by Lela Bay
She glanced shyly at Eleanor, her words soft. “Andre was so kind to me, and he paid me so much attention, and never got cross. When I couldn’t conjugate a verb, I could trade kisses instead.” Dimples appeared and disappeared in her round cheek. “Maybe he wasn’t the best of men, but his poetry could melt ice. How could I deny a man with such a soul?”
“He wrote you poetry?” Despite herself, Eleanor sighed enviously.
Encouraged, Bitsy shivered in her seat and pulled out a tightly inscribed sheet.
Sensing the trust implicit in the gesture, Eleanor accepted a page. The edges were worn soft. Her eyes glided over the carefully penned phrases, appreciating the beauty of the script and the emotion within.
Her eyes rose, compassion impossible to hide. “Darling, you have excellent taste in poetry, but these aren’t from his soul. They’re copies.”
Andre had, unknown to the girl, been giving her an education in literature as well. Never had the classics been presented so beautifully or duplicitously.
Bitsy paled then flushed. She rose, gripping the brush, and went to the window. “You lie!”
Eleanor spoke to her back, completing the poem that continued off the page she held. The French rolled from her lips, imbued with tender feeling and images of smell and touch. Bitsy rubbed the brush through her hair, barely completing a stroke before starting the next, her stiff back giving testament that Eleanor’s words struck home.
“My husband was French. He wasn’t given to poetry,” Eleanor gave a brittle laugh at the understatement, “but on our travels I purchased a few treasured volumes. I was married very young, as young as you, perhaps, and wanted to experience those first stirrings of love. I feel as if providence brought me to you, Bitsy. I…” Her words trailed away, unable to say more. She could not explain her feelings about the marriage her parents had chosen for her at such a tender age.
She refused to say a word against the kind man who had been her husband.
Although Eleanor said nothing more, it was enough. Bitsy pressed an open hand against the glass of the window, musing, “I really thought he’d come for me. We are close to home, now, but he isn’t the romantic I thought, is he? I left him a note, secretly, before we left. I feel silly now.”
She sniffed, still gazing out the window. “Andre was my tutor, and he was to instruct me in French. My family went to Scotland, leaving me behind. They said it was an inducement to study so I wouldn’t be left when they went to the continent to visit my mother’s family.
“Suave Andre spoke such pretty things. I knew he wanted my money, but why shouldn’t he? It did not occur to me that he had no honor as well.”
Eleanor took the brush and steered Bitsy back to the bench before the mirror. She straightened the mess the girl had made, untangling snarls of wet hair. She used her fingers, when necessary, so the bristles passed smoothly. The rasp of the brush became the only sound between them.
Bitsy relaxed, as if her silent musings had brought her peace. Thinking it best to bring the conversation back around, Eleanor sought a way to ask the delicate question uppermost in her mind.
In hindsight, Mr. Stinson’s comments about his presumptive betrothed seemed unbecomingly harsh. He’d called her a doll. Even so, he had stopped his seduction. Had he been thinking about Bitsy? Did he chafe at their betrothal? Surely, being a man of honor, he would not use this experience as an excuse to deny the deal their parents had struck. She could believe she’d gotten him wrong, but he’d never given the slightest hint he would betray Bitsy to society. He had that much honor, at least.
“Now you see the strength of Mr. Stinson’s suit?” she asked cautiously.
Eyes closed, Bitsy squirmed, tilting her head so Eleanor could stroke her more fully, and Eleanor considered the face she exposed. She was young, healthy, and brighter than she let on. She had not become hysterical or gone on needlessly. She would get on all right.
“Well, after his parents died, Mr. Stinson took responsibility for their estate. His public appearances are rare, and he doesn’t drop by our house. When I do see him, he is stuffy and distracted. But now I see how he has swooped in to save me. It quite changes things. And the look in his eyes…” Bitsy squeezed herself.
Eleanor set the brush down, hand shaking, and smoothed the last hair into place with her palm.
“I’ve never given him reason to press his suit. Do you think I should?” Bitsy gnawed on her lip.
