Blast. She’d hesitated too long. And besides, he knew very well she wasn’t going to let him anywhere near her sister. “I will be ready.”
With a bow to her aunt, he departed.
“Ready for what, dear?” Aunt Marjory asked.
Watching him make his way through the crowded room without effort, almost as if those before him cleared a path for a dangerous creature, she answered absently, “He wants to take me driving tomorrow.”
“Oh, my dear. Such a handsome man. What will you wear?”
The Marquess disappeared from the room. Had he come tonight for the purpose of seeking her out? She felt breathless at the idea. And then horrified. Nonsense. He’d probably headed for the card room like most of the other gentlemen not on the marriage mart.
She turned to her aunt. “I’m sorry, I missed what you said?”
“I think you should wear the celestial-blue morning gown you had made at the beginning of the Season.” Her aunt nodded as if the matter was settled.
It was a ridiculous gown. Not the sort of thing a woman past her prime should wear. The reason she had never taken it out of the press since it arrived. “I’ll think about it.” When she could think, when her heart settled into its normal comfortable rhythm and her gaze stopped searching the crowd for a tall dark figure. “Aunt Marjory, where is Sissy?”
Her aunt pointed her fan. “Dancing with Felton. The poor boy is quite besotted.”
Lord Felton was an honourable young gentleman who would not take advantage of Sissy’s high spirits. Eleanor breathed a sigh of relief. The slightest hint of a scandal would bring William back to town in an instant. He’d been so distraught by what had happened four years ago he’d turned into a mother hen where his sisters were concerned, no matter how often she promised she’d sown all her wild oats.
———
Pulling his greatcoat close against the cool breeze, Garrick set out on foot from his house in St James’s. At this late hour, there were few people on the street. A dank mist stinking of muddy river obscured all but the closest objects. He hunched deeper into his coat. If he hadn’t promised Dan, he’d have preferred to down a bottle of brandy in his chamber and drown the memory of a pair of cool dove-grey eyes.
When he arrived, Dan grinned from ear to ear at the door of his small bachelor rooms off Piccadilly. “I’d almost given you up, Major.” There was little of the old cockney left in Dan’s speech.
“You’ll get used to calling me Garrick one of these days, Dan.”
“No, my lord, it wouldn’t be right.” Dan never made any pretence of being other than a man up from the gutter, no matter how high he rose or how highly his regiment sang his praises. It was all a source of wonder to the modest Lieutenant Dan Smith. “Come in. Take your ease.”
Undernourished and small as a child, he now topped five foot eight inches. His shoulders were broad and his expression open beneath his cropped blond hair. With his handsome face and bright blue eyes, he was as sought after by the ladies as Garrick himself. Too bad Dan was far too shy to take advantage of their lures.
Garrick settled into one of two armchairs by the fire and Dan poured a glass of whisky for him and a gin for himself.
“Did you see her?” Dan asked.
“I did.”
Dan looked ridiculously hopeful. “And…”
“And…nothing. We met. We spoke. We danced and I left. I felt nothing, nor did she.”
“You danced?”
“Yes.” He did his best to sound bored, despite the jolt low in his gut.
“How did Lady Eleanor look?”
Garrick thought hard. She had looked…beautiful, womanly. Paler than he remembered, almost drab in the muted grey of her gown. She seemed restrained, as if she held her emotions in check, the lively spirit he’d admired replaced by severe English spinsterhood. And yet something had sparked between them when they had danced. Or had he imagined it, because he’d hoped to feel something? He closed his eyes briefly at the pang of something sharp in a place where he didn’t have feelings at all. “She looked well enough. A little older, I suppose.” He sipped at the fiery liquid. “I had forgotten how stuffy these London parties are. What news do you hear?”
Always sympathetic to his moods, Dan let the subject go and grimaced. “We expect to receive orders to leave at any moment. London will awake one morning and we will be gone.”
