“Not even for your daughter’s sake?”
She stilled.
“Ah, I see I have your attention now.”
And he did. God help her, just like that, with the mere mention of her daughter he’d reclaimed ownership of this meeting.
“Tell me, how will Society feel about a fickle young woman who seduced me, stole my heart, and then made off with my child, only to foist that bastard off on a war soldier?” He tossed his head back and laughed. “Then, isn’t that what makes this all so delicious? Why, when searching turns up that there never was a Mr. Collins and you lied…” It would only cast aspersions upon her character.
His threat sucked the air from the room. Eleanor remained unmoving and he may as well have run her through with a dull rapier. Her entire body jerked from the shock and pain of his dangled threat. She shook her head furiously. “You would not…”
“I would,” he said, flicking an imagined piece of lint from his sapphire coat sleeve. “Quite happily. The ton would find tales of a merchant’s daughter who gave herself to me years ago and left with my heart when she found I had no wealth to my name quite scintillating, no? More so when that schemer returned and seduced the plump in the pockets viscount.” He grinned that evil, empty smile. “Of course, you could not have simply married the viscount all those years ago when you were carrying my bastard, but now you returned to work your wiles.” She recoiled. “Why, imagine the scandal.” He tapped a finger against the side of his mouth. “Well, I expect Society will applaud me for taking my daughter back from such a woman.”
Eleanor bit the inside of her cheek so hard she drew blood and the metallic taste of it nearly gagged her. “She is not your d-daughter,” she said, weakly.
The marquess’ renewed laughter indicated he’d detected that pregnant pause. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. But the Hamilton birthmark is a quite interesting piece to the girl’s paternal puzzle.” He quirked a dark brown eyebrow.
The same man who’d stolen her innocence would so easily shatter the carefully constructed world she’d built for her…for Marcia—for the two of them together. All the dreams breathed into possibility two evenings prior, flickered like the spark of a candle and then went out. Eleanor would sacrifice everything and anything to be with Marcus—everything, except her daughter. “What do you want?” she whispered.
“I want you to leave,” he said bluntly, all traces of his earlier levity now gone. “I want you to take your daughter and go wherever it is you’ve lived and allow my sister Lord Wessex and his fifty thousand pounds.”
She gripped the edge of the sofa, seeking purchase in the soft fabric. “I have money.” The words tore out of her, desperate and quaking. “Ten thousand pounds.” Or she would.
“I need more than your paltry ten thousand pounds.” Paltry? It was a fortune that would last her the course of her life. Then should anything surprise her where this reprobate was concerned? He peeled his lip back. “Furthermore, I will acquire much more in a marriage settlement between my sister and the viscount.”
There was a finality to that pronouncement that the marquess wanted her to break Marcus’ heart once more. How could she walk out of his life again? What would her world be without him in it? A sheen of tears misted her eyes and she damned the useless signs of weakness. In this moment, she proved herself the ultimate selfish creature and the worst kind of mother. For she wanted to spit in the face of the marquess’ threat and risk all for Marcus. She made another appeal. “He does not love her.” The futility of pleading with a monster registered and, yet, surely there was a shred of something decent within him that would allow Eleanor this one piece of happiness.
“It does not matter if he loves her,” Lord Atbrooke said with a sneer. “He desires her. And when you betray him again, my sister will serve as the perfect diversion.”
Oh, God. Her stomach pitched with nausea. How could she give Marcus up, knowing that one day another would take her place? Mayhap it would be Lady Marianne or mayhap not. But it was, as her aunt said…if Eleanor left him…this time he would move on and find another.
She slid her gaze away from the man who’d robbed her of everything that was her right—her virtue, her happiness, Marcus, her future. How very crushing. To come so very close to the greatest joy she’d thought herself undeserving of for so long and to have it crushed within this man’s cruel hands. Eleanor looked to the marquess. “I will leave.” Did that flat, hollow assurance belong to her?
