by Eva Devon
Was Stanley just as convinced he was dangerous to women as Hollybrook?
No, it was not possible. Stanley was a good man, a duke. And the woman he loved had died through no consequence of Stanley’s own making. It had just been a tragedy.
St. John’s mother, on the other hand? Who had been battered almost every day of her life, all because of his father’s jealousy?
St. John had to take precautions.
Wedding Eloise would be a terrible mistake. His feelings were too large. What if one day he couldn’t contain them?
But it broke his heart to realize how quickly the duke had uncovered her secret, and it frightened him, the fact he had been so mistaken in his estimation of keeping Eloise safe.
That alone meant he should not have her. If he could not think far enough ahead to protect her, he should never have her as his wife.
He should never have had her at all.
Chapter 21
The gentle knock on the door surprised her.
She was not expecting anyone to come. It was too early for the performance to begin. So, when she turned on her chair and said, “Enter,” she was not expecting to be shocked.
Hollybrook stepped into her dressing room, flowers in his hands. “I couldn’t miss it,” he said.
Her heart soared at the sight of him. “I’m so glad you’ve come. This means so much to me, and I would have hated it if you had not been here to see it.”
“I felt as much,” he replied, shifting uncomfortably in his boots. “And I thought it was selfish that I should not attend, protecting my own heart and hurting you in the process.”
He placed the white roses down upon the table near the door. “I want to see you succeed. I want to see your triumph, and I want you to know I saw it. I shall be in the audience tonight, and I shall be wishing you so well. I am so proud of you.”
He paused, the glow of the candles warming his gaze. “I hope you are proud of yourself.”
“I am,” she replied, resting her forearm on the back of her chair, half hoping he had come to reunite with her. . . “But it sounds truly like you are saying goodbye to me.”
“I am,” he said.
“How many times must you say goodbye, My Lord?” she asked bluntly.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Tonight, you’ve come to tell me you’re saying goodbye to me before the performance?” she challenged. “You think this is a good idea?”
“Eloise. . .” he began. “I long to see you perform. I thought it would be a cowardly thing not to watch. And I know the Duke of Stanley wishes to marry you, and I wanted to–”
She gasped. “My Lord, this is not how you talk to a woman about to go on stage for her first performance in an opera.”
“How do you talk to a woman who’s about to go on stage for her first performance at our opera?” he asked gently.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “But I do not think this is it.”
“You and I have always been honest with each other,” he said. “I’ve always admired that about you, and I don’t think we should stop now.” His chest broadened as he drew in a fortifying breath. “I care very deeply for you, Eloise, and I will always watch over you.”
Those words. . . Those damned words hung between them.
She cocked her head up and arched a brow. “Please don’t,” she said.
“What?” he breathed, taken aback.
“Don’t watch over me,” she said firmly. “I don’t wish it. I don’t wish you to be some ghost in my life who is a part of it but distant.” She licked her lips, determined. “You’re either in it, or you’re not. I love you, St. John. I won’t argue that point with you. You may say whatever you wish. I love you, and I can see you are trying to protect me from yourself. But you are the last person I need protecting from.”
He began to argue, but she shook her head sharply. “You may go out there, and you may watch me,” she continued. “And I am glad if you do, but I do not wish to see you again if you cannot realize that you love me too, that when two people love each other, they should be together and not apart.”
She stood, pushing back from the chair. “I will not marry Stanley, just so you know.”
His face looked as if she had struck him. “Perhaps you should.”
Devil, take it.
She ground her teeth together. “I will not marry Stanley.”
He nodded, his chest expanding in a breath as if relieved.
“You see?” she whispered. “You don’t wish me to.”
“It is a wise idea,” he said bluntly.
“But that doesn’t mean you wish it,” she insisted, hating she still hoped he might choose her over whatever shadow had overtaken his mind. “You don’t wish me to marry him.”
“Do not cling to that, Eloise,” he warned gently. “Just because I wish for what I cannot have doesn’t mean it will occur.”
“Why not?” she protested. “Look at me! I longed to be an opera singer, and here I am. We should always long for what we cannot have, because we can make it happen.”
She licked her lips and took a step forward, determined to try one last time. “St. John,” she urged. “Do not give up. Do not give up on your own happiness. You deserve love. You deserve so much more than you allow yourself. Let me give it to you.”
She looked at the man she loved, who was suffering. Who was making them both suffer. But she could not think ill of him.
“You’ve given me so much,” she said at last.
His hands fisted by his side, and he looked as if he might come apart with agony. “I appreciate your sentiments, Eloise, but there are things at work here that you do not–”
“Then, tell me,” she cut in, unwilling to indulge him. “Tell me.”
“I don’t know if I can put it into words,” he hesitated, the pain in his eyes undeniable, “what has made me the way I am, but I wish you to be happy.”
“No, you don’t,” she replied without mercy.
“Eloise!” he gasped.
