Lords of Honor-The Collection

by Christi Caldwell

He froze. His breath fanned her exposed skin. “You never what?” he asked on a husky whisper.

  “I never knew it could be like this.” Every coupling with her husband had been quick, awkward and perfunctory. There had been none of this soul-melting, mind-numbing bliss she knew with Lucien.

  He closed his lips over her nipple and a keening moan escaped her lips. Lucien worked the tender bud, worshiping it with his mouth, laving the tip until feeling drove her body alone. Logic ceased to exist. Propriety no longer mattered. Nothing but at last knowing Lucien and…the carriage swayed precariously.

  Eloise’s stomach lurched. She closed her eyes tightly willing away the queasiness. The driver hit another bump in the road. The contents of her stomach roiled. She scrambled off Lucien’s lap and concentrated on breathing once again.

  He eyed her through thick, black lashes. A tangible concern replaced the thick haze of desire within his gray depths from moments ago. Lucien ran a searching gaze over her face.

  Please do not be sick. Please do not be sick. Please do not be sick. Another bump. She swallowed several times.

  An understanding smile tugged at the corners of Lucien’s lips.

  “It is not amusing,” she bit out, those words costing her greatly. She slapped a hand over her mouth and then, by the grace of God, the urge to cast up the contents of her stomach passed.

  He shook his head. “I wouldn’t dare find humor in your distress, Ellie.”

  Her heart fluttered.

  “I do find your tendency to fall ill in a carriage a rather inconvenient interruption.”

  Eloise warmed, his meaning clear. She kicked him with the tip of her slipper. “Oh, do hush.” He bent and captured her small foot in his hand. She gulped and then the carriage jerked to a stop. Eloise pitched forward, toppling Lucien back and she landed on him in an indignant heap of satin skirts. Eloise scrambled off his lap just as her driver rapped on the carriage door. With quaking fingers, she righted the bodice of her gown.

  “We’ve arrived at an inn, my lady,” he shouted into the fierce storm. He opened the door and stinging rain and wind slashed through the entrance.

  Lucien leapt down effortlessly, giving no indication that he’d expertly caressed and kissed her until her thoughts jumbled and…

  “My lady?”

  She gave her head a clearing shake and reached for the driver’s hand just as Lucien stepped between them. Eloise accepted his proffered hand and stepped down. Her foot sank into a cold, muddied puddle and she wrinkled her nose, and then quickened her step to match his longer ones. The inn with a crooked wooden sign atop its door beckoned. Lucien shoved the door open and allowed her entry.

  The occupants of the full tavern looked as one to the intrusion. A small man, not much taller than her but three times as broad ambled over, little puffs indicating the exertion of his quickened steps. He bowed. “G—”

  Lucien spoke, interrupting him. “My lady requires rooms for the evening. Two of them,” he hurried to clarify.

  The man dabbed at his perspiring brow. “I would gladly provide you rooms.”

  Splend—

  “However, I’ve but the one, my lord,” the innkeeper explained with a regretful smile. He gestured to their sopping frames. “Seems a bit of rain draws the people into a good, comfortable, warm inn.” He laughed uproariously, as though he’d told a grand jest.

  “You misunderstand the situation,” Lucien said. He frowned and surveyed the crowded room of rough-looking men who still eyed them with wariness in their flinty eyes. “Perhaps you might find—”

  Eloise jammed her elbow into his side. “My husband,” she gave him a pointed look. “And I would welcome the room you do have available.”

  The man nodded, dislodging the sparse couple of black strands of oily hair slicked over his head. “Very well, my lady.” He inclined his head. “If you’ll follow me?” He started for the stairs.

  Lucien stood stock still. A muscle ticked in the corner of his eye.

  She cleared her throat. He was not pleased. Though, the taut set to his broad shoulders and hard glint in his eyes spoke at an emotion a good deal more powerful than displeasure. Fear, desire, and a panicky desperation flared to life within his eyes. “Lucien,” she began.

  And then with the utterance of his name, all hint of emotion was gone so she wondered if she’d merely willed those emotions into existence.