“I agree. The Duke will move swiftly once Cabinet makes up its mind. But their shilly-shallying will cost our men dearly.” The War Cabinet had bungled too many times to do any better now. Only Wellington’s instincts had saved their bacon time and again in Spain.
“What about you?” Dan asked.
Only Dan would ask. No one else knew of his work for the Allies. Many suspected his loyalty even though they were careful not to show it, not when Prinny had admitted him to his closest circle. But the scavengers were circling. If one more person sighted him in France, things were going to get very difficult. But he trusted Dan with his life as he trusted no one else. “I’m to go at the end of the week.”
Dan whistled through his teeth. “That soon. You will take care.”
The only person who cared enough to worry. “I will.”
“And after? When Bonaparte is back under lock and key?”
He never thought about after. He had never expected to live this long. He wouldn’t come back to England. There was nothing for him here. “Find another war? Hire myself out as a mercenary.”
Dan looked far from happy. “And the other matter?”
“I asked her to drive out with me tomorrow.”
“And she agreed?” Hopeful had returned.
“She did.” He’d thought she would refuse. He shouldn’t have threatened her, but she’d left him little choice.
“Will you tell her Le Clere has been seen in England?”
“I don’t see the point. Not when we aren’t sure. I plan to snare him before he gets anywhere near the Castlefield tribe. No more of this, Dan.” He smiled and reached across the space between them. He clinked his erstwhile tiger’s glass. “Here’s to you and yours and may you come home safe.”
“And you and yours, my lord.”
Garrick swallowed the rest of his drink in one gulp. There was no one he called his. Not any longer.
He pushed the thought away and held out his glass for a refill. Better to take whatever pleasure life offered when it came along. Like a few hours of her company on the morrow, though he expected it would hold little in the way of delight for either of them.
———
In the end she did wear the blue gown. After all, one did not drive out with a gentlemen of Beauworth’s standing looking like someone’s governess, as Sissy had pronounced earlier with all the assurance of youth.
When Eleanor walked down the stairs a few minutes before the appointed time, she felt satisfied with her appearance. Her pulse beat a little too fast, her stomach was tied in a tight little knot that made breathing more difficult than usual, but the gown masked all of that. To the world, she looked cool and calm.
Sissy dashed out of the drawing room as she set foot on the last step. “You look ravishing,” she said. “I told you that gown was perfect. It makes your eyes look bluer.”
“Sissy, don’t be a hoyden.”
“Hah.” Sissy’s dark eyes sparkled. She brushed a tumble of chestnut curls back off her shoulder. “Don’t be such a stick in the mud.”
The case clock struck four. Someone rapped the knocker on the front door.
“Quick,” Sissy said. “Into the drawing room. You don’t want to look too eager.”
“Sissy.” Eleanor couldn’t help laughing. Her sister had certainly adopted all the niceties of a débutante in her first Season with alacrity and enthusiasm.
Eleanor allowed herself to be chivvied into the drawing room, while the butler hurried to open the front door.
“Very nice, dear,” Aunt Marjory said, glancing up from her embroidery.
“Thank you, Aunt.”
What the old lady would say if she knew just how annoyed William would be was a whole other matter. By the time he learned of it, there would be nothing to discuss. Today she would answer Beauworth’s questions and tell him not to bother her or her family again. If he had any sense of honour, he would abide by her wishes. And that would be that.
Her heart squeezed a little at the thought, but she ignored it, firmly.
She perched on a chair by the window.
“Not there, Eleanor,” Sissy said. “The light obscures your face.” She frowned. “And why are you wearing that horrid cap under that perfectly lovely chip straw as if you are an old maid?”
She was an old maid. “Too late to do anything about it now,” she said calmly, although her heart thundered as the door opened and Beauworth entered.
If he could not see her features, she could see his very well indeed. Still handsome, but harsh, like granite carved by the wind, the furrows around his mouth and creases at the corners of his eyes deeply etched. Only a shadow of the young man she had known remained in his smile and the angle of his jaw, the wave of brown hair on his forehead.
