NOT JUST A WALLFLOWER (14 page)

He winced. ‘Once again I apologise.’

She gave a teasing tilt of her head. ‘Enough to give me the kiss you failed to give me earlier?’

‘Of course.’ Justin crossed the room to briefly press his lips against the smoothness of her cheek; it was a small price to pay, after all, for such negligence.

His mother nodded. ‘And will you now sit here beside me and tell me all about Miss Rosewood?’ She patted the sofa cushion beside her own.

A gesture Justin ignored as he instead walked over to one of the armchairs placed either side of the unlit fireplace. He folded his long length down into it in a deliberately relaxed pose, his elbows resting on the arms of the chair as he steepled his fingers together in front of him, all the time avoiding acknowledging the disappointed look he knew would be on his mother’s face. ‘Would Grandmother not be a more reliable source of information on Eleanor than I?’

‘I do not believe so, no...’

His gaze sharpened as he looked across the room at his mother through those steepled fingers. ‘Would you care to explain that remark?’

‘Not really, no.’

Justin knew that he and Eleanor had both looked decidedly dishevelled when they entered the house together just now, but he was sincerely hoping his mother hadn’t realised the cause. ‘Then perhaps you would care to tell me your real reason for coming up to town?’

She looked pained. ‘Could it not be that I wished to see my only son?’

His mouth thinned. ‘Somehow I doubt that very much!’

‘Oh, Justin.’ His mother sighed heavily. ‘Why do we always have to fight whenever we meet?’

He raised blond brows. ‘Perhaps because we do not like each other?’

‘Justin!’ Tears filled his mother eyes as she sprang restlessly to her feet, her cheeks having blanched to a deathly white. ‘That is just so—so cruel of you! I love you. I have always loved you!’

And Justin had always loved his mother, too. Even when he had been angry with her, hurt by her, resentful of her negligence, he had still loved her. He loved her still.

But those years, when he had very often not seen his mother or his father for months at a time, had created a gulf between them which he truly believed to be insurmountable.

‘It is not my intention to be cruel to you, Mother. I just—why can you not just accept that there is too much between us, too many years spent apart, for us to be able to reach any common ground now?’

There was a strained look beside those tear-wet eyes and lines beside her unsmiling mouth. ‘There are things—’ she broke off, as if seeking the right words to say to him. ‘You asked why I have come up to town. The truth is, when you forgot even to acknowledge my birthday, I decided—’

‘Damn it, I have already apologised for my oversight!’

She shook her head. ‘It is still a symptom of the way our relationship now stands. And there are things you should know, things I have not told you before now, which I think you have a right to know.’

Justin frowned. ‘There is nothing you can say to me now that could ever take away all those years of neglect, when you chose to travel about the world with your husband—’

‘My husband was your father, don’t forget that! And we did not spend our lives simply enjoying ourselves, as you seem to be implying we were!’ Her expression was anguished, her gloved hands clenched tightly together in her agitation. ‘Nor was my decision to accompany him an easy one to make. But I made sure you were away at school before I decided to do so, and you had Edith and George if we had not managed to return for the holidays.’

‘Yet my grandparents, dear as they both were and still are, were no substitute for my own parents!’ This subject was too painful, too close to Justin’s own heart, for him to remain his usual icily controlled self.

‘Justin, I remained behind, stayed at home with you, until you went away to school at the age of ten,’ she reasoned anxiously. ‘Do you not remember those years before then, Justin? The wonderful years we spent together in Hampshire, swimming or fishing together in the summer months, sledging and ice-skating on the pond in the winters? And the excitement we always felt when we knew your father was to return from—from his business abroad?’

His eyes narrowed to icy slits. ‘I remember the years that followed far more clearly.’

Her shoulders drooped in defeated. ‘You have become a hard and unforgiving man, Justin.’

He shrugged. ‘I am what my life has made me.’

‘Then I am sorry for it.’ His mother gave a sad smile. ‘You are an intelligent man. Can you not think of any reason why your father travelled abroad for almost the whole of your life, first to India, then to the Continent? Other than enjoying himself, of course,’ she added with uncharacteristic tartness.

Justin glanced at her curiously, having absolutely no idea where this conversation was leading. ‘I was always told that he went away on business...’

‘And he was.’

‘Then I do not see—’

‘That business was not his own!’

‘Then whose was it?’ Justin made no attempt to hide his growing impatience with this conversation.

