B00Y3771OO (R) (13 page)

“What are you thinking?” she asked, angling her head.

Except, by her aging butler’s total lack of ability at tossing him out on his ear as he’d surely deserved, as a member of the marquess’ staff himself, he had to admit that the lack of footmen to protect and defend their mistress from a furious gentleman did not speak volumes of their capability. With a growl, he spun on his heel and marched to the door once more.

The rustle of skirts indicated that she gave chase. “What—?”

“I intend to ride. You shall remain in your carriage and beyond that, I’ll have nothing else to do with you or your interfering,” he directed that to the doorway. With that, he stalked from the room. The skin of his neck burning from her stare trained on his retreating frame.

Eloise stared after Lucien. She touched her fingers to her mouth. Her lips still burned with the taste of his kiss, her flesh throbbed to know more of his touch. In all her greatest dreams of him, she’d imagined a life that included him in it. A life where he viewed her as more than the childhood friend who’d kept stride with him and his brothers. The day he’d fallen in love with Sara, half of Eloise’s heart had died. The other half had lived, in the hope that one day he would at last realize she was there.

Then the muscles of her stomach knotted. Even with the passion between them, and the now three times he’d taken her in his arms, he still did not belong to her.

Eloise sat with shaky legs into the nearest seat, sinking into the stiff folds of the pink satin sofa. Worse, he despised her. Blamed her for trying to restore the loving relationship he’d once known with his family. She stared down absently at her lap. However, he spoke with all the passionate ire of a man who still had family. Yes, he’d lost Sara and his child and that loss would forever haunt him. But for the loss, he still had Palmer, Richard, and, for now, his father.

She had come to appreciate in the aftermath of her father’s death and then the sudden loss of her own husband just how alone she was. Her world once full of those who cared had become remarkably empty, leaving her with nothing more than a disapproving brother-in-law for occasional company. No, Lucien was not alone. He’d merely chosen to subsist in a state of solitude. She firmed her lips. He might resent her, even hate her for her interference in his life, but her actions were driven by love for him…and his family. If she could somehow bring him together with his brothers, then the total loss of him from her life would cripple her, but would bring her some measure of peace in her rather lonely life.

Only, if she were being truthful with at least herself, she wanted more. She wanted him.

Chapter 14

T
he following morning, with her trunks loaded into a waiting carriage, Eloise accepted the proffered hand of a waiting servant. She gave a murmur of thanks and paused in the threshold of the doorway to survey the quiet streets. The same niggling fear that had danced about her mind all that morning while her belongings were packed and her carriages readied, resurfaced.

Lucien did not intend to come.

When day broke, she’d convinced herself he would be there. She’d delayed her travels, until she was forced to realize he had changed his mind. A single drop of rain landed on her nose. She brushed it off with the tip of her gloved finger.

“My lady?” the servant asked, concern lacing his question.

She gave a shake of her head and, with a small smile, climbed inside the carriage. The door closed behind her with a soft click. Eloise peeled back the red velvet curtain and stared out at the gloomy London streets. Thick, gray storm clouds hung in the sky, blotting out day’s bright light. The impending storm perfectly suited her mood that morning.

The carriage dipped under the weight of her driver climbing onto his perch and then a moment later the carriage rocked forward. She stared out at the pink stucco façade of her townhouse. Except for Colin’s passing five years earlier, when she’d retired to the country for her period of mourning, she’d not left her modest, comfortable townhouse.

Palmer had written to her frequently, urging her to visit but the pain of her memories were too great to go back to the place she’d loved, lost, and then suffered the pain of Lucien’s loss. A ball lodged in her throat and she swallowed several times, but it remained. How very like this day was to the day Sara had drawn her last breath. Her fever had raged for nearly a week, climbing until delirium replaced sanity, and vacancy replaced knowing in the woman’s eyes. For all the doctor’s efforts and then Eloise’s, ultimately nothing she’d done had mattered. She pressed her eyes tightly closed to blot out the memories, but they’d slipped in and would not relinquish their hold.

Lucien’s son had succumbed to the fever that same evening. It had been as though the small, cherub-cheeked babe had decided a world without his mother and father was not a world worth living in.

Eloise released her hold on the curtain and the velvet fabric fluttered into place. She dug her fingers into her temple and rubbed in small, continuous circles. Lucien blamed her for having interfered in his life. As the carriage rattled along the quiet, London streets, carrying her to the Kent countryside, she wondered how much greater that blame would be if he’d known just how greatly she’d failed Sara and his child.

She sighed. It seemed for all her intentions where Lucien was concerned, she was determined to fail him.

She’d waited for him. For the hours Lucien had sat astride a chestnut mount provided by the Marquess of Drake, discreetly out of view of Eloise’s servants running back and forth with trunks and then empty arms. She’d always been a perfunctory young girl, expressing annoyance when he’d kept her waiting on several scores. He’d never taken her for a young lady who’d delay her journey by hours.

Then, she exited the townhouse, her small shoulders squared and her chin tilted up. With her poise, she had the gracefulness to rival the queen herself. He ran his gaze down her frame. And in her emerald green cloak, fine fabric of an expert cut highlighting her station, lest he forgot the great divide between them. His breath snagged in his lungs as she accepted the hand of a servant, allowing him to assist her up into the carriage.

