To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke #8)(44)

Unbidden, his gaze sought, and found, Eleanor as she cut a path through the ballroom. With a glass of punch in hand, she marched with a single-minded purpose. A swirl of dancers swallowed his sight of her.

He cursed.

“Goodness, Marcus, never tell me you are woolgathering,” the Duchess of Crawford’s teasing voice drawled from beyond his shoulder.

Marcus whipped around, adopting one of his effortless grins. “Lady Daisy Meadows. My girl of the flowers.”

Daisy stood alongside her husband, the Duke of Crawford, who, by his black scowl, appeared to take exception with Marcus’ possessive endearment for their late friend Lionel’s sister.

“She is no longer of the Flowers,” Crawford said in that coolly austere tone he’d adopted over the years.

“Ah, yes,” he said on a sigh. And knowing it would infuriate the other man, he leaned close to Daisy and said on a loud whisper, “She’ll always be my girl of the flowers.”

With an unrestrained laugh, Daisy swatted his arm, earning curious stares from the nearby lords and ladies. “You are a flirt, Marcus.” At one time they would likely have turned up their noses at the young lady’s display. Having wed Auric, the Duke of Crawford, two years ago, she was now permitted certain luxuries and freedoms.

“Oh, undoubtedly.” He winked and she laughed all the more.

Of course, having known the lady since she was in leading strings, he’d come to know she’d dug her talons into the particular details surrounding his presence here and would not relent. “It has not failed to escape my notice that you’ve ignored my observation.”

“Your observation?” He deliberately slid his gaze out to the ballroom floor, taking in the twirling couples. He knew very well what observation Daisy referred to.

“You know very well what observation I referred to.” Then, having known the young lady most of his life, she’d developed a rather bothersome tendency of predicting his thoughts.

“I’m merely here as chaperone.” It was a blatant lie. Crawford eyed him with a dogged intensity that indicated he knew as much, but was too loyal and proper to counter the claim. Yes, Marcus’ mother and sister were hardly in need of his company. Yet night after night after night, and now, as Daisy had pointed out, a fourth night, he’d taken to attending exceedingly dull events he’d have normally avoided at all costs. Well, not all costs. Through the years, the tedium of those affairs had been broken by certain widows.

His gaze collided with one of those very women and he stared blankly at the top of her head. How many empty, meaningless entanglements had he become involved in through the years, all with the intent of driving out the remembrance of Eleanor? Only now, with her back in his life, he saw the lie he’d perpetuated against himself. He could never forget her. Would never. For with the empty ache her betrayal had left inside his heart, the damned useless organ did, and forever would, belong to her. “Fool.”

“Marcus?”

He snapped his attention back to Daisy, who eyed him with a blend of concern and consternation. “Er, I was…” Heat climbed his neck.

Both duke and duchess stared at him with matching expressions, silently pressing for answers.

He searched for a safe reply. “I was—”

His gaze traveled to Eleanor who carried a glass of punch to her aunt, and was promptly surrounded by a swarm of suitors. A visceral hatred unfurled, burning hot inside him.

Only, by the feral gleams in the gentlemen eying her with lascivious stares throughout the ballroom, he was no longer the only one who’d developed a keen awareness of Mrs. Eleanor Collins. With a curse, he downed the contents of his champagne in one long, slow swallow. He slammed the empty glass down upon the silver tray of a passing servant with such force it rattled the other crystal flutes sitting there.

From the corner of his eye, he spied Daisy and Crawford exchange a look. Damn them and their knowing stares, and worse, the damned intimacy they shared; a bond he’d once shared with the woman now being ogled like a confectionary treat prepared by the king’s baker.

“I don’t suppose this is the er, person who has you—”

“No.”

“Distracted,” Daisy finished for her husband. Then with her innocent, always-hopeful stare, she took in the woman Marcus had made the mistake of studying overly long. Gone was the clear-eyed young lady who’d stolen away with him in hidden alcoves and private gardens, sprinting down corridors, hand in hand, risking ruin for those stolen moments. In her place was this aloof ice princess, resplendent in the palest pink satin. With her squared shoulders and the tilt of her chin, her proud, regal bearing would make a queen envious. The Duchess of Devonshire said something at her side and Eleanor responded, never so much as averting her gaze, trained on the crowd.

Look at me. Look at me and want me as you did. For that would be the ultimate revenge upon the lady who’d so betrayed him. Taking her in his arms and showing her such pleasure that she regretted the fact that any man had come before him and after they knew mindless pleasure in each other’s bodies, then Marcus would be the one to cast her from his life.

As though sensing his attention, she froze. The lady darted her gaze about the room, passing over the interested lords converging upon her. Then her eyes met his across the ballroom. Marcus wanted to manage a mocking grin, avert his eyes, and give her the cut direct. After all, their paths, as she’d succinctly pointed out, need never cross and the lady would be fine if they didn’t. Instead, he continued staring like every other besotted fool present. God, how he despised himself for the hold she had over him, still.