To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke #8)(67)

Footsteps sounded on the other side of the garden wall and she hopped to her feet. Heart pounding hard, she quickly dashed her hands over her cheeks.

Marcus shoved his form to the top ledge of the wall and her heart caught painfully as he turned that charming grin on her. “My la…” His flirtatious greeting ended as his gaze snagged on her cheeks and that smile dipped.

Eleanor quickly angled herself away and brushed her palms over her cheeks. “My lord, I thought you’d not come,” she managed to infuse a steadiness and cheer to those handful of words.

Marcus hung by his hands over the wall and dropped to the earth. He landed with a soft thump in the earth below and paused. His gaze lingered on her eyes. She braced for a rash of probing questions.

Slipping his hands into his pockets, he strolled toward her. There was something so very sweet and endearing about the languidness of those movements. He evinced the same cocksure strength he had as a young man meeting the girl she’d been.

Eleanor reflexively tightened her hold on the wire rims, the useless, flimsy disguise she’d donned through the years. The rims snapped and the crack of metal echoed in the quiet. Startled, she looked down at the two pieces in her hand. Her heart caught. “My spectacles,” she whispered.

“Come, Eleanor, you never truly needed them.”

She lifted her unblinking gaze to Marcus, unable to sort out whether those words belonged to him or her. Wordlessly, she held them out and he collected the broken rims and tucked them into his front pocket.

…I shall hold it close to my heart, so a piece of you is always with me…

Eleanor captured her quivering lower lip hard between her teeth. He palmed her cheek and she leaned into his silken soft caress. Closing her eyes, she took in every delicate touch, every pure moment between them, because the moment she breathed the truth into the night air, she would forever shatter the sincerity in Marcus’ words for her. Eleanor drew in a steadying breath and opening her eyes. She stepped back.

“What is it?”

Gone would be that enticing, subtly seductive baritone. She lifted her arms. “My waltz at midnight.”

He froze. “Of course, your li—”

Eleanor pressed her fingertips to his lips, silencing the words there. “It is not about the list.” She smiled softly up at him. “This is for me, Marcus. I would take this dance, in your arms, not because someone demanded it or requested it. I would take it because, in this moment, at quarter past the midnight hour, I would claim that time that once belonged to us.”

Desire sparked within the depths of his eyes and threatened to burn her and, God help her, his was a conflagration she’d gladly turn herself over to; to know a touch born of love and tenderness and passion. Marcus swept his golden lashes down. Without a word, he settled his heavy palm at her waist and guided hers atop his shoulder, and then with their fingers joined as one, amidst the fragrant, springtime blooms, he waltzed her barefoot about the gardens.

Their breaths mingled and melded, and with the stars glittering overhead and the moon setting the ground aglow, they danced. She closed her eyes and turned herself over to the beauty of being in his arms. How many years had she ached for this stolen moment at midnight, with the darkness of demons slayed, so all they knew was joy?

“We are missing music, Eleanor,” he murmured and she opened her eyes, locking her gaze on the harshly beautiful angular planes of his face; the noble Roman nose, the hard, square jaw softened by the faintest cleft.

“We do not need music, Marcus.” They never had. Their bodies had long moved in a synchronistic harmony.

He curved his palm about her waist and she reveled in the thrill of his touch. “Ah, yes, but what waltz is complete without music?” Then, his breath tickling her skin, he began to sing.

“…Oft in the stilly night

Ere Slumber’s chain has bound me,

Fond memory brings the light

Of other days around me…”

As his husky baritone filtered about them, in a slightly off-key, discordant tune, tears welled in her eyes and slid unchecked down her cheeks.

“The smiles, the tears,

Of boyhood’s years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimm’d and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken

Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me…”

Her breath caught on a sob and she dug her heels into the earth, bringing their dance to a jarring, painful halt. But then, ultimately, all beautiful moments died.

“Eleanor?”

The aching gentleness of Marcus’ tone gutted her and she hugged her arms at her waist. Why could he not be the coolly mocking cynic who’d come to hate her? Why must he now be this soft, tender man who sang songs of lost love?

Eleanor rubbed her arms in a bid to bring warmth into her trembling limbs. Unable to meet the intensity of his eyes, she wandered over to the cherry tree and ran her hand down the firm, broad trunk. The wind stirred and the pink-white blooms danced over her head, wafting the purity of their fragrant scent about her. She searched her raging mind for the truth he deserved. Odd, how the single most defining moment of her life had gripped her and consumed her for eight years and, yet, she stood before him silent and unknowing of where and how to begin her story. His feet ground up gravel as he strode down the path toward the shelter of the tree. Eleanor turned to face him and lifted a hand. The only place to begin was at the beginning “I was there.”