Cheryl Holt (18 page)

Rebecca was his destiny, his path. He was an earl, a peer of the realm, and he had responsibilities that no normal person could comprehend. He couldn’t shirk such an important commitment; yet he was obsessed with Ellen.

If he’d been sane, which he was doubting more every second, he’d jump out of her bed and scurry away as fast
as his legs would carry him, but he couldn’t. He was so happy, so pleased, to be with her.

What was he to do? The choices were so dismal.

“My engagement ball is a week from tonight,” he said, throwing the forbidden subject out into the open.

“Yes, it is,” she replied, but she had no other remark. She was very still, her eyes unblinking, which irked him enormously.

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but some display of emotion ought to be in evidence. Did she feel anything for him? He thought she did, but then he’d been wrong about women on many occasions.

“Would you be my mistress?” he queried.

“You asked me once before, and my answer is the same now as it was then.”

“I can’t fathom why you’re refusing. I want to take care of you.”

“No, you don’t. Not really.”

“Why would you say that?”

“We enjoy a heightened affection, but it won’t last. You understand that better than I.”

He fussed with a lock of her hair. “But our attraction is so splendid. We shouldn’t walk away from it.”

“Don’t be daft. Of course we should.” She slipped off the mattress and went to fetch the wine she’d been drinking when he’d arrived. She sipped on it and gazed out the window, her back to him.

“Actually,” she stated, “I’ve been wondering if I shouldn’t speak with Lydia.”

“About what?”

“To inform her that I’m quitting.”

“Quitting?” He was stricken by the notion, and his
pulse thudded with equal parts astonishment and alarm. “You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not.”

She spun toward him, and he hated that she was so far away. He held out his hand, hoping she’d cross to him, that they could nestle down under the blanket, but she didn’t move.

“Where would you go? What would you do?”

“I’ll find another job. What would you suppose? I’m not helpless.” She assessed him, then shook her head in consternation. “You can’t have presumed I’d stay on.”

Well, yes, he had. In his dallying with her, he’d been living in a fairy tale where naught was real, where the outside world didn’t exist. Since they were ensconced in a fantasy, he hadn’t pondered the future.

“You can’t leave. I won’t allow it.”

“It’s not up to you.”

Her shoulders were set, her proud chin jutting out, and he rose and marched over to her. He took her glass of wine, swilling the contents, himself; then he pulled her to the bed and snuggled them down.

“You’re being foolish,” he chided.

“No, you are.”

“You’re talking as if disaster is lurking around the corner, as if we’re on the precipice of calamity. There’s plenty of time. We needn’t make immediate, drastic decisions.”

She sighed. “Have you reflected on this, at all?”

“Yes,” he fibbed. He dreaded how he was fixated on her, so he’d given the situation very little consideration.

“Then you have to see that I’m in an impossible jam.”

“I don’t
see
anything of the sort,” he mulishly claimed.

“You were determined to commence this affair, and I was complicit in its development and execution, but how have you envisioned it will end?”

Very badly
, he mused, though he’d never say so aloud. “I imagine we’ll. . . we’ll. . .”

“You assume I’ll linger in this bedchamber into infinity, waiting for the glorious moment of your arrival. How long will that be precisely? Should I remain until the betrothal is official? Until you’re married? Will you sneak down on your wedding night for a quick romp?”

“Ellen,” he scolded, “it’s not like that between us.”

“It’s exactly like that. At this late juncture, don’t pretend otherwise.”

He was extremely vexed over how to resolve the impasse. He wished he could be split into two people, that one half of him could enter into his arranged marriage with Rebecca, while the other was free to wallow with Ellen until he could shed the driving urge he had to be with her.

Why couldn’t he have what he wanted? He was rich and powerful. If he couldn’t wrangle the details so that he could have Ellen, what was the use of any of it?

“Don’t go,” he entreated. “Please. Not yet.”

“I have to. This is killing me. I can’t watch what will transpire in the next few days. Don’t ask it of me.”

“If you depart, we’ll never see each other again.”

“No, we won’t.”

For once, he was totally honest. “I couldn’t stand it.”

For a lengthy interval she was silent; then she admitted, “Neither could I.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he vowed. “Just bear with me.”

She grumbled but assented. “I will.”

He rolled onto her, and he kissed her, reveling,
cherishing, and they were instantly transported to the physical realm where they were so compatible, where nothing mattered but the fact that they were together and alone.

He was like a magician, juggling balls at a fair. If he could keep the sections of his life whirling about, if he didn’t drop any of the pieces, everything would turn out fine.

“Trust me,” he murmured.

“I don’t. I absolutely don’t.”

She chuckled, but it was such a weary, sad sound that he couldn’t abide hearing it. He deepened the kiss, intent on ignoring whatever was coming his way.

  12  

“You’re what?”

“I’m tendering my resignation.”

“I don’t accept it.”

Ellen shifted in her chair, uncomfortable with how Lydia was glaring from her perch behind Alex’s desk, but she forced herself to remain calm. She understood Lydia’s contrary nature, and her desire to be in control of every situation.

If Ellen begged, if she demanded, if she did anything at all, Lydia would view it as weakness, would jump on her like a wolf on carrion.

“There’s no need for me to stay on,” Ellen maintained.

“No need? Rebecca’s not dead. She’s merely becoming engaged. She shall require your services till the wedding, and perhaps for some time after.
I
may require your assistance, too, while I pursue my own nuptials.”