  The innkeeper stopped at the base of the stairs. He shot them a questioning look.

  Eloise cast a glance about. “You can’t very well sleep in the stables,” she said in hushed tones. An embarrassed heat fanned her cheeks at the curious stares they now earned.

  “I am not…”

  She placed her fingertips on his sleeve and tipped her chin up. “My lord?”

  When presented with the possibility of shrugging off Eloise’s touch and branding her a liar or allowing her to guide them up the stairs to the lone room in the inn, Lucien erred on the side of the latter.

  For all his fury with her interference, her bold lie and the scandal that would be attached to a widow taking a room with the marquess’ butler, he’d not see her humiliated. So, he followed. Tension radiated through his being. They’d once been friends. Friends who’d swam together in the frigid lake upon his father’s property. They turned down the corridor, following silently behind the innkeeper. He’d merely be sharing close quarters, the same quarters, with the Ellie of his past. The girl with a cheeky smile and tenacious spirit and…

  The innkeeper pressed the door handle and motioned them inside.

  And now a bed. His gaze fixed on the wide, surprisingly tidy, feathered bed with crisp, white linens and a floral coverlet.

  Eloise removed her hand from his sleeve and entered the chambers. She walked a small circle about the room, taking it in silently. Then, she favored the innkeeper with a smile. “Thank you, Mr…?”

  “Rooney,” he supplied quickly. His cheeks turned pink and he eyed her with a mooncalf expression.

  “Mr. Rooney.” She widened her smile. “Thank you for your assistance.”

  Did the older man sigh?

  Lucien balled his hand into a fist, detesting her impact on men. When did little Eloise learn to smile like…like…that? As though a man was the only one in the room. A seductive smile that reminded him very clearly that she might still possess the cheeky smile and tenacious spirit but was no longer a girl. Had one of those scoundrels vying for a place in her bed schooled her on such lessons? “That will be all,” he snapped.

  Mr. Rooney jumped and, with an incoherent mutter, tripped over his own feet in his haste to take his leave.

  Eloise’s smile faded and it was like a cloud had blotted out the sun. “I do not like this side of you, Lucien,” she said, as though she were scolding a child.

  He took a step toward her. “And which side is that, Eloise?” he said on a lethal whisper.

  She retreated. “The angry one.” She slashed the air with a hand. “The gentleman who now speaks like…like…”

  He advanced. “Like what?”

  “Like a man who was not raised as though he’s a viscount’s son.”

  Lucien paused before her. Their knees brushed. “And it matters so much to you that I’m no longer that viscount’s son?”

  Eloise craned her head back to look at him. “You will always be the viscount’s son. You may take on the position of stable hand, footman, or butler but you will always be a gentleman.”

  He wanted to spit scathing words at her. Taunt her for daring to believe he could ever be Mr. Lucien Jonas, the third son of an affluent viscount. End whatever foolish pull that existed between them.

  Only…he took a step away. He turned and stared blankly at the window. For five years, the ultimate revenge, the only revenge, he’d had against his father, insistent on that commission, was Lucien’s rejection of his family. He’d returned from war and turned his back on his family, his lineage, and the role of gentleman. Not realizing until this very moment with El
oise’s words that his was a hollow victory. The work he’d taken on, though honorable and sure to infuriate his father, would never bring Sara back.

  Lucien called forth her face. He squeezed his eyes tight and tried to draw in an image he’d carried in his heart and mind for almost six years, a visage that wouldn’t come. Instead, tightly coiled, blonde curls, a blue-green stare, and a slender frame flooded his mind.

  Eloise touched his shoulder.

  He jumped. His heart thumped hard and fast in his chest as panic besieged his senses.

  “What is it, Lucien?” Her husky voice wrapped around those four words.

  Lucien shook his head and started for the door.

  A rustle of skirts and the soft shuffle of slippered feet filled the quiet space. Eloise placed herself between him and the door, blocking his escape. “No.” He took a step right. She matched his step. “I said no. You don’t simply get to run away.” Again.

  “Is that what you believe I’ve done?”

  She arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t it?”

  “You don’t know a bloody thing about it.” He strode around her.

