Маделин Мартин – How To Tempt A Duke (страница 8)
Her mother offered a stiff curtsey and nodded.
Hugh’s eyes met Eleanor’s and her pulse gave a pitiful leap. “And the Countess’s daughter, Lady Eleanor Murray.”
Lottie’s voice sounded in Eleanor’s head, reminding her to meet the man’s eyes. Eleanor nodded and held his handsome stare, but the smile trembled on her lips.
The Marquess nodded and then his attention slid away. To Lady Alice.
Hugh squeezed Lady Alice’s slender arm with an embarrassing show of affection, which Lady Alice did not chide him for. “And now may I present Lady Alice Honeycutt, my betrothed?”
Lady Alice nodded and let her regard linger on the Marquess, much in the way a butterfly might over a choice bloom. A pretty blush colored her cheeks. “It is so very good to meet you, My Lord. I’ve heard such great tales.”
Her smile was dainty and her eyes practically danced with the sincerity of her joy. She held out a hand to the Marquess, who readily took it and let a kiss whisper over her gloved knuckles.
The Marquess was genuinely engaged in Lady Alice’s attention. Even her mother had a whisper of a grin teasing the corners of her stiff mouth. Lady Alice was warm and endearing, while still maintaining her cultured poise. An impeccable balance of breeding and manners and kindness.
And a glaring reminder of what Eleanor had been doing so very wrong.
In truth, Eleanor found Lady Alice’s behavior bordering on inappropriate. Her father would have been appalled at such behavior, and no doubt would have been violent in his distaste for it. But he was not here now. He was dead, having left them with no fortune, Evander missing, and a wall of ice to melt.
Alice’s open warmth was the line Lottie had mentioned in the lesson—the acceptable level of flirtation. Skirting propriety, subtle and delicately danced, therefore being socially acceptable.
Was this the kind of woman men wanted?
Eleanor didn’t have to ask the question. She already knew. It was in the tinkling laugh Lady Alice did not suppress, in the measured, meaningful way her gaze met those she conversed with, and how men swarmed to her side, eager for any scrap of attention she was willing to offer.
Regret nipped at Eleanor with sharp teeth. Perhaps she ought to have let herself be introduced to Lord Charles several times more. She should have been more patient with the process.
“If you’ll excuse us?” said the Countess. “We must be on our way.”
Eleanor let her mother lead them in the direction of a group of the Countess’s friends, where they clustered together in an array of colorful pastels, chatting under a tree by the river. Conversations blended around her, but her mind was unable to focus on any single one.
“Ah, there is Lady Stetton.” Her mother nodded toward the shore of the Serpentine River.
Energy hummed through Eleanor’s veins. She did not want to stop the steady rise and fall of her feet as she walked. To do so might give her mind cause to churn. And to think of all her failings—those she did not wish to ponder over.
“Do you mind if I go on a bit further with Amelia?”
Her mother eyed the path and gave an approving nod. “Join us once you’ve collected yourself.”
Her mother swept off the trail and headed in the direction of Lady Stetton, leaving Eleanor and Amelia to continue onward. The absence of her mother’s barrage of questions was a balm to Eleanor’s racing brain, and she filled all her tumultuous thoughts with the rustling of trees and the twittering of birds.
“Forgive me,” Amelia said in her gentle maternal voice. “But there is a man watching you.”
Eleanor followed Amelia’s stare to where a tall dark-haired man was indeed watching her, his eyes brighter than the clear sky overhead.
He smiled in invitation, his teeth impossibly white against his tanned skin. Her stomach sank. There would be no avoiding him, no matter how much she wished to.
She would have to speak to Lord Charles.
Charles had anticipated that he might see Lady Eleanor. It had been his sole reason for a promenade through Hyde Park.
She was a beautiful sight, in a white gown with a pale green ribbon tied under her bosom and matching green ribbons on her bonnet. The color made her eyes stand out like emeralds beneath the brim of her bonnet. She had been pretty by candlelight, but by the light of day she was even comelier.
Her expression, however, mirrored that of a person being sent to the gallows. After the exchange of introductions Charles had overheard, it was quite evident that Lady Eleanor Murray was not having a good day.