Lord Atbrooke yanked off his gloves and beat them together. “You may return to London, but only after the viscount has wed my sister.” He inclined his head. “I am glad you see the wisdom in this course, Mrs. Collins.” Then, touching his fingertips to the edge of an imagined hat, he took his leave, shattering her world once more.
Eleanor stood there long after he’d left. When nothing remained in the room but the sound of her own ragged breathing and her heartbeat filling her ears, she let loose the sob she’d kept buried.
“What did that one want?”
Eleanor shrieked and slammed her hand against her chest. “Aunt Dorothea,” she managed on an exhalation of air. “I did not hear you.”
The duchess entered the room with her pugs trailing faithfully at her heels. She pushed the door closed with the tip of her cane. “Well?” her aunt demanded gruffly.
Of course her aunt would know of Lord Atbrooke’s visit. With her loyal staff, the woman knew of all of what went on. All except that which had sent Eleanor fleeing. Satin scratched at her skirts and, welcoming the diversion, she dropped into the nearest chair. She scooped Satin up onto her lap and welcomed the heavy reassurance of the snorting, panting dog. “Lord Atbrooke paid me a visit,” she settled for when her aunt leveled her with a demanding stare.
Her aunt snorted. “I know. Your daughter came to see me. She isn’t happy with you for sending her away when you were being visited. By a friend.”
Oh, God. Marcia and her dratted tongue. Her mind raced. What else had her daughter shared? The birthmark upon her wrist that matched the marquess’?
The duchess blazed across the room and settled unceremoniously into the seat across from Eleanor. Devlin hopped atop her lap and her aunt stroked him between the ears. “I cannot tell, gel, whether you are being deliberately obtuse or whether you take me for a lackwit.”
As neither were really a favorable option, Eleanor remained silent.
“Was it him?”
Eleanor stiffened.
Her aunt rapped her on the knuckles. “That sent you running all those years ago? Was it him?”
Her mouth went dry as the duchess tiptoed around the darkest secrets she’d kept from all. “I do not know what you mean.” How were those words so casual and steady when she was quaking inside?
The duchess leaned close and peered at her. “So it was.” Of course she’d always seen more than even Eleanor herself, sometimes.
“I have to leave,” she said quietly.
The woman gaped. “Leave?”
“I have fulfilled the terms of Uncle’s list and I wish to return to Cornwall.”
“No one wishes to return to Cornwall,” her aunt barked.
Leaning forward, Eleanor covered her aunt’s hand with her own. “I am going to miss you, Aunt Dorothea.”
Tears filled the older woman’s eyes and she swatted at them. “Bah, I am getting weak in my old age. You are driving me to these silly tears.” She gave Eleanor a watery frown and then patted her cheeks. “Is it because of him?”
It was because of Marcia. And Eleanor. And her sanity. “It is because of me,” she settled for.
Her aunt gave her a long, hard look. “You have spent your days running, Eleanor Elaine Carlyle. You have convinced yourself time and time again that it is safer to hide from your past.”
Unable to meet the rebuke in the older woman’s eyes, Eleanor glanced down at her lap. The duchess touched her wrinkled fingers to Eleanor’s chin, forcing her attention up. “You may be safe. You may feel a sense of
security in removing yourself from the living. But you will never be happy, Eleanor.” Tears clogged Eleanor’s throat. “I suspect you know that, gel, because you’ve not been truly happy these years.” The duchess tightened her mouth. “And you won’t be happy when you leave Marcus, again.”
The pointed look she trained on her was full of such recrimination and disappointment that Eleanor slid her gaze away. “I must leave,” she finally managed. She sucked in a shuddery breath. “If it was only about me…” Eleanor gave her head a shake. “But it is not.”
It was about Marcia.
The truth hovered in the air between them. “Will you allow me your carriage?”
“Bah,” her aunt slashed her hand through the air and the dog on her lap growled in protest. “Do you think I’d send you away on a mail coach?”
