To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke #8)(33)

Her girl. Marcia. The child she’d sacrificed all for. Numb, Eleanor climbed to her feet. She wandered over to the window and peeled back the curtain. She stared down into the very streets she’d met Marcus. When any other young lady would have gladly given up a babe forced upon them, Eleanor had known only love for her daughter. She’d devoted her life to Marcia, just as Father had given up the life he’d established as a respected merchant and spirited her away, fashioning a new life for them in the far-flung corners of Cornwall.

Then, that is what one did when one was a parent. You sacrificed all in the name of love. She dropped her gaze to the folded page. In the scheme of all she’d endured, these charges tasked by her late uncle were so very small and would see Marcia provided for in ways she’d never been. This list was about so much more than Eleanor. It was about her daughter’s future and security and time had already proven, Eleanor would do anything and be anything she needed to be for her child. “Six items,” she said, woodenly.

It was but six items; only three of them requiring her to allow a man near her.

“You always were a smart girl.”

A hysterical breath bubbled past her lips. If she’d been a smart girl, she’d not have gone off on her own and allowed herself to be trapped by a vile blackguard.

“And perhaps you’ll surprise yourself and find love.” Again, the word dangled unfinished between them.

“I won’t.” The denial ripped ragged from her. She’d never find love. She’d found love and that love would forever remain in the past; a gift to a younger, smiling gentleman from a younger, unjaded girl. Marcus, the way he’d been at one time, would always have her heart. Not this dark, bitter stranger she didn’t know.

“You and I both know you will, gel.” Aunt Dorothea gestured with her cane, motioning to Eleanor’s skirts. “And you’ll be needing new gowns for your Season. But for now, go.”

At any other moment she would have politely declined and remained to see to her responsibilities. “Thank you,” she murmured and all but flew from the room, desperate for escape. She sprinted down the corridors until her breath came hard and fast, took the corner quickly and came to a stop under a row of her late uncle’s distinguished relatives. Her chest heaved from the force of her emotion.

Closing her eyes, she placed her forehead against the hard plaster wall, finding a comfort in the hard, cool surface. Her aunt spoke so easily of Eleanor rejoining polite Society and yet she didn’t know what had driven her niece away; didn’t know that Eleanor ruined, with a monster’s seed inside her belly, had fled and reinvented a life for herself based on flimsy lies that could be unveiled if anyone bothered with the young widow.

For nearly eight years, she’d given no one reason to wonder about Mrs. Collins, young mother, war widow, and that invisibility had brought her some semblance of security in her disordered world. She’d briefly mourned the loss of the innocent young lady she’d been in Miss Eleanor Carlyle, and then swore to never be her again and, more importantly, never to return. For to enter the glittering world of Society, she danced with fire and, worse, there was the possibility of seeing him. Eleanor sucked in a gasping breath and knocked her forehead against the wall to drive back his leering, grinning visage. Yet he’d slipped in, as he too often did, commandeering her thoughts. That unknown man, the tall, dark-eyed, black-hearted bastard who’d stolen what didn’t belong to him and forever shattered her world.

Restless, Eleanor pushed away from the wall and rested her back against the surface. Slowly, she sank to the floor and drew her knees close to her chest. Her skin crawled in remembrance of a cruel, punishing touch, the taste of his lips, brandy. Bile rose up her throat and threatened to choke her. She desperately needed the funds her uncle’s will provided for her. The vast sum would save her from any fears or uncertainties of her or Marcia’s future and yet, she may as well have been selling her soul to the devil himself in returning.

Eleanor dropped her chin atop her knees and rubbed back and forth. In coming back, a young widow, she risked becoming prey to other lecherous lords. Her skin burned hot with shame of that long ago night with a nameless stranger. Then weren’t all women, regardless of marital status, prey to those rakish, caddish gentlemen?

“Are you hiding?”

A startled shriek escaped her and she slapped a hand to her breast. Marcia stood a handful of steps away, scratching her brow. “Marcia,” she said breathlessly. “I didn’t hear you.”

“Because you were hiding?” Her daughter skipped over and sat beside Eleanor; her little shoulder pressed against her side. “But, Mama?” she asked in a whisper that was really no whisper at all.

“What is it, poppet?”

“This is really a horrendous hiding place. If you need help hiding, I will help you.”

She tossed her arm around Marcia’s shoulders and hugged her close. “You will be the first person whose help I ask.”

Pride lit her brown eyes, but then her smile dipped. “Why are you sad?”

“I’m not sad.” To prove as much, she forced a smile.

“Then scared?”

“I’m—” She stopped at the displeased pout on Marcia’s lips. They had been closer than any two people could ever be. With the exception of Eleanor’s now departed father, there’d been only Eleanor and Marcia. In their isolation from Society they had forged a special bond, and even though she was a child, there seemed something inherently wrong in not sharing something. “Well, you see, I have to go somewhere I don’t wish to go.”