A Man Above Reproach (26 page)

She kissed him so fast that he was startled.

“Could you… Eli, did you say you love me?”

“Of course I do, is it not obvious?” He looked so adorably confused that she let out a burst of giddy laughter.

“Thank goodness,” she said.

“And?” he prodded, squeezing her hand.

“And what?”

“And in these sorts of situations, the other party also declares their truest devotion to ease the mind of the brave soul who has laid his heart open.”

She felt playful, examining his expectant face.

“I expect I do love you. It seems I must. I cannot shake you even though you are an awful lot of trouble. You are smug and dogmatic.”

“True enough.”

“But I suppose I love you.”

“How generous.” He picked her up in one unbroken motion and she wound her arms around his neck. “I shall make you pay for that. I shall make you say it, over and over again.”

“Always threatening,” she nuzzled.

“It is a promise. You will not be able to say anything but
I-love-you-Eli-I-love-you
.”

When all the candles in her room had been extinguished, he proved that he was nothing if not a man of his word.

Elias woke up in a smashing good mood. He and Analise were alone, except for the guards outside of the Paper Garden, so he pulled on his breeches and went to search for tea. He whistled to himself, finding that being shirtless and barefoot in the bookstore was the most at home he had ever felt.

Dryden was off to check on Nicholas and Sally, who would be lunching with them that afternoon. They all needed to get started on plans to reopen the Dove, which would be quite the project. Even more so now, as they would be planning a wedding at the same time.

But first, Elias smiled to himself, he would give Ana the ring he had in his dinner jacket and ask her if she would be his wife. He was excited. He knew she had no idea he would even ask; he was sure that she thought he would just plow through without appropriate permission.

He would do it as soon as she woke up.

He opened random cupboards, searching for tea leaves. They had to be around somewhere. A pot boiled on the fire, whistling softly along with the duke. Where would they have put the tea? He opened
a few more drawers in a rather offhand manner, and then something caught his eye.

It was a letter, on top of three suitcases, which were packed to bursting. It was Ana’s handwriting and it was addressed, more or less, to him. The page was a mass of scrawls and crossed out sentences, but as he scanned, the meaning became clear. He forced down the void that opened in his stomach and read it back.

My love,

Dearest Elias,

Lennox,

By the time you read this, I will be far enough gone that it would not do to

Please do not trouble yourself coming after me.

No one has ever been so good to

It seems not enough to say thank you for all that you have done, you must know how much it meant.
I am in love with

Here there was a giant scrawl, a cloud of ink spirals, where her quill had come down with frustration.

I hold you in a most high regard. This is why I have gone away
to Scotland
and why I will not come back.
There will not be a day that I do not think of you and
please do not hate me. I hope that you will realize, perhaps not today or even tomorrow, but eventually, that this is for the best.

The loss of you is acute to me already, though I should not say it.

I will always wish you well.

Love,

With all my heart,

Fondly, AEQ

He stared at the sheet, not sure if he believed his eyes. His hand shook once, a tremor. She was leaving him. She intended to leave him. Yet she had let him believe the night before that all would be well. Not
easy, no, but it would be well. Elias braced his hand against a counter. Had she let him go through with all of his plans, when she knew she would just leave him in the end? After all that he had done? His body temperature went abruptly from ice cold to running hot.

His fist curled, crumpling the letter. He cataloged in his mind the list of insane lengths he had gone to in order to win her over. It was shameful. No wonder Thackeray and Frost had been laughing at him. Everyone but him had been able to see how silly it was. He had wasted his family’s money on a decrepit building that had previously been a brothel, wasted his time chasing after an impossible woman, to the point of neglecting his own duties. He had even involved his sister in the sordid ordeal. What sort of fugue had he been in, what sort of grip of heedlessness?

Elias’s feet were already carrying him back to her chambers. Every part of him was on instinct alone, his precious logic blotted by hurt and anger.

Ana was just waking up as he reentered the room. She smiled at him from a haze of sleep.

“Good morning, my darl—”

“Going somewhere?” he demanded, shaking the parchment. He released it and it fluttered to the blankets. A look of horror crossed her face when she realized what it was.

“Eli, no—I wrote that bef—”

“How shoddy, you could not even be bothered to hide it.” He yanked his shirt from where it had landed the evening before, draped on a lamp.

“I had not made up my mind. Stop, Eli, please let me explain—”

He snatched his cravat from the edge of the canopy and stuffed it in a pocket. His words were coming fast now.

“You were going to leave me with a letter? I think you capable of many things, Ana, but cruelty of this caliber? I do not even merit being
told to my face that you have no faith me. You were going to run like a coward.”

He stopped buttoning his waistcoat to glare at her. Her hands curled around the coverlet.

“I was, but I came to my senses.” There was an anxious tremor in her voice, a quaver that he swatted away. “Please sit down, we should—”

“Oh, you did? Did you? Came to your senses?” he demanded. “What
are
your senses, Ana? I cannot tell the way you vacillate back and forth—you love me, I am a cad, you adore me, I am the embodiment of the evil high society. I am through with it. I do not care if you have come to your bloody senses. Did you ever have one bit of respect for me, or are you just laughing behind my back?”

He laced his boots enough to walk while she was still trying to untangle herself from the sheets. She reached out to him, but he shrugged her off.