The meaning there brought heat to Eleanor’s face. All those years ago, she’d taken herself off without even a goodbye. “I wanted to bid you farewell,” she said when she trusted herself to speak. It was why she would give her loyal aunt, the proper farewell now. “I—”
“It does not matter, Eleanor.” She squeezed Eleanor’s hand in her old, wrinkled fingers. “All these years, you’ve worried about Society’s whispers and opinions of you, when ultimately, you should realize all that matters is your own happiness. If you can find that, then the ton can all go hang.” She released Eleanor’s fingers. “Regardless, my carriage is yours. And whatever else you’d take.”
Eleanor stroked Satin’s back. Unfortunately, what her aunt could not realize is that this was not really about Eleanor. Not any longer.
This was about Marcia.
There was no choice but to leave.
Chapter 20
“I am getting married.”
Shocked silence met Marcus’ pronouncement. He stared wryly at mother and daughter, perched on the leather button sofa with their mouths rounded and eyes flared.
Lizzie was the first to break the impasse. She surged to her feet and raced across the room. “Oh, Marcus!”
“Oomph.” He staggered under the weight of her form knocking into him.
“Marianne will make you a splendid wife. She has loved you since your first waltz and after the broken heart you suffered years earlier, you deserve nothing but happiness and love.”
Marianne? He set Lizzie away. “Er… I am not marrying Lady Marianne.”
Marcus may as well have announced the sky was falling on London for the shock in Lizzie’s eyes. “You aren’t?”
He looked over her shoulder, to where his mother sat primly, hands folded on her lap, and a pleased smile on her lips. “I suspect Marcus intends to offer for Mrs. Collins.” Then, catching his eye, she gave him a wink.
He started. How much had his mother seen through the years that he himself had failed to see?
Lizzie furrowed her brow. “Mrs. Collins?”
Marcus continued his earlier path over to the sideboard. “Indeed.” A surge of warmth filled his heart. “I have already asked the lady and she has acquiesced.”
His mother clasped her hands to her chest and, with an uncharacteristic zeal, surged to her feet. “Oh, Marcus!”
Lizzie whipped her head back and forth between mother and son. “What?”
The pleased tones of his mother, Viscountess Wessex, and the disappointed, shocked ones of his sister warred for supremacy. “I have offered for Mrs. Collins and she has said yes.”
His sister emitted a plaintive wail. “Oh, Marcus, surely not.” From where he stood at the sideboard, Marcus turned a frown on Lizzie.
“I love her,” he said plainly.
“I once heard mother and the Duchess speaking about your broken heart. It was Mrs. Collins, wasn’t it?”
He hooded his eyes. “Lizzie, not everything is always as clear as it seems.”
His sister slammed the back of one hand against her palm. “That woman has hurt you, broken your heart, and you would give yourself to her?” She tightened her lips. Marcus halted, with his hand poised over the decanter. In all his imaginings of how Eleanor would be received by his family, he’d never dared consider his loyal, loving, and stubborn sister would hold Eleanor guilty of whispered tales from long ago.
“Lizzie,” their mother scolded. She rushed past her daughter and took Marcus’ hands. “I am so very happy for you, Marcus. You have loved her for so very long and you were not the same man when she left. When the duchess said she would return, I had hoped…” A blush filled her cheeks and she promptly closed her mouth.
The ghost of a smile played on his lips. Ah, both her doting aunt and his determined mama had carefully orchestrated so much of Eleanor’s return.
In a temper, Lizzie stamped her foot. “He was not the same because she broke his heart.”
Looking over his mother’s shoulder, Marcus glowered at his sister. “I appreciate your loyalty, but you do not know anything of it.” Just as he’d known nothing about anything over the years. While Lizzie saw the surface of what she believed to be the truth, there were layers to Eleanor’s departure that could never be explained. Those secrets belonged to her, and him, and someday Marcia—but no other. He grabbed a decanter of fine French brandy—and froze.
…He stank of brandy…
The bottle slipped from his hands and clattered noisily to the smooth mahogany piece.
Lizzie stuck a finger out. “Marianne has held out hope that you would marry her because she loves you.”