“You don’t wish me to be happy. You wish to protect yourself.” She nodded to herself, understanding better than he could. “You say you wish to protect me, and I think that’s what you truly think you are doing. But in the end, St. John, you’re protecting yourself. You’re protecting yourself from the risk of love, and I will not lie to you about that. Now, you may go.”
He gaped at her, astonished by the power of her declaration. But then he bowed. “I wish you all the best, Eloise.”
“Wish me nothing,” she said, barely able to reply, but she held herself firm. “I make things happen in my life. I hope you shall do so one day, too.”
He inclined his head and left her yet again.
Chapter 22
“You came,” Stanley barked from the dark alley off Covent garden, behind the theater.
“It would seem so,” St. John drawled, in no humor for his friend.
“Not a total coward, then,” Stanley declared happily.
“I’ve never been a coward,” retorted St. John, glad to be out of the crowded theater, a place he usually adored.
Tonight it was abuzz for the woman he loved. . .
Damnation.
Yes, he did love her. He loved her strength. Her power. Her unwillingness to betray herself.
“You’ve been a coward since you left that girl at my party,” Stanley replied, puffing on a cheroot he had kept at his side.
“I ought to call you out,” said St. John.
“Go ahead.” Stanley blew smoke into the London night. “We both apparently have nothing to lose, except if we both get shot, which is quite possible, because we’re both excellent shots. But that young woman will be left to the wolves.”
He laughed dryly at Stanley’s mistake. It was the same mistake he’d made. Did all make it? He was beginning to think so, in their quests to be heroes. “That young lady is the wolf,” said St. John. “And I’m bloody glad.”
Stanley smiled. “True. I still have hop
e she’ll marry me. She’d make an excellent mother to a duke.”
“No, she wouldn’t. She loves to be upon the stage.”
“She loves you.” Stanley scowled. “You are too hung up on trifles. Love, my boy, love is the thing.”
“You are the only person in the town who seems to think so,” St. John bit out ruefully.
“Mayhap, but you are going to lose your one chance at it if you are not careful.”
“I already have,” St. John admitted, the words sticking in his throat.
Stanley gave him a hard stare as they headed to the performers’ entrance of the opera.
St. John frowned. “Are you really going to ask her to marry you tonight?”
“Again?” Stanley asked and drew upon his cheroot. “Yes, of course.” He blew out the smoke. “More importantly, are you going to ask her to marry you?”
“Don’t be absurd–”
“Wait,” Stanley cut in. “Is that not. . .?”
St. John’s gaze followed Stanley’s line of vision.
It was Eloise in a dark-gray cloak. Her disguise as Estella Cartwright still in place, she did not look at all like Eloise Eddington.
But he could never miss her. Not in any guise. “My God, where is she going?”
“I do not know that coach,” Stanley said, his voice hard. “Do you?”
“No,” he began before he choked. “Bloody hell, I do know.”
“Whose is it?” Stanley demanded.
St. John tried to make sense of it. “My solicitor’s.”
Stanley’s gaze lit with consternation and a hint of alarm. “Why the devil would she be getting into your solicitor’s coach?”
“I don’t know.”
Both of them looked at each other. Both of them looked back to the coach. Both of them knew exactly what had to be done.
“She’s bloody well being abducted.” Stanley growled.
“It has to be something else,” St. John protested. “It cannot be. . .”
“What?” Stanley roared. “She’s getting into a stranger’s coach in the middle of the night. That’s not like your Eloise.”
“She’s not my Eloise,” he insisted as he stared at that damn coach and the door shutting behind her.
But she was.
He could feel it pounding through his heart, his soul, his body.
Did she know whose coach she was getting into alone after a performance late at night?
And then his heart sank.
He had a terrible feeling that there was only one way she’d be induced into a coach like that by herself.
Someone had tricked her, and he had an even more terrible feeling that it was his solicitor. His solicitor, who had looked most disapproving when St. John had signed a veritable fortune over to Eloise Edginton, wallflower of the ton.
“We must go after her,” he grated.
“Indeed, we must,” Stanley agreed. “I’m going to murder whoever has done this.”
St. John strode out of the shadow and said over his shoulder, “You’ll have to wait your turn, Your Grace.”
Chapter 23
The old man, golden spectacles perched on his hooked nose, sitting across from her in the coach was most definitely not the Earl of Hollybrook.
The faint light of the single lamp revealed a stranger entirely.
She stared at the old man, holding her breath. His simple black coat, white cravat, and ill-fitting breeches bespoke of a man from a much simpler class than the earl’s.
“Who the devil are you?” she demanded even as she felt a jolt of alarm and humiliation. Of course St. John had not written to her, asking her to join him after her performance.
That knowledge stabbed like a knife, but she had more pressing concerns at present than her disappointment in love.
The man did not look the sort to abscond with her, but she’d learned recently that life was full of surprises, and she was not about to assume he didn’t have nefarious intentions.
She clutched her reticule, opening the mouth of it ever so slightly within the folds of her cloak.
The stranger lifted his wrinkled hand to his mouth and coughed. “I am Mr. Rutledge. I am the Earl of Hollybrook’s solicitor.”