Eleanor had to ask the question, though she blamed her heart for her weakness. “Are you certain there is an understanding?”
“It was between our parents. He never says a word about it. I suppose Papa could even be making it up. It is his way to tease me.” Her troubled eyes flooded with moisture. “Isn’t it terrible? I cannot question my father. Perhaps I can ask Mr. Stinson, but then he may want to know my feelings, and I don’t understand them any longer. I’m grateful to him.”
Bitsy looked up, seeming to realize Eleanor’s discomposure. She put her hand over Eleanor’s. “You think me an ingrate. I know that you saved me. I do not forget you when I give Mr. Stinson credit. You are both of a kind, reaching beyond what is merely necessary to right wrongs. I am sorry for my behavior. I will be wiser in the future, I promise. You hear me talk this way and think I have learned nothing, but truly I have.”
The two women remained in place, hands clasped.
Eleanor looked away, blinking.
Bitsy sniffed and pulled up Eleanor’s sleeve, patting helplessly at the bruises there. “What am I to think, how should I behave, when a stranger cares more for me than my own family?”
Eleanor smoothed the lace back, wishing the marks would heal and end their condemnation.
Bitsy rose, eyes serious and bright as she released her thoughts. “I have not always followed the best model. My parents are distracted with each other, and my brothers treat me like a trifle, when they are around. I believed the fiction that I could do no wrong, that all mistakes were fixable. I had no model to follow.
“When they left me alone, I told myself I was a grown lady. Except, I find that I don’t like to be left to my own devices! My mother is French, you know, and enjoys cosseting.” She admitted in a whisper, “My father loves his silly girls. The more we simper the better. But I think I should be more like you, Eleanor. I will try.”
Bitsy broke down in faint sobs, shaking her head. “I don’t know why I cry.”
“Dear child.” Eleanor gasped, clasping her close for a motherly hug. Her throat clenched at the changes these trials had made in Bitsy. Even Mr. Stinson must surely see promise in the girl. “I will try to be worthy of your admiration.”
Thinking of her recent behavior, Eleanor clenched her jaw, certain it would be harder than the girl imagined to be a paragon of propriety, and determined to make it so. She looked at them in the mirror, seeing Bitsy’s slender back and her own white-knuckled hands comforting her.
Was it any wonder she felt beyond her years? She laughed, hoarsely, and placed a kiss on the girl’s wheaten hair, then patted her and sent her to bed.
Bitsy’s tortured sobs quieted into deep, even breaths in moments. She rested, though Eleanor doubted she slept.
Similarly troubled, Eleanor’s mind rang with questions.
Small sounds rustled in the hallway, and Eleanor wondered if Mr. Stinson had yet found his bed. Disquieted, she put her shoes back on, pulled the covers around the girl, and slipped from the room. It was terribly late, but she needed to set matters straight.
Something skittered on the wood floor, and Eleanor pictured a large rat, come inside to hide from the powerful storm.
Choosing not to investigate, Eleanor descended and peered into the dining room, then across to the main lobby, where the dying fire barely illuminated a sphere of space. The smack of windblown rain outside rang in harsh counterpoint to the silence within the sleeping building. Eleanor spied Mr. Stinson’s shiny boots crossed before the fire.
She approached. Shadows chased through t
he empty room and across the planes of his face. He hadn’t noticed her yet. Firelight gleamed on blond strands of hair. Yet, hidden in the depths of the wingback chair, he once again reminded her of their first meeting and her impression of a fallen angel.
Cupped in the chair’s dark depths, his pale fingers lifted a transparent tumbler to his lips. Disembodied mouth and hand communed, leaving him staring into the depths of the glass with a gleam of amber liquid on his lower lip.
She had not stopped to recover her stockings, and cold seeped through the soles of her slippers into the bones of her feet. She took a step closer, entering the faint embrace of the fire’s heat.
Alerted by the scrape of her shoe, Mr. Stinson looked up. A lock of hair fell onto his forehead, lessening the fierce planes beneath his mischievous eyebrows. He rose. His body rematerialized out of the dark into firm skin and flesh before her eyes. He looked wicked but entirely of this world. Tall, muscled, he made her feel small and hidden in the shadows that flickered around them. They seemed alone in the world.
