Seduced By a Lady's Heart (Lords of Honor #1)(7)

He ignored her question. “Does my father know I’m here?”

She flattened her lips into a firm line.

Lucien spun back and took her shoulder in his hand. “Does he—?”

“N-no,” she stammered and for the first time terror filled her at the presence of this dark, angry stranger.

Some of the tension left him.

Perhaps this was about nothing more than the feud from long ago between the Viscount Hereford and his third son. Eloise held her palms up. “He doesn’t know you’re here,” she softly assured him. She curled her toes tightly with guilt. If this cold, unyielding man before her learned she’d searched for him all so she might try and bring peace to his fractured family, he would have tossed her quite handily out onto the front steps, rules of propriety and friendship between them be damned.

Lucien lowered his head and she drew back from the ice glinting in his thunderous gray stare. “Then. What. Do. You. Want?” he asked on a lethal whisper.

“I—” She wet her lips.

He followed that movement and for a desperate moment she imagined he might kiss her, which was, of course, silly because Lucien had never desired her. He’d loved her. Cared for…but Sara had held his heart. Eloise had merely held his friendship.

His lips pulled back in a menacing sneer. “I asked, what—?”

Only, now it appeared she’d never even held that.

“Lady Sherborne!” Their gazes flew as one to the Marchioness of Drake. She came down the stairs, the ease of her smiling visage indicated she’d not detected the thick undercurrents of tension between them.

“Please, Eloise,” she insisted, hungering to steal one more glance at the man she’d ached to see these many years.

Lady Drake stopped before them. “Oh, how splendid! I’ve been waiting for your visit, Eloise.”

She had as well. Eloise gulped.

Until this moment.





Chapter 3


Eloise.

Lucien drew back, unsettled, feeling like the unwitting actor upon a stage and he was the only one unknowing of his lines.

Eloise.

Only, this slender, gently curved lady with a trim waist and flared hips, bore no trace of the child he’d played with through the pastures of Kent. As though unnerved by his scrutiny, she lowered her gaze to the marble floor. No, the Eloise he remembered had never done anything as demure as lower her eyes. And she’d been a Miss Eloise Gage, a friend… Had he ever truly had friends?

The stricken expression in her eyes indicated that this older, more mature lady with those very familiar tight blonde curls was very much…. Eloise. She stared boldly at him. Her piercing blue-green gaze ran up and down his frame. Fury and hurt danced in those depths. Then, Eloise had worn her every emotion as plain as if they’d been stamped in ink across the delicate lines of her face.

He fisted his hand, balling it tightly, resenting her insolence in coming here. In reentering this new life he’d carved out for himself, in a world away from the ugly one he’d left behind.

“Jones?”

Lucien jerked. The marchioness’ concerned tone cut across the shocking reappearance of his past into his dark future. He gave his head a hard shake. “My lady,” he said gruffly.

“We’ll be taking tea in the Pink Parlor. Would you see to refreshments?” With that, she looped her arm through Eloise’s and ushered the slender young lady onward, their slippers noiseless upon the marble floors. He stared after them until they disappeared into the parlor.

Lucien scrubbed a hand over his eyes, the empty arm socket, cut off at the elbow itched with the memory of movement as he longed to scrub both hands over his eyes and then dig his fingers into his temples until he drove back the dream, hell, or reality this happened to be. Perhaps it was all three rolled into one.

She was here.

What was she doing here?

He lowered his arm to his side and frowned. And who the hell had she wed? Lady Sherborne. Before his father had purchased his damned commission for the infantry, Lucien hadn’t spent much time in London. He’d been so thoroughly bewitched, mind, body and soul by the mild-mannered, serenely beautiful Sara to have ever dashed off to take part in the ton’s inane amusements. And as the third son, he’d been afforded certain luxuries, such as remaining in the country, while his elder brother, the heir to the Viscount Hereford had been expected to dance attendance at ton events.

His lip peeled back in an involuntary sneer. Certain luxuries. What a bloody joke. And with Eloise’s reentrance into his life, she’d ushered in all the darkest memories he’d sought to bury. His aspirations for himself. His father’s goals for him. And the damned viscount’s ultimate triumph. May the blighter rot in hell.

Lucien closed his eyes and drew in several slow, steadying breaths; a calming mechanism he’d adopted over the years when the memories became particularly hard to bear. He dug deep and sought purchase within himself to climb from the pit and back to his present.

Eloise. Lady Sherborne.

The Marchioness of Drake.

Refreshments.

Tea, yes, they required tea.

With wooden steps he strode through the house, focused on the task set out. Refreshments were easy. An ugly, mirthless chuckle worked its way up his throat. Mayhap not easy, per se, with one and a half arms, but something he now accomplished with enough ease to not rely on others for the simple chore.