To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke Book 8) (24 page)

Silence descended and yet the rustle of leaves and ragged, broken breaths deafened him. Marcus opened and closed his mouth several times. He shook his head. Once. Twice. A third time. As he worked through the horror of her revelation, no matter how much he shook his head, no matter how much he willed her words out of existence, they remained, and there they would stay.

No
.

She nodded once. “Yes.”

Had he spoken aloud? How was he capable of words when his entire world was crumbling about him like an ancient castle blasted by cannon fodder? “Oh, Eleanor,” he managed to rasp. How many years he’d spent hating her, when all along he should have hated himself. Self-loathing unfurled inside him. He had failed her in the worst possible way; and for that, she had suffered the greatest pain and hurt.

He looked down at his chest. Where was the crimson stain upon the fabric if his heart was bleeding so?

She made a soft sound of protest. “Do not look at me like that. I knew you would look at me like that when I told you and I cannot bear it, Marcus.” Tears welling anew in her eyes, she shook her head hard. “So stop. Please.” At that desperate entreaty, a strangled groan stuck in his throat.

He covered his mouth with his hand, and stalked over, obliterating the remaining distance between them, and then stopped, at sea. He was like a child’s toy, stuck in a vicious squall, and it was ratcheting his world down about him. “How can I look at you with anything but love?” For even as he’d hated her for an imagined betrayal, he’d loved her beyond thought.

“Do not say that.” She closed her eyes and a little cry burst from her lips. “Do not. I don’t want that from you. Not here.”

Not now. She’d deserved that profession from him years earlier. She’d deserved it the moment she’d reentered his life. Instead, he’d given her nothing but his scorn, and…

Bile climbed up his throat and he nearly choked. Oh, God. He’d tried to seduce her. With his every word, his every promise and pledge, he’d offered her nothing more than a place in his bed. A sob escaped him. The weight of his shame brought his eyes closed. There was a special place in hell for men like him.

Her husband had been worthy of her, after all. Worthy in ways that Marcus never had been. Suddenly, his dead rival, the man he’d hated since discovering his existence, earned Marcus’ unending gratitude. She’d deserved the honorable Lieutenant Collins, a man he was grateful to for having been what Marcus had not.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “That is why you left,” he said woodenly. Of course it was why she left.

Her slight nod dislodged a curl. “That is why I left,” she said softly. “He took everything from me. I was powerless, in every way. If you hated me, I wanted it to be for reasons within my control. I wanted you to hate me for decisions I made and not for something that was forced on me by a man I did not even know.”

Marcus dug his fingers into his palms with such ferocity, he ripped the flesh. The sticky warmth of his blood coated his hand, and he welcomed the pain. “Did you know me so little that you think I could have ever hated you for that?” His voice emerged broken. “That I could have ever held you to blame?”

A single tear trickled down Eleanor’s cheek and she moved over in a flurry of gray skirts. She captured his hands and forced them open. “How could I know that? How, when I hate myself even still, all these years later?” she whispered. In the way a wife might care for her husband, she reached inside his pocket and withdrew his monogrammed kerchief. She brushed the white fabric over the jagged wound left by his nail, gentling cleaning away his blood. Eleanor turned the cloth over to him and incapable of words, he tucked it away. She broke the silence, proving herself, once again, stronger than he had ever been or ever would be. “It is because I thought so much of you that I left. I do not doubt you would have done the honorable thing. You would have never been free until you found him and then you would have dueled him.” Eleanor lifted his hand to her cheek and leaned into his uninjured palm. “And I would never have allowed that for either of us.”

“I would have married you,” he gasped out.
I will marry you.

Her shoulders shook from the force of her silent tears. “I know you would have, which is also why I left.”

What if he’d arrived in time? What would life be for either of them, both of them, even now? “Yet you gave another man that right.” A right that should have belonged to Marcus.

Except I failed her. I was late meeting her, and she was alone, unprotected, and raped for my tarrying.
He groaned and the sound tore from deep inside where agony and regret dwelled.

