Eloisa James - Desperate Duchesses - 6 (40 page)

"A Grecque?"
Eleanor asked, pulling on her gloves.

"You know...two curls on each side, and a long tail behind. It's quite smart." She turned around, smiling. "He looks to have broad shoulders as well. I expect you'll remember him the moment you enter the carriage." She danced over and gave Eleanor a kiss.

Eleanor followed Mr. Ormston's footman to the landau, lecturing herself the whole way about second, nay, third chances.

Mr. Ormston had descended from the carriage to meet her, of course. She raised her eyes just enough to see that he was wearing a coat of black cloth. Very respectable and sober. He bowed, taking her gloved hand and kissing it before handing her into the landau.

Eleanor sat down and looked up, prepared to smile.

London residence of the Duke of Montague

August 8, 1784

"I
am honored that you accepted my invitation," Mr. Ormston said quietly. "It is a true pleasure to meet you again."

Eleanor could feel heat rising in her cheeks. "Indeed?"

"You are not the sort of woman whom any man could forget," he said.

"And what have you been doing in the intervening three years since we last met?" Eleanor inquired.

"Unless it is a matter of great national import that you cannot share with me? A delicate matter, perhaps?"

"Oh, this and that," Mr. Ormston said. "I do a great deal of work with orphans."

His dark eyebrows were quite dramatic beneath his snowy wig. His shoulders were remarkably broad, but something about his unadorned black coat made them look even broader. "Indeed,"

Eleanor said. "And how are your orphans, Mr. Ormston?"

"Quite well. We have occasional problems, as I'm sure you can imagine."

"I don't have children," she said pleasantly. "I know nothing of raising children."

He cleared his throat and said, very low, "You know more than I do."

Eleanor looked down at her hands, clenched together in her lap. "I think I should like to return to my house now." By some miracle her voice was quite steady.

"But we are here, at Kensington Gardens," Mr. Ormston said. The carriage glided to a halt and he leapt out and stood, holding up his gloved hand.

Eleanor sat for a moment. She felt as empty as a vase without flowers or water. She had no emotion, not anger, grief, or even longing. So there could be no harm in taking a brief stroll, she thought.

She numbly put her hand in his, and dropped it the moment she descended. Then she opened her parasol at such an angle that it entirely shielded her face from that of her companion.

"How lovely," she said. "The fuchsias are in bloom."

"Yes," he said. "Shall we rest for a moment, Lady Eleanor? There seems to be a suitable bench overlooking the Round Pond. I thought you might like to feed the swans."

She glanced to the side. He was holding a cotton bag, presumably filled with bread crusts.
That
was rather interesting. Mr. Ormston, alias Leopold Dautry, alias the Duke of Villiers, did not appear to be the sort of man whom she imagined carrying bread around.

They sat down next to each other and in total silence threw crusts at the swans. There were seven of them, counting a mated pair and five cygnets. The parents curled and bobbed their long necks, pushing their offspring out of the way in order to gobble bread.

"So why have you disguised yourself as Mr. Ormston?" she asked after a time.

"It is more than a mere disguise. I want to be everything that you wish me to be. If you don't want a duke, then I don't want to be a duke."

She closed her parasol and took a deep breath before replying. "You will forgive me if I impute your motives to an entirely commendable paternal instinct rather than a wish to please me."

"I can find a mother for my children anywhere."

"I am quite certain that is true," she said. She pulled out a large crust and threw it unerringly at the male swan, hitting him in the beak. The cob took no affront and gobbled it up.

"That being the case, my motives are purely selfish."

"As surprising as it may seem to those who know you—or know of you," she corrected herself, "I doubt that very much. Your attention to your children's well-being is commendable. I am sure that you will be successful with the daughter of a marquis. Though one should not discount the distressful possibility that you will have to lower yourself to the level of earl."

"I'm not here because of the children. I have hired an excellent tutor and two more nannies. They are fine."

"Marvelous," Eleanor said tonelessly. "Who would have thought it was so easy to be a parent?" This time she tried to hit the female swan, but missed.

"Will you look at me before you brain those hapless birds?"

