“Eleanor, you must know by now. Isn’t it apparent in all I do? As unfashionable as it is, I am a man in love with his wife. I count no cost too great to ensure your dreams come true.” His eyes searched her face. “Please tell me my sentiments are not unwelcome for I am hopelessly and irrevocably in love with you.”
She stood for a moment, stunned, as one shattered dream was supplanted by the sudden realization of another—one even more desperately longed for.
She’d been silent too long, for his hopeful expression faded and his face became a mask devoid of all expression. She made haste to recover lost ground and shook her head rapidly, removing her hand from his to lay her bare palm in a caress against his cheek.
“No. Oh…no, never unwelcome.” Incredulous joy choked her throat and made speaking difficult. Her words emerged garbled, and she cleared her throat to speak more clearly. “Quite the opposite. Your sentiments are dearly welcomed.”
She tasted the salt of uncontrollable tears on her lips when she stuttered in a husky rasp, “As anyone who has e-even a pa-passing acquaintance with me will tell you, I’ve never given a f-f-fig for being fashionable, and I have been yours from the moment you t-t-tipped your ha-hat to me at Tatter-sa-salls.” She hiccupped emotional sobs as more tears flooded her cheeks. “Oh, M-Miles … I’ve been s-so very afraid you c-could ne-never love me.” Try as she might, Eleanor could not temper her highly wrought emotions.
Her beloved gazed down at her, his eyes full of kindness. “Such an unnecessary fear, dearest, for I find you eminently lovable.” His knuckles and then his thumb caught the fat tears that welled from her eyes. “I never spoke because I thought to spare you the burden of my unwanted sentiments.”
Beaming a wobbly smile at him, she struggled ferociously to restrain her graceless, noisy hitches of breath and slow the dribble of tears down her face, but it was a fruitless venture. Whether it was the crushing disappointment of pulling her certain winner from the Derby or the unmitigated joy of hearing words of love spoken to her that she’d never thought to hear—or perhaps some combination of the two—emotion thoroughly overset Eleanor, and her body trembled with the violence of it. At the moment when she so desperately longed to be at her most appealing, she stood in front of the man she loved so very dearly and shuddered and hiccupped and laughed and leaked like some demented watering pot. With a wordless shrug of her shoulders, she gazed at her beloved and rolled her eyes, sharing her chagrin at her inability to compose herself.
Miles regarded her tenderly, reached into his coat and offered her his handkerchief.
With a watery laugh, she took his offering, swiped vigorously at the tears she couldn’t seem to check and then blew her nose. “I have never mastered the knack of crying daintily. I must owe you at least a dozen of these by now.” She grinned at him through blurred vision. “I love you so very, very much,” she said, through a mix of half-checked sobs and laughter. “I must, for you are the only male of my acquaintance who regularly reduces me to ungoverned tears. Not even my father has such authority over my heart.”
The next she knew, strong arms crushed her to Miles’ hard chest, his firm hand cupped her chin and tilted her face upward, and his mouth descended on hers in a demonstration of his love that swept her from her present surroundings into the oblivion of physical desire that he’d schooled her in so well. Her bare hands clutched at the lapels of his tailored coat and clung for life as Miles rained kisses on her mouth, her face, and began to work his way down the long column of her bare neck accompanied by her whispered encouragement. His hat became dislodged and fell into the straw but neither of them moved to recover it.
A loud harrumph brought both of them back to a sense of time and place. They each gasped for breath as if they had been the runners on the race course. One glance over Miles’ shoulder revealed Jemmy standing at the open stall door holding standing bandages and a lidded pottery crock while staring at the ground as if he wished it would swallow him up.
Miles put her away from him gently, straightened the lapels of his frock coat where she’d pulled them awry, returned an errant lock of her hair to behind her ear, resituated her hat and did up several buttons at the bodice of her day dress that had mysteriously come unfastened.
With a diffident smile, she straightened and smoothed his cravat.
“Lord Miles, my lady, pardon me, but Mr. Fedder directed me to poultice and wrap my girl’s legs. He’ll skin me raw if it ain’t done immediate and proper like.”
