sherborne wrought that affect? He found he rather hated the dead man for that crime.
Then, he was guilty of far greater crimes than hating a dead man.
MacGregor looked back and forth between them, interest piqued. “You know each other,” he said as though he’d solved the mystery of life.
“No.”
“Yes.”
He arched an eyebrow.
Eloise clasped her hands in front of her. “That is, what I meant to say…” The two men looked at her expectantly. “Is yes,” she finished lamely.
The lieutenant sat back in his bed. “Well,” he said, with no small trace amount of shock. “I’ll leave you to your visit.”
This time they spoke in unison. “No!”
Lucien tugged at his lapel disliking the unease she roused in him. He preferred his life well-ordered, rigid, devoid of emotion. Not this uncertain, volatile pull between them whenever they came together. “Uh…”
“I should be going,” Eloise said quietly. She dropped a curtsy. “Lieutenant MacGregor.” Then, she met Lucien’s eyes with the directness he remembered of her. “I wouldn’t dare interfere with your visit. Forgive me.” Her meaning clear; as a servant he had but one day granted his own. She, an elevated lady—a countess—was permitted those small, but valuable luxuries when she desired.
Wordlessly, he stepped aside so she could skirt by him without brushing. He stared after her as she marched with small, precise steps, with the same proud set to her shoulders as evinced by Joan of Arc, herself.
“You’re a bloody fool, Jones,” MacGregor snorted.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, gaze trained on Eloise. One of the soldiers, missing his lower two extremities, said something that called her to a stop. Most ladies would have been horrified to visit this place. Not Eloise. An unwitting smile turned his lips with the memory of the day she’d pointed her eyes to the sky and baited a squeamish Richard’s hook.
MacGregor noted his continued scrutiny. “Then you’re an even bigger fool than I imagined.”
He yanked his attention away from Eloise and frowned. “You don’t know anything about it.”
“I might not have the use of my arms, but I have perfect use of my eyes and I saw the way that lady studied you.”
Lady. And with the great class divide between them, now as unattainable as the Queen of England. “She’s a bloody countess,” he added. Not that he had any interest of the romantic sort with Eloise Gage, now the Countess of Sherborne. His heart was dead.
So why did the hint of warmth stir the damned organ at the smile on her full lips?
“And you’re a nobleman’s younger son playing at servant.” The man’s rejoinder contained a stunning seriousness that stiffened Lucien’s spine.
“I know her,” he conceded at last.
The lieutenant scoffed. “Impossible,” he said, that one word utterance laced heavily with sarcasm.
A mottled flush heated his neck and he resisted the urge to loosen his cravat. “We were friends as children.” He shifted under the man’s scrutiny, not understanding this compulsion to explain away his relationship with Eloise.
An appreciative glimmer flicked to life in MacGregor’s eyes as he looked down the rows of beds to where she still stood talking to the same man. “That woman is a child no more.”
Something tightened in his gut at the primitive interest in the other man’s eyes. And it was wholly foolish to feel this masculine possessiveness for Eloise. But Goddamn it. “Close your damned mouth,” he snapped, knowing he was being a surly bastard. “You’re drooling like a stray pup over the lady.”
Instead of taking offense, his words restored the man’s usual merriment. He tossed his head back and laughed. “And you are not a man who still sees a child in her,” he said.
He glanced about to see how far those too-loudly spoken words had traveled. Eloise remained fully engrossed in conversation with the
man at her side. Lucien stared unashamedly at the two of them. She needn’t remain by the man’s side for…he yanked the timepiece given him as a youth by his father many years earlier and consulted it…well, however many minutes. It must have been a good ten or so. Entirely too long and…
She nodded and then continued on her way and walked through those double doors.
He rocked on his heels. Good. She’d taken her leave.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d suggest you go after the lady and spare the rest of us your miserable company and brilliant skillset at faro and whist.”
He made a crude gesture that redoubled the man’s laughter. “I…”
“Go,” MacGregor prodded and kicked him in the leg, nudging him ahead.