She looked rather irritated now. ‘Can you really not guess, Justin?’

He stared at her, a critical gaze that his mother continued to meet unflinchingly, unwaveringly, as if willing him to find the answer for himself.

Justin tensed suddenly as an answer presented itself, sitting forwards in his chair suddenly. ‘Can it be—?’ He paused, shaking his head slightly in denial. ‘All those years—did my father work secretly as an agent for the crown?’

He knew the answer he had found was the correct one, as a look of relief now flooded his mother’s beautiful face, making it radiant.

Chapter Fifteen

‘I
know you are not asleep, Eleanor, so you might just as well give up all pretence that you are!’

Ellie was indeed awake, and she had heard the door to her bedchamber being slowly opened just seconds ago before closing again. But she had hoped, whoever her visitor might be, that they were now on the other side of that closed door.

She remained unmoving and silent now beneath the bedcovers, not wanting another confrontation with Justin. If she refused to answer him, surely he would simply go away?

Ellie’s bath earlier had been very welcome and Rachel St Just, as promised, had visited Ellie in her bedchamber before the family dined downstairs, that sweet lady arranging for Stanhope to bring Ellie some supper on a tray after she had confessed to still having a slight headache.

Shortly after that Ellie had heard one of the carriages being brought around to the front of the house, and then the departure of the St Justs to Lady Littleton’s soirée. Several hours later, she still hadn’t heard that carriage return.

She had assumed—wrongly, she now realised—that Justin, despite his reluctance to attend such social occasions, would have accompanied his newly arrived mother, and grandmother, to Lady Littleton’s for the evening.

‘Eleanor...?’

Her lids remained stubbornly closed, despite the fact that she could now discern the glow of candlelight through their delicate membranes. Justin had obviously moved closer to where she lay in bed.

‘Damn it, are there not already enough women in this household who prefer to avoid my company this evening!’ he muttered truculently.

It was that very truculence, a cross little-boy emotion, and so at odds with his usual arrogant self-confidence, that caused her lids to finally open, in spite of her previous decision to ignore him and hope that he would just go away.

‘Ah ha!’ Justin looked down at her triumphantly as he stood beside the bed, lit candle held aloft.

Ellie turned to lie on her back and rest up against the pillows, the sheet pulled up over her breasts as she looked up at Justin guardedly in the candlelight. She quickly realised he seemed to be leaning against the bed for support, his appearance also less than presentable; he had removed his jacket and neckcloth completely some time during the evening, several buttons of his shirt were unfastened at the throat and his waistcoat was also unbuttoned.

Another wary glance at his face also revealed that there was a brightness to his eyes and a slight flush to the hardness of his cheeks. ‘Justin, are you inebriated?’

He blinked, before pausing to give the matter exaggerated thought. ‘I believe I may have drunk a bottle of brandy, or possibly two, since dinner...’

This was just too delicious for Ellie not to enjoy to the full. It was certainly impossible to ignore the fact that the haughty Duke of Royston, was so foxed he could barely stand! ‘Perhaps you should sit down before you fall down—I did not mean there!’ Ellie gave an indignant squeak as he immediately sat down on the side of her bed, causing her to scoot over to the other side if she did not wish to be crushed. ‘Justin, you should not be in my bedchamber at all, let alone sitting on my bed!’

‘Why not—?’ He swayed slightly as he leaned forwards to place the candle and its holder on the bedside table. ‘Uh oh...’ He straightened again with effort, sitting still for several seconds before swinging his booted feet up on to the bed and lying back against the pillows beside her. ‘Am I imagining things or is the ceiling spinning?’

‘Justin!’ Ellie sat up to frown down at him impatiently, her earlier amusement at his expense having completely disappeared as he lay back against the pillows with his eyes closed, golden lashes fanning across those flushed cheeks. ‘Justin?’

His lids remained closed as he gave a wide smile of satisfaction. ‘You have the hang of saying my name now, I see.’

‘Justin!’ she repeated with considerable exasperation as she took a grasp of his arm and shook it, with no apparent result as he simply settled more comfortably on to the pillows. ‘You must get up now and leave immediately!’

‘Why must I?’

‘Your mother and grandmother will be returning soon—’

‘They will not be back for hours yet.’ He raised a hand to cover a yawn. ‘And it was dashed lonely downstairs in the library on my own, whereas it is warm and cosy up here with you.’