“Of course. If you’d give us a private moment?”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, my lord.”
Miles bent and retrieved his hat and brushed the straw from it before snugging it on his head. He gazed at her with such open warmth that Eleanor wondered at her blindness for not having seen for herself how he felt.
He held his arms out. “Come here, dearest love.”
She went to him immediately, and he enveloped her in a hug. Eleanor lay her head on his shoulder and snuggled into him. Only one issue stood in the way of her abandonment to total joy. “What about Lord Edmund, Miles? I am very afraid for him. I do hope your brother will return unscathed with your Mr. Allen and Mr. Morgan.”
“I share your concern, dearest, but we will know something within the next hour or so. Ned is a competent marksman and not bad with his fists. Unless outnumbered again, he is fully capable of defending himself.” Miles’ chest rose and fell as he took a deep breath. “One can only hope the villains are too busy counting the money they won today to guard their captives.”
“I want to help. What can I do?”
“Eleanor,” he growled. He pushed her away just enough to look her in the eyes. “By God, you have done enough. The thought of you in harm’s way is intolerable.” His manner softened, and he pulled her to him again. “I would dearly love a respite from my thoughts for the next hour or so. I believe you had a small dinner planned in the Rutledge box with Lady Florence, Baron Stanton, and Lady Mary. Should we go find them? They might be just the diversion I need.”
“Poor Florence. I quite abandoned her.” Eleanor tightened her arms around her husband and nodded. “Yes, let’s find our guests. Besides, we shouldn’t embarrass Jemmy any further.”
Miles’ chest vibrated with rueful laughter. “So far, we have scandalized the downstairs footmen in the library, the upstairs maids, your father and mother and now young Jemmy. Suggestions for who should be next?”
“Father and Mother? Whenever did we scandalize them?”
Miles simply chuckled. She never did get him to tell her.
“The Eleanor that left this box in search of her husband is not the same Eleanor who returned. Whatever happened to you when you left, I wish it would happen to me, for despite the disappointment of an injury to your filly and having to scratch her from the race, I have never seen a person in such a state of elevated bliss as you.” Lady Florence gave a soft snort. “Considering the adoring looks you and Lord Miles have been exchanging for the past hour, I very much suspect I know.” Lady Florence delicately sipped her champagne punch while examining the cold buffet in front of her. “Wherever did you find pineapple at this time of year?”
Only listening with half an ear, Eleanor tore her eyes away from where her husband stood conversing with Baron Stanton and his wife and turned her attention to her dearest friend. Lady Florence immediately ceased her inspection of the pineapple slices.
“Indeed, I am not the same Eleanor. So filled am I with joy and lightness of spirit, I feel like one of those colossal observation balloons you see at ascensions. If I start to float away, please grab me, else I drift into the clouds.” Eleanor put fingers to her lips and shook her head. “I can hardly credit it, Florence. Miles declared his love for me.”
“Finally! Were we not in such a public venue, I would cheer and dance a jig. I am so very glad for you, dearest. No one deserves happiness more than you.” Florence’s tone of voice changed, and she chided Eleanor with a slight frown. “Since the two of you arrived in L
ondon, there were moments when you gazed upon Lord Miles with such hopeless yearning it has been all I could do not to seize your shoulders, shake you and demand you recognize what was before your very nose. The man adores you.”
Eleanor became thoughtful. “I have been blind, haven’t I? When last at Fairwood, the Dowager Duchess asserted with confidence that Miles loved me, and I wanted it to be true so fiercely I was afraid to believe her. I have steadfastly refused to examine our dealings together lest they prove the Dowager Duchess’ assertion false.” Bemusement colored her expression. “Upon further reflection, Miles has ever treated me with the most tender consideration and has regularly put his own purposes at disadvantage to forward my interests.” A besotted smile grew as her thoughts once more dwelt on her husband. Husband. Was there ever such a wonderful word as that? Never taking her gaze from the source of her enthrallment, she murmured, “Florence…I do not deserve him.”