The sadness glowing from within her eyes blended with surprise. The potent emotion there stuck in his chest twisting the dull blade of agony all the more. “Oh, Marcus, you still do not know?”

He no longer knew up from down or right from left. “Know what?”

“There never was a Mr. Collins.”

A night bird sang. Crickets chirped.
No Mr. Collins?
“Marcia…?” And the air left him on a whispery hiss.

“Who needs a miserable son? I would have a daughter who looks like you…”

“…And would you name her Marcia…?”

Good God. He choked. That night of terror had brought her a child. All of Eleanor’s life remained a fabricated truth built by a young, unmarried woman. He tried to imagine the fear she would have known as a girl of just eighteen years; bruised and suffering, and compounding the horror with a babe from the monster who’d raped her. Yet…Marcus’ throat worked spasmodically…that babe was now the child, Marcia; a little girl who worried over her mother being afraid and who’d waltzed on the tops of his boots.

Eleanor drew a quavering breath. “My father was a miserable merchant, Marcus. But he was a wonderful father. He moved us to the corner of Cornwall and allowed us to carve a new life, for me, for Marcia.” She ran her palms down the front of her skirts. “So now you know.”

Now he knew.

How very calmly matter-of-fact those words were when she’d ripped his world asunder with the truth.

And he would be irrevocably altered, forevermore.

Eleanor lifted tear-filled eyes to his. “I never stopped loving you, Marcus. The memory of you sustained me when I prayed for death.” Then, leaning up on tiptoe, she touched her lips to his in a fleeting kiss that tasted of sadness, regret, and eventual parting.

Marcus remained frozen. “Eleanor, I…”
Love you. Want to make you my wife and Marcia my daughter.
He killed the request he so desperately ached to put to her. She deserved his profession of love and a plea for marriage, but both had to come later. To give them to her now would seem obligatory; prompted by her revelation, and not for what they were—driven by the love he’d always carried for her.

“It is fine, Marcus,” she said softly.

It could never be fine. No right could undo these wrongs.

Then, ducking her head with the same shyness of her youth, she turned and left him standing there staring after her.

With Eleanor gone, he sank to his haunches and buried his face in his hands. He let fly the ugly curses that burned his tongue; hating himself for having failed her, hating the stranger who’d stolen her innocence in the cruelest, most heinous, way and hating time for having marched on. How much they’d lost.

Filled with a restlessness, he surged to his feet.

A breeze stirred the branches overhead and pink-white petals rained about him, settling on his coat sleeve. Absently, he captured a fragile petal and ran the pad of his thumb over the delicate piece.

When Eleanor had left, he’d thought of nothing but his own hurts. He’d allowed the agony of her betrayal to shape him into the man he’d become…and with the stars twinkling mockingly overhead as silent witnesses, he was forced to confront the truth—he didn’t much like himself. He didn’t like the man he’d become, and more, he didn’t like who he’d let himself become…all in the name of bitter cynicism. He’d taken countless widows and courtesans to his bed, seeking a physical surcease and protecting his heart.

Why should Eleanor want such a man?

… This is who you would have become. You are such a part of this world, I never truly belonged to. Perhaps you would have married me…But you would have become the rogue, the world knows…

The memory of Eleanor’s accusation burned more than any switch he’d taken to his back at his cruel tutor’s hands years and years ago. For Eleanor had read about him in the gossip columns and returned to London knowing precisely what he was—a rogue.

And yet, he was a rogue who wanted to be a husband.
Her
husband. He balled his hands and ignoring the pain of his previous wound, crushed the satiny soft petal in his palm.

He wanted to marry Eleanor. Not because she’d been raped by some nameless stranger. Not to provide her security and a future for Marcia. Even though he did want all of those things. No, he wanted to marry her because she had always owned his heart and, until he drew his last breath, the unworthy organ would beat for her.

Marcus continued to stand in the duchess’ gardens long after Eleanor had left, until the fingers of dawn pulled back the night sky. He’d lost Eleanor once and he’d little intention of losing her now.