Lucien frowned, hesitating.
MacGregor gave him another kick. “Go,” he said again, annoyance and amusement underscoring that one word command.
And then, as if of their own volition, his legs began to move and he walked briskly through the room he’d recently entered. He shoved the doors open and stared down the long corridor. He lengthened his strides. She’d always moved quickly for one so small. Then, a child, who’d found friendship in he and Richard, two slightly older, always taller boys she’d been forced to do so in order to keep up.
Eloise turned the corner and made for the foyer.
“Eloise.”
She stumbled and spun around, a hand to the modest décolletage of her sea foam dress. “You startled me.” Again. The luxuriant fabric drew out the piercing blue-green of her eyes, momentarily holding him spellbound. The beauty of those eyes reached into his soul and robbed him of breath. She tipped her head. “Lucien?”
He heard the question there and continued forward.
He expected her to retreat, but she remained rooted to the spot. “What do you—?”
“Why are you here?”
Four little lines of consternation appeared as Eloise furrowed her brow. “You stopped me,” she said slowly as though speaking to a lackwit.
He cursed. “Not here, Eloise. In London Hospital, in the marchioness’ parlor.”
“I’m not in the marchioness’ parlor, silly. I can’t be two places at—”
“Eloise,” he said in a harsh, impatient tone that killed the teasing edge to her words. In that moment he hated himself more than he ever had before, which was saying a good deal considering the crimes he was guilty of. But he’d never been a bully…until she’d reappeared, making him hate himself for altogether new and different reasons. “Forgive me.”
She gave a slight nod.
“Why are you here?” he asked once more. “In my life. I know you enough to know these are no mere coincidences.”
Eloise captured the flesh of her lower lip between her teeth and troubled it. “No,” she said slowly. “They are not.” She raised her soulful eyes to his, the color of the purest, unsullied seas a man would gladly lose himself within. He stiffened. Where had the thought come from? “I missed you,” she said in quiet tones.
I missed you, too, Ellie. He tried to force the words past numb lips, but God help him, he couldn’t. He couldn’t give her the words. To do so would make her believe he was capable of emotions that had died too many years ago.
Eloise searched his face with her sad, wide-eyed gaze, as if seeking those words he could not give.
“Is that why you’re here?” He dipped his head. Honey and rosewater, clung to her skin. The two seductive, sweetened scents wafted about, filling his senses, intoxicating. She’d used to smell of fresh grass and country air. “Because you missed me?” He found this new, womanly scent of her a potent aphrodisiac.
“I did.” Emotion flooded her eyes and he nearly staggered under the weight of it from this woman he’d once loved as a friend. “I missed you every day you were gone,” she whispered.
“Did you?”
“Not a single day passed that I did not think of you.” Her admission came out, hoarse with emotion.
A twinge of regret struck him, lashed painfully at his chest. He wished he had the words to at least say he’d entertained thoughts of her. Ellie had deserved that from him. She’d been more part of him than a third hand…a now irony considering the loss that had severed one of those extremities.
She touched a bold finger to his chin, forcing his gaze to hers. “I’d not have you lie and say you thought of me,” she said with soft rebuke. “I know the moment you fell in love with Sara that your heart, your every thought, always belonged to her.” Her gaze fell to his chin. “Your love was so great there was not enough of it to be shared.”
The guilt intensified. Eloise Gage had been the most loyal, devoted friend, and yet the day he’d given his heart to Sara Abbott, he’d not spared her a single thought. Shame filled him, bitter like acid on his tongue. “And what of you, did you love your husband?” He’d not imagined himself capable of prayer any longer, but he mustered a single final one to a God he no longer believed in that she’d at least known love.
A wistful smile stole over her face. “Colin was good to me. He was a friend and I do miss him every day.” It didn’t escape his notice that she didn’t mention the word love.
He hoped the now dead earl had appreciated the gift he’d had in loyal, beautiful Ellie, appreciated her when Lucien never properly had. “What happened?” He didn’t know where the question came from.