It might have been kind to allow her to continue by and let her lick her wounds. If he were a sensitive man he might have allowed it. But he was not, and she had the journals he needed.
He stepped in front of Lady Eleanor and bowed. “Do you mind if I join you?”
Lady Eleanor hesitated long enough to suggest she did. Yet when her maid whispered inaudibly to her Eleanor subtly shook her head, and the brown-haired lady’s maid stepped behind Lady Eleanor to make room for him.
“That would be lovely, Lord Charles.”
Lady Eleanor’s tone was flat and suggested it was anything but. Ever the charmer.
He ought to correct her, he knew—let her know he wasn’t merely Lord Charles, but the new Duke of Somersville. Perhaps had she not been looking so crossly at him he would have been more inclined. But he owed this woman nothing.
Later. Perhaps...
He straightened and held out his arm to her, as was polite. She threaded her slender arm through his and rested her gloved hand atop the cuff of his jacket. Her light jasmine scent whispered at his senses. Although this time, in the afternoon’s gilded light, with her dressed in delicate colors and gentle ribbons, the soft sweetness of her perfume seemed more fitting.
Lady Eleanor gave a little sigh. “I suppose you’re here to convince me to return to Lottie’s?”
“I thought I might give the idea a go,” Charles replied.
Tree canopies spread over the path like an awning and blotted out the heat from the sun, leaving the air cool and fresh. Charles took a deep breath and let the quiet crunch of dirt under their feet fill the silence. Lady Eleanor’s maid walked a few feet behind them, to grant privacy while still maintaining prudent proximity.
“Do you think you’ll have any success in convincing me to return?” Lady Eleanor asked after a moment.
So much for any hope that she might make this easy. He glanced back over his shoulder, to where the Earl of Ledsey and Lady Alice still conversed with the dark-haired Marquess.
“If I were a betting man, I’d wager on it.”
Eleanor’s arm stiffened against his. “You saw?”
“I overheard,” he said. “On my honor, it was quite by accident.”
“What a wild coincidence...” she said blandly.
Charles did not bother to apologize.
“May I be frank with you?” Lady Eleanor asked abruptly. “Or rather, ask you to be frank with me?”
He inclined his head. “I believe our history dictates a level of candor.”
Lady Eleanor glanced around them. The path had gone empty and they were all but alone. At least for a few moments. Or as alone as one might be with a chaperon in tow.
She stopped and stared up at him with her catlike green eyes. Perfectly sculpted red curls framed her porcelain forehead. In fact, everything about her was so carefully refined it made him long to see something skewed out of place.
“What is so unappealing about me?” she asked.
She asked it bluntly, almost casually, the way one might ask what would be served at supper that evening.
He hadn’t expected such a question and found himself quite without words. After all, she was Westix’s daughter, and certainly that brought her a plethora of ill traits.
“I truly wish to know so that I might see how to improve,” she said. “I am from excellent lineage, and my manners are impeccable. I move in all the right circles. I know I don’t have the kind of beauty Lady Alice possesses, and that my hair is...awful. But what else is it about me, about my person, which is so heartily distasteful?”
She turned her head away before he could see any kind of expression cross her smooth face or come to her eyes. She quickly began to walk once more, as if she regretted what she’d said. Her speech had been one of hurt, but her tone had been without feeling.
Perhaps there was more to his enemy’s daughter than Charles had wagered.
He resumed his stroll beside her at the slow pace she’d set. But, for all her steady pace and dispassionate voice, her hand trembled when it returned to his arm.
“You want my honesty?” he surmised.
“Yes.”
Charles hesitated. These words would be important, ultimately forming her decision to return to Lottie’s and setting the foundation for a friendship which might allow him access to those damned journals.
“May I begin first by saying that while Lady Alice is indeed lovely, so too are you.”
Lady Eleanor looked up at him sharply, her eyes wide and the fullness of her pink lips slightly parted. After all her careful hiding behind an emotionless mask, the shock on her face was a surprise.
“I do not find your hair ‘awful,’ as you say.”
In truth, its color was vibrant and beautiful. Any distaste stemmed from the reminder of her relationship to a man whom Charles so bitterly detested.