To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke #8)(72)

“Marcus danced with me,” Marcia piped in and then promptly took another bite of her scone.

Eleanor dropped her arms to her sides. Her heart danced a peculiar rhythm in her chest at that loving tableau presented with her daughter’s innocent admission. “You…”

“Danced with him. A waltz,” Marcia said happily around her full mouth.

Proper manners be damned, Eleanor bit the inside of her cheek to keep the countless questions from tumbling from her lips.

“Oh?” the duchess drawled.

And the astute seven-year-old girl registered the focus trained on her and preened. She gave a pleased nod. “Well, I was watching the ball, as Mama said I could, and was returning to my chambers, and ran into Marcus in the hall.”

“The hall,” her aunt parroted. “Whatever was the boy doing in my corridors during the ball?”

Eleanor’s cheeks burned and she turned a prayer skyward. Please do not look at me. Please do not…

The Lord proved otherwise busy, as He invariably did. Her aunt narrowed her knowing gaze on Eleanor.

“Well, he was dancing with meeee,” Marcia said with a roll of her eyes.

“Ah, of course,” her aunt said wryly. “That was what he was doing in my corridors.”

Marcia nodded. “He allowed me to waltz on his boots and I very much like him, Mama.”

An image flitted through her mind of Marcus balancing Marcia on the tops of his shoes while he guided her laughingly about the floor; the dream so very real because of what her daughter had just painted. Her throat worked and she cursed the silent attention now trained on her.

Daughter and aunt stared expectantly back at her.

And in this instance, facing one Marcus to the two probing ladies before her was vastly preferable. She surged to her feet and started her march to the door. Because she really didn’t care to be called a coward. And she cared even less to have her intelligence questioned. It was not a matter of intelligence or bravery. Well, mayhap it was a bit of bravery…but rather—self-preservation. She sought to protect what little remained of her dignity. “I will go see His Lordship.”

“Marcus,” Marcia called out.

The older woman fixed an equal part pleased, equal part triumphant, smile on her niece. “Run along, gel. Run along.”

Eleanor exited the breakfast room, when her daughter’s whispered words carried through the doorway. They froze Eleanor.

“…Do you think he will marry her…?”

There was such hope in her little girl’s wonderings that pain lanced at her heart.

“I do.” Her aunt’s firm assurance jerked her back into movement and, with frantic steps, Eleanor rushed down the hall.

Her aunt and daughter spoke so casually of marriage. One was the hopes of a fatherless child, the other of an older woman, romantic by nature, who did not know all the darkest, ugliest secrets that made Eleanor an unsuitable match for anyone. She reached the White Parlor and paused at the entrance to the room. Marcus stood at the floor-length window with his hands clasped behind his back. The sight of him, with his broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist and strong thighs, was the beautiful perfection of a man who deserved more than a woman who’d been used by another.

He stiffened. As he turned, she braced for the veiled disgust and hesitancy of a man who didn’t know what to do with a woman who’d shared her secret shame, and the moment stretched into an eternity of her mourning Marcus as he’d been before; kissing her, touching her, and unguarded in his attentions. A half-grin marred those perfectly formed lips; a smile that reached his eyes, and for the sincerity there, all the way into her heart which beat for him. “Eleanor.”

“M-Marcus,” she greeted, running her palm over her skirts. She searched for a hint of repulsion but found nothing but the same, smiling man he’d been. Nay. Eleanor lingered on his eyes. Where the jaded glint of a man long ago brokenhearted and betrayed had once been, was now a tenderness she didn’t know what to do with.

Then he spoke. “I have thought long about your list.” Marcus rocked on his heels. “I will not hold you to our previous arrangement.”

Her heart paused mid-beat. No! She smoothed her palms down the front of her skirts. “You will not?” she managed, proud of the steady deliverance of that useless question.

He shook his head. “I will not.”

He’d likely realized the folly in courting a ruined woman. That truth gutted her. “I-I will see to the list on my own, Marcus. Thank you for helping me complete the items that you did.”

“Tsk, tsk, love.” With the husky timbre to his retort, he was the charming, practiced rogue, once more. “I didn’t say I would not assist you.” He strode slowly toward her, hopelessly elegant in his sleek, black attire. “I, however, will not hold you to the remainder of the Season.”

Grief scissored through her. What if I want you to? She’d been such a coward these years that she could not bring herself to utter the humbling question hovering on her lips. She stiffened as he lowered his head and claimed her lips in a tender, gentle meeting. He tasted of love and truth and new beginnings and she wanted all of it, only with him.

Marcus raised his head. “I want you to remain here because you want it, Eleanor.” His breath fanned her lips and brought her lids fluttering. “I want you to stay in London not because you require the role of companion to your aunt and not because your uncle or I willed it. I want you to be here because you wish to be.” A familiar, errant, gold curl fell over his brow and he offered her a slow smile that met his eyes. “And because I’m a selfish bastard, I want you to want to be here because you wish to be with me.”