Seduced By a Lady's Heart (Lords of Honor #1)(6)

That harsh, gravelly voice froze her in her steps. Perhaps her fortune was not all bad, after all. Heart thumping wildly in her chest, Eloise spun around. Emotion swelled in her breast at the first sight of him, after all these years. She searched for glimpses of the young man he’d been, but saw none in the harsh set to his mouth and hard stare. Well over a foot taller than her mere five feet two inches, she moved her gaze up the towering butler with a crop of thick, black hair. Ruggedly beautiful with sharp, angular cheeks and a chiseled nose slightly curved from a punch he’d been dealt by an angry Richard. Her gaze lingered upon the empty place his arm had once been, the jacket neatly pinned up. Pain pierced her heart and she tamped down all pity. He’d neither welcome nor did he deserve that useless sentiment.

“May I help you?” Lucien repeated, with a snappish tone that brought her shoulders back.

The nerve of him. Eloise met his gaze squarely and then froze, her mouth dry. Their lives may be inextricably intertwined yet his piercing gray stare, the same that had haunted both her dreams and nightmares, belonged to a stranger. And the agony of missing him, the joy of being reunited with him all blended, robbing her of thoughts, speech, and movement. Eloise touched trembling fingers to her lips.

Lucien ran a punishing gaze up and down her person. A chill stole through her. She reassured herself he’d merely failed to recognize the friend of his past. She registered the flicker of awareness in his intelligent eyes and she detested that this beautiful reunion should come on the front steps of a stranger’s townhouse for all the passing, bored peers to see. “Eloise?”

She managed a jerky nod. Happiness swelled in her breast. “Lucien.” Oh, how she’d missed him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled with none of the warmth and gentleness she’d always known from him.

Eloise stared unblinkingly at Lucien. Surely she’d heard him—

“By God, I said what the hell are you doing here?” He yanked her by the arm and jerked her through the front doors.

Oh, dear. She swallowed hard. She’d had years to prepare for this very moment and yet remained as she invariably was—without words. “Oh, Lucien,” she said, her voice hoarse with emotion. Lucien released her arm with such alacrity she stumbled. “It is so wonderful to see you.” She had missed him more than any person in her life. God help her, even the husband who’d been kind and good to her still had never managed to evoke the emotion inspired by Lucien Jones. Suddenly, the joy of seeing him erased the years of propriety drilled into her in her role as countess. She flung her arms about him.

He grunted and staggered under the unexpectedness of her embrace. His broad, powerful frame was more muscular than she remembered. She mourned the loss of that one arm, and hurt with a need to have him wrap it about her as he’d done so many times when she’d been a small girl, so hopelessly in love with him. Tears flooded Eloise’s eyes and she blinked them away, not wanting him to see them and interpret them as signs of pity.

With his remaining arm and the strength of his chest, he set her away. “What in hell are you doing, Eloise?” he hissed.

She cocked her head. “Lucien,” she began. “It is me,” she said lamely. Obviously, he could see that it was, in fact, Miss Eloise Gage. Granted, she was not the same plump child he likely remembered on the eve of having her first London Season. Her blonde, impossibly tightly curled tresses were the same as was the lone birthmark at the corner of her lip. He used to tease her mercilessly about it. Surely, he even now recalled the blasted mark?

As though following her unspoken thoughts, his gaze shifted lower, ever lower, and fixed upon that slight mark. A smile played about her lips. Then his mouth set in a hard, unmoving line. At the left corner of his eye, a muscle ticked, hinting at his annoyance. She shook her head, uncomprehending this aloof stranger. She tried again. “Lucien—”

“Do not call me by my name, madam.” That sharp command better suited to the battlefield than a formal foyer, came out as an angry whisper. He shot a furious glance about for interlopers.

All her earlier joy was replaced by confusion, then hurt, and ultimately gave way to a seething annoyance. She snapped her eyebrows into a single line. “What should I call you?”

“You, madam, are not to call me anything.”

Eloise recoiled. “What are you on about?” His coolly aloof tone was more painful than had he slapped her.

It was as though her words didn’t penetrate whatever walls he’d constructed about himself these years. With quick, clipped steps, he proceeded to pace the rich, Italian marble floor. “How did you discover my whereabouts?”

A pang struck her heart. “You didn’t want to be found?” Did that ghost-like whisper belong to her? But the pain of that possibility…oh, God, all these years she’d thought of him, and ultimately, he’d not wanted to be found. She pressed her eyes tightly closed as his gleaming, black boots beat a staccato rhythm upon the floor. For years she’d believed he’d removed himself from her life in an effort to avoid his father. Theirs had been a volatile relationship that had been forever damaged when the viscount insisted his son take a commission in the military, instead of the church as Lucien had wished. But this, now knowing… “You avoided me.” All these years she’d ached for him…missed his friendship…their friendship. And she’d mattered not at all.