He took Aunt Marjory’s hand in his and murmured a suitable greeting. Then he moved on to Sissy.
She peeped up at him. “I don’t suppose you remember me?”
“The last time I saw you, you had soot on your nose,” he replied with a flash of his charming smile. Eleanor’s stomach tumbled in a long slow roll. Would she never be able to see that smile without melting?
Sissy laughed. “You are still Eleanor’s wicked Marquess.”
“Sissy,” Eleanor said as Beauworth turned to her with a raised brow and one of those devastating smiles. She was going to be mush if this continued.
“What did you say, dear?” Aunt Marjory asked.
“Nothing,” Sissy said, with a blithe smile and a wink.
“Are you ready to leave, Lady Eleanor? Much as I delight in the company of your family, my horses do not like to be kept waiting.”
He took her hand and brought her to his feet. As he did so, his gaze searched her face. Seeking what? She lifted her chin and regarded him coolly. “Indeed. I am quite ready, my lord.”
Sissy ran to the window. “Oh, my,” she said. “A high-perch phaeton. And matched chestnuts.”
“Come away from the window, dear,” Aunt Marjory said. “Do take care with my niece, my lord. The thought of her up on those high things gives my heart palpitations.”
“Fear not, Miss Hadley,” the Marquess said. “I will take care of Lady Eleanor’s person as if it were my own.”
His velvet tones were like a caress on her skin. An insidious yearning filled her body. She managed a tight smile. “I have no fear, my lord.”
“You never did.”
He was wrong, of course. She’d feared greatly for him all these years. But she could never show it.
He guided her out of the house and down the steps into the street.
Sissy was right, his equipage was high and dangerous. The horses, held by a groom, tossing their heads in the traces, were fresh, high-strung and beautifully matched. A team she’d love to drive, or she would have in her misspent youth.
While she didn’t need his help, she allowed him to assist her up the steps. She sat on the seat and settled her skirts. The ground looked astonishingly far away and the slightest movement caused the coach body to sway on its swan-necked springs.
The Marquess went around the other side and climbed up beside her. He took the whip from its holder, catching the points deftly in his fingers and gathered up the ribbons in his other hand.
He glanced at her with a quizzical expression. “Nervous, Lady Eleanor?”
“Certainly not,” she said. The fact that her heart seemed to be performing an endless drum roll against her ribs and had been since she awoke this morning had nothing to do with him. It was lack of sleep.
“Good. Then we will dispense with the services of the groom.” He raised his voice. “Jeffers, spring ‘em. You can walk home.”
Before Eleanor could protest against the breach of propriety, the liveried groom touched his hat, released the off-side leader’s bridle and stepped back. The Marquess moved his equipage into the street and soon they were bowling down the quiet road at a clip.
“It is an open carriage, Ellie,” he said with the ghost of a laugh. “I want our conversation to be private.”
Ruffled, she glared at him. “We have nothing to say to each other of a private nature. And you should have asked me first.”
“Asking doesn’t get me anywhere.”
Now what did he mean by that pithy little comment? Surely he wasn’t referring to his disastrous proposal of marriage? And surely he wasn’t going to ask her again? Her throat dried. A patter of hope ran through her heart.
“What did you want to ask me?” There, she sounded cool and collected.
He turned on to Piccadilly and headed toward Hyde Park. She admired his skill as he negotiated around a hackney coach stopped to pick up a fare and neatly avoided a brewer’s dray coming the opposite way. He made it look easy, but the horses required all of his attention, so she sat quietly, content to enjoy being driven by a master, content to look at the hard-angled profile, the curl of his hair on his temple, the confident set of his shoulders. Her reckless gaze lingered on the firm line of his sensual mouth, the angle of his chin. He was still beautiful and very dangerous. She would not let him catch her unaware again and she’d already spoken to Sissy about keeping her distance.
They entered Hyde Park and started along Rotten Row. Because of the early hour, only a few carriages paraded their occupants.
