Regency High Society Vol 5: The Disgraced Marchioness / The Reluctant Escort / The Outrageous Debutante / A Damnable Rogue. Mary NicholsЧитать онлайн книгу.
crossed his face. It would be more likely, at any event. But even he would draw the line at two wives!
The house settled into silence around him. Nick had gone out to join a party of friends to talk horseflesh and drink gin at Limmers in Conduit Street. Mrs Stamford—who knew? She had sufficient acquaintance in town to provide her with entertainment. Eleanor had retired early, probably worn out through trying to keep a brave face on the fact that she was fast becoming a bigamous wife and her child illegitimate, with no source of support, financial or otherwise. She had used harsher terms, he remembered, in a moment of anguish. Whore and bastard. He flinched at the deliberate brutality. It was certainly how the world would see it, and there was nothing he could say to make matters any better for her.
The lights on the first floor were low, one branch of candles left burning. And he was too tired to think any more. Tomorrow he would go to Whitchurch and find the Reverend Julius Broughton. He would verify that cleric’s role in the proceedings. It might achieve nothing, but at least he would feel that he was doing something. And he would know if the marriage of Thomas with Octavia Baxendale had actually existed.
He yawned. And came to a halt on the landing. Further along on the right a door was ajar. The baby’s room. A gentle light spilled out, very low. Probably the nursemaid come to check on her small charge.
Then a soft voice reached him, crooning a lullaby. A low voice, sweet and tender. He was immediately drawn to it and came to stand silently in the half-open doorway.
The child must have been restless. Rather than summon the nursemaid, Eleanor had come herself to comfort him. Of course she would, he acknowledged. The child was her only connection with Thomas, even more of an anchor in these stormy waters.
She sat in a low chair, a single candle on the little table casting its light from behind to rim her figure in gold. Apparently the infant now slept. Eleanor’s song had become a gentle humming, her hand on the edge of the crib, rocking gently, her eyes fixed on the sleeping face.
Henry could not take his eyes from her, his thoughts and feelings suspended in that one moment. She had risen from her bed, her hair unpinned from its fashionable style but yet unbraided so that it fell in a glory of waves over her breast. A peignoir lay in soft overlapping layers of cream silk and lace from a high neck to cover her feet. Her face was calm. Her eyes hooded. Her lips curved in a tender smile. A Madonna, indeed.
His heart thudded against his ribs as the scene imprinted itself on his mind. She was so beautiful. And he had lost her to his brother. For the first time in his life Henry cursed the dead Thomas, even knowing that the blame could not in any way be heaped at his brother’s feet. He had lost her. And yet for the past two years he had tried to persuade himself that his love for her was dead, destroyed when she had broken her promise to him. Wrong! Totally and utterly wrong! The voice in his mind and his heart would no longer allow him to pretend. His love for Eleanor was as strong as ever. And just as doomed. He must not allow it to be a burden on her—and so must bear it on his own shoulders, his emotions hidden.
A tingle of awareness touched Eleanor’s spine and she knew that he was there.
She could pretend that she did not know, of course, conscious of a ripple of embarrassment to be discovered like this. If she kept her face turned towards the crib, he might walk away as silently as he had come. But she felt the compulsion of his eyes, felt her pulse pick up its beat in response. What did it matter that he saw her watching over her child in the dark of the night? After all, there was no one else to care.
She looked up, a slight turn of her head.
Her eyes, deeply violet-blue with love and compassion for her son, looked on his and could not look away, caught in his gaze.
Henry was drawn to her as a moth drawn to its ultimate destruction in the vibrant glow of a candle flame, against all his instincts to keep his distance from this lovely girl—woman, now—who had stolen his heart, and still held it in chains. Walking softly forward, so as not to disturb the child, his eyes never left hers. What compulsion drove him he did not know—and she made no move to stop him, equally trapped in the moment, to bring him to his senses. Placing a hand on the back of the low chair, he bent to allow his fingers to lift to her throat, to caress the graceful curve of her nape beneath her hair. She neither flinched nor resisted. If she had, he promised himself he would leave her. But she remained motionless, perhaps even leaned into his touch when he allowed his palm to brush and then cup her cheek, in the lightest of restraints. So he bent his head, slowly, deliberately, to take her lips with his. Whisper soft, mouth on mouth, encouraged by the small sound of pleasure in her throat. He savoured the sweetness of her breath, her mouth, her surrender to him.
It was a moment of impossible tenderness, recognised by them both, as the babe slept on by their side. Eleanor raised her hand to close her fingers round his wrist, a warm bracelet that held him, gentle yet burning him with its heat. Her breath caught as he deliberately allowed his tongue to trace the outline of her lips. She sighed against his mouth.
‘Hal.’
Her perfume, the fine texture of hair and skin, her softness entrapped him, caught in that heart-stopping moment.
Then he eased back to look down into the beautiful face, a depth of emotion in his eyes. He could not have expressed his desires aloud for the world. But he captured her other hand from the side of the crib and lifted it to press his lips to the centre of her palm, marvelling at the softness of it.
‘Nell…’
He murmured her name, the only word he had spoken since he had come into the room. A whisper of passion restrained. He ached with hard arousal, desire for her, a powerful need to touch and be touched, pulsing through every cell in his body.
When tears sparkled on her lashes he reached, without thought, to remove them with his lips.
Then he drew back and pushed himself to his full height. What could he say? It was a moment beyond words. So much promise, so much pain between them. So many broken dreams. He gave a little bow, strangely formal. Then turned and left the room as silently as he had come.
Henry’s actions—and Eleanor’s response—left emotions in turmoil. For both of them.
Chapter Five
On the following morning Lord Henry found himself alone in the sunny breakfast parlour. It was as he expected—and planned; it was still very early, but he intended to be under way to the village of Whitchurch before the rest of the household had risen. With good fortune he would return within the day. It crossed his mind with some force, and had done so more than once during a restless night of knife-edged introspection, that it might be to his advantage if he did not have to make conversation with Eleanor that day. What had driven him to such an unwise gesture towards her? He cursed himself once again for his blind stupidity. Within a few weeks this whole fiasco would be settled one way or another, and he would leave England. He would be out of her life for good—and he would be free to forget her and return to the attractions of Rosalind. But even though he swore at his uncontrolled actions, castigated himself for not keeping his distance, he was being driven to admit that he was not unmoved by Eleanor’s plight. Unmoved? He swore again, brows drawn into a black bar. A magnificent understatement! He had loved her once and was bitterly aware that, however inappropriate and insupportable it might be, given their past history, he loved her still. Wanting nothing more than to take her to his bed, to undress her, to touch, to taste and to savour her for the rest of his life. To feel her stretch against him, beneath him, and hear his name on her lips when he roused her beyond thought and beyond sense. It would have taken a man of callous indifference not to respond to her plight of the previous night without tenderness and compassion. And where Eleanor was concerned, Henry was not that man.
So it would be better for everyone if he did not have to exchange polite conversation with her that morning! And doubtless Eleanor too would welcome his absence.
The door opened and there she stood.
They both became