Mary Nichols - Regency High Society Vol 5 - The Disgraced Marchioness / The Reluctant Escort / The Outrageous Debutante / A Damnable Rogue

What had gone wrong? Why had she not joined him when he had sailed for America? He could not believe that on that one night, drunk on shared passion, she had not loved him to the exclusion of all else. And yet she had rejected him. Wilfully ignored, presumably destroyed, the letter that he had sent, which he knew she had received, and thus turned her back on his offer to share his life with her. And even if he had not been so very certain of this letter, diligently delivered by his groom, there was the one further note that he had hurriedly penned on his arrival in New York. She had also failed to respond to that plea for an explanation. She might deny their existence, but the evidence weighed heavily against her. It would have been far better if she had told him bluntly that she had simply changed her mind. It would have sliced at his heart, but anything would have been kinder than the cruel edge of indifferent silence.

He breathed deep to still the beating of his heart, the pumping of his blood to his loins. Because, in spite of everything in their past, in spite of all her apparent duplicity, he could not get her out of his mind, much less out of his blood where desire still surged. He wanted her. Now. To show her again the splendour of passion that could be awakened between a man and a woman. To bury himself deep within her hot, velvet-soft body, so that she could forget everything but the two of them. To drive her beyond control so that she could forget uncertainty and grief. To claim her as his own, bodies joined, slick with desire. To own her and possess her, the one woman he desired. He wanted all of that now!

But he could not. And deliberately eased the unwitting tightening of his fingers around her hand. She was his brother’s widow. With a fatherless child, a reputation under attack and complications on all sides. He must not allow himself to forget it, no matter the temptation to sweep it all aside and cover her body with his own, crushing her to the bed so that she cried out his name in the dark. She needed comfort and support. He would try to think as a gentleman, remember his duty towards her as a trustee of the Faringdon estate, and give her what she needed most. But, by God, he had given himself a hard task!

He looked at her, drawing on his memory and imagination. Tormenting himself but unable to fight the bittersweet longing. Long, slender legs that she had wrapped around him. High firm breasts, her nipples hardening under the onslaught of his lips. Shadowed secrets waiting to be discovered. He had not forgotten and wanted nothing more but to rediscover them again.

‘I will care for you,’ he murmured on a sigh of frustration, softly so as not to wake her. ‘I will not let the world condemn you for some mischance that is no fault of yours. I will look after you, whether you wish it or no.’

Quite what he intended to do, he was unsure, but it was a solemn and binding vow, even though she slept on, unaware of it.

Eleanor awoke at some time in the night, disorientated and in discomfort from her long bout of tears. But even though her head ached, her first conscious thought was one of simple pleasure, that Hal had not left her. He was asleep in the chair beside her, head pillowed on one arm, resting on the edge of the bed. His other hand was still covering hers, even though lax in sleep. His face was turned away, hidden from her. She would have liked to touch his hair, the dark, vibrant strength of it where it curled onto his neck, but feared to wake him, nor did she wish to lose contact with his hand on hers. He had stayed with her, even though his stiff, cold muscles would be a matter for regret in the morning. But she would not reject his decision. Simply his presence comforted her. Thomas had been her friend, but Hal was the love of her life. She fell asleep again, holding the thought, as she held his hand, against the onslaught of disturbing dreams.

When Eleanor awoke again the next morning, with light creeping through the heavy swags, he had gone and the place where his head had rested was cold. She felt an instant chill of regret. He might comfort her, he might watch over her as she slept, but he had felt no desire to repeat the experience of two years before in the gardens of Faringdon House. An experience which she would not remember! Even after two years she flushed as the memories pushed their insidious tendrils into her thoughts, just as the wisteria invaded the balustraded terrace at Burford Hall. She could not imagine how she could have been so unmaidenly. A chaste kiss, perhaps, but she had allowed Hal far more intimacies. The flush deepened to flaming rose as she recalled the episode in the summer house with a ridiculous mix of horror and intense delight. He had handled her with such care, mindful of her innocence. Loved her, cherished her, left her in no doubt of his tender feelings towards her, except that they had apparently not been sufficiently strong to outlive the night! Perhaps he had been disgusted by her lack of skill, her lamentable lack of knowledge, the still unformed curves of a young girl. He had certainly discovered no desire to develop their relationship further! She had not seen him again until he had bowed before her in the withdrawing-room at Burford Hall. No matter the soft words and beguiling images he had painted of their future together, his promises had been empty indeed, proof that no man could be trusted!

Turning back the bed covers with a little huff of disgust at her wayward thoughts, she noticed, and remembered—and understood, with a sinking heart. Her ring. She had removed it in despair, leaving it on the table in the parlour, but now it was back on her finger. She twisted it so that the morning sun glinted on the edges and the tiny jewels. Hal must have restored it while she slept. She could not but admire his loyalty to his brother’s name, even when she herself had despaired and denied the legality of her own marriage. But she also understood very clearly and knew that it would be wise of her not to forget. For the ring was a symbol of her union with Thomas, and Henry had replaced it where he considered it belonged. That simple action should tell her more plainly than any words that Henry saw her as his brother’s widow, and nothing more in his life.

The gathering of the Faringdon family in the morning room of the house in Park Lane on the following afternoon, when Henry and Eleanor had arrived back in London, could not be described to be in a spirit of optimism or even qualified hope. They brooded over their lack of progress.

The visit to the village of Whitchurch had achieved nothing to their advantage, Henry reported. The Reverend Broughton might not be the most likeable of characters, with a shadow thrown over his morals and behaviour as a clergyman, but there was no reason to disbelieve him in the matter of the marriage of Thomas and Octavia. He had confirmed the events of marriage and birth. The documents appeared to be genuine. Sir Edward Baxendale was well known with a good reputation, and the existence of a sister with a recently deceased husband and a young baby was common knowledge. Eleanor said nothing, merely a silent witness to their failure to unearth any incriminating evidence.

The only outcome of the visit, in Mrs Stamford’s unexpressed opinion, was a certain intangible tension in her daughter. As now, she thought, glancing across at her. Eleanor might have been alone in the room, with eyes unfocused as if her thoughts were far away, turning the ring on her finger round and round with terrible monotony. And there was a distinct unease between Eleanor and Lord Henry, for which Mrs Stamford was not sorry. Too much intimacy would certainly be unwise. But Mrs Stamford was wise enough to remain silent about the night they had been forced to spend in the Red Lion in Whitchurch. Given the circumstances, and her memory of the previous occasion of confrontation when she had quite clearly lost the battle of wills, she did not feel up to taking on Lord Henry on such a personal matter. Even if she was the Marchioness’s mama.