Florence made a rude noise and rolled her eyes. “Such saccharine drivel is hard to endure. I had always held you to be such a practical woman.” Florence stabbed a piece of pineapple as if it offended her and flopped it onto her plate. “I pray the good Lord spare me from the affliction of love if it turns a sensible woman such as you into a beetle-headed goose.” Florence turned an admonishing glare on Eleanor. “He is the lucky one. In your person, he is getting a jewel beyond price and don’t you forget it.”
She sniffed and pulled herself erect, directing an unwavering glare at Eleanor, but then her ire collapsed. “Please, dearest... pay no attention to my graceless comments. Love has never left its calling card at my door, and I am beset by the green-eyed monster of envy. Just once in my life, I should like to be so adored as you, though when I consider those gentlemen whose adoration I should welcome… well, it is quite disheartening for there are none.” She cleared her throat awkwardly and continued in brisk tones. “Now, tell me. Where does one get pineapple in June?”
Eleanor opened her mouth to reply to Lady Florence but gave a glad cry when, with a determined step, Ned walked into the owner’s box accompanied by two men dressed in serviceable but plain clothing.
She flew to him and pulled him aside, examining him frantically from head to toe.
“I am quite in one piece, Elle. Cease and desist with your fondling of my person or I shall be in more physical danger from my brother than ever I was from those thugs.”
She growled at him but did stop running her hands over his extremities and patting his body. “You have caused me a great deal of worry, you wretched boy. I am quite put out with you.” She crossed her arms over her breasts and scowled at him.
Ned gave her a smile so charming that she found it all but impossible to maintain her glare. “I’m sorry to have worried you, Elle, but as you can see, it all came right.”
Ned turned his head and directed a look so intent, so charged with emotion, that Eleanor also turned to discover the recipient of such a potent gaze. From across the owner’s box, Miles had paused in his conversation with Baron Stanton and the two brothers exchanged speaking looks. Eleanor watched their silent communication with fascination, her attention shifting back and forth from Ned to Miles, back to Ned, then to Miles and so on. Miles raised his eyebrows, asking a silent question. Ned smiled faintly and jerked his head to indicate the two men who’d entered with him. A smile tugged at one side of Mile’s mouth and with an almost imperceptible bow, he saluted Ned with his flute of champagne before turning back to Baron Stanton. It had all happened in no more than the shake of a lamb’s tail, but Eleanor knew what she had seen. Lord Edmund had officially come of age.
“Lady Miles, may I present to you Mr. Allen and Mr. Montgomery of the Fairwood Stud.” Ned opened his arm to indicate the two gentlemen standing ill-at-ease behind him. Mr. Allen, Mr. Montgomery, your master’s wife, and our hostess, Lady Miles Everleigh.” Both men bowed and acknowledged the introduction then stood with their hats in their hands and tried to look as if they were not gawking at the elegant interior of the Rutledge box and the sumptuous food and drink to be had.
Eleanor smiled. “Gentlemen, I am delighted to have you here. Have you seen the cold buffet? We have a number of delicacies on offer. Come.” Eleanor placed her hand on Mr. Allen’s forearm. “You and Mr. Montgomery must try the iced pineapple. It is a particular favorite of mine and quite difficult to acquire.”
The Tuesday following Ned’s safe return found Eleanor placing a gloved hand on the crown of her hat to prevent the wind from taking it as she and Lady Florence waited on a little-known street in a lesser-traveled part of London’s city center. They stood in front of an unprepossessing little shop whose grimy bay window bore an arc of gold letters spelling Chesterton’s Rare Books, Coloured Plates & Odd Curiosities as the summer wind buffeted them and whipped their skirts.
“Florence, please don’t take offense when I tell you that I’m not entirely certain Lord Miles meant for you to accompany me today. He said he had something of a particular and private nature to share with me.”
Eleanor’s groom stood perhaps fifteen feet away, and Lady Florence’s groom and carriage waited a little further down the street.
Lady Florence slanted a playful gaze at Eleanor accompanied by an arch smile. “I won’t intrude on your privacy. You won’t even know I am there, but as soon as you told me you were to meet at Chesterton’s, you could not have prevented me from coming.”
