To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke Book 8) (16 page)

The blunt admission brought a startled laugh from Eleanor, attracting stares. She quickly smoothed her features into a mask.

“Bah,” her aunt rapped her on the arm with her fan. “I’ve said it before. I prefer you laughing and bold, Eleanor. Ah, here comes Isabelle.” Sure enough Marcus’ mother made her way through the crush of guests, toward the duchess. “Will you run and fetch me a glass of punch?”

“Of course.” Eleanor bussed her aunt on the cheek and, squaring her shoulders, started her march down the length of the ballroom. With each step, an invigorating sense of control filled her. In this moment, braving the
ton
and tackling the items upon her uncle’s list, she re-exerted a hold over her life.

A tall figure stepped into her path and a startled gasp escaped her. “Forgive m—” She glanced up at the gentleman and her body went hot and then cold. For years, she saw this man everywhere, saw him with such clarity that she’d often believed he stood before her real as the day he’d been in that moonlit night that had irrevocably changed her life. Eleanor pressed her eyes tightly closed and called on the coaxings her father had taught her long ago.
Wake up. One, two, three, wake up.
Only this time, there was no waking. The devil before her was as real as Satan in the flesh.

A slow, jeering smile formed on his lips. Though softer around the middle with the passage of time, the hawkish nose and cold brown eyes of the gentleman staring down at her marked him as her dark demon. “Miss Carlyle.” It was that same slightly mocking tone that had echoed in Lady Wedermore’s gardens. “Or is it
Mrs
. Collins, now, I believe?” Oh, God, how did he know that? What else did he know? Her body went cold.

In her sleepless nights, of which there were many, she would lay abed imagining the words she would hurl were she to ever again see the nameless stranger who’d fathered her child. She’d crafted lists upon lists of horrible, ugly words and curses that no lady had a right to. Yet, in this instance, every single one went out of her head.

A liveried footman came by with a silver tray and Eleanor stared blankly as the gentleman at her side rescued a glass of champagne, casual when her heart could never resume a normal beat. “Champagne, Mrs. Collins?” Anyone to hear that offer would see a gentleman before them.

Eleanor knew better. “Leave,” she said quietly. How was that one word so very steady?

The servant looked askance and, with a bow of his head, rushed off. And coward that she was, Eleanor made to go, as well.

Her attacker blocked her escape. “I see you’ve resumed where you left off with Wessex.”

A dull humming filled her ears.
I am going to be ill
. To keep from crumpling into a boneless heap on the sidelines of her aunt’s ballroom, Eleanor pressed a hand against the smooth, white pillar. The cold of that stone penetrated her gloves and she welcomed the chill on her clammy flesh.

Then he lowered his head. “I cannot tell you, Mrs. Collins, how much I dislike that.” He sipped from his flute. “You are to stay away from him, Eleanor.”

What should her relationship with Marcus matter to this man? Or was this merely another attempt to dominate her? Well, she’d give him nothing more than he’d taken that night. He’d already stolen so very much. “You do not have leave to use my Christian name.” The sharp retort burst from her lips. With all the power he’d claimed over her and her life, she would have this control.

He snapped his eyebrows into a single line, but otherwise ignored her command. “Consider this your warning to stay away from the viscount.”

She flicked her gaze about the room. Lords and ladies laughed and chatted at every turn. Couples danced the intricate steps of a country reel. Through the inanity, Eleanor’s world quaked under her feet. How was the earth, in fact, still moving when time stood still in this horrifying exchange?

Then from across the room, she caught sight of her aunt conversing with Marcus’ mother and there was a stabilizing reassurance in the casualness of that exchange. Eleanor ratcheted her chin up several notches. “You, sir, can go to hell.”

And though not the vitriolic diatribe she’d always planned for the man, Eleanor swept away, her skin burning from the look he trained on her.

Marcus studied the crush of guests with a distracted boredom from over the rim of his crystal champagne glass. Marcus had resolved to forget Eleanor and all the broken promises between them. Except, given the evening’s festivities and the close proximity of their residences, it was a near impossible feat.

Unbidden, his gaze sought, and found, Eleanor as she cut a path through the ballroom. With a glass of punch in hand, she marched with a single-minded purpose. A swirl of dancers swallowed his sight of her.

He cursed.

“Goodness, Marcus, never tell me you are woolgathering,” the Duchess of Crawford’s teasing voice drawled from beyond his shoulder.

Marcus whipped around, adopting one of his effortless grins. “Lady Daisy Meadows. My girl of the flowers.”

Daisy stood alongside her husband, the Duke of Crawford, who, by his black scowl, appeared to take exception with Marcus’ possessive endearment for their late friend Lionel’s sister.

“She is no longer of the Flowers,” Crawford said in that coolly austere tone he’d adopted over the years.

“Ah, yes,” he said on a sigh. And knowing it would infuriate the other man, he leaned close to Daisy and said on a loud whisper, “She’ll always be my girl of the flowers.”

With an unrestrained laugh, Daisy swatted his arm, earning curious stares from the nearby lords and ladies. “You are a flirt, Marcus.” At one time they would likely have turned up their noses at the young lady’s display. Having wed Auric, the Duke of Crawford, two years ago, she was now permitted certain luxuries and freedoms.

“Oh, undoubtedly.” He winked and she laughed all the more.

Of course, having known the lady since she was in leading strings, he’d come to know she’d dug her talons into the particular details surrounding his presence here and would not relent. “It has not failed to escape my notice that you’ve ignored my observation.”