The only question remained: how to earn her love and trust…again?

T
he next morning, seated at the breakfast table, Satin and Devlin vied for Eleanor’s attention…and not for the first time since her arrival, she welcomed the pugs’ distraction. It prevented her from focusing on all she’d shared with Marcus.

She curled her toes into the soles of her slippers. Nay, that wasn’t true. One couldn’t very well forget the ugly, humiliating parts she’d shared with him…the only person, other than her father, whom she’d let into the lie that was her life.

Satin yapped at Eleanor’s feet and she looked down at the panting pug. “Oh, you are not content to let anyone else have attention, are you?” she murmured, favoring the dog with a gentle pat. She offered him a strip of bacon, which he grabbed between his crooked teeth.

Devlin growled.

“Do hush,” she chided. “There is certainly enough for the both of you.”

He shoved the top of his head against her chair, as though in canine agreement, and then bounded across the room to his mistress’ side.

“How are you doing with your list, gel?” Her aunt thundered from the wide-backed King Louis chair she occupied, freezing Eleanor mid-movement.

Satin yapped once, nudging her again. “It is coming along,” she answered, praying her aunt would find those words sufficient so Eleanor wasn’t forced to, in the light of a new day, think about the most intimate, personal pieces she’d shared with Marcus. Or his palpable grief and regret.

“What does that mean, ‘it is coming along’?” her aunt barked.

She sighed. Of course, that assurance would have never sufficed. Marcia glanced up curiously from her plate of eggs and toast. Avoiding her gaze, Eleanor cleared her throat. “Just that. It is coming along.”

“Do you believe I’ll be content with your veiled non-answers?” The older woman mumbled something under her breath that sounded a good deal like didn’t-have-the-sense-God-gave-a-goose. “You will be able to cross the theatre from your list, gel. We’ll attend this evening.”

At the prospect of visiting those noisy, vibrant gardens amongst the unkind
ton
, her heart sank. God how she missed the simplicity of the countryside quiet.

“The opera,” Marcia breathed, clasping her hands to her chest. “It is so very grand in London. I never wish to leave.”

A denial sprung to her lips and Eleanor forcibly tamped down the panic. Her daughter loved the glittering world of polite Society. Just as so many other young girls were surely wont to do, Marcia longed to take part in balls and attend operas and stroll through Hyde Park. She dreamed of one day finding a charming gentleman. Never knowing, that by the circumstances of her birthright and Eleanor’s past, this world was closed to her. Sadness squeezed at her heart, and as though he’d sensed her sudden disquiet, Satin jumped at the side of her chair. The loyal pug licked at her hand with his coarse tongue. Eleanor stroked Satin once more. “What a good boy you are,” she cooed.

“I’m not so weak that I’d be distracted, Eleanor,” her aunt barked from the opposite end of the table. “Even if you are complimenting my babies.”

Marcia giggled and the older woman favored her with a wink.

A smile pulling at her lips, Eleanor inclined her head. “And I would never be so foolish as to think a woman such as you is anything but strong.”

The lady’s cheeks filled with color and she shifted on her seat. “Never think to silence me with compliments, either,” she muttered. Though the happy glint in the woman’s rheumy eyes hinted at pleasure over that compliment.

“I wouldn’t dare,” she said solemnly marking an “X” on her chest.

Satin worked his two front legs furiously against the leg of the chair. Eleanor winced as his sharp nails worked a wear pattern into the once flawless mahogany.

“No worries about that,” her aunt thumped her cane. “Material pleasures are to be enjoyed. By dogs, too.” She favored the faithful dog on her lap with an affectionate stroke.

Footsteps sounded in the hall and the trio looked up as the butler entered.

“Lord Wessex has arrived.”

At his unexpected announcement, the silver fork slipped from Eleanor’s fingers and clattered noisily upon her largely untouched breakfast plate. Heart thumping wildly, she stared at the young servant. In the light of a new day with her ugliest secret laying open between them, Eleanor could not face him. Not when she was still feeling raw and exposed.