Lucien narrowed his eyes on the handsome footman who took her hand in his. Even with the space between them, he would have to be blind to fail to note the lust in the bastard’s eyes. By the Devil and all his army of demons, if the man was in his employ he’d have sacked him without a reference for daring to look at Eloise as he now did.
Why should you care? She is not your responsibility. And after this journey, she will be nothing at all to you.

Just then, Eloise froze, one foot inside her black lacquer carriage. She glanced about and he suspected that he was in fact the person she sought…and worse…her delay was, in fact…because of him.

Her plump, red lips he’d worshiped with his mouth just yesterday turned down in a disappointed frown and then she disappeared inside the coach. Moments later, her carriage rocked forward and continued a rumbling path down the empty London streets.

He nudged his borrowed mount forward and set out after her. This sudden urge to join her inside her fine carriage had nothing to do with the uncharacteristic chill of the spring air. And everything to do with her.

A single raindrop hit his eye. Followed by another. With the reins to his horse gathered in his hand, he pulled the brim of his hat lower but it did little to protect him from the steady rain now streaming down. It ran in cold rivulets down his cheeks. But he no longer felt the chill. Living in the muddied, cold and wet fields of European battlefields, one tended to no longer feel inconveniences such as a little rain. Lightning streaked across the sky and then the heavens opened up in a torrent of rain.

With a silent curse he kicked his mount forward and followed her as they put the streets of London behind them. The relentless storm soaked his garments. He embraced the discomfort, welcoming the sting of the rain until it chilled him through, leaving him numb for it distracted him from the memory of her hurt last evening.

Last night, when he’d sought her out, he’d done so filled with a fiery rage of having his life dictated for him yet again. And this, in Eloise, the woman he’d considered a great friend, had felt like the very worst sort of betrayal. In the light of this new, gray day with her fast-moving carriage bearing her onward to his family, he was humbled under the realization of just what a foul brute he’d become. That, in matters of betrayal, he’d failed Eloise far more than she’d ever failed him. Loyal and steadfast since they’d first taken an oath of friendship with mud and saliva, he’d repaid that loyalty then…and now…? By shutting her out of his life.

He closed his eyes a moment. Then opened them, blinking back the pouring rain that blurred her carriage. He squinted into the distance and his guilty musings fled. What was her driver thinking? The foolish man sped along at a breakneck speed. Lucien’s heart froze as her carriage precariously tilted left and, with a curse, he kicked his mount into a full gallop.

By God, if she broke her Goddamn neck in these muddied roads racing to his father, he’d first off her driver and then kill her all over again for her foolishness.

Chapter 15

E
loise read the contents of the note in her hand, her stomach churning. She set it aside on the carriage bench, abandoning her efforts. Since she’d been a child, she’d been squeamish in a carriage. Reading only exacerbated the discomfort. She sucked in several slow breaths through her nose. All quite unnatural…and a real bother. She sighed. Regardless, she well knew what the missive from Palmer said. She
also
knew even as neither he nor Richard would ever say anything…they would be disappointed in her inability to sway Lucien’s mind.

Of course, they long knew Lucien’s obstinacies to know that he’d never welcome interference in his life and when pushed… he merely pushed back, all the harder.

They hit another particularly deep bump in the road and her teeth cracked together. She grunted and gripped the edges of her seat to keep from toppling over.

Bloody hell.

She drew in another shallow breath and pressed her eyes closed to combat the nausea when the carriage lurched to a jarring halt. Eloise pitched forward and crashed against the opposite bench. She blinked, momentarily relieved at the cessation of the infernal motion of the carriage, and then shouts split the quiet.

“What in bloody hell are you doing barreling along these roads in that manner?”

Eloise widened her eyes and felt her heart hammering. She shoved herself upright and scrambled into her seat. She yanked at the curtain hard enough to nearly tear it from its hangings just as Lucien swung his well-muscled leg over the side of an enormous, chestnut mount.

What…?

Damning the steady, pounding rain that blurred the glass window, she shoved the door open. A gust of wind slapped at her face. “Lucien?” she shouted into the howling storm.

He stomped over. His serviceable, black riding boots kicked up mud, splattering his black trousers. With the stinging bite of the cold rain, he must be uncomfortable.

Then she met his gaze.

Correction.

By his black scowl, he wasn’t uncomfortable…she swallowed hard—he was furious. Stoic and elegant with his hard, determined footsteps, he may as well have been striding through a ballroom than the old, battered, Roman roads to Kent.

“What in hell are you doing?”

She opened her mouth and then it occurred to her—he spoke to her driver.

“I beg your pardon, you brigand.”

Her lips twitched. Sopping as he was, Lucien didn’t appear either a viscount’s son or a distinguished butler.

Lucien stopped beside her carriage and glared down at the five foot nothing driver guiding the team. “Traveling at this pace, you’ll see your mistress with a broken neck,” he seethed.

The man opened and closed his mouth, an indignant glint in his rheumy eyes. “I beg your—”

“That will be all,” Eloise ordered, her attention on Lucien.

He stiffened at her interruption and turned slowly. “Eloise.”