“And what the blazes could you want with me?” she asked, her voice far too high for her own liking. “You lied to me. You forged a note to obtain my presence.”
He nodded, his white hair yellow in the dim light. “I did. And I am not sorry for it.”
“What is your intent?” she demanded.
The solicitor blew out a huffed breath. “The earl has not been himself for some time. He is a cad, miss, ’tis true.” The solicitor winced. “He always has been, but he has gone too far with you. Much too far.”
She studied the man, who looked quite appalled. “What ever are you saying?”
He sniffed, clutching his case on his lap. “You are not a Miss Estella Cartwright. You are Miss Eloise Edgington, and he has taken you away from your family. I find that I cannot stand by.”
He was rescuing her from ruin?
That’s what he thought he was doing?
She groaned inwardly.
“I beg your pardon?” she said, her hand sliding deeper into her reticule. He’d taken her into his keeping, and surely, he knew she was a triumph? Did he think Hollybrook had forced her to that?
The man’s lined brow grew positively creased as he rushed, his reedy voice piping, “I cannot stand by and watch him ruin a young lady from a decent family and thrust you so thoroughly into sin.”
He drew himself up, clearly reveling in his moral superiority to his master. “I fear it is too late, but I am taking you to your family so that your father can sort this situation out.”
Her heart skipped a panicked beat.
This was not something she was prepared for.
She should have been.
Was she to be cursed with men who insisted on interfering with her life or knowing what was best for her? It seemed so.
Still, she was not about to be thrust back into the bosom of her family this night and in such a way. No, she would not be brought back like an errant schoolgirl to be punished.
She was a woman.
Eloise forced herself to remain calm, having no idea just how unhinged the fellow might prove to be.
“I take into account that you think you are doing a good thing,” she replied tightly. “You are not. It was my will to be in the opera. It was my will to go with the Earl of Hollybrook. He did as I requested. And you, sir, are interfering.”
Red flushed his cheeks, and his mouth dropped open in horror. “You clearly do not know what is best for you. Most young ladies do not.”
“And you do?” she said.
“It would seem so, miss,” he declared, looking down his rather large nose at her. “And I thank goodness I am intervening now. Your father–”
“You will turn this coach around,” she ordered, refusing to listen another moment. “And you will take me back to the opera, where I will return to my friends.”
He snorted. “You will be returned to your father, as a young girl ought.”
“I am not a young girl,” she all but ground out, looking to the window, grateful the coach was in such a crush of traffic around the incredibly busy area just off Covent Garden. They were barely rolling at all.
She swung her gaze back to him and said clearly, “I am a woman of six and twenty, and I shall not be dictated to by a man such as yourself. By any man for that matter.”
He lifted his scraggly brows. “Indeed, you shall. I shall not hear another word of it.” Mr. Rutledge shook. “Having him set you up like that, like a mistress, having him put you upon the stage! A young, virginal creature from a decent family–”
“You do realize you are risking your career, sir?” she cut in. Had he lost his wits? Was he deaf and unable to hear her declare her own wishes?
Likely, he was simply deaf to any protestation of will by a woman.
“Yes,” h
e proclaimed, quite proud of himself. “But I find I can no longer be part of such indecency. I can only assume you were an innocent flower trodden.”
“Why are young ladies constantly compared to flowers?” she exclaimed, sliding her fingers deep into her reticule, feeling certain he was not going to relent. “I shall not put up with it another moment longer.”
“You shall,” he said.
“I shall not.” And with that, she whipped out the dagger she’d secured in her jeweled reticule.
Since the encounter with the marquis, she had not gone out again unprepared for a man who might not be willing to listen to her. “Now, heed me, sir. You may not think I am willing to treat you as a pincushion, but I promise you, such a thought would be a mistake. For, I shall not be imprisoned by two willful old men. I may love my father, but in this instance, he does not know what is best. And you certainly do not.”
He harrumphed as he laid eyes upon the flashing silver blade. “You cannot mean–”
“I do mean. Now, let me go.”
The old gentleman was clearly not prepared for her potentially violent nature, no doubt believing her to be the crushed flower of his imaginings.
And so, blinking, utterly aghast, he held perfectly still as she shoved the coach door open and jumped out of the rolling vehicle.
Luckily, they had barely gone from the opera.
When her slippered feet landed on the cobbles and she nearly tripped on her cloak, she was not afraid.
She did not have to worry about being overcome.
While this was not the best place for a lady alone, it was not the worst.
Quickly, eyes straight ahead, dagger concealed in her skirts, she began the short walk back through the packed area.
Hoisting her skirts with her free hand to keep the silk out of the muck, she did not give the old bugger a second glance.
It was then she spotted Hollybrook and Stanley, two towering figures running towards her.
They stopped, the three of them staring at each other.
Stunned.
All three were stunned at the strange meeting.
“You’re late,” she declared as soon as they stopped before her. “I assume you’re on your way to rescue me?”