At the stretch of silence, the butler looked between his employer and Eleanor and cleared his throat. “That is, I have taken to showing the Viscount Wessex to the parlor where he awaits Mrs. Collins.”

The duchess inclined her head and the servant took his cue. He sketched a bow and backed out of the room.

Marcia clapped her hands excitedly. “Oh, wonderful, Marcus is here,” she mumbled around a mouthful of scone.

“We do not speak with our mouths full, love,” Eleanor corrected, proud of the steadiness of her tone when inside she was a quaking, trembling mess. Perhaps she could feign a megrim. Or perhaps…

“You’re not going to turn away my godson, Eleanor Elaine,” the duchess boomed, thumping her cane on the floor.

“I did not say I was turning him away,” Eleanor complained, but neither did she climb to her feet and rush to the parlor. She’d resolved to not seeing him today. Following their midnight meeting, and all she’d shared, how could she face him? Oh, ultimately, she’d have to see him again, but not now. Not so soon after. To give her fingers something to do, she dangled a piece of bread over the edge of the table. Satin and Devlin raced forward and vied for supremacy over the offering. She grabbed another and Satin snapped it up and carried it back to his mistress’ feet.

“Why would Mama turn Marcus away?” Marcia asked, little wrinkles of confusion marring her brow.

“Because—” How could she explain herself in a way that would ever make sense to her small daughter who’d come to idolize him?

“Because she’s not as clever as I’d credited,” her aunt retorted.

Eleanor’s cheeks warmed. “I am not turning him away.”

“Then go,” her aunt shot back.

“Well, I like him,” Marcia said unhelpfully. “Even if Mama does not.”

“I like him just fine.” She pressed her fingertips against her temples. Goodness, she’d not have to feign a megrim, after all. The two ornery ladies before her now were causing one, all on their own.

“Marcus danced with me,” Marcia piped in and then promptly took another bite of her scone.

Eleanor dropped her arms to her sides. Her heart danced a peculiar rhythm in her chest at that loving tableau presented with her daughter’s innocent admission. “You…”

“Danced with him. A waltz,” Marcia said happily around her full mouth.

Proper manners be damned, Eleanor bit the inside of her cheek to keep the countless questions from tumbling from her lips.

“Oh?” the duchess drawled.

And the astute seven-year-old girl registered the focus trained on her and preened. She gave a pleased nod. “Well, I was watching the ball, as Mama said I could, and was returning to my chambers, and ran into Marcus in the hall.”

“The hall,” her aunt parroted. “Whatever was the boy doing in my corridors during the ball?”

Eleanor’s cheeks burned and she turned a prayer skyward.
Please do not look at me. Please do not…

The Lord proved otherwise busy, as He invariably did. Her aunt narrowed her knowing gaze on Eleanor.

“Well, he was dancing with
meeee
,” Marcia said with a roll of her eyes.

“Ah, of course,” her aunt said wryly. “
That
was what he was doing in my corridors.”

Marcia nodded. “He allowed me to waltz on his boots and I very much like him, Mama.”

An image flitted through her mind of Marcus balancing Marcia on the tops of his shoes while he guided her laughingly about the floor; the dream so very real because of what her daughter had just painted. Her throat worked and she cursed the silent attention now trained on her.

Daughter and aunt stared expectantly back at her.

And in this instance, facing one Marcus to the two probing ladies before her was vastly preferable. She surged to her feet and started her march to the door. Because she really didn’t care to be called a coward. And she cared even less to have her intelligence questioned. It was not a matter of intelligence or bravery. Well, mayhap it was a bit of bravery…but rather—self-preservation. She sought to protect what little remained of her dignity. “I will go see His Lordship.”

“Marcus,” Marcia called out.

The older woman fixed an equal part pleased, equal part triumphant, smile on her niece. “Run along, gel. Run along.”

Eleanor exited the breakfast room, when her daughter’s whispered words carried through the doorway. They froze Eleanor.

“…Do you think he will marry her…?”