Ellie stilled at this unexpected admission from a gentleman who gave the clear impression that he had never needed anyone’s company but his own. ‘Why is it that you think your mother and the dowager are avoiding your company?’

‘Do they need a reason?’ He gave a shrug.

To Ellie’s mind, yes, they most certainly did; Rachel St Just had been so emotional earlier at seeing her son again, after what seemed to have been a lengthy separation, and the dowager was prepared to forgive her grandson anything since he had returned to live at Royston House. ‘Why did you not accompany them to Lady Littleton’s?’

He prised one lid open to look up at her. ‘I may be in the mood for company, Eleanor, but I am not so desperate I would resort to that particular torture!’

She gave a rueful grimace at his obvious disgust. ‘I was thinking of it more in terms of doing something which might please your mother and the dowager, and in doing so, perhaps regain favour with them?’

He gave a shudder as he closed that lid. ‘I am not as anxious as that to regain their approval!’

‘Obviously not.’ Ellie sighed at this obvious display of his usual arrogance. ‘Nevertheless, you really cannot remain here with me, Justin.’

‘Why not, when your bedchamber is so much more comfortable than my own?’

Ellie did not see how that could possibly be true. The dowager had shown her about the main parts of the house when Ellie first came to live here a year ago and she seemed to remember the ducal suite as being opulent, to say the least, with its huge four-poster bed and deep-blue brocade curtains, Georgian furniture and luxurious blue-and-gold Aubusson carpets; her own bedchamber was nice enough, but only a quarter of that size, the bed barely big enough for the two of them to lie down upon together.

An observation which she should not even have been able to make! ‘I cannot believe that. Nor do I think it wise for you to remain here any longer—Justin?’ She eyed him uncertainly as he turned on the bed to face her, and in doing so making her self-consciously aware of the fact that she wore only her nightrail beneath the bedcovers, the bareness of her shoulders currently visible above the sheet, which was now trapped beneath his heavier weight.

‘Did you know you have the most beautiful hair I ever beheld...?’ Justin reached out to take a long red strand between his thumb and fingers. ‘So soft and silky to the touch and like living flame to gaze upon.’ He allowed the silkiness of her hair to fall through his fingers.

‘I do not think this the time or the place for you to remark upon the beauty of my hair.’

‘When else should I remark upon it when it is normally kept confined or hidden away beneath your bonnet?’

‘Not always...’ A blush brightened her cheeks.

No, not always...for had Justin not wound these silken tresses about his partially naked body just hours earlier?

He moved up on one elbow the better to observe how smooth and creamy her skin now appeared against that living flame. ‘I could not see you properly in the carriage this afternoon.’ He smoothed his hand across the bare expanse of her shoulder now clearly visible to him. ‘You are very beautiful, Eleanor. Your skin is so soft...’

She held herself stiffly, but even so could not hide the quiver caused by the touch of his caressing fingers. ‘Unless you have forgotten, Justin, I, too, am currently avoiding your company...’

He gave a wicked smile. ‘I have forgotten none of what took place between us this afternoon, Eleanor.’

The colour deepened in her cheeks. ‘Nor, unfortunately, have I. Which is why—’

‘Unfortunately?’ Justin’s fingers curled about her shoulder to hold her in place. ‘That is not particularly flattering, referring to our lovemaking like that, Eleanor.’

‘Lovemaking which should never have taken place!’ She wrenched out of his grasp, quickly moving to the side of the bed and throwing back the covers to stand up, before retrieving her robe from the bedside chair and hastily pulling it on over her nightrail.

Justin lay back, taking unashamed advantage of being able to gaze upon the nakedness of the body he glimpsed briefly through the sheer material of that nightgown before Eleanor fastened her robe: firm, uptilting, berry-tipped breasts, slender waist, curvaceous hips and thighs above long and slender legs.

A pity, then, that the copious amount of brandy he had consumed earlier this evening appeared to have robbed him of all ability to do anything about it!

He gave a self-disgusted groan as he lay back on the pillows before lifting his arm to place it across his eyes. ‘Does it seem overbright to you in here?’

‘You, sir, are seriously foxed!’

He gave a grunt of acknowledgement, having no need to look at Eleanor to know that she would be glaring down at him disapprovingly. ‘Not at all a surprising state of affairs after the things I have learnt this evening. And not only that,’ he added gruffly, ‘but it seems I am to be bedevilled by desire for a young woman totally unsuited to the role of becoming my mistress!’

