The Disgraced Marchioness. Anne O'Brien

lash. ‘I could obviously offer you nothing in comparison. I am sorry that my brother’s death has caused all your planning to go awry, my lady! As widow of the Marquis of Burford, your social position will be far less glamorous than you had plotted and planned for—if my brother had had the consideration to live.’

      Eleanor found herself unexpectedly speechless.

      Whatever she had expected him to say, whatever tone she had expected him to use towards her, it was certainly not this.

      ‘I do not understand. You will have to speak more plainly, my lord.’ Eleanor managed with an effort of will to keep her response cool, with none of the confused bewilderment that resulted from his words.

      ‘I admire your composure,’ he continued in the same conversational tone, ‘but of course you must have anticipated that we would meet again at some point, given the family connection. Unlike myself, who had no notion of what you had achieved in my absence. Did you perhaps expect me to have the supreme good manners not to mention our past dealings? To behave as if nothing untoward had occurred?’

      Eleanor reconstructed her thoughts with a little shake of her head, trying to ignore the heavy sarcasm.

      ‘An offer of marriage, you say? You promised marriage, certainly. And I believed you. But I never received such an offer. It appeared that you had changed your mind.’ She held him in that clear gaze, willing him to deny her challenge. ‘I could wish that you had been sensitive enough to inform me of it. Instead you left me, left the country. No word, no explanation. Nothing. I was forced to learn of your departure from elsewhere. I admit, my lord, I had expected better treatment at your hands.’

      ‘You have a short memory, my lady.’ He was implacable in his response.

      ‘I have an excellent memory, my lord! I expected to hear from you. You promised that you would write when you had arranged your passage.’ Eleanor could hear her voice rising as the past flooded back and she fought hard to keep it controlled. ‘And then I was left to learn that you had sailed. To America. With no intention to return in the near future. You obviously had no thought for me at all.’

      ‘I sent you a letter. Telling you when I would sail. Asking you to join me as we had discussed. I gave you time and place.’ Lord Henry turned from her to stand before the fireplace, the distance between them a little greater. She was so lovely with the sun gilding her hair in an iconic halo. It would be so easy to believe her. And so disastrous if he allowed himself to do so. Besides, he knew that she lied. He clenched his jaw. ‘Don’t deny it. I know the message was delivered to your home. The groom I paid to do it confirmed the delivery.’

      ‘I received no such letter.’

      ‘It would certainly be more comfortable for you to hold to that fact, would it not, dear Eleanor?’ Lord Henry struggled to keep his tone flat, conversational even. ‘I would be the first to agree that such problems arise. It is quite possible for letters to go astray, as I discovered only a few hours ago. After all, I had absolutely no knowledge of Thomas’s marriage to you until Nicholas broke the news in the gun room. And yet Thomas had certainly written to inform me of the happy event.’ He picked up a fragile porcelain figure of a shepherdess and lamb from the mantelpiece, contemplated for the barest second smashing it on the hearth, replaced it gently with the utmost control in exactly the same spot. ‘But I know without any shadow of doubt that my letter was delivered to you, allowing you all the time you would need to join me at the vessel. My messenger was most reliable, as you could imagine for so important a delivery.’

      ‘Such a letter, if it ever existed, never reached my hands.’ She could find nothing other to say in her own defence.

      Lord Henry shrugged, a gesture of cynical disbelief. ‘If you insist on holding to that, my lady … Tell me. Did you know my brother before I left, or did you wait until I had gone before you put yourself in his way?’

      ‘I …’ She could not believe that he had actually said that—that he could think so little of her!

      ‘It would not be very difficult to lure Thomas into marriage,’ he continued to taunt her. ‘You have a beautiful face, as I know to my cost. And my brother found it easy to trust those he liked.’

      ‘I never lured Thomas!’ How could the man whom she had once loved more than life itself be so deliberately vindictive?

      ‘No? But he offered you marriage.’

      ‘Yes. He did.’

      ‘I expect your lady mother was delighted. Your family might be respectable enough, but you had hardly been groomed for the role of Marchioness.’ He lifted a hand to sweep the room in an expansive gesture. ‘And here you are, mistress of Burford Hall, a town house in the most fashionable part of London and a hunting lodge in Leicestershire. Quite a killing, my lady.’

      ‘Of course. It was more than I could ever have dreamed of.’ A frown marred her forehead as she attempted to catch his meaning.

      ‘You must have been astounded at your good fortune. A Marquis as rich as Solomon in all his glory. Instead of a younger son with uncomfortably Republican leanings and an inclination to make his own way in the colonies.’

      So! He thought she had callously rejected him in the interest of wealth and social position. She caught her breath at the injustice of the veiled accusation and stepped towards him with an unconcealed passion.

      ‘I would have risked everything to go with you if you had told me!’ Her hands curled into fists, at odds with her feminine appearance. ‘My home, my family. I would have followed you anywhere. How can you possibly doubt that?’

      Lord Henry raised his brows in eloquent disbelief.

      ‘Are you possibly making a play for me again, my lady—now that my brother is dead? Is the role of mother of the heir insufficient for you?’ The bitter words were all that he could manage to hide the depth of hurt that still had the power to move him. He had truly thought that it had faded, that he had done with that episode of his life. Now, faced with the reality of her, knowing her rejection, it was as sharp and lethal as ever.

      She could hardly comprehend his words. ‘How dare you! How dare you suggest something so degrading—so despicable!’

      ‘I dare! I dare do all manner of things!’ The past swept back in a submerging wave, allowing anger, frustration, desire, all long subdued, to take hold. A desire to possess her once more filled him and, if he were honest, not a little to punish her for her treachery. She was so beautiful, and she was not his! ‘Did you make a good bargain?’ His demands evaded his control, even when he saw the hurt in her eyes. ‘Could my brother give you pleasure to compare with that which you claimed to find in my arms? Or did you lie to me? And set your teeth when I kissed you or allowed my hands to touch your silken skin? Shall we rediscover what, if anything, was between us?’

      He pounced with the lithe strength of a hunting cat on an unsuspecting mouse. His claws might be sheathed, but his dominance was lethal and dangerous none the less. His fine hands grasped her shoulders, holding her when she would have pulled away, but the initial contact startled them both, a tingle of reciprocating fire. He looked down at his hands where they grasped her shoulders. Surely he was over all that. This was not supposed to happen. Not now. Not when he had fought against it for so long, not when he believed her to be guilty of betrayal. He looked up to see her watching him with similar uncertainty, similar shock—but set his mind against it.

      He would have taken her mouth with his, hot and demanding, more in punishment than passion, if his attention had not been caught by the jewel that she wore on her breast, a pendant on a fine gold chain. Small and delicate, of no great intrinsic value, yet it was beautiful and wrought by the hand of a craftsman. Its setting was gold filigree, leaves and flowers, the centre of each bloom set with a tiny diamond that glinted in the light with each erratic rise and fall of her breast. The central stone was an amethyst, clear and shining, of a depth of colour that reflected Eleanor’s eyes when she was radiantly happy.

      But not at this moment, when her furious glare was the stormy intensity of indigo.