“Now,” he said, “I can concentrate on you, instead of these beasts.”
The thought of him concentrating on her made her breathless with longing. But it was not what he meant, surely it was not. She tried to ignore the trickle of hope sliding around in her stomach. She stared at the horses tossing their heads at every pedestrian they passed. “What they really need is a good long run.”
“Should I have whisked you away to Brighton? I have the key to the Pavilion.”
The words were said with a teasing note, but she sensed an undertone of challenge, or perhaps a shadow of hope. She fought the very real urge to say yes, to kick over the traces she’d forced herself into these past years, the curb of propriety and duty.
“It was simply a comment.”
“Naturally,” he said.
“Well, here I am, all attention. What was so important that you must speak to me alone?” The words sounded sharper than she had intended, sharp enough to ensure her heart was not hanging on her sleeve like a flag.
The teasing light in his face disappeared and her foolish heart regretted the loss. “You’ve changed, Ellie.”
“I’m older and wiser.”
“And none too happy, if I’m not mistaken.”
“My happiness is not your concern.” How could she ever be happy, hearing about his conquests, knowing other women were enjoying favours that could have been hers? And like a fool, she drank up every mention of his name because it brought him closer, when it was quite obvious he never thought of her at all. Until he wanted something.
“It could have been,” he said.
But she’d chosen. And she lived with the choice no matter how painful. “Your question.”
“Quite honestly, I’m not sure how to ask.”
“Ask.” The torture of having him close, of hiding the warmth running beneath her skin, was a bit like trying to hide a fever. A fever with no cure.
“After you…after it was all over, Beauworth held no interest for me. I joined the army. Rumours circulated that I’d ruined a noblewoman.” The words were spoken calmly enough, but bitterness rang in his voice.
“I never spoke of what happened to anyone,” she said.
“Except your brother.”
She recoiled. “Are you saying William blackened your name?”
“Yes.”
The flat statem
ent knocked her off kilter. The carriage remained steady, but she felt as if she was being buffeted on all sides by a strong cold wind.
“There is something I want you to tell your brother.”
She could just see herself talking to William about Garrick. “I—”
“Tell him it wasn’t me who crippled him.”
The cold wind turned into an icy gale. She put a hand to her throat, felt the hard beating of her heart. “What?”
“Your brother caught me exiting a window of the porter’s lodging. He knew whose chamber it was and went off to report my despicable behaviour. I think he had some sort of boyish crush on the girl. Believe me, she wasn’t the angel he thought.”
“Is that what happened? He never told me the full story.”
“He doesn’t know the full story.”
He guided his team past a young gentleman in a phaeton who had stopped to greet some ladies on foot.
“Your brother hit me from behind. Stunned me. I called him a sneak and a tell-tale in front of his friends and threatened him with a sound thrashing.” He winced. “I lost my temper. Later that night someone went to his room and beat him with a club as he slept.”
“He says it was you.”
His mouth tightened. “I wasn’t the only one punished. The porter was removed from his position, but someone forgot to retrieve his keys. Or perhaps he had an extra one. He’d lost far more than I. A month of waiting on the teachers’ table doesn’t warrant beating a man to within an inch of his life.” His voice was grim. “Losing your livelihood might.”
Oh, God. And she’d believed William. She felt as if her heart might break. She stared at his profile. He looked unmoved. Completely unaffected. How could he be so cool, so icily calm, when he’d been so unjustly accused? Perhaps he no longer cared. “And you have proof of this?”
He glanced at her with a cynical curve to his mouth. “Still doubting me?”
“No. I was thinking of William. It will not be easy to change his mind after all these years.”
He nodded slowly. “I found the daughter a year ago. Her father is dead and she’s fallen pretty low, but she remembered me. She was happy to tell me the truth. She’d do so on the Bible and can point to the men who helped him. Ellie, more important than William, do you believe me?”
Wicked Rake, Defiant Mistress Page 17