She drew a deep breath. Of course she would look at him. She raised her eyes reluctantly. Mr.

Ormston's coat did not clamor for attention; neither did his discreet, if fashionable, wig. Instead, those accoutrements framed his face.

What they really framed were his eyes.

Without the distraction of his famous hair, the gleaming embroidery of his coats...when she looked at Leopold, she saw his eyes. "Oh..." she said quietly.

"I love you. I will always love you, until the day I die." His voice was sure and deep, the voice of a man who knew himself. "The kind of love I feel has nothing to do with the children I have, or children we might have together."

"But you said—" She reached out to take his hand without even realizing what she was doing.

"I went about things the wrong way. I didn't know how to recognize a
mother,
Eleanor. I never really had one." "I see."

"I recognized motherhood in Lisette, because she reminded me of my mother. She liked my brother and me to behave like little dukes, and she dressed us like royalty, almost as if we were dolls. When my brother became ill, she cut him out of her life. And though he didn't die for eight days, as far as I know, she never faltered in her resolution."

Eleanor's hand tightened. "I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"I don't believe Lisette's accusation that her mother was the one to bring her son to the Earl of Gryffyn. I would guess that she dispensed with the child herself. Did you realize Gryffyn was the father of her son?"

"My mother told me everything on the journey home," she admitted.

"Lisette and my mother are quite similar. That is not an excuse, but an explanation for why I so foolishly chose the one woman likely to wound my children to the core. And worse, I didn't see
you;
I threw away what you offered." His voice was lashed with self-hatred. "But I never, ever, thought of you as only good enough to bed, Eleanor. Never. I wanted you—more than I could even let myself know. More than I've ever wanted to be with a woman in my life."

Eleanor felt the corner of her mouth curl up.

"I—" He broke off, rose and held out his hand. "Lady Eleanor, would you care to continue our stroll?"

She took one more look at those beautiful gray eyes, drank deep of the emotion in them, stood up and opened her parasol again. She tucked her hand through her companion's arm.

"Do tell me, Lady Eleanor, why you have stayed in London now that the season is almost over?"

"I dislike the artificial boundary created by the season," she said, tilting her parasol so its pale silk lining cast its shadow over her face. "During the season people are all chasing after each other with matrimony on their minds. The grouse season starts in August, but I believe it is truly all the same."

"Although people do not always engage in a matrimonial pursuit," he added gravely, "but often in something less respectable. After all, many a wife seeks to avoid her husband. And gentlemen often pursue matrimony out of season."

"So you would say that when ladies are not hunting down gentlemen, they are engaged in hiding from them? Yes, that sounds reasonable."

"On occasion the gentleman must, like a hunter, employ subterfuge."

"Hiding in a blind built from willow?"

"A black coat and wig, or even a distant cousin's identity. There is a chess exhibition tomorrow in Hyde Park. As I understand it, you are a fine player in your own right. May I escort you?"

"What on earth is a chess exhibition?" Eleanor inquired.

"A demonstration," he said. "I gather that a number of England's best chess players will be pitted against each other for the edification and pleasure of the public."

"I have heard that the Duke of Villiers is the best player in England," she said, twirling her parasol.

They were almost back at the carriage.

"Not so. The top two players are the Duke and Duchess of Beaumont."

"Will they participate in the exhibition?"

"I have no idea," he said. "I'm afraid that the doings of such elevated beings is quite outside the purview of Mr. Ormston."

"In that case," Eleanor said, "I shall be very pleased to accompany you, Mr. Ormston."

"How was it?" Anne demanded the moment Eleanor entered the house. "Oh, I can see from your face that it went well! You look happy again!" She pulled her into her arms. "You see? Men really are quite interchangeable. A woman merely needs to find the one who promises to adore her without being too irritating."

Eleanor smiled at her. "He asked me to accompany him to a chess exhibition tomorrow."

"Well, better you than me," Anne said. "How utterly tedious. You didn't talk about chess with Mr.

Ormston, did you, Eleanor? He won't like it when he finds out how good you are. Men never like being beaten at games. If you play, you'll have to fudge it."

