To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke #8)(47)

“Why?”

“For stepping on your toes. I didn’t intentionally do so, though there have been times you’ve deserved it.”

Marcus shifted her in his arms and, drawing her closer, he helped lead her through the set. “Why did you read of the pursuits of a man you ceased to love?”

“Oh,” she blurted. Embarrassed heat singed her neck and warmed her cheeks. And when presented with his probing stare and a question she had no desire in answering for what it would reveal, Eleanor stumbled against him.

He repositioned her once more. “Eleanor?”

She sighed. He was as tenacious as he’d ever been. “I never stopped caring about you, Marcus.” Loving him. She’d never stopped loving him. Until she drew her last breath, her heart would forever beat for him and only him.

“Caring.” He spoke in a flat, emotionless tone that gave little indication of his thoughts. “Not loving.” A sad smile played on his lips, erasing all the cynical bitterness he’d evinced since her return. “Since you returned, and I learned you’d wed, I told myself that I didn’t care, Eleanor. A woman who left as you did, forsaking all we shared, and giving nothing more than a note was undeserving of my regard and assuredly undeserving of my love.” With each word, he twisted the knife of pain deeper in her already broken heart. “But it was not your fault, Eleanor. Was it? You loved another and it would be wrong to resent you for having wed that man, even as I wished it had been me.”

Tears popped up behind her lids and she blinked furiously in a desperate bid to keep them from falling down her cheeks, in crystalline trails of agony. For it had been her fault. Had she not gone to those empty gardens, her life would have moved in an altogether different direction. And with the cynicism burning from within his eyes, she needed Marcus to know that she’d not been false in the words she’d given him. “What if I told you I loved you, once? Would that matter?”

Marcus considered her a long while. “At one time, yes.” He gave his head a sad, slow shake. “No longer, Eleanor. I’ve since moved on from the pain I knew after your betrayal.”

She snagged her lip between her teeth and bit down hard. Why did it matter that he’d abandoned the dream of them? Eleanor missed a step and Marcus righted her.

“It is a one-two-three count,” he whispered close to her ear.

How could he be so casual and unaffected when his blunt admission had slit open the still unhealed wounds of losing him? “It is scandalous,” she said in search of any words to give him.

Then, employing the skills he’d likely practiced as a careless rogue, he lowered his voice to a husky whisper. “You used to enjoy the time spent in my arms.”

Hating that other woman before this moment and women after, who would be the recipient of his seductive charm, Eleanor stitched her golden eyebrows into a single line. “I’m not one of your lightskirts, Marcus. Do not employ your charms on me. I would have you as a friend and nothing more.” She glanced to the gentlemen at the edge of the ballroom floor looking for the face of the demon, and unease tightened her belly. He stood on the fringe of the ballroom sipping from his champagne flute, intently studying her. At the chilling amusement in that cold-eyed stare, Eleanor stumbled. She wrenched her eyes to the front of Marcus’ snowy cravat. Panic lapped at the corner of her senses, threatening to pull her under. Think of skating on a frozen pond. Think of Marcia, laughing as you tickle her under her chin.

As the numbing terror abated, she fixed on the tasks doled out by her uncle. She’d but six acts, really just four remaining, that her uncle demanded of her, and then she could be forever free; free of Marcus’ resentment, free of her own useless wishing, and free from the real and imagined threats posed by that grinning lord in the corner of her aunt’s ballroom.

Marcus applied a gentle pressure to her waist and snapped her attention back to him.

“What is it?”

Had he been coolly distant, she’d have said nothing that mattered to him. Had he been the slightly angry, bitter gentleman who’d splayed her heart open just moments ago, she’d have managed a smile and a noncommittal reply. Except, gruff concern coated his inquiry and he was restored to the man she’d known as a friend.

Before her courage deserted her, she blurted. “I would speak with you on a matter of privacy.” Intrigue flared in his eyes, and by the interest she detected in the silver flecks of his gaze, she gathered the direct path his thoughts wandered. “Not that.”

His lips twitched. “Not what, Eleanor?”

She removed her hand from his sleeve and fanned her flaming cheeks, and then promptly stumbled. With a chuckle, he caught her. “But you did think about it.”

“I do not know what ‘it’ you refer to.” Eleanor ground the heel of her slipper into his instep, this time with a deliberateness that had him wincing. “Do pay attention.” As Marcus guided her in a smooth circle, she sought another glimpse of her attacker. He stood in the same spot, looking boldly back, still taunting her with his presence. Eleanor swallowed hard. She didn’t have much time before the set concluded and he returned her to the beast prowling on the sidelines. “Will you meet me?” Haven’t you learned the folly in sneaking off before? Dark, wicked deeds transpire when one danced on the edge of respectability.

She braced for his roguish rejoinder.