How to Marry a Marble Marquis(28)
The summons had come several days after that night. Her heart had been in a tumult the last time she had left the Marquis of Basingstone’s home. The carriage curtains were drawn over the windows, shielding them from the prying eyes of the outside world. She’d sat on the bench beside him, most improper, with his arm tucked around her and her head lolling against his chest. He smelled like an expensive gentleman’s fougère, an herbaceous lavender with a dark, heady core. It was deeply alluring, somehow both feminine and masculine at once, even erotic, she thought with a blush. It made her weak, and she suspected she’d never smell lavender and rosemary ever again and not think of him.
He’d kissed her hand before her door, once she’d fished her key from her chatelaine, the act of having to open her own door in such a way an unbearable embarrassment in front of him, and his carriage had rocked off once the door was closed securely behind her.
There had been no sleeping after that. Her feet had carried her back and forth, back and forth, across the library for hours after she arrived home, meeting the dawn the same way he likely had, the mere thought of him causing her to melt against her pillow, forcing herself to sleep for a few hours; hours that were spent dreaming of him. Her body hummed. She had never before experienced a peak like the one she’d had against his tongue and then again with him inside her. When that fat protuberance at the base of his cock had pushed inside her, she’d seen stars. It had hurt, worse than even his cock had at first, but she had still been pulsing from her peak, and as she squeezed around the thick invasion, her breath had caught, pleasure outrunning the pain, the world going white as he groaned into her hair.
She would be attending the Monster’s Ball in just a few weeks, going off to wed some stranger, but somehow her heart had gone and enamored itself with Silas Stride, the most foppish, philandering gargoyle in all of London.
That night didn’t deserve any special designation in her head, not now, not anymore, but when the pristine stationery had arrived adorned with his blue seal, she had been nervous and giddy, butterflies taking up residence in her chest, squeezing out her ability to breathe, the flutter of a million tiny wings brushing her heart. He had thought of everything. His carriage would be arriving to bring her and her grandmother, along with Hettie, to Basingstone, ensuring she had an escort to preserve her reputation. Meanwhile, Lucy and Coraline would be sent north for the next month, private instruction at a finishing school for young ladies, freeing her of the worry of what to do with them when she left for the ball.
I hope you will be amenable to sending your younger sisters to the esteemed ladies at Lunaswell. I can assure you that they will receive a comprehensive education in both academics and etiquette during their time there. My own sister attended several summers at Lunaswell in our youth, and I am certain you will find no fault with their rigorous curriculum in the feminine arts.
He had a long, sloped manner of writing, each stroke of his quill like a ripple on the surface of water, and as she read his words, Eleanor tried to picture them in his drawling, icy voice. The girls would benefit from attending the school, even for just a month. She did her best at home with them, but she was no governess, and she knew their education in the fine art of being proper young ladies was lacking.
“Will we be gone for very long?” Lucy had asked with a stricken expression after Eleanor had relayed the news.
“Not too terribly long, darling,” she had assured her younger sister. “I’ll be completing my own finishing with the marquis, and then leaving for the ball. Arrangements will need to be made for the wedding, and then everything here will need to be packed away. This is for you, Lucy, both you and Coraline. We talked about this, remember? We’re all going to have to move once I marry. And then you and Coraline will resume your education, and in just a few years, we’ll be introducing you to London society, little sister. We want you to find a good match, do we not?”
“Do you promise?”
“Promise?” Eleanor hadn’t known the nature of the promise she was meant to be making, but she wasn’t prepared for her sister’s tears.
“Do you promise you’re not just sending us away?”
“Lucy! Darling, of course not!” She opened her arms, and her sniffling sibling threw herself into them, hot tears soaking the neckline of Eleanor’s dress.
“Promise me you’re not sending us away and that we’re going to stay together. Promise me.”
“Of course, I promise, darling. I would never send you away for good. Where did you get such a silly thought?!”
Lucy sniffed, hanging her head. “I heard Camilla talking about the workhouses. She said if you can’t find a rich husband, Coraline might be sent to be a scullery girl in some lord’s kitchen, and I-I’ll have to —“
Her blood boiled. She was going to have a sternly-worded talk with the part-time cook upon her return. You won’t have need of a part-time cook when you return. You’ll be going to live with your new husband. The thought had made her stomach tighten, a nervous braiding owed to the fact that she knew she could not fail in this, and the simultaneous quiver at the thought of marrying some stranger and not the lord with whom she had been spending all of her time.
“Lucy, I’m not going to let that happen. Listen to me; this is very important.“ Eleanor lifted her sister’s chin, forcing her to raise her tear-filled eyes. “You are not going to wind up as someone’s maid. We have a good name, Lucy. A good, respected name. Everyone loved father. But that name is all we have left. It’s our only card left to play. That is the whole point of the marquis’s assistance. I’m going to come back from the Monster’s Ball engaged to some lord, and we’re all staying together, all four of us. I promise you. And in a few years, when it’s your turn to debut in society, no one is going to remember these hard times.”