B00Y3771OO (R) (3 page)

The slight pounding at the front door ceased. And then began again with a renewed enthusiasm. “Bloody hell,” he muttered. He’d spent so many years away from the life of nobility, he’d forgotten that patent sense of arrogance. The doors opened at will by people whose sole purpose in life was to serve their pampered needs. With each step, with each knock, the fury burned inside. He fed it, because it momentarily quashed the memory of Sara and his great loss.

Another damned knock. Gritting his teeth, he continued striding forward. Whoever the hell was here to see the marquess or marchioness had about as much patience as Boney’s forces had in their march through Russia. Suddenly, finding an almost delight in the impatience of the damned noble on the other side of that door, he slowed his steps.

Eloise paused, frowning at the angry, lion knocker on the center of the black door. She fished around her reticule and pulled out the note she’d all but committed to memory when it arrived last evening.

My Dear Lady Eloise,

I do so hope you’ll join me for tea…

“At one o’clock,” she murmured aloud, stuffing the note into her reticule. She dimly registered the interested stares directed her way by the lords and ladies passing by at the fashionable hour.

Humph. She turned and peered out into the street. Perhaps the marchioness had meant a different day at one o’clock? But no, no, that wouldn’t make sense. Her driver remained patiently at the edge of the street, a pained expression upon his face at his mistress’ bold display. Eloise bristled with indignation. She couldn’t very well leave. And furthermore, mayhap the real area of concern lay not, in fact, with her public showing of eagerness at the marchioness’ doorstep, but rather the absence of a likely, indolent butler.

She knocked again. Whoever would imagine that the powerful, respected, and oft revered Marquess and Marchioness of Drake should have such inattentive servants? Eloise screwed her mouth up tightly, realizing even as the thought slipped into her musings how wholly arrogant it must seem.

Especially one who was merely a knight’s daughter.
Another knock.
Who is hardly sought after at the leading
ton
events.
Another knock. Not that she cared either way about leading
ton
events. A strand of blonde hair escaped her serviceable chignon and fell over her eye. She tucked it behind her ear and, with a sigh, at last conceded that her serendipitous meeting with Lady Drake and the fateful offering of tea had merely been too much good fortune for one who was slated with nothing but bad luck. With a sigh, Eloise turned around.

The click of the door opening met her ears just as the tips of her right foot touched the step down.

“May I help you?”

That harsh, gravelly voice froze her in her steps. Perhaps her fortune was not all bad, after all. Heart thumping wildly in her chest, Eloise spun around. Emotion swelled in her breast at the first sight of him, after all these years. She searched for glimpses of the young man he’d been, but saw none in the harsh set to his mouth and hard stare. Well over a foot taller than her mere five feet two inches, she moved her gaze up the towering butler with a crop of thick, black hair. Ruggedly beautiful with sharp, angular cheeks and a chiseled nose slightly curved from a punch he’d been dealt by an angry Richard. Her gaze lingered upon the empty place his arm had once been, the jacket neatly pinned up. Pain pierced her heart and she tamped down all pity. He’d neither welcome nor did he deserve that useless sentiment.

“May I help you?” Lucien repeated, with a snappish tone that brought her shoulders back.

The nerve of him. Eloise met his gaze squarely and then froze, her mouth dry. Their lives may be inextricably intertwined yet his piercing gray stare, the same that had haunted both her dreams and nightmares, belonged to a stranger. And the agony of missing him, the joy of being reunited with him all blended, robbing her of thoughts, speech, and movement. Eloise touched trembling fingers to her lips.

Lucien ran a punishing gaze up and down her person. A chill stole through her. She reassured herself he’d merely failed to recognize the friend of his past. She registered the flicker of awareness in his intelligent eyes and she detested that this beautiful reunion should come on the front steps of a stranger’s townhouse for all the passing, bored peers to see. “Eloise?”

She managed a jerky nod. Happiness swelled in her breast. “Lucien.” Oh, how she’d missed him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled with none of the warmth and gentleness she’d always known from him.

Eloise stared unblinkingly at Lucien. Surely she’d heard him—

“By God, I said what the hell are you doing here?” He yanked her by the arm and jerked her through the front doors.

Oh, dear. She swallowed hard. She’d had years to prepare for this very moment and yet remained as she invariably was—without words. “Oh, Lucien,” she said, her voice hoarse with emotion. Lucien released her arm with such alacrity she stumbled. “It is so wonderful to see you.” She had missed him more than any person in her life. God help her, even the husband who’d been kind and good to her still had never managed to evoke the emotion inspired by Lucien Jones. Suddenly, the joy of seeing him erased the years of propriety drilled into her in her role as countess. She flung her arms about him.

He grunted and staggered under the unexpectedness of her embrace. His broad, powerful frame was more muscular than she remembered. She mourned the loss of that one arm, and hurt with a need to have him wrap it about her as he’d done so many times when she’d been a small girl, so hopelessly in love with him. Tears flooded Eloise’s eyes and she blinked them away, not wanting him to see them and interpret them as signs of pity.

With his remaining arm and the strength of his chest, he set her away. “What in hell are you doing, Eloise?” he hissed.

She cocked her head. “Lucien,” she began. “It is me,” she said lamely. Obviously, he could see that it was, in fact, Miss Eloise Gage. Granted, she was not the same plump child he likely remembered on the eve of having her first London Season. Her blonde, impossibly tightly curled tresses were the same as was the lone birthmark at the corner of her lip. He used to tease her mercilessly about it. Surely, he even now recalled the blasted mark?

