To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke #8)(43)

They made their way to the front of the receiving line to greet the duchess’ still arriving guests.

Guilt needled at her. Secretly she’d hoped her aunt would have seen to her responsibilities as hostess and Eleanor could have slipped belatedly into the ballroom, escaping any scrutiny. The crush of guests already milling about the crowded room spoke to just how late she’d been. “I am sorry to have made you tardy to your own affair.”

“Your uncle’s affair,” she said, waggling her eyebrows. “Determined to have some ducal control even in his own grave.” There was a wistful quality there, which softened those words. The duchess lifted her chin in a regal greeting to guests who dropped curtsies and bows. “Eleanor, my dear. I am a duchess. As such, I’m afforded certain privileges. Arriving late to my own ball is one of them.” She leaned close and spoke in a less than conspiratorial whisper. “Though in truth, even if I wasn’t a duchess, I wouldn’t give a jot about missing the bloody thing.”

The blunt admission brought a startled laugh from Eleanor, attracting stares. She quickly smoothed her features into a mask.

“Bah,” her aunt rapped her on the arm with her fan. “I’ve said it before. I prefer you laughing and bold, Eleanor. Ah, here comes Isabelle.” Sure enough Marcus’ mother made her way through the crush of guests, toward the duchess. “Will you run and fetch me a glass of punch?”

“Of course.” Eleanor bussed her aunt on the cheek and, squaring her shoulders, started her march down the length of the ballroom. With each step, an invigorating sense of control filled her. In this moment, braving the ton and tackling the items upon her uncle’s list, she re-exerted a hold over her life.

A tall figure stepped into her path and a startled gasp escaped her. “Forgive m—” She glanced up at the gentleman and her body went hot and then cold. For years, she saw this man everywhere, saw him with such clarity that she’d often believed he stood before her real as the day he’d been in that moonlit night that had irrevocably changed her life. Eleanor pressed her eyes tightly closed and called on the coaxings her father had taught her long ago. Wake up. One, two, three, wake up. Only this time, there was no waking. The devil before her was as real as Satan in the flesh.

A slow, jeering smile formed on his lips. Though softer around the middle with the passage of time, the hawkish nose and cold brown eyes of the gentleman staring down at her marked him as her dark demon. “Miss Carlyle.” It was that same slightly mocking tone that had echoed in Lady Wedermore’s gardens. “Or is it Mrs. Collins, now, I believe?” Oh, God, how did he know that? What else did he know? Her body went cold.

In her sleepless nights, of which there were many, she would lay abed imagining the words she would hurl were she to ever again see the nameless stranger who’d fathered her child. She’d crafted lists upon lists of horrible, ugly words and curses that no lady had a right to. Yet, in this instance, every single one went out of her head.

A liveried footman came by with a silver tray and Eleanor stared blankly as the gentleman at her side rescued a glass of champagne, casual when her heart could never resume a normal beat. “Champagne, Mrs. Collins?” Anyone to hear that offer would see a gentleman before them.

Eleanor knew better. “Leave,” she said quietly. How was that one word so very steady?

The servant looked askance and, with a bow of his head, rushed off. And coward that she was, Eleanor made to go, as well.

Her attacker blocked her escape. “I see you’ve resumed where you left off with Wessex.”

A dull humming filled her ears. I am going to be ill. To keep from crumpling into a boneless heap on the sidelines of her aunt’s ballroom, Eleanor pressed a hand against the smooth, white pillar. The cold of that stone penetrated her gloves and she welcomed the chill on her clammy flesh.

Then he lowered his head. “I cannot tell you, Mrs. Collins, how much I dislike that.” He sipped from his flute. “You are to stay away from him, Eleanor.”

What should her relationship with Marcus matter to this man? Or was this merely another attempt to dominate her? Well, she’d give him nothing more than he’d taken that night. He’d already stolen so very much. “You do not have leave to use my Christian name.” The sharp retort burst from her lips. With all the power he’d claimed over her and her life, she would have this control.

He snapped his eyebrows into a single line, but otherwise ignored her command. “Consider this your warning to stay away from the viscount.”

She flicked her gaze about the room. Lords and ladies laughed and chatted at every turn. Couples danced the intricate steps of a country reel. Through the inanity, Eleanor’s world quaked under her feet. How was the earth, in fact, still moving when time stood still in this horrifying exchange?

Then from across the room, she caught sight of her aunt conversing with Marcus’ mother and there was a stabilizing reassurance in the casualness of that exchange. Eleanor ratcheted her chin up several notches. “You, sir, can go to hell.”

And though not the vitriolic diatribe she’d always planned for the man, Eleanor swept away, her skin burning from the look he trained on her.



Marcus studied the crush of guests with a distracted boredom from over the rim of his crystal champagne glass. Marcus had resolved to forget Eleanor and all the broken promises between them. Except, given the evening’s festivities and the close proximity of their residences, it was a near impossible feat.