“No, love, stop—you don’t understand, I was wro—”

“I find that I am out of patience. I am out of tricks and out of options with which to prove my sincere devotion. I… am bloody exhausted.” He plucked his jacket from a chair and retrieved the ring box from an inside pocket. He fumbled, so angry that he was shaking. His shoulders slumped, ashamed of his outburst, but too deep in it to stop. He threw the ring box at the bed, where it landed in a puff against the pillows with a gasp of deflation.

“It is a ring. I was going to ask you to be my wife, but I suppose I have my answer now. Do keep it. It will bring you a fortune if you pawn it.”

He slammed her bedroom door, then the staircase door, then the front door. He was still pulling on his jacket as he stalked out of the Paper Garden.

C
HAPTER
T
EN

“It would seem that a certain wealthy heiress is no longer looking over her fan at the D. of L. and the cracks are showing in the Uncatchable’s façade. One need not look further to see the classic signs of a man with a broken heart.”

—F
ROM A
L
ONDON SCANDAL SHEET
, A
PRIL
1832

Two weeks later, Lennox was part owner of the Sleeping Dove—though Thackeray was running the particulars and Frost had already claimed a room of his own—and the count of copies of
On Society’s Ills and the Real Price of Prostitution
he possessed had ballooned to one hundred. The fifty new editions were printed with Analise’s real name. He had also written an introduction to publish in the papers; that had been intended as an engagement gift. He resented all of this, but felt it a fitting reminder of the mistakes he had made.

No one asked him about Analise and he certainly did not mention her. Society at large thought he was brokenhearted over Miss Francis. Nicholas sometimes looked at him wet-eyed, as if he was about to say something, but he never did. Since leaving the Paper Garden and its owner behind, he had become a very effective estate manager. His mother was pleased, but her new generosity of nature had more to do with the courtship of a certain Lord Francis and less to do with Elias being a good son.

At least someone was happy.

Dryden knocked on the door.

“Your Grace, the gardener says the flowers are planted on the East Grounds. He wants to know if there will be anything further this week, on top of his normal duties.”

Elias handed over a stack of papers.

“Yes. These are the plans for the West Grounds and they should start immediately.”

The valet was silent for a moment, studying him sideways. Dryden had been with the Lennox family since before Elias was born. That being the case, one look from the valet could send the duke right back to his childhood. The particular expression Dryden wore now was a common one: not quite a reprimand, more of a scolding. As in,
You very well know you are doing something wrong.

“If I may speak freely, sir?” he asked.

“I have never expected you did not, Dryden, so.” Elias put aside the paper he had been reading. “Go on.”

“I think it may be best if you retire to the country seat for a time.”

“Do you now?”

“Rather, the house staff is overworked with your endless demands and sudden renovations. It may be easier for them to meet the goals if you are not changing directives at such a relentless pace.”

“Hmm.”

“Moreover, sir, I am concerned for you personally. There have been three letters from your Miss Qu—”

“That will be all, Dryden.”

He blinked once and turned without hesitation to exit the room.

Elias would not tolerate the mention of her name. He could not tolerate it. It was like a curse on his head, that name. Of course, it could have been avoided if he had not pursued her. Hindsight was no particular comfort.

He had not read her letters, but they were good for one thing—rolling into cylinders that fit into the necks of empty wine bottles to hurl into the fireplace. The smell of burning parchment and ink was particularly satisfying if one drank late into the evening.

Elias started down the hallway. He had taken to eating luncheon on the terrace so that he could watch all the projects he had set in
motion at Ashworth. It was also a way to avoid his mother until dinner and thus avoid making himself presentable until then.

He slowed, hearing his sister’s voice from one of the rooms. He stopped in his tracks when he heard what she was saying. She was reading something very familiar, something that sent ice shards through his veins.

“And the problem inherent in this is that it would not be an extreme effort to bring equality to the sexes. It would not take anything away from the gentlemen to allow ladies into their classrooms, lectures, even clubs. Can you imagine what contributions our sisters might—”

Elias flung open the door, furious. Alessandra gaped at him, sitting as she was with his mother and a group of ten rather shocked ladies.

“Hello,” he said, strangled.

“Duke,” Sophia said in a smooth tone that indicated her annoyance. Of course, his mother was there; destiny would not have it any other way to assure his absolute mortification. “What is the meaning of this?”

“Eli?” Alessandra stood.

He could actually feel the sheen of sweat begin on his forehead.

“Yes. No. Pardon me,” he apologized to the group, taking his sister by the elbow. “A moment, dear sister?”

“Ouch, Eli,” she rubbed her elbow as the door closed. “I am only doing as you asked. What has gotten into you?”

“You are reading her… her… her…” He could scarcely force the words out of his mouth. “Reading Miss Quail’s book to a gathering of socialites!”

Alessandra beamed with pride.

“It is a brilliant plan, if I may say so. You said to get Mama to read it, and here we are, at the first meeting of the newly formed Ladies’ Literary Salon.”

He turned his eyes to the ceiling.

“Damnation.”

“Do not swear. If you did not want me to complete the task, why did you not say so?”

“I forgot.”

“You forgot!” she laughed. “In any case, Mama does indeed like the book, most of all the parts about men being afraid of women’s intelligence.”

“She would,” he groused. “You must choose another book. I apologize that I did not tell you sooner.”

Alessandra crossed her arms.

“But we must finish reading and discussing.”

“Fine, but understand—there is no point. Things between M-Miss Quail and I are closed.”