To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke #8)(61)

Nothing could exist for them, except for friendship; the only possible connection that could be was that of mistress. I want more than that empty entanglement. She wanted a life with Marcus, without the threat of her past lurking. But it would always be there. The jeering monster in her aunt’s ballroom had been proof of that. Voices within the ivory parlor brought her up short and she lingered at the edge of the door.

“Are those for my mama?”

Eleanor peeked around the doorframe and her heart caught painfully.

Marcus knelt beside her daughter. “No,” he said, his words carrying to the entrance of the room. With his back presented, the item in question Marcia and Marcus spoke of remained hidden from view. “Though I suppose I shall give one of them to your mama.” He shifted and dropped his arm to his side.

Eleanor’s gaze fell to the bouquet of wildflowers clutched in his hand and a vise squeezed about her lungs making it impossible to draw forth breath. Her daughter had been deserving of a father who spoke with the reverent gentleness in Marcus’ tone; a father who would carry her around on his shoulders and spoil her with laughter and love. She captured her lower lip between her teeth, hard. Marcus would have been that manner of father.

Nay, he will be. Just not to my child…

“They are not for my mama?” Disappointment coated Marcia’s words bringing Eleanor back from her agonized musings.

“They are not.”

He held out the collection of white and crimson blooms. “They are for you, Miss Collins.”

Oh, God. Eleanor gripped the edge of the door and drank in the sight of his broad, powerful form, seduced not by Marcus’ masculine perfection, but by the sight of such a man so beautifully aware and kind to a mere child—her child. Tears popped behind her eyelids and she blinked them back furiously.

“For me?” For all the awe in Marcia’s tone, Marcus may as well have plucked a star from the sky and handed it over to her care.

“For you.”

The muscles of Eleanor’s throat worked under the weight of emotion and she pressed her cheek against the doorjamb. Why would he be so nice to her daughter? He didn’t know, nor would he ever know, Eleanor’s flight had been to protect him and save him from some irrational sense to do right by her anyway. All he knew was the betrayal of a hasty note and word of a marriage to another. Yet for all the pain she’d caused him, he would help Eleanor avoid the attentions of lascivious noblemen and also be so heartrendingly sweet to her daughter.

“Why?” Her daughter’s perplexed question echoed Eleanor’s very thoughts.

“Do you know why?”

Marcia shook her head.

“Your King Orfeo’s love—”

“Lady Eurydice,” Marcia supplied.

“Yes,” he said with a nod. “All she wanted was to steal those happy moments in her field of flowers.”

“Instead, she was taken away by the horrible fairy and brought to the Otherworld.”

Eleanor frowned at the cynicism of her small daughter’s recounting. In the telling, through the years, she’d told the story of a lady lost, stolen from her love, and then ultimately found. She’d intended to convey a story of hope and reunion for her daughter, when Eleanor herself had accepted a very different end to her own story.

“That is true,” Marcus said solemnly. He took the bouquet from Marcia’s fingers and slipped free a lone daisy, holding it close to her nose. Her daughter inhaled noisily. “She was lost to that dark world, but not at first. At first she danced and laughed amidst those flowers and then found her happiness after. That is what matters.”

Oh God. A shuddery sob worked its way up her throat and Eleanor buried it in her fingertips. Marcus stiffened. Heart hammering, Eleanor leapt backwards. She pressed a hand against her chest. Perhaps he hadn’t heard.

“What was that?” Marcia asked.

Drawing in several, slow calming breaths, Eleanor pasted a smile on and stepped into the room. The two occupants of the room stood side by side. Marcus moved his inscrutable stare over her person and then settled those fathomless blue eyes on her face.

“Mama, Marcus brought me flowers.” Unceremoniously, Marcia tugged the bouquet from his long, powerful fingers and raced across the room to present the display to Eleanor.

“Did he?”

“Oh, yes.” With her chubby little fingers, Marcia held the single daisy up toward Eleanor. “You should have a flower, too.” She tossed a look back at Marcus. “Perhaps when you visit again, you’ll bring Mama flowers, too?”

“Marcia,” she chided, her cheeks warm at her daughter’s boldness.

He inclined his head. “You are, indeed, correct, Miss Collins. I have been remiss.”

“What is remiss?” Marcia asked, her little brow creased with confusion.

Eleanor bent down and brushed her lips over the crown of Marcia’s curls. “It means you need to return abovestairs to your lessons so you might learn all those words you do not know.”

With a very grown-up sigh, Marcia said, “If I must.”

“You must.”

She gave a jaunty wave and without making her proper goodbyes, sprinted from the room. Leaving Eleanor and Marcus and absolute silence in her wake. Fiddling with the lone flower, Eleanor wandered over and came to a stop beside the ivory sofa. “Hullo.”