There was such hope in her little girl’s wonderings that pain lanced at her heart.

“I do.” Her aunt’s firm assurance jerked her back into movement and, with frantic steps, Eleanor rushed down the hall.

Her aunt and daughter spoke so casually of marriage. One was the hopes of a fatherless child, the other of an older woman, romantic by nature, who did not know all the darkest, ugliest secrets that made Eleanor an unsuitable match for anyone. She reached the White Parlor and paused at the entrance to the room. Marcus stood at the floor-length window with his hands clasped behind his back. The sight of him, with his broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist and strong thighs, was the beautiful perfection of a man who deserved more than a woman who’d been used by another.

He stiffened. As he turned, she braced for the veiled disgust and hesitancy of a man who didn’t know what to do with a woman who’d shared her secret shame, and the moment stretched into an eternity of her mourning Marcus as he’d been before; kissing her, touching her, and unguarded in his attentions. A half-grin marred those perfectly formed lips; a smile that reached his eyes, and for the sincerity there, all the way into her heart which beat for him. “Eleanor.”

“M-Marcus,” she greeted, running her palm over her skirts. She searched for a hint of repulsion but found nothing but the same, smiling man he’d been. Nay. Eleanor lingered on his eyes. Where the jaded glint of a man long ago brokenhearted and betrayed had once been, was now a tenderness she didn’t know what to do with.

Then he spoke. “I have thought long about your list.” Marcus rocked on his heels. “I will not hold you to our previous arrangement.”

Her heart paused mid-beat.
No!
She smoothed her palms down the front of her skirts. “You will not?” she managed, proud of the steady deliverance of that useless question.

He shook his head. “I will not.”

He’d likely realized the folly in courting a ruined woman. That truth gutted her. “I-I will see to the list on my own, Marcus. Thank you for helping me complete the items that you did.”

“Tsk, tsk, love.” With the husky timbre to his retort, he was the charming, practiced rogue, once more. “I didn’t say I would not assist you.” He strode slowly toward her, hopelessly elegant in his sleek, black attire. “I, however, will not hold you to the remainder of the Season.”

Grief scissored through her.
What if I want you to?
She’d been such a coward these years that she could not bring herself to utter the humbling question hovering on her lips. She stiffened as he lowered his head and claimed her lips in a tender, gentle meeting. He tasted of love and truth and new beginnings and she wanted all of it, only with him.

Marcus raised his head. “I want you to remain here because you want it, Eleanor.” His breath fanned her lips and brought her lids fluttering. “I want you to stay in London not because you require the role of companion to your aunt and not because your uncle or I willed it. I want you to be here because you wish to be.” A familiar, errant, gold curl fell over his brow and he offered her a slow smile that met his eyes. “And because I’m a selfish bastard, I want you to
want
to be here because you wish to be with me.”

Warmth flicked to life inside her heart…as the slow, gradual understanding of his offer crept in. He would not force her to do something. He’d allow her choice, when the most elemental one had been stolen from her before. And God help her, she fell in love with him all over again. Wished to be the woman he deserved. Wished to be a woman who could share his bed and give him children.

He offered her his elbow and, her world in tumult, she eyed it in abject confusion.

“What are you doing, Marcus?” she whispered.

He brushed his fingers down her cheek, and then tipped her chin up, forcing her eyes to his. “Why, I am escorting you to Gunther’s.”

Gunther’s?

“Item five,” he reminded, running the pad of his thumb over her lower lip as he was wont to do.

Item five? Her list. Yes, a gentleman of Marcus’ honor would uphold the pledge he’d taken to help her. Nothing would prevent him from doing so. Not even midnight revelations of her dark past.

Marcus lifted one eyebrow. “You do remember item five?”

“Of course,” she said dumbly
. Liar. You only recall what item was on the list because he just reminded you.
“Gunther’s. Ices at Gunther’s.”
Foolish girl, what did you secretly hope? That he’d come to swear his undying love and to ask you to be his viscountess, as your aunt and daughter suspected?