  “For someone who is a friend, you certainly have a low opinion of me,” she called out, staying his hand. “You consider me weak. You believe I don’t know the first thing to Sunday about struggle. You believe I haven’t faced tragedy and why?” Her voice hitched. “Because I didn’t go off to fight a war, Lucien? I lost, too, in life.”

  Her words had the same effect as a lance being driven through his heart and the muscles of his stomach contracted under the weight of her admission. She spoke, clearly interpreting his tense silence for condemnation. “But if I allow myself to dwell on the unfairness of it all, it would drown me and I deserve more.”

  She did. She deserved so much more.

  “And you deserve more, too,” she finished, her words so faint he strained to hear.

  Lucien focused on the ping of rain slapping the leaded windowpane and the creak of the floorboards as Eloise shifted on her feet. Those innocuous sounds prevented him from thinking about his own loss, but on everything she’d suffered, all the loss she’d known. Agony turned in his belly and he nearly cracked under the weight of that pain. The girl Eloise had been and the woman she’d become deserved more than a tragic, empty, lonely existence. That fate was reserved for cold-hearted bastards who did things in the name of battle and were consigned to hell for those sins—men like Lucien and so many others. But not Ellie. Ellie was good and pure and worthy in ways he never would be.

  “I have to go,” he said, his voice hoarse. Without a backward glance, he left.

  Chapter 17

  Eloise stared at the untouched tray of food brought up earlier that evening by a pretty, blonde serving woman. Not her husband. Or at least her pretend husband, anyway.

  No, Lucien had hightailed it out of their room and disappeared. The moments had ticked by. The storm eventually broke with the faintest traces of sunlight slanting through the gray, storm clouds. Eventually, the night sky drove back all hint of day…and he still did not come.

  She lay down and looked up at the plaster ceiling. Faint chips marred the paint. With a sigh, Eloise flung her forearm over her brow, blotting out her view of the depressing ceiling. And why should he return? One, she was not his wife and he protected both his position with the marquess and her reputation lest he share her room and word of that reached others. Two, he resented her for interfering in his familial relationships. She turned onto her side and stared out at the night sky. Three, he no longer liked her. Her lips twisted. Oh, he liked her enough to kiss her to silence as he was now wont to do, but a kiss borne of annoyance was not love. It wasn’t even a polite regard.

  Eloise chewed at her lower lip. And he would like her a good deal less if he discovered she’d failed Sara. What would he think of Eloise then?

  Lucien was a man who loved with a grand depth but was also given to other emotions with a like intensity. The antipathy he carried for his father, the resentment he bore for his brothers, her… She swallowed past a ball of emotion clogging her throat. It was an inevitability. He’d ultimately learn the truth and Lucien, that man of great passions, would never be able to separate her from that heartbreaking loss he’d suffered.

  Eloise would slice off her littlest fingers if she could have him see her as more than little Ellie Gage. But in having spent those final, sorrowful days with the one and only woman who would ever truly hold his heart, nothing more could ever come of her and Lucien. And likely now, not even a friendship. In her, he would forever see the woman who failed to save his wife and child, and be forever reminded of that loss.

  Eloise blinked back the useless tears that blurred her vision. She grabbed the coverlet and dabbed at the corners of her eyes where the blasted drops had squeezed out.

  The click of the door handle blared like the flare of a pistol. She froze. The door closed once more and then the click of a lock. In the time she’d spent with Lucien since she’d found him in London, she’d already come to identity the stealthy, graceful steps of one so tall. He strode over to the bed and she pressed her eyes closed feigning sleep. She drew in slow, even breaths.

  Lucien froze at the edge of the bed and remained rooted to the spot. He stood so long that Eloise’s body ached from holding herself immobile under his scrutiny. She remembered to maintain a slow, even cadence of her breathing. Seconds? Minutes? Hours later, the floor creaked in protest as he lay down. Eloise stared unblinking at the opposite side of the wall. He’d come.

  Granted, he intended to sleep on the cold floor without a blanket or pillow and—

  “I know you aren’t asleep, Ellie.”