“Your observation?” He deliberately slid his gaze out to the ballroom floor, taking in the twirling couples. He knew very well what observation Daisy referred to.

“You know very well what observation I referred to.” Then, having known the young lady most of his life, she’d developed a rather bothersome tendency of predicting his thoughts.

“I’m merely here as chaperone.” It was a blatant lie. Crawford eyed him with a dogged intensity that indicated he knew as much, but was too loyal and proper to counter the claim. Yes, Marcus’ mother and sister were hardly in need of his company. Yet night after night after night, and now, as Daisy had pointed out, a fourth night, he’d taken to attending exceedingly dull events he’d have normally avoided at all costs. Well, not all costs. Through the years, the tedium of those affairs had been broken by certain widows.

His gaze collided with one of those very women and he stared blankly at the top of her head. How many empty, meaningless entanglements had he become involved in through the years, all with the intent of driving out the remembrance of Eleanor? Only now, with her back in his life, he saw the lie he’d perpetuated against himself. He could never forget her. Would never. For with the empty ache her betrayal had left inside his heart, the damned useless organ did, and forever would, belong to her. “Fool.”

“Marcus?”

He snapped his attention back to Daisy, who eyed him with a blend of concern and consternation. “Er, I was…” Heat climbed his neck.

Both duke and duchess stared at him with matching expressions, silently pressing for answers.

He searched for a safe reply. “I was—”

His gaze traveled to Eleanor who carried a glass of punch to her aunt, and was promptly surrounded by a swarm of suitors. A visceral hatred unfurled, burning hot inside him.

Only, by the feral gleams in the gentlemen eying her with lascivious stares throughout the ballroom, he was no longer the only one who’d developed a keen awareness of Mrs. Eleanor Collins. With a curse, he downed the contents of his champagne in one long, slow swallow. He slammed the empty glass down upon the silver tray of a passing servant with such force it rattled the other crystal flutes sitting there.

From the corner of his eye, he spied Daisy and Crawford exchange a look. Damn them and their knowing stares, and worse, the damned intimacy they shared; a bond he’d once shared with the woman now being ogled like a confectionary treat prepared by the king’s baker.

“I don’t suppose this is the er, person who has you—”

“No.”

“Distracted,” Daisy finished for her husband. Then with her innocent, always-hopeful stare, she took in the woman Marcus had made the mistake of studying overly long. Gone was the clear-eyed young lady who’d stolen away with him in hidden alcoves and private gardens, sprinting down corridors, hand in hand, risking ruin for those stolen moments. In her place was this aloof ice princess, resplendent in the palest pink satin. With her squared shoulders and the tilt of her chin, her proud, regal bearing would make a queen envious. The Duchess of Devonshire said something at her side and Eleanor responded, never so much as averting her gaze, trained on the crowd.

Look at me. Look at me and want me as you did
. For that would be the ultimate revenge upon the lady who’d so betrayed him. Taking her in his arms and showing her such pleasure that she regretted the fact that any man had come before him and after they knew mindless pleasure in each other’s bodies, then Marcus would be the one to cast her from
his
life.

As though sensing his attention, she froze. The lady darted her gaze about the room, passing over the interested lords converging upon her. Then her eyes met his across the ballroom. Marcus wanted to manage a mocking grin, avert his eyes, and give her the cut direct. After all, their paths, as she’d succinctly pointed out, need never cross and the lady would be fine if they didn’t. Instead, he continued staring like every other besotted fool present. God, how he despised himself for the hold she had over him, still.

“Close your mouth, Marcus.” Daisy’s teasing whisper jerked him thankfully back from his own self-recriminations.

She’d made a fool of him once and he’d allow her to do it again. He snapped his lips together so quickly, his teeth rattled.

“I daresay we’ve found what has enhanced your responsibilities as chaperone,” she continued.

Crawford settled a hand at the small of her back, and a look so intimate, a connection that didn’t require words passed between them, and Daisy’s smile dipped. “Oh.”

That piteous, soft exhalation knotted his stomach, as his weakness for Eleanor Carlyle, now Collins, exposed him before his sole friends in the world. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said with forced lightness. “I’ve devoted enough of my brotherly services this evening and intend to seek out my clubs.” His was a desperate effort to preserve his dignity. Before Daisy could issue any further questions or comments, he sketched a quick bow and started for the entrance of the hall.

He intended to leave. He intended to march through the crowd, past the colorful peacocks and swaggering swains who now sought a certain widow’s attention and, ultimately, her affection. He intended to do any number of things that didn’t involve looking back at Eleanor. But he cast a single, impulsive glance over his shoulder and then he spun on his heel and stared openly at the cocksure swains clamoring for her dance card.

Marcus balled his hands at his sides. Didn’t they know the lady detested dancing in crowded rooms? Didn’t they know the only reason she’d tolerated those awkward steps of the quadrilles and country reels was for the fleeting moments when Marcus could hold her in his arms? But then, how could they know that? How, when she’d left and wed another? How, when those thoughts no longer held true?

He forced himself to stand a silent observer to her success as she garnered the attention of the
ton
. Her aunt stood a useless chaperone at Eleanor’s side, appearing bored by the whole display of attention when, in actuality, if she were wise, she would be a good deal more cautious with her niece’s reputation. Any number of gentlemen would gladly have Eleanor to wed or in his bed.

They were welcome to her; every last fawning, leering fop in the bunch.