With the mention of her pending marriage to Nicholas Marshall, Lydia preened, obviously expecting more
congratulatory drivel, but Ellen couldn’t figure out what to say that would sound earnest.

When the peculiar news had initially been disseminated, Ellen had swallowed her shock and offered the appropriate remarks, but she couldn’t spew many more insincerities. She had no idea why a man would marry Lydia, even to acquire her fortune. While it made rational sense for Mr. Marshall to chase after the financial windfall, Ellen couldn’t wrap her mind around it emotionally, and she shuddered to envision what sort of children they’d produce!

“I haven’t been much help to Rebecca,” Ellen claimed. Since she could imagine no more horrid fate than accompanying Lydia as she shopped for a wedding gown, she diplomatically added, “I’d hardly do much better with your own grand occasion.”

“You’ll assist me,” Lydia declared, “as you have my sister, so you can rid yourself of this silly notion that you’re leaving. I won’t hear of it, and I won’t have you pestering me.” She waved toward the door and the loud party in progress down the hall. “Be gone.”

Ellen couldn’t give up, but she was treading a fine line. She hoped to split on decent terms so that she had a letter of recommendation as she went, but she was growing desperate and would go no matter what.

Knowing Lydia’s parsimonious habits, Ellen tried another avenue. “It’s such a waste of money to keep me on.”

“Oh, it is, is it?” Lydia snidely questioned. “It’s my money, and if I choose to spend it on you, I will. Now, Rebecca may need you, so I suggest you get back to work.”

Ellen couldn’t linger at Rebecca’s side. The engagement would be announced at midnight, and the house was overrun with guests who’d come to witness the spectacle of the matrimonial noose tightening for Alex Marshall.

As events played out, Ellen couldn’t bear to watch. The past week had been a nightmare as she’d hidden and avoided Rebecca, but complete evasion hadn’t been possible.

Rebecca had constantly sought her out, wanting her opinion on every detail from floral arrangements to buffet menus. Ellen had struggled to be gracious, to comport herself as if their relationship were proceeding as it always had, but the charade was excruciating.

She’d told Alex that she’d wait indefinitely, and when they’d been snuggled in her bed she’d meant every word, but with distance and separation sanity had returned, and the folly of her actions was so blatant.

Though she had no clue as to when it had happened, she was in love with Alex Marshall. She couldn’t fathom what had caused the dangerous attachment to develop, but whatever the basis, she had to put a stop to it, had to cut off her connection in a single swipe, as one would a festering limb. It was the only answer.

Over the next few days, he and Rebecca would be feted around the city, so it would be easy to slip away unnoticed.

She was a coward and had no intention of saying good-bye to either of them. She’d already penned farewell notes, which provided vague, impersonal explanations for her departure.

“I’m sorry, Lydia”—she braced herself and lied—“but I’ve accepted another position.”

“You what?”

“I’ve taken another job.”

“You’re joking.”

“No. With my post here about to end, I’ve been searching for a new place, and I found one. They need me immediately.”

Lydia stared and stared, then she began to tremble with wrath, and she rose and stomped over. She wasn’t as tall as Ellen, but Ellen was seated, so Lydia looked huge and downright menacing.

“How dare you!” Lydia hissed. “Haven’t I been kind to you?”

“Yes,” Ellen fibbed.

“Haven’t I been generous?”

“Yes,” she repeated.

“Yet you have the audacity to assume you can tot off, without so much as a by-your-leave!”

“I thought it would be best.”

“You did, did you?” Lydia sneered. “You know, Ellen, I deem your worst trait to be the fact that you think too much.”

How was she to respond to such a barb?

She apologized again. “I’m sorry.”

“Who is it?” Lydia demanded. “Tell me who has had the gall to lure you away, and I will speak to them at once.”

Ellen couldn’t believe how she’d blundered. In uttering the falsehood it had never occurred to her that Lydia would ask after the identity of the new employer. On the spur of the moment, Ellen couldn’t invent a name, especially when Lydia would track down any likely candidate.

“It doesn’t matter,” she mumbled. “I’ll write and advise them that I won’t be able to start after all.”

“A wise decision. In the meantime, we’ll pretend that this discussion never transpired. You may be about your duties.”

Lydia moved away, and Ellen was overcome by the strongest feeling that if she’d pressed the issue, Lydia might have struck her, which was absurd. Ellen was a modern-day lady’s companion, not some medieval scullery maid, but she couldn’t shake the perception that she was lucky to have proffered a suitable reply.

She stood and straightened her skirt. “I’ll locate Rebecca and see if she needs anything.”

Her mind racing, her heart heavy, she rushed out, wondering what to do next.

Lydia paced the library, trying to rein in her temper.

She was enraged over Ellen’s treachery. She’d hired Ellen with Ellen’s having scarcely any experience or character references, when she’d been desperate and willing to work for pennies.

There had to be a reason behind her abrupt desire to quit, and Lydia strove to remember what had recently changed.

Naught had been altered except . . . except . . . Lydia was engaged! She halted in her tracks.

Did the pretty vixen have her eye on Nicholas? Could it be?

Lydia pondered, then discounted the prospect.

Nicholas wouldn’t risk a liaison with Ellen, but might he with another? Lydia was no fool, and she grasped her limitations and Nicholas’s. She couldn’t expect him to be in love with her, but she absolutely would not allow him to be in love with someone else. She’d murder him
before she’d permit it, and she’d get away with it, too—as she had with her father.