"I can do that," Eleanor said, and disappeared, rather dreamily, up the stairs.

Mr. Ormston's landau appeared the next afternoon, promptly at two. "I'm really not sure about this person," her mother said fretfully. "Anne, if you don't get away from the window, I shall bar you from this house. You'll have to ask him to tea, Eleanor. You can't continue to see this gentleman whom we haven't met."

"Oh, but you have met him, Mother," Eleanor said.

"I'm quite sure I have
not!"
the duchess retorted.

"It was some years ago...but of course one must make allowances for one's memory as the years pass."

The duchess threw her a glance of total revulsion."! suppose I met the man. Ormston... it sounds vaguely familiar."

"I assure you that you did," Eleanor said, smiling widely.

Mr. Ormston was waiting by the landau, of course, and handed her up with the utmost courtesy. For a moment Eleanor thought that perhaps he was even courteous to a fault, but then she decided to simply enjoy it.

Hyde Park was crowded with open carriages and gentlefolk; every person in the
ton
seemed to be promenading, or waving from a carriage.

Mr. Ormston didn't appear to have that many acquaintances—though he did receive a few puzzled glances—but she, of course, saw many friends.

"The chess exhibition is on Buck Hill Walk," he said as his landau came to a halt.

Eleanor climbed down, dropping his hand the moment her toes touched the ground, as was proper.

A few moments later they found themselves watching a chess match between a Russian gentleman and an elegantly-clad young courtier. The courtier looked up and gave a little start. "Dashed if I didn't think for a moment that I recognized you, sir!" he said, laughing.

Mr. Ormston bowed without speaking, which was a good idea because his voice was altogether too recognizable.

The Russian gentleman looked up for a moment and then back at the board with a faint smile.

"I'm demned if I haven't lost to you again, Potemkin," the courtier said discontentedly. "Surely not,"

Eleanor said sweetly.

The young man took a good look at her extremely fetching walking dress, with particular attention to the low bodice, and quite visibly made up his mind to smile. He would have been surprised to learn that the exquisite lady before him considered his gesture condescending.

He rose and bowed, and even brought her gloved hand to his lips. "Alas, I am already despairing,"

he said, giving a charming little shrug.

Eleanor leaned forward and said, "Queen to Rook Four, then he'll move pawn to King's Rook Three.

You take his pawn with your bishop, he will recapture. Then you play Queen takes pawn. His King is laid open and your attack is invulnerable."

The man blinked.

"Dear me," Mr. Ormston said with a glance at the sun, "it's looking alarmingly cloudy." The courtier sat down.

"You are a formidable opponent," Leopold said as they walked on. "He might still lose," Eleanor said. "If he mi splays the attack."

"My dear Mr. Ormston," Eleanor cried. "Surely you jest. The moves are devious. White simply brings his pieces to bear on the denuded King, one by one." "I must be distracted," he said.

Eleanor threw him a teasing glance. "My sister gave me firm instructions not to play chess with you, for I may frighten you. Are you afraid, Mr. Ormston?" "Yes."

They walked a pace or two and then she took his hand. "Leopold?"

He spun her off the path and behind a thick lilac hedge so quickly that she didn't breathe. "I'm afraid, Eleanor. I'm afraid that you don't love me as much as I love you. I'm afraid that you won't believe me, that you'll think I want you merely for the benefit of my children. And oh God, Eleanor, I'm afraid I can't live without you."

She reached out and slowly, very slowly, undid the pearl buttons on his very proper right glove.

Then she peeled back the heavy gray silk—far too fine, really, for a plain Mr. Ormston—and gently pulled it off his hand.

She raised his hand, still without meeting his eyes, and kissed each finger. They trembled slightly in hers. She turned over his hand and pressed her lips to his palm. Only then did she meet his eyes. "I am not afraid, because I love you. And I will always love you. Always. Your love stands between me and fear."

His face transformed itself—without a smile, of course. Then before she realized what was happening, he went down on one knee. "Leopold—"

"Will you do me the inexpressible honor, Lady Eleanor, of becoming my wife?" "Yes," she whispered. "Oh yes, I will, I will."