“Gone for a stroll in the night?” he asked, humor evident as he probed her mood. “Perhaps I can help you find what you need.”
Tension fell from her, leaving a strange languid certainty as she moved into the light to meet him. “You thought me very forward when I stopped you at the inn.”
He laughed. “Indeed, I did.”
“I am not that person at all.” Her eyes glinted. “You have never recovered from your first impression of me.”
“I may never recover from it.”
She chuckled, pleased.
The urge to pretend, to overlook her concerns, almost made her step closer.
Instead, she asked forthright, “What about you and Bitsy? Have recent events turned you away from your understanding?”
As her betrothed, he had every right to be shocked by Bitsy’s behavior. Even if he did not shame her in public, he may have privately determined to set her aside. In giving up Bitsy, had he turned to Eleanor to soothe his ego? He hardly seemed to type to need reassurance of his attractiveness. She had to know. She would not be party to causing the girl pain.
“Bitsy? I hardly know her. I’m friends with her oldest brother. I’m convinced she thinks me dour.”
“If she didn’t?” Eleanor asked.
“I’d still think her a child.” He rapped the back of his chair and stepped closer. “Is this really what you want to be talking about?”
“No.”
She no longer doubted him. Relief moved like a wave across her and released the feelings she’d knotted and tied down. They unfurled through her body, setting her afire. She inched closer, yet it still felt too distant for her to confide in him. The way he looked at her, his head cocked to the side and eyes deep pools, drew her in.
“None of this is right.” She placed a hand on his arm and looked upward. “My life isn’t complicated. It is simplicity. I have always done what was expected and proper. My husband… It was not a love match, but it allowed me to see much of the world. I am grateful for it.”
Neither of them wore gloves. The heat of his hand beneath hers took her breath away.
“When I saw Bitsy with Andre, speaking French, it took me back. I just couldn’t step away and let it happen. It wasn’t that I was good. It was that I took it personally. The child doesn’t know… She doesn’t understand…”
“Yes?”
“Passion.” Eleanor breathed. She tipped upward, inviting him with her warmth and scent. “She doesn’t know all that she gives up by making her choice.”
“I don’t think passion is Bitsy’s problem,” he said ruefully, sounding distracted. “Are we not where we were earlier tonight? Respectable, Eleanor?”
She longed to take a leap of faith. Her instincts told her Mr. Stinson didn’t pine for Bitsy, and Bitsy merely toyed with the idea of infatuation. Surely there was room for Eleanor to explore a little of the urges of her heart, for once. She’d never given in to impulses, having always been the dutiful wife and then appropriate widow. She’d never known romance.
He whispered her name again and heat surged through her. She raised both hands to his cheeks, lifting herself onto her toes to press her lips to his. She tasted the tang of his drink. His arms swept around her, pulling her against the firm length of his body. His clothing, fire warmed, seemed hot enough to scorch. She melded against him, squirming to find every place they fit together.
He settled back into the chair. She floated in his embrace. They pressed together within the hidden depths of the wing chair, its embrace cover for the sigh of fabric and contact of skin she longed for. She arched her back, offering her aching breasts for his touch. As if taunting her, his hands slid to the small of her back but a moment later his mouth captured hers, soothing and inflaming at the same time.
Her foot brushed the table beside the chair, making it clatter against the hard floor. Mr. Stinson raised his head, tilting it back into the soft fabric and panting.
Eleanor pushed mussed hair from her face and sat up, the movement pressing her curves deeper against the cradle of his lap.
Groaning, he rose, lifting her with him. “You’re right, of course. This isn’t right.”
“It isn’t?”
“Wrong place.”
“Oh.” Eleanor pressed against him, loathe to pull away. Her mind ran in circles. Need struggled with propriety.
And to think, Bitsy considered Eleanor such a paragon. Eleanor sighed against Mr. Stinson’s broad chest.
