To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke #8)(34)

Marcia tipped her head back and peered at Eleanor. “Where?” Then worry filled her eyes. “Not leave as Grandfather did?”

“No!” she exclaimed, hugging Marcia all the tighter. “No, I would never leave like Papa. Not until you’re an old, hopelessly wrinkled, gray lady.” She made a show of studying Marcia’s curls. “Is there any gray? Hmm. I think I see one,” she tickled the top of her daughter’s head until little, snorting laughs escaped her and she wiggled back and forth.

“S-stop, M-mama. I-s-stop.”

Eleanor relented and then gave her the truth. “Uncle gave me a list of…tasks,” she settled for. After all, wasn’t that what it was?

Marcia wrinkled her nose. “Tasks?”

“I have to go to balls and soirees,” she amended.

“Why, that sounds wonderful.” Attending those events would be about as enjoyable as doffing her slippers and stockings and walking across hot embers. “I should love to attend balls and soirees.” There was a wistful, faraway quality to those words that tugged at Eleanor.

“Someday,” she promised. She closed her eyes and drew in the fragrant, citrusy scent of her daughter’s hair. This is why she’d endure another Season and the threat posed to her heart when Marcus was near, and the threat to her sanity of one day seeing him.

“You needn’t be worried, Mama.” Marcia scrambled backward. Then she beamed. “You need a friend.”

“A friend?” There was not a friend she had in the world. “There is Aunt Dorothea.”

Her daughter giggled. “Not Aunt Dorothea. Why, your friend, Marcus. You should invite him to go with you so you are not alone and then you won’t be afraid.”

Marcus. Help her? Why, he’d more likely welcome a date with the devil than acquiesce to her request for help. For all her fears of men and their nefarious intentions, she did not believe Marcus capable of hurting anyone. Even with his sneers and his snarls, she never believed he would hurt her.

Marcia hopped to her feet and held out her hand to help Eleanor up. “Come along, Mama. We need to find a new hiding place.”

With a little laugh, she took her daughter by the hand. “You, my dear, need to find your way back to your nursemaid and return to your lessons.” A groan escaped her daughter as they walked hand in hand abovestairs. And perhaps it spoke to Eleanor’s desperation, but as they made their way through the corridors, she rather thought there was merit to her daughter’s suggestion. She certainly required a friend.

Unfortunately, however, she’d forfeited all rights to Marcus’ friendship when she’d left him with nothing more than several empty lines dashed upon a piece of parchment.





Chapter 9


Through the years, Marcus had come to enjoy ton events. Where most gentlemen sought ways to avoid those crowded affairs, Marcus had moved with an ease and comfort. He presented a carefree smile which polite Society had come to expect. He’d filled his life with inanity and quite reveled in it. Polite events and even more impolite events had provided a diversion from the horrors that still lingered from his youth. A young man of twenty-one, he, the Duke of Crawford and Lionel, the future Marquess of Roxbury had reveled in the impolite—they’d taken their pleasures in the Dials and only two of them returned alive.

Yes. Most balls provided a diversion.

Most.

Seated at the breakfast table, with his copy of The Times up, Marcus fixed on one line.

…The Duchess of D hosting her first event since the passing of the Duke of D…

Which had certainly not proven newsworthy to Marcus when he’d accepted that particular invite weeks prior. It was, however, significant with the arrival of a certain lady who’d be acting as companion to the duchess. For Eleanor’s assurance that evening past under the half-moon with stars as their witness, that they needn’t see one another and that they would move within entirely different Social spheres, they both knew that to be just another lie she’d fed him.

His fingers tightened reflexively upon the pages. No, there was no escaping. From her. From her charges in the garden at quarter past midnight. As though the life he’d lived in her absence was one he should be shamed by. As though she had been the honorable one and he—

“Do stop growling, Marcus. It is impolite.”

The paper slipped from his fingers and he found his mother frowning at him with stern-faced disapproval. Her orders were met with a flurry of giggles and he looked to Lizzie and Lady Marianne Hamilton. So the lady would now take breakfast with his sister, now. He inclined his head. “My apologies, ladies. It is…” Marcus blinked.

Lady Marianne settled her elbows on the table and leaned forward in a way that put her impressive décolletage on display. “Have you not found anything that pleases you…on those pages, my lord?” She parted her lips slightly in a wanton invitation. “Surely there must be something of interest.”

Unbidden, his gaze went to the cream white mounds fairly spilling over the top of her gown. Yet, the Marquess of Atbrooke’s sister, the most sought after Diamond that Season was nothing, if not an innocent. He fixed his attention on the young lady and her come hither stare. With her midnight black curls piled high atop her head and crimson, too-full lips, the lady was a lush beauty who at any other time would have commanded his notice; a young woman who recently had commanded his notice.