  She jumped. Without a word, she grabbed the pillow beside her and dropped it over the edge of the bed, hitting him in the face. “Oomph.” She heaved the coverlet over the side of the bed. It landed with a thump on his chest.

  “You’re angry with me.”

  Eloise screwed up her mouth. She was angry that he was angry; at life, his family, her. She grabbed her own pillow and dropped it on his head.

  He sighed.

  She flipped back over onto her side, knowing she was being a petulant child, and really wished she hadn’t given over her own pillow as well. The lout.

  Lucien tossed the white, feathered pillow back onto the bed. It hit her in the cheek and bounced several inches, nearly falling off the bed. “Would you care to talk of it?”

  Now? Now he’d speak of it? She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from reminding him that he’d dashed off, also like a petulant child. “There is nothing to say,” she said automatically.

  “Would you have me ruin your reputation?” he shot back. His tone hinted at annoyance over her dismissal.

  Eloise flipped back onto her side and leaned over the side of the bed. “I’m a world-wary widow, Lucien. I can’t be ruined.”

  “You know that’s not true,” he said, shoving himself up onto his elbow. “You’re susceptible to gossip, my lady.”

  Her gaze was involuntarily drawn to the empty space his arm had once been. Odd, he moved with such grace, elegance, and confidence that she often forgot he’d lost one of those precious limbs. Eloise sat up. She drew her knees close to her chest and folded her arms about her legs. “I have loved you longer than I remember, Lucien, and yet, for all the years I’ve known you, you’ve always infuriated me. You are stubborn and obstinate—”

  “They mean the same thing,” he pointed out unnecessarily.

  “But you never pushed anyone away, until you returned…” From the war. She let the thought go unfinished. She knew nothing of war or what men were forced to do or be on those battlefields but imagined those experiences were indelibly burned on each soldier’s memory. “Until you returned,” she repeated softly, to herself. Perhaps the demons he now hid from were not her, the viscount, his brothers, not even Sara. Perhaps he hid from the life he’d lived while away from them all. She rubbed her chin back and forth over the tops of her knees. “Have yo
u missed them?”

  He sat up and mimicked her pose, drawing his knees against his chest. “Them?”

  Eloise pointed her eyes at the ceiling. “Do not pretend to misunderstand.” She inched closer to the side of the bed. “Your brothers.” She took care to omit mention of his father. “They’ve thought of you often.”

  “Have they?” he inquired, his tone non-committal.

  “There’s not been a time I’ve seen them when they’ve not mentioned your name.”

  The darkening of his eyes, however, indicated anything but regard for his loving, loyal brothers. “You’ve seen them often?” he asked gruffly.

  She nodded. “They were there when I made my Come Out.” She slid her gaze away. “And when my father died and then my husband.” They’d also been there to see her cared for after she’d fallen ill tending to Sara and his son. The finest physician had been sent at the viscount’s bequest, the original family doctor sacked after Sara succumbed to fever.

  “I’m sorry.” His voice, still scratchy as if from ill use, penetrated her thoughts.

  She lifted her shoulders in a little shrug. “It’s—”

  Lucien stood and claimed a spot on the edge of the bed. The feather mattress dipped under his weight. “For not being there,” he said. “I should have been there.”

  Their legs brushed and she glanced down at his thick, well-muscled leg pressed against her more delicate one. How very different this powerful, imposing man was than the boy of her youth. “Yes,” she whispered. “You should have been there.” Suddenly those words, a freeing admission gave her strength. “I do not begrudge you for loving Sara. But I was a friend to you and you simply forgot me.” His skin turned an ashen gray, but she’d not allow guilt to stifle the flow of her words. “I needed you, Lucien. You were my friend…and you would have chosen death over me?” If it hadn’t been for the marchioness, he would have. Eloise would be forever indebted to the other woman, but she’d always be hurt that she herself had meant so little to him.

  He caressed her cheek. “There are far too many things in my life I’ve done that I’m not proud of.” Lucien ran his gaze over her face. “But having turned away from you, when you needed me, that has to be one of my greatest offenses.” He brushed his thumb over her lower lip, that simple touch scorching.