To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke #8)(81)

She slid her gaze away from the man who’d robbed her of everything that was her right—her virtue, her happiness, Marcus, her future. How very crushing. To come so very close to the greatest joy she’d thought herself undeserving of for so long and to have it crushed within this man’s cruel hands. Eleanor looked to the marquess. “I will leave.” Did that flat, hollow assurance belong to her?

Lord Atbrooke yanked off his gloves and beat them together. “You may return to London, but only after the viscount has wed my sister.” He inclined his head. “I am glad you see the wisdom in this course, Mrs. Collins.” Then, touching his fingertips to the edge of an imagined hat, he took his leave, shattering her world once more.

Eleanor stood there long after he’d left. When nothing remained in the room but the sound of her own ragged breathing and her heartbeat filling her ears, she let loose the sob she’d kept buried.

“What did that one want?”

Eleanor shrieked and slammed her hand against her chest. “Aunt Dorothea,” she managed on an exhalation of air. “I did not hear you.”

The duchess entered the room with her pugs trailing faithfully at her heels. She pushed the door closed with the tip of her cane. “Well?” her aunt demanded gruffly.

Of course her aunt would know of Lord Atbrooke’s visit. With her loyal staff, the woman knew of all of what went on. All except that which had sent Eleanor fleeing. Satin scratched at her skirts and, welcoming the diversion, she dropped into the nearest chair. She scooped Satin up onto her lap and welcomed the heavy reassurance of the snorting, panting dog. “Lord Atbrooke paid me a visit,” she settled for when her aunt leveled her with a demanding stare.

Her aunt snorted. “I know. Your daughter came to see me. She isn’t happy with you for sending her away when you were being visited. By a friend.”

Oh, God. Marcia and her dratted tongue. Her mind raced. What else had her daughter shared? The birthmark upon her wrist that matched the marquess’?

The duchess blazed across the room and settled unceremoniously into the seat across from Eleanor. Devlin hopped atop her lap and her aunt stroked him between the ears. “I cannot tell, gel, whether you are being deliberately obtuse or whether you take me for a lackwit.”

As neither were really a favorable option, Eleanor remained silent.

“Was it him?”

Eleanor stiffened.

Her aunt rapped her on the knuckles. “That sent you running all those years ago? Was it him?”

Her mouth went dry as the duchess tiptoed around the darkest secrets she’d kept from all. “I do not know what you mean.” How were those words so casual and steady when she was quaking inside?

The duchess leaned close and peered at her. “So it was.” Of course she’d always seen more than even Eleanor herself, sometimes.

“I have to leave,” she said quietly.

The woman gaped. “Leave?”

“I have fulfilled the terms of Uncle’s list and I wish to return to Cornwall.”

“No one wishes to return to Cornwall,” her aunt barked.

Leaning forward, Eleanor covered her aunt’s hand with her own. “I am going to miss you, Aunt Dorothea.”

Tears filled the older woman’s eyes and she swatted at them. “Bah, I am getting weak in my old age. You are driving me to these silly tears.” She gave Eleanor a watery frown and then patted her cheeks. “Is it because of him?”

It was because of Marcia. And Eleanor. And her sanity. “It is because of me,” she settled for.

Her aunt gave her a long, hard look. “You have spent your days running, Eleanor Elaine Carlyle. You have convinced yourself time and time again that it is safer to hide from your past.”

Unable to meet the rebuke in the older woman’s eyes, Eleanor glanced down at her lap. The duchess touched her wrinkled fingers to Eleanor’s chin, forcing her attention up. “You may be safe. You may feel a sense of security in removing yourself from the living. But you will never be happy, Eleanor.” Tears clogged Eleanor’s throat. “I suspect you know that, gel, because you’ve not been truly happy these years.” The duchess tightened her mouth. “And you won’t be happy when you leave Marcus, again.”

The pointed look she trained on her was full of such recrimination and disappointment that Eleanor slid her gaze away. “I must leave,” she finally managed. She sucked in a shuddery breath. “If it was only about me…” Eleanor gave her head a shake. “But it is not.”

It was about Marcia.

The truth hovered in the air between them. “Will you allow me your carriage?”

“Bah,” her aunt slashed her hand through the air and the dog on her lap growled in protest. “Do you think I’d send you away on a mail coach?”

The meaning there brought heat to Eleanor’s face. All those years ago, she’d taken herself off without even a goodbye. “I wanted to bid you farewell,” she said when she trusted herself to speak. It was why she would give her loyal aunt, the proper farewell now. “I—”

“It does not matter, Eleanor.” She squeezed Eleanor’s hand in her old, wrinkled fingers. “All these years, you’ve worried about Society’s whispers and opinions of you, when ultimately, you should realize all that matters is your own happiness. If you can find that, then the ton can all go hang.” She released Eleanor’s fingers. “Regardless, my carriage is yours. And whatever else you’d take.”