“Bitsy has a confused belief you are to be her betrothed.”
“I never gave her that impression.” He stiffened, drawing away from Eleanor without moving.
“I am certain you did not,” she agreed.
“Miss DeMontrey should not say such things. I will only go so far to save her reputation.”
“No! Bitsy is innocent of such duplicity.” No wonder he sounded angry. He thought Bitsy was setting him up to make her respectable again. “She had heard your parents formed an understanding to merge your properties.”
“None that I know of, and she never once mentioned such a mésalliance to me.”
Eleanor smothered a smile. “I believe she found you too intimidating to speak with.”
He searched Eleanor’s face. His brows bent down, as if pained. “Is that why you came down here? To confront me?”
Eleanor bit her lip. Had she come down for that? No, she’d been drawn to him. Propriety wouldn’t allow her to admit the truth aloud. You simply didn’t say you were too driven by passion. Need. The fires he’d lit earlier had clouded her judgement. She’d overlooked the possibility of scandal and followed her desire. Saying out loud how much she desired to be with him would give him carte blanche for all that would surely follow. Her cheeks flamed, hidden by shadows. She’d been so reckless.
His voice growled with another thought. “Surely that is not why she ran off with the Frenchman?”
“A moment of madness. She now sees her horrid tutor for what he is, an opportunist without honor. She admires you, though.”
“I am not similarly without honor.” Mr. Stinson intoned, stepping away. Cool hardness masked his features. She hadn’t seen such a look since he’d confronted her in the alleyway.
“I wasn’t calling you an opportunist,” she protested. Why had she spoken at all? It sounded awful.
“No, merely a philanderer with a fiancée.”
He gestured for Eleanor to precede him.
Shame swamped her. She’d taken a leap of faith and come crashing back to earth. Why, oh why had she given up on simplicity? All her instincts were betraying her. Eleanor had tried to explore the urges of her heart. It ached in her chest.
Seeing what her ill-chosen words had wrought, Eleanor bit her lip and led the way. She’d not intended it in that manner, but he’d taken it right. They must both be on their best behavior and not let the girl down. She resolved to keep a firmer grip on herself. Incidents had stirred her, and the presence of masculine p
erfection in the form of Mr. Stinson, but it was no time to play such games as if she were a young girl who didn’t know better.
Resolved to do better for Bitsy’s sake, Eleanor bid Mr. Stinson a quiet goodnight and slipped into her room.
Only to find Bitsy missing.
Chapter 5
Eleanor clasped her hands together and rushed deeper into the bedroom she shared with Bitsy. Her heartbeat thrummed in her chest, battered by fear and dismay.
“Mr. Stinson, she’s gone!”
His rapid footsteps paused behind her while he surveyed the empty space. The cooling tub of water, the draped towels, and the toiletries on the dressing table were as Eleanor would have expected, but the bed covers coiled in a formless heap.
“I thought all was well?” Mr. Stinson said, recrimination absent from his voice.
“Yes! I do not understand it. She shared her thoughts. Wished to change… I do not believe she was acting,” Eleanor added stoutly.
Scattered bits of paper lay about the floor, shredded remnants of the letters Bitsy had so tentatively shared. Mr. Stinson scooped up a few wadded pages, his eyes scanning the elegant script.
His brow furrowed. “Love letters. She has gone to him.”
“No, worse!” Eleanor pressed a hand to her cheek. “She’s gone to confront him. He pretended these sentiments were his, giving no credit to the real authors. Bitsy found it a greater betrayal than all the rest, I think, to see the foundation of her love for him played false.”
She moved around the room gathering bits of paper and using her skirt to hold the tiny fragments of dreams the girl had painfully outgrown. She stared at the writing, heart breaking.
As she finished, Mr. Stinson perused the pages he still held. His mouth twisted wryly. “She liked this?”
“You do not like poetry?” Eleanor cupped her skirts around the shreds to consider where they’d be safe.
“I do not see the point.”
Eleanor’s gaze met his, longingly. “They celebrate emotions we might not otherwise express.”