B00Y3771OO (R) (15 page)

Lucien studied her for a long while. Emotion roiled in his being. Outrage heated the blood in his veins. How callously, how indifferently, she’d tossed those losses he’d suffered in his proverbial face. He wanted to fan the flames of his rage over her calm mention of Sara and his son…and Lucien’s arm. Yet, as she held his gaze, her cheeks red from heightened emotion, he couldn’t dredge up the suitable fury because, God help him, in their precision, her allegations bore an element of truth.

“Do you have nothing to say?” she cried out.

And because acknowledging Eloise’s unerringly accurate charges scared him more than the whole of Boney’s army, coward that he was, Lucien did all that he could do to silence her. He reached across the carriage and pulled her onto his lap again.

“What—?”

He kissed her.

Chapter 16

E
loise stiffened at the unexpectedness of his embrace and then tentatively fisted her hands in the cold, silken tendrils of his thick, black hair, angling his head to better avail herself to him.

He groaned in approval, deepening the kiss. Lucien slid his hand between them and explored her body as if he sought to brand each part of her skin upon his palm. He cupped her breast and then worked the fabric of her décolletage down, exposing her to his gaze. She flushed at the intensity of his eyes trained upon her and made to fold her arms. He halted her movements with a staying hand. “Don’t,” he ordered gruffly.

She complied and her breath caught with anticipation as he palmed her right breast, weighing it in his hand. Her nipple puckered from his ministrations and he captured the swollen bud between his thumb and forefinger. Eloise bit back a cry, mindful of the impropriety of their actions. “I never…” Her head fell back as he lowered his lips to her breast.

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 Eloise’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

E
loise 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.