There could have been love between them. In fact, Eleanor suspected it might have been there already, but love soured quickly with no trust behind it. Better that she regretted Brahm for the rest of her life than grow to hate him. She had harbored enough contemptuous feelings for him in the past. It was time to accept the blame herself.
There was another knock at her door. Eleanor glanced toward it. God love her sister. "I am tired, Arabella."
"It is Lady Dumont," came the muffled voice from the other side.
A great thud echoed inside Eleanor's ribs. Lady Dumont?
It was tempting to tell her to go away as she had Arabella, but she truly wanted to hear whatever it was the other woman had to say. It obviously wouldn't do any good where her relationship with Brahm was concerned, but still, she wanted to listen.
"Come in."
The door opened and Lady Dumont entered, as timid as a chambermaid. Her gaze was downcast, flickering every so often to Eleanor's and then away again.
The older woman was dressed in a fashionable morning gown of green sarcenet, her hair artfully arranged. She looked tired, however, as though she had not slept. No doubt her maid hadn't either, not if the lady looked this well turned out at such an ungodly hour.
Eleanor herself was still in her nightgown, her hair spilling down her back in a wild tangle. She hadn't slept much either.
"Good morning, Lady Dumont. To what do I owe this pleasure?" As if she didn't know. As if Lady Dumont didn't know.
Her gaze was met and held. "I came in hopes of explaining what you would not allow me to explain last night."
"There is nothing to explain."
"I beg your pardon Lady Eleanor, but given Lord Creed's hasty departure this morning, I believe there is."
Eleanor arched a brow. Unable to argue with that logic, she waited silently for Lady Dumont to do her explaining.
"Lord Creed and I have not been conducting any sort of affair."
"I am aware of that."
Lady Dumont seemed surprised, but she continued. "I went to his room last night because I was led to believe he wished it. I was told that he had expressed interest in me and then I received an invitation to his chamber, which I believed to have been written by him."
Eleanor's gaze jumped to the notes on her vanity and then back again. "He maintains that it was not."
"No." Lady Dumont flushed a little. "He told me my note had been written by the same person who wrote the note inviting him to a cottage on the estate." The tone of her voice and the expression on her face told Eleanor exactly who Lady Dumont believed Brahm thought the note was from. Eleanor was so dead inside, she couldn't even blush in embarrassment.
"Obviously I did not write the notes, Lady Dumont."
"No. Your shock at seeing me in his bed was proof of that. I believe the person who wrote the notes might very well be the same person who told me that Lord Creed was supposedly interested in bettering our acquaintance."
What a polite way of saying that she believed Brahm had wanted to bed her. "Might I ask just who this person was?" Even though it would serve no benefit now, she still wanted to know who had taken such pains to help her ruin her future.
Lady Dumont grew even more uncomfortable. "It was your sister Lydia."
Eleanor closed her eyes. She could finally feel once more, and oh it hurt! Brahm was right.
Or had he put Lady Dumont up to spinning lies about her sister?
No, even Eleanor knew when it was time to stop pretending. Lydia was not the innocent victim Eleanor wanted her to be. She might have been such at one time, but not anymore.
"Thank you for your candor, Lady Dumont. I trust I have your confidence in this matter?"
Lady Dumont nodded her acquiescence. "He cares about you very much. I hope this unfortunate incident does not keep the two of you from finding happiness together."
Eleanor might have laughed at that if she weren't trying so hard to keep from losing her mind. "Thank you."
Once Lady Dumont took her leave and she was alone again, Eleanor crossed to her vanity and picked up the crumpled papers there. Smoothing them open, she read the elegant script. The first one was to Brahm, asking him to meet in the gardener's cottage on the estate at two. It was signed with her name, but the handwriting wasn't hers.
Brahm was right that the penmanship on the notes matched. The second was a simple request for Lady Dumont's company in Brahm's chamber— at two. A coincidence that the time and handwriting were the same on both? Not a chance. A mistake that the writing looked so much like Lydia's? Even less of a chance.
Her sister had conspired against her, plotted to hurt not only her, but Brahm and Lady Dumont as well. Why? What was the purpose of such deceit? To keep Eleanor and Brahm from marrying?
She rang the bell for the housekeeper. When the woman arrived a few minutes later, Eleanor asked her to relay a message to Lydia that Eleanor wished to see her immediately. Eleanor then rang for her own maid and a cup of coffee. She wanted to be alert and ready when her confrontation with Lydia took place.
And take place it did, within the hour.
Lydia swept into the room, a fashionable, lavender-scented vision in lemon muslin. "Eleanor, dearest, you look awful! I heard about that awful Lord Creed deserting you. Are you quite all right?" She made as though to embrace her, but Eleanor took a step backward.
Her sister froze, bewilderment lighting her features— it was as false as everything else about Lydia. "Dearest, whatever is the matter?"
Eleanor offered her the notes. "You wrote these. Why? Why did you try so hard to make it look as though Brahm was being untrue?"
Lydia didn't try to deny it. She cast a quick glance at the letters and shrugged. "He would have been untrue eventually."
Frowning, Eleanor shook her head. "What the devil kind of logic is that?"
Her sister's demeanor turned haughty, and defensive, as though she was the one who had been wronged. "I did you a great service, Eleanor."
Eleanor gaped at her sister. "A service? By sending another woman to his bed to trick me? How was that a service?"
"My actions forced you to realize that you do not trust Brahm." Lydia practically crowed the words.
She was right, of course, in a twisted way. "It was not your place to do so."
"I did it for you."