As though following her unspoken thoughts, his gaze shifted lower, ever lower, and fixed upon that slight mark. A smile played about her lips. Then his mouth set in a hard, unmoving line. At the left corner of his eye, a muscle ticked, hinting at his annoyance. She shook her head, uncomprehending this aloof stranger. She tried again. “Lucien—”

“Do not call me by my name, madam.” That sharp command better suited to the battlefield than a formal foyer, came out as an angry whisper. He shot a furious glance about for interlopers.

All her earlier joy was replaced by confusion, then hurt, and ultimately gave way to a seething annoyance. She snapped her eyebrows into a single line. “What should I call you?”

“You, madam, are not to call me anything.”

Eloise recoiled. “What are you on about?” His coolly aloof tone was more painful than had he slapped her.

It was as though her words didn’t penetrate whatever walls he’d constructed about himself these years. With quick, clipped steps, he proceeded to pace the rich, Italian marble floor. “How did you discover my whereabouts?”

A pang struck her heart. “You didn’t want to be found?” Did that ghost-like whisper belong to her? But the pain of that possibility…oh, God, all these years she’d thought of him, and ultimately, he’d not wanted to be found. She pressed her eyes tightly closed as his gleaming, black boots beat a staccato rhythm upon the floor. For years she’d believed he’d removed himself from her life in an effort to avoid his father. Theirs had been a volatile relationship that had been forever damaged when the viscount insisted his son take a commission in the military, instead of the church as Lucien had wished. But this, now knowing… “You avoided me.” All these years she’d ached for him…missed his friendship…
their
friendship. And she’d mattered not at all.

He ignored her question. “Does my father know I’m here?”

She flattened her lips into a firm line.

Lucien spun back and took her shoulder in his hand. “Does he—?”

“N-no,” she stammered and for the first time terror filled her at the presence of this dark, angry stranger.

Some of the tension left him.

Perhaps this was about nothing more than the feud from long ago between the Viscount Hereford and his third son. Eloise held her palms up. “He doesn’t know you’re here,” she softly assured him. She curled her toes tightly with guilt. If this cold, unyielding man before her learned she’d searched for him all so she might try and bring peace to his fractured family, he would have tossed her quite handily out onto the front steps, rules of propriety and friendship between them be damned.

Lucien lowered his head and she drew back from the ice glinting in his thunderous gray stare. “Then. What. Do. You. Want?” he asked on a lethal whisper.

“I—” She wet her lips.

He followed that movement and for a desperate moment she imagined he might kiss her, which was, of course, silly because Lucien had never desired her. He’d loved her. Cared for…but Sara had held his heart. Eloise had merely held his friendship.

His lips pulled back in a menacing sneer. “I asked, what—?”

Only, now it appeared she’d never even held that.

“Lady Sherborne!” Their gazes flew as one to the Marchioness of Drake. She came down the stairs, the ease of her smiling visage indicated she’d not detected the thick undercurrents of tension between them.

“Please, Eloise,” she insisted, hungering to steal one more glance at the man she’d ached to see these many years.

Lady Drake stopped before them. “Oh, how splendid! I’ve been waiting for your visit, Eloise.”

She had as well. Eloise gulped.

Until this moment.

Chapter 3

E
loise.

Lucien drew back, unsettled, feeling like the unwitting actor upon a stage and he was the only one unknowing of his lines.

Eloise.

Only, this slender, gently curved lady with a trim waist and flared hips, bore no trace of the child he’d played with through the pastures of Kent. As though unnerved by his scrutiny, she lowered her gaze to the marble floor. No, the Eloise he remembered had never done anything as demure as lower her eyes. And she’d been a Miss Eloise Gage, a friend… Had he ever truly had friends?

The stricken expression in her eyes indicated that this older, more mature lady with those very familiar tight blonde curls was very much…. Eloise. She stared boldly at him. Her piercing blue-green gaze ran up and down his frame. Fury and hurt danced in those depths. Then, Eloise had worn her every emotion as plain as if they’d been stamped in ink across the delicate lines of her face.

He fisted his hand, balling it tightly, resenting her insolence in coming here. In reentering this new life he’d carved out for himself, in a world away from the ugly one he’d left behind.

“Jones?”

Lucien jerked. The marchioness’ concerned tone cut across the shocking reappearance of his past into his dark future. He gave his head a hard shake. “My lady,” he said gruffly.

“We’ll be taking tea in the Pink Parlor. Would you see to refreshments?” With that, she looped her arm through Eloise’s and ushered the slender young lady onward, their slippers noiseless upon the marble floors. He stared after them until they disappeared into the parlor.

Lucien scrubbed a hand over his eyes, the empty arm socket, cut off at the elbow itched with the memory of movement as he longed to scrub both hands over his eyes and then dig his fingers into his temples until he drove back the dream, hell, or reality this happened to be. Perhaps it was all three rolled into one.

She
was here.

What was she doing here?

He lowered his arm to his side and frowned. And who the hell had she wed? Lady Sherborne. Before his father had purchased his damned commission for the infantry, Lucien hadn’t spent much time in London. He’d been so thoroughly bewitched, mind, body and soul by the mild-mannered, serenely beautiful Sara to have ever dashed off to take part in the
ton’s
inane amusements. And as the third son, he’d been afforded certain luxuries, such as remaining in the country, while his elder brother, the heir to the Viscount Hereford had been expected to dance attendance at
ton
events.

His lip peeled back in an involuntary sneer. Certain luxuries. What a bloody joke. And with Eloise’s reentrance into his life, she’d ushered in all the darkest memories he’d sought to bury. His aspirations for himself. His father’s goals for him. And the damned viscount’s ultimate triumph. May the blighter rot in hell.

Lucien closed his eyes and drew in several slow, steadying breaths; a calming mechanism he’d adopted over the years when the memories became particularly hard to bear. He dug deep and sought purchase within himself to climb from the pit and back to his present.