Modern Romance Collection: October 2017 5 - 8. Heidi Rice

very clear signals sent all around her.

      But in either case, Eleanor frowned at Hugo, because she wasn’t pretending anything.

      “If you’ll excuse us,” she said, perhaps too severely, “I must show my sister to my rooms and then return to my duties.”

      “I’m sure Geraldine can manage,” Hugo said offhandedly.

      “Have you been supervising her reading, Your Grace? I had no idea you had taken such an active interest.”

      “I have been supervising my accounts,” Hugo said in a faintly chiding tone that made Eleanor flush slightly. Again. “Which is how I know that I employ a veritable fleet of overpriced nannies. The child is more than fine. Always.”

      Vivi laughed again then, though there was nothing to laugh about in Eleanor’s opinion. Then she let herself flop a bit toward Eleanor, as if she was giving her a hug from the side.

      “You must forgive my sister, Your Grace,” she said merrily. “She’s ever so serious. She always has been. It won’t surprise you to learn her favorite color is gray.”

      Eleanor told herself there was no reason for it, but that didn’t stop the feeling of betrayal that swept over her. And the injustice of it, to have Vivi cut her down like that and call her gray, of all things, when it wasn’t even true.

      But there was nothing to be gained by arguing the point. There was no arguing with Vivi.

      “My favorite color is not gray,” Eleanor heard herself say, to her own astonishment. And once she’d started it seemed silly not to carry on. “On the contrary, I prefer a bright and cheerful red. It just so happens, however, that one cannot march about life forever dressed like a cardinal.”

      Next to her, Vivi slid Eleanor a cool look. She pretended not to see it.

      But she was certain Hugo did. Just as she was certain that Vivi was about three seconds away from hurling herself across the space that separated them to make a complete fool of herself. All over him.

      And the truth was, Eleanor could hardly blame her. She’d made a fool of herself over him herself, hadn’t she? Such a fool of herself, in fact, that she hadn’t even realized she was doing it until now.

      When it was much too late.

      Hugo was devastating. Full stop. Today he was affecting his international rock star look again. His dark hair looked messy, the intriguing kind of messy that made Eleanor want to test it with her fingers. His dark eyes were lit with that suppressed humor of his, dark and sardonic. He wore another one of his battered T-shirts that left nothing of his perfect chest to the imagination and another pair of jeans that hugged him in all the wrong places, as if he aspired to give the two-fingered salute to the fusty dukedom with every breath and outfit. And as if there were no autumn drafts snaking along the halls and no wind rattling the windows, come to that.

      Or as if he was immune to all of it, because he was that darkly beautiful.

      But Eleanor was quite certain that all Vivi saw when she looked at him were pound notes.

      “If you wish to wear red, I would not object,” Hugo said, a current of dark laughter in his voice. “There is no required uniform, Miss Andrews. I hope Mrs. Redding didn’t mislead you on that score.”

      “Oh, you silly old thing,” Vivi cut in then, with a little trill in her voice, and though her eyes were on Hugo she was clearly speaking to Eleanor. Or pretending to, anyway. “You know that red doesn’t suit you.”

      Hugo’s attention swung back to her sister, and Eleanor was glad, because she felt stricken straight through. Ashamed, if she was honest with herself at last.

      Had she really imagined that she was anything to a man like this but a diversion while he was bored? Even for a moment?

      She knew the way of the world. There was a reason Vivi was the one who flitted about with people of Hugo’s ilk, and it wasn’t only because she was thinner and prettier. It was because she bloomed in such circumstances. She came alive. She stole all the light from the room.

      Men like Hugo were destined for women like Vivi. Women like Eleanor were destined to be exactly what she was here in Groves House: staff. And that was all right, she told herself fiercely as she watched her sister show her dimples to Hugo. Some people were meant for the shadows and Eleanor had long since accepted that she was one of them. She didn’t know what had happened to her over the past nearly six weeks, stuck away in this rambling old house with only a seven-year-old to talk to. She’d started believing in the sort of fairy tales she read to Geraldine. Or she’d been tempted to, anyway.

      She’d even let Hugo touch her.

      When she knew—when everyone knew—that he was a man who toyed with others. And so what if he’d claimed the tabloids had lied about him? That was what he would say.

      She didn’t understand how she’d allowed herself to feel so many impossible things inside and then lie to herself about it. Because if she’d been as unaffected by Hugo as she’d claimed she was—as she’d been so sure she was—nothing Vivi was saying or doing could possibly have bothered her.

      And that was the trouble. It bothered her a lot.

      “You must bring your sister to dinner, Miss Andrews,” Hugo said, snapping Eleanor back to the issue at hand, and she tried to stop noticing that his eyes looked like overpriced whiskey. Especially when she couldn’t read the expression in them, as he looked from Eleanor to Vivi and then back again. “In my private room. Tonight.”

      “I would love to, Your Grace,” Vivi trilled—but Hugo was already walking away.

      Eleanor pulled her arm away from Vivi’s then, and hated herself for it.

      “There’s no need to respond,” she said matter-of-factly. “He is the Duke and this is his house. That was not a request or an invitation, it was an order.”

      Eleanor set off again then, aware that her sister was following behind her. And that Vivi was laughing softly under her breath, which the tight, thickening thing inside of her knew could only bode ill. But she refused to look over her shoulder to see. She refused to give in to the dark things sloshing around in her gut.

      She refused to be the person she’d apparently become.

      Eleanor finally reached her rooms, and threw her door open, beckoning for Vivi to come inside.

      And then had to ask herself why she was surprised that her sister entered the room very much the way she had, back when she’d arrived. Staring all around at the sheer luxury. Eleanor found herself standing there in the sitting room, rooted to the floor as Vivi gave herself a tour, feeling awkward and angry and deeply disappointed in herself.

      “My, my, my. This just gets better and better.”

      Vivi’s faintly accusing voice floating in from one of the other rooms struck Eleanor in the heart. Because the truth was, she felt guilty. Horribly guilty.

      And she knew why.

      Her sister would have been here like a shot if she’d had any idea the sort of opulence that was on display at every turn in Groves House. That alone would have encouraged her. But Hugo’s presence? Her sister would have done anything to meet the Duke of Grovesmoor. And Eleanor still couldn’t explain to herself, not reasonably anyway, why she hadn’t let Vivi know from the start that Hugo was in residence.

      “You fancy him.”

      Eleanor’s head shot up at that. She found Vivi leaning in the door that led from the sitting room to the bathroom, a considering look on her pretty face.

      “Don’t be absurd,” she said. “He’s my employer.”

      Vivi shook her head, and there was a sharp light in her eyes that Eleanor couldn’t say she cared for at all. “Why else would you have lied to me?”

      “I’ve never lied to you, Vivi. And you still haven’t told me why you’re