“I can’t imagine why. It’s just a musty old bookstore and not even in a very tonnish part of town.” Eleanor frowned. “I dislike standing on the street. Should we wait inside?”
Lady Florence gave Eleanor another one of “those” glances before Eleanor beckoned to her groom who escorted the ladies into the shop and took up a post by the front door.
At the tinkle of the bell above the entry, the proprietor, a small, rotund gentleman with a florid complexion and an appalling lack of pride in his personal dress—as evidenced by a waist coat bespattered with what had to have been the gentleman’s latest meal—entered through a curtain from the back of the shop.
“Ladies, how may I be of service?”
“I’m not exactly certain, sir,” Eleanor said with her normal reserve. “My friend and I are meeting my husband, Lord Miles Everleigh, here shortly.” She looked at the shop clock on the wall behind several long glass display cases. “It is a quarter-past two. He is to meet us at half-past. We are a bit early.”
“Lord Miles Everleigh, you say? Ah yes, I remember speaking with your husband just a day ago. A gentleman of discriminating taste,” the proprietor remarked. “He indicated an interest in several of my more, ah… out of the ordinary and exotic…publications and had them put back for your perusal. I’ll just go get them prepared for your viewing.” He bobbed a bow and disappeared through the same curtain from which he had appeared.
Lady Florence began to peer into the glass cases that lined one wall. When she chuckled, Eleanor joined her and examined the contents of the display to see the source of her friend’s amusement.
“Good heavens… is that what it appears to be? Florence…” She blinked in amazement and pointed “…that one has ballocks.” Eleanor studied the assortment more closely. “Quite an astonishing variance in sizes. Is that true to life?”
Lady Florence laughed quietly. “I have heard them called dildos or godermiches. I should think a more proper name would be a widow’s ‘pleasure companion’. Yes, Eleanor, they are what they appear to be, a reproduction of a man’s phallic part. Obviously, some are more realistic than others. What is of more interest to me, though, is why did Lord Miles wish to meet you at Chesterton’s? Precisely?” She smiled and batted her eyes at Eleanor. “This shop is well known for providing risqué literature and indecorous objects for people of an adventurous propensity.
Eleanor felt the rise of heat into her cheeks and squirmed. “Erm…I believe I said something one evening about wanting instructional literature? Lord Miles indicated he would obtain some for me.” Her voice rose at the end
of the sentence. She cleared her throat and waited for Florence to respond.
Her friend’s face was alight with mischief. “Really? Ah, to have been a mouse in the corner.”
Eleanor covered her face with her hand. “I detest being ignorant, always being… surprised…always needing explanations.”
“Yes, I can see where that would not sit well with you. There is nothing wrong with being ignorant because you are innocent, dearest. It is a quality attractive to most men. I shouldn’t be in such a rush to cure it.”
Eleanor held her friend's eyes steadily. “You will think me a complete goose, but I want to be perfect for him.”
“I don’t think it silly at all. You’d be surprised at how well I understand.” Florence stared sightlessly at the far wall, a wistful smile tipping her lips. “But, some of the greatest fun to be had on earth is in remedying one’s inexperience with the right partner…” she shook herself and returned her attention to Eleanor “…and as you are married to an extraordinarily handsome and virile man who happens to adore you, were I you, I should look to curing my ignorance with him rather than some dry book.” Florence’s serious gaze held Eleanor’s for some moments before she looked away.
As Eleanor considered the heartfelt advice of her friend, the tinkle of the bell above the entry door caused her to turn. Her beloved had entered the bookshop. Upon seeing Eleanor, Miles’ face lit with a smile… and then after only a glimmer of pause—which Eleanor suspected no one other than she would detect—he smiled pleasantly at her companion.
“Lady Florence,” he acknowledged with an elegant bow.
“I know I am de trop, Lord Miles. You needn’t be so polite,” she said with a laugh. “I quite forced myself upon Eleanor despite her protestations, but I could not miss an opportunity to see Chesterton’s again.
A Husband for Hire (The Heirs & Spares Series Book 1) Page 23