"You did it because you cannot stand the fact that I was going to marry him. Was it because you wanted him for yourself or because you want everyone else to be as miserable as you are?"
An expression of deep hurt crossed Lydia's face. "I cannot believe you would ask me such awful questions. I sent those notes because I love you. I could not allow my own sister to marry a man she would never be able to trust, who would never love her as she deserved."
That last remark struck a little too close to home. "What of Lady Dumont, what did she deserve?"
Lydia dismissed the question with the wave of her hand. "Lady Dumont will be fine. You were my main concern. I had been trying to think of a way to make you see the truth."
"You will forgive me if I find that difficult to thank you for."
Lydia, it seemed, did not like her lack of appreciation. "If you had married Creed you would have eventually grown to despise him for your lack of trust. Yes, I did you a service. I wish someone had done the same for me before I married."
At one time Eleanor would have felt sorry for her sister, but all she felt now was revulsion— at Lydia for being so malicious, and at herself for being so stupid and weak.
"I wish someone had warned me of you, Lydia. But make no mistake, I will not make the error of trusting
you
ever again. Please leave my room."
"He called me by your name that night." If Lydia had dropped a bag of rocks on her head it wouldn't have surprised— or hurt— any more than her words.
Eleanor trembled with barely restrained anger. Lydia sounded so self-satisfied, as though she was the victor in a game. Perhaps she was; she had made Eleanor doubt Brahm, had made her reject him once again. This time, for good.
"Get. Out."
To her surprise, Lydia complied instantly, as though she had no idea just how angry Eleanor was with her, or perhaps she simply didn't care how upset Eleanor was.
"You will thank me for this one day," she predicted with a smug glance as she opened the door. "You know it as well as I. Marriage to Brahm Ryland would have made you miserable."
Eleanor did not reply. She simply stood there, her arms tight across her chest as her sister made her grand exit. Marriage to Brahm might very well have made her miserable, but she wasn't about to admit that to Lydia. And she'd be damned if she thanked her for it.
Nor was she about to admit to anyone but herself that marriage to Brahm might just have easily made her the happiest woman on earth. It didn't matter what marriage to Brahm might have made her.
She was never going to find out.
Chapter 15
L
ondon held none of the pleasure it once did. The city was dark and gray upon his return, the weather damp and chill, much like the feeling in his heart.
Brahm ordered his driver to take him to his club on St. James and told the driver not to wait. He would find his own way home.
His leg was stiff and uncooperative as he climbed the few steps to the club entrance. A doorman greeted him. "Good day, Lord Creed. May I take your coat and hat?"
Brahm removed his outerwear and passed the clothing to the man with a mumbled thanks. Inside, the club was warm and inviting, the air scented with beefsteak and cigars. Chatter, incoherent but lively, filled the main room. The club was not full, but many tables were taken by gentlemen drinking and talking. Some dined on beef, some drank coffee. In another room there would be games of chance and wages made in a betting book.
Yes, this was a good place for him to wallow in his self-pity.
And pity himself he did. When he didn't pity himself he was angry— angry at himself, at Eleanor, at Lydia, at anyone he could possibly think of who might be connected in any way, no matter how remote, to this debacle.
How could he have been so stupid as to think that he could make her believe he had changed? How could he have believed it had been so easy to win her? He hadn't won her. His claim had been tenuous at best.
All that rubbish she had spouted. He deserved better, what a load of horse shite. How could she say that and then claim she couldn't trust that he had changed? It was contradiction at its finest. If he hadn't changed, then he wouldn't have deserved less than her, let alone better. The man he had been hadn't deserved much more than a kick in the arse.
The most pathetic part was that he had actually started to believe that he did deserve her, that he was worthy of her and all her goodness and fucking propriety. Propriety. That was a laugh. She had been the one to come to his bed, not the other way around. She had wanted him and taken what she wanted from him. She had used him and then stomped on the heart so freely offered to her. She had treated him in a manner that no one else ever had. He knew men who had treated women in such a fashion, but he had never been guilty of such a crime himself— not even when horribly drunk. Lydia had been the only mistake he'd ever made. He was glad that he had generally been above such behavior now that he knew what a debasing thing it was to have happen.
Damn her, even after the hurt she had done, after the insult she had leveled upon him, he wanted her still. His heart ached from his loss. For a brief time she had made him think that life might have more to offer him, that there was lightness and good in his future. She had made him believe that he could be a better man, and that others might see it.
For one short, blissfully tragic moment, he had cared what someone else thought of him, and it rent him to the bone.
At least here he might find some kind of diversion from the pain.
He approached a table of gentlemen, one of whom he recognized as Lord Mitchley, an old friend of his father's. It would be rude not to stop and say hello, even though he didn't feel much like talking.
Lord Mitchley's eyes were slightly unfocused and his cheeks a tad too ruddy, but his smile was genuine as he looked up at Brahm. "Good day to you, Creed. Care to join us for a brandy?"
He didn't even think. "Don't mind if I do."
The men exchanged startled glances, but no one raised an objection as he slid into the only vacant chair at the table. A snifter of brandy was placed in front of him, so extremely innocent and tempting.
Brahm stared at it for a moment. He shouldn't do this. He knew it was wrong, but what damn difference did it make? Everyone expected him to give in and go back to his old ways eventually. No one believed he had actually changed. Eleanor didn't believe. His own brothers didn't even believe. Had not Wyn expressed his doubts before Brahm left for Burrough's estate? Perhaps he hadn't come right out and said it, but it had been obvious that his brother suspected the trip would not go well.