“He suffered an apoplexy,” she said. “He was just twenty-nine when he died.”
He had no right to delve into her past. He’d lost that right when he’d forsaken their friendship and yet, he needed to know the pieces of a life he’d missed. “And do you have children?” He imagined a small girl with her riotous, blonde curls and mischievous smile.
“No,” she said and the dream of that child flickered out like the flame atop a candle. “We never had children.” The muscles of her throat worked. “I am so very sorry about Sara and Matthew,” she said.
Grief knifed through him. He sucked in a ragged breath and fought to muster the blasé, obligatory response to her expression of regret. “D-did,” he coughed into his hand. “Did you ever know him?” She would have been a young lady, out for a London Season. Likely she’d not had time for the babe of a former childhood friend.
“I did,” she said shocking him with the admission.
He stared unblinking at the stark, white walls. And the dream of a child he’d never met and the pain of never having held that child, or known that child before his life was too swiftly ended, became real in ways he’d never experienced before.
Tears flooded her eyes. “He had your smile.”
He strained to hear her whispered words and they pierced his heart.
“He was a precocious, stubborn baby.” A small laugh escaped her and her gaze grew far away with memories he’d have sold his soul three-times over for. “He would cry with annoyance at not being permitted to feed himself when he was still too young to yield a spoon or fork.”
Ah God. He squeezed his eyes tight. “Thank you,” he said at last when he managed to look at her once again.
“I’ve not done anything.”
The lone memory would sustain him for the remainder of his lonely days. The memory of a boy who’d looked like him and had his smile and temperament. In that, she’d given him everything. And because the longer they stood here, bodies bent familiarly close to each other, the greater the ache built inside him for a craving that terrified him, he said, “You should go.”
Eloise managed a jerky nod. But remained exactly where she stood.
He lowered his mouth close to hers. “What are you doing to me?”
Her thick, golden lashes fluttered wildly. “I l—”
Lucien crushed the remainder of those terrifying words on her lips, claiming her mouth under his once more. This meeting of mouths was gentle, searching, a reunion of two people who’d found each other after great tragedy. She moaned and he slipped his tongue inside to explore the warm, contours of her mouth. With a near ph
ysical pain, Lucien drew back. He placed a lingering kiss upon her forehead.
She closed her eyes and leaned into that gentle caress. “Come home with me.”
Lucien froze. Her entreaty penetrated the spell she’d woven.
Eloise angled away from him. “Your father is ill.” With but the mention of the viscount who’d purchased Lucien’s commission and sealed his fate, the light she’d somehow rekindled with her words and kiss went out.
He took a jerky step away from her.
“Lucien,” she pleaded.
“Is that what this is?” And at last it began to make sense. “You’re here because of my brothers and my father.”
She started. A guilty heat burned her cheeks. “I’m here because of me,” she corrected, the words coming too late. “I am also here because of Palmer and Richard.” She paused. “And your father.”
Ah, so she’d come at the bequest of his father and brothers. Because they’d likely known he’d rather see any of his kin in hell, but Eloise, sweet Eloise, the woman he’d called friend, he’d likely never turn away. An ugly laugh worked its way up his throat and she took a step away from him. Good, she should be afraid. He met her searching gaze with stony silence.
“Your father is dying,” she said softly.
Shock melded with pain and slammed into him with a lifelike force. Impossible. The man he called father was an immovable force; strong, fearless, and untouchable. Regardless—. He forcibly thrust aside pained regrets. “The day he forced that commission upon me, my father was dead to me.”
Eloise gasped and touched a hand to her heart. “You don’t mean that.”
A memory flashed to mind. His father, the powerful, indomitable viscount sneaking away from one of his balls and slipping into the nursery. Papa! You’ve come to play soldiers? Grief sliced through Lucien. That devoted and doting man, he’d loved. Hatred and love warred for supremacy within him.
Lords of Honor-The Collection Page 6