He winced. Good God, is that what his innocent sister believed? Lady Marianne, with her thinly veiled innuendos, had clear designs on him that were anything but proper and polite.
Their mother passed a look between her children. “I would not have either of my children wed where their hearts are not engaged.”
Lizzie made a sound of impatience. “Well, I would not have him wed where his heart was already broken.”
Grabbing for a bottle of whiskey, he poured himself a glass. His sister had always been blindly loyal—to her family, to the few friends she’d known…but it was that blindness and her youth that prevented her from seeing that there were often layers to a person that went far beneath the surface. “I am touched by your concern, Lizzie,” he began patiently.
“Do not patronize me,” she gritted out.
He sighed and took a long swallow of his drink. “But I am marrying her. She is a good woman and a wonderful mother. We were parted by…” He searched his mind, but that black, blinding rage slipped around his mind. “A misunderstanding,” he settled for.
“I want you to be happy, Marcus,” she began.
“Good, I am.”
His sister turned her palms up. “But I cannot be happy for you. Not even in this.” Her mouth tightened. “If you’ll excuse me?” Without another word, Lizzie marched from the room and slammed the door in her wake.
Marcus dragged a hand over his face. Had he inadvertently allowed Lady Marianne to believe his intentions were something more?
“She is just disappointed, Marcus,” his mother said to calm him, slashing into his contemplation. “She will come around when she knows Eleanor the way you and I do.”
He nodded absently and carried his drink over to the window. The rub of it was if he could rid the world of hurts and bring Eleanor nothing but joy, he would. And yet, he could not. There would invariably be whispers and unkind words and cruelties that he would be just as helpless to protect her from. Even from his own sister.
From within the windowpane, he detected his mother as she walked over. She paused just at his shoulder. “You have loved her for a very long time.”
His gaze fell to the streets below. Since the moment she’d stepped out of her aunt’s townhouse and he’ been standing there, he had loved her. “I have,” he said quietly. First, with the simplicity of youth. When his world had been darkened by the death of Lionel, she had represented light and happiness and purity. The young woman that she’d been had dragged him from the pit of despair and shown him that there were, indeed, reaso
ns to again laugh and smile. The woman who’d reentered his life almost eight years later came with maturity and strength and courage that made him fall in love with her all over again. His heart would forever belong to her.
His mother settled a hand on his arm and he started. “Lizzie is young. In time, she will come to love Eleanor.”
Marcus opened his mouth but the words froze on his lips. He squinted, trying to make sense of the visitor exiting the Duchess of Devonshire’s townhouse.
“What is it?” his mother prodded.
He gave his head a shake, instead focusing on the Marquess of Atbrooke. What business did the man have there?
His mother peered around Marcus’ shoulder. “What would Atbrooke be visiting Mrs. Collins for?”
Her befuddlement echoed his own. “I do not know,” he muttered. For there was no doubt the man was paying a visit to Eleanor. No one paid the duchess a call unless they were summoned, or a lifelong friend, of which the older woman had one—Marcus’ mother.
Lady Marianne’s notoriously caddish brother was deep in dun territory. Did he think to find his fortune at the Duchess of Devonshire’s doorstep?
“You do not suppose he is hunting Eleanor’s fortune?” she asked, those words spoken more to herself, a mirror of his own thoughts.
“I do not know,” he repeated. Then her words registered, momentarily pulling his gaze away from the gentleman below.
“Oh, come, Marcus,” his mother scoffed. “Do you truly believe with the friendship I have with Dorothea that I’d not be aware of the funds laid out for her niece?”
“I do not want Lizzie visiting Lady Marianne,” he said, never taking his gaze from Atbrooke, who adjusted his hat, and then with a singular focus on the midnight black mount across the street, bounded for that creature. He stared after Atbrooke until he rode off. Turning on his heel, Marcus stepped adroitly around his mother.
“Do I even have to inquire as to where you are going?” she called, amusement coating her query.
Marcus did not break his stride. “You do not.”
A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle Page 25