Could
she
be the young woman he meant?

If so, then he was perfectly correct; for she had no intention of ever becoming his mistress or any other man’s, ‘bedevilled by desire’, or otherwise!

She drew in a sharp breath. ‘You will leave my bedchamber right now, sir!’

‘Can’t,’ he mumbled.

‘What do you mean, you can’t?’ She continued to glower down at Justin as she stood beside the bed upon which he still lounged so elegantly, inwardly decrying the fact that he still managed to look so impossibly handsome, despite his less-than-pristine appearance. Or perhaps because of it...

Justin looked far more of a fallen angel in his current state of dishevelment, the gold of his overlong hair having fallen rakishly across his brow, with similar gold curls visible at the open throat of his shirt.

He cracked open that single eyelid once again as he answered her. ‘I mean, dear Eleanor, that if my cock is incapable of rising to the occasion after I have gazed upon your delicious near-nakedness, then you may rest assured the rest of me is incapable of rising too!’

Ellie felt the embarrassed colour burning her cheeks. ‘You are both behaving and talking outrageously! And likely you will seriously regret it come morning. Indeed, I believe you will wholeheartedly deserve the debilitating headache that will no doubt strike you down—Justin!’ She gave a protesting hiss as he reached out to grasp her wrist before tugging determinedly, causing her to tumble back down on to the bed beside him. ‘Stop this immediately.’ She fought against the arm and leg he now threw across her breasts and thighs in order to keep her beside him.

He scowled at her impatiently. ‘Damn it, woman, cease your struggling and try to be of some assistance to me for a change!’

She stilled as she realised he was not attempting to be intimate with her, but was merely using the restraint of his arm and leg as a means of stopping her from struggling any further. That she was not quite as immune as she’d like, to his close proximity and rakish good looks, was no one’s fault but her own. ‘In what way could I possibly be of assistance to you?’

He frowned. ‘You are a woman, are you not?’

‘I believe you are as aware of that as I.’ She raised pointed brows.

‘Exactly.’ He nodded his satisfaction with that fact. ‘And, as such, you understand the way a woman’s mind works.’

‘I understand how my own mind works, I am not so sure about other ladies.’

‘In the light of there being no other lady available, with whom I might discuss this, you will have to do.’ Justin blew out an irritated breath as he once again lay down beside her on the bed to stare up at the ceiling of her bedchamber. ‘Explain to me, if you can, why it is a woman, who has lied to her only child for over half his lifetime, now expects that child to fall at her feet and ask
her
forgiveness for not understanding sooner, once she has finally—finally!—explained the reason for that lie.’

Ellie at him closely, seeing the evidence of his pain in the way his eyes had darkened and those grim lines had become etched beside his mouth. ‘And would this woman, this mother, happen to be your own?’

He nodded. ‘For years I have believed my mother and father to have been so engrossed in their love for each other, in their need to be exclusively with each other, that they had no room or love to spare in their lives for me, their only child,’ he rasped. ‘And now this evening my mother has told me—I can trust you not to discuss this with anyone else...?’

‘Of course.’ She bristled slightly at his need to ask.

He nodded distracted. ‘This evening I have learnt what my mother and grandparents have always known, that my father was a hero and worked secretly for the crown for many years. That he risked his own life again and again. And latterly my mother chose to put herself in that same danger, when she insisted on travelling with him after I had gone away to boarding school. The two of them succeeded in collecting information which has saved many hundreds of lives over the years.’

And it was obvious, from the mixture of pain and pride Ellie now detected in Justin’s voice, that he had not decided as yet how he felt about that...

Not surprising, really, when he had so obviously become the cynical man that he now was because for so many years he had held a quite different opinion about his parents.

It also confirmed Ellie’s previous belief that this might also be the reason Justin had repeatedly declared he had no intention of being in love with his own wife, when the time came for him to marry and provide an heir. For what man, who had believed himself to have been excluded from his parents’ lives because of their all-consuming love for each other, would ever want to inflict that same neglect upon his own children?

Ellie moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue as she chose her next words carefully. ‘I am sure that both your mother, and the dowager, understand your feelings enough to realise you will need time in which to completely absorb and adjust your thinking concerning the things you have been told this evening.’