Seduced By a Lady's Heart (Lords of Honor #1)(4)

Emmaline spun around, a warm, grateful smile on her face. “Oh, my, why thank you very much. I do believe I would have made quite a cake of myself right here.”

Eloise waved off the unnecessary expression of gratitude. “No, my lady…Emmaline,” she amended when the kindly woman opened her mouth. “It was—”

“Please say you’ll join me for tea, my lady.”

…Entirely Eloise’s fault. “Please, just Eloise,” she blurted.

The marchioness’ smile widened. “Splendid! Shall we say tomorrow?” With a quick curtsy she spun on her heel and marched from the room, leaving Eloise staring wide-eyed after her.

Well…that was indeed a good deal easier than she’d imagined it would be.





Chapter 2


Lucien Jones moved with military precision through the palatial townhouse of his employer, the Marquess of Drake. The stiff cravat threatened to choke him and he tugged at the blasted fabric. An ache so potent it was a physical force filled him with longing for the comfort he’d known in the marquess’ stables.

“Bloody cravats,” he mumbled and a wide-eyed scullery maid scurried in the opposite direction. At one time he would have felt a modicum of shame for scaring the staff. That proper gentleman was gone. Long dead. He tightened his jaw and paused outside his employer’s office. He raised a hand.

“Enter,” Lord Drake’s voice broke through the wood panel before he’d even knocked.

He pressed the handle. “You wanted to see me, Captain?”

The Marquess of Drake, a Captain in His Majesty’s Army when bloody Boney was wreaking havoc throughout the continent had commanded Lucien in battle. Revered as a war hero, the powerful nobleman glanced up from his ledgers. “Jones,” he greeted, his tone gave little indication to his thoughts. He tossed his pen down and motioned him forward.

Lucien wandered deeper into the room.

“Sit,” the marquess commanded.

He furrowed his brow. “Sit?” Long ago, he’d become suspicious of summons. Those issued by his family, former friends, and now, his employer.

“That is unless you prefer to stand through our meeting?” the other man asked dryly.

Actually, he did. His years of fighting had taught him the perils of rest. The bloody war. At the marquess’ questioning look, however, Lucien claimed the closest leather, winged back chair. He surveyed the room a long moment, remembering back to a different office, of equally opulent wealth, a world he’d once belonged to but had shunned after the hell visited upon him by life.

His employer began without preamble. “You are unhappy in your new post.”

Lucien stiffened. Lord Drake’s words weren’t a question but rather a flawless observation from a man whose uncanny insight had saved any number of men on any number of occasions. Lucien had done any number of reprehensible things to survive and would likely burn in hell for those sins and others that still kept him awake at night, but he’d never been a liar. “No,” he said gruffly. He missed his station in the stables. Mayhap more than he missed his bloody left arm.

“You don’t belong in the stables,” the marquess said with a directness Lucien appreciated.

“I don’t belong here,” he tossed back, honestly. Though in truth, he didn’t belong anywhere. He was a man who didn’t truly fit in any one world.

The other man placed his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “I suspect you belong here more than anywhere else.” He arched an eyebrow.

He stiffened, preferring an existence in which his secrets were his secrets and only he had to suffer the torment of them.

Lord Drake held a hand up. “I wouldn’t ask or expect a man to divulge his past. That belongs to you, Jones.”

The tension eased from his shoulders.

“There is no one I trust more with the running of my household than you,” the marquess continued.

Rigidity crept into his frame and the urge to ask for the restoration of his previous post was a physical one. He spoke bluntly. “The staff is afraid of me.” And with good reason. He was a dark, miserable monster who’d forgotten how to be a wholly proper gentleman.

The other man’s lips turned up in one corner. It didn’t escape Lucien’s notice that he didn’t disagree. “I’ll not keep you in a post you don’t want.”

That magnanimous gesture gave him pause. “Captain?”

“I am in need of a new steward.” He motioned to the opened ledgers before him. “My previous steward has done something of a deplorable job.”

Lucien sank back in his seat as with the marquess’ words went the last of his hope.

“You don’t belong in the stables, Jones,” the marquess spoke in the quiet, resolute tones of one who’d formed an opinion and would not renege. His lips twisted in a wry smile. A damned captain until he died, the man would be.

Lucien slid his gaze over to the window and stared out at the annoyingly bright, sun-filled sky. He detested the sun, far preferring the gray, overcast London skies and the frequent bouts of rain that better suited his moods. He scrubbed his remaining hand over his eyes. The last place he cared to be consigned was to the countryside that would serve as a forever reminder of the life, nay the lives, he’d left behind—a wife, a child he’d never met. And yet, this man, the marquess and his wife had pulled him back from the edge of despair, restored him to at least a living, breathing shell of a person he’d once been. And for that, he owed them his allegiance.