The Marquess Who Loved Me (29 page)

After an age, he nodded. “Go to bed. We will talk tomorrow.”

She left, taking the bottle with her. Neither of them said anything else as she slipped through the door and closed it between them.

She didn’t lock it, though. She leaned her head against it instead. With his scent and shirt enveloping her, she could pretend she still leaned against his chest.

She didn’t want a game. But could she listen to her heart long enough to know what was real?

She had taken his bottle of arrack. It was the first thing he thought when she left. The cheap, rum-like liquor that he had drunk in India was no match for the smooth Scottish whisky he preferred, but it was better than nothing. He didn’t really want to taste it ever again. But wanting a drink was better than considering her parting shot.

Nick shoved a hand through his hair as he stared at the door she had closed between them. Did she stand on the other side, staring at the door as he did?

Ellie was right. This was self-torture. He left, unable to stand the torment of wondering what she was doing in the chamber that mirrored his. He met no one in the passage; it was nearly one in the morning, still early for people accustomed to London life, but late for those who preferred country hours. He strode down the hall, and the carpet running down the center dampened his steps even though he didn’t care who heard him.

Perhaps he should have cared. As he passed a bedchamber near the stairs, someone opened it from the inside. “I thought it must be you,” Marcus said in a low voice. “How does your revenge progress?”

Nick stopped, scowling before he turned around. “It progresses. Were you waiting to waylay me?”

“No. I’ve already waylaid the person I intended to waylay. But the intelligence from that interview made it impossible for me to sleep.”

“First Ferguson, now you. Is everyone in this house spying on me?”

Marcus shrugged. “It wouldn’t surprise me.”

Nick looked down the hall. No one stirred — but that didn’t mean no one was listening. “If you wish to say something, come to the study. No one will disturb us there.”

Marcus nodded and shrugged into his jacket before accompanying Nick down the stairs. There were no servants about, but a handful of guests still chattered in the drawing room. Nick turned toward his study silently, avoiding any interactions that would prolong the night. Even Marcus was an imposition he resented. If he couldn’t be with Ellie, after the way his aching need for her had been denied, he didn’t want to play the host.

The study was dark and the embers were banked. They spent a few moments lighting lamps and stoking the fire before Nick took his seat behind the desk. Marcus sighed as he eyed one of the hassocks. “You should redecorate sooner rather than later if you intend to stay. You would have liked how Ellie initially decorated this room for you. I think the furniture is still in the attics someplace if you care to drag it out.”

“I’m not here to talk about Ellie,” Nick said flatly. “Who did you stop before you saw me in the hall?”

Marcus walked over to the decanter, almost as though he hadn’t heard the question. He offered Nick a glass, but Nick refused — Ellie’s condemnation of his drinking still rang in his ears, and he was stubborn enough to pretend that she was wrong. Pouring his own glass, Marcus leaned against the fireplace mantel rather than sitting on one of the hassocks. Finally, he broke the silence. “Lucia. Mrs. Grafton, I should say.”

“And?” Nick prompted.

“And I won’t betray the lady’s confidences by sharing with you.”

“The lady? She’s a maid. A maid I’m paying for, if I’m not mistaken.”

Marcus narrowed his eyes. “You don’t know the first thing about her. If you had, you wouldn’t have involved her in your revenge with Ellie. She told me how you’re dressing Ellie up like some sort of high-priced plaything. She won’t forgive you for what you’re doing. She won’t forgive any of us.”

Nick held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I won’t apologize for Ellie. But I didn’t know you had interests toward her maid.”

“There are many things you don’t know. As much as I prefer England, perhaps I should have been the one to go to India.”

He swirled the whisky in his glass. Nick recognized the weight of memory — he had labored under his own long enough that it was easy to see the signs of torment in others. “Be glad you stayed here, brother,” he said. “I am. You couldn’t have done more for the company or the family anywhere else.”

Marcus looked up. “I know. But for myself? I think Sebastian Staunton had the right idea. He moved to another continent to start something of his own. As long as his brother is alive, Sebastian is just an idle gentleman here. Your absence gave me an illusion of responsibility. But illusions aren’t enough to build a future on.”

Nick didn’t respond. His own illusions were too fresh to offer any comfort to his brother.

The silence amplified the crackling fire. Somewhere in the distance, someone laughed. There was still pleasure around them, even if Nick didn’t feel it. He only felt the chill — of the weather, or of regret, he didn’t know.

Finally, he sighed. “You have to find a way past the illusion, Marcus. Now that I’m back, you’ll have time for it.”

“Are you staying?”

Nick shrugged. “For now.”

Marcus eyed him over his glass. “And what will your answer be in June?”

Nick didn’t understand for a moment. When he did, he realized that he’d forgotten the terms of his agreement with Ellie. He was thinking about forever, or never, not a span of mere months.

“I liked India, but it never felt like a true home. If…”

He trailed off. Marcus smiled sympathetically. “Trouble with your revenge?”

“I won’t betray the lady’s confidences by sharing with you,” Nick said, imitating Marcus’s former annoyance over Lucia.

“Can’t say I’m surprised. I’ve known Ellie long enough to always put my money on her.”

“Traitor. Are you sure the two of you aren’t plotting to kill me?”

Marcus drained the rest of his whisky. “Again, if we were, my money would be on her. But if you had seen how she obsessed over these rooms, choosing things you would like, making homes for you — no one puts that much love into someone she intends to destroy.”

“Thank you,” Nick said abruptly.

Marcus frowned. “For what?”

“For watching over her while I was gone. Even if Lucia gave you an ulterior motive.”

Marcus was smart enough to catch the gratitude beneath the teasing, but he still played along. “Don’t worry yourself. Invitations to Ellie’s bacchanals over the past ten years were all the payment I needed. The first one she gave after Charles died, when two dozen half-clothed opera dancers performed for the audience — if Charles died in the arms of one of those Cyprians, he died a happy man. I hope you won’t reform her too much.”

“We both know reforming Ellie is a lost cause.”

“I’m glad you know that.”

Marcus sounded more serious then, but he didn’t press. Instead, he set aside his glass and looked at his watch. “I should return to my bed. My money is on her, but I trust you’ll come out all right. If you can’t forge through the path you’re on — I know you well enough to know you’ll find a different path.”

Marcus left before Nick responded. Or perhaps he knew Nick wouldn’t respond.

The problem with the killer would resolve itself eventually — either with Nick’s death or the killer’s. The problem with Ellie, though, wasn’t so black and white. Did he want his revenge? Or did he want her happiness?

And were those two things mutually exclusive?

He had thought they were. When he had believed that she had refused him all those years ago because she didn’t love him, he had assumed that his revenge would destroy her. But if he were honest with himself, if he let his eyes and ears and hands tell him a new story that refuted the mantra his heart had chanted endlessly, he knew she had loved him before, truly and honestly.

Her voice had admitted it in her studio, breaking as she begged him not to leave her again. Her eyes had admitted it, the moment she realized that he had returned. When she had told him, years ago, that she would marry his cousin, she had done it coldly and implacably, leaving no room in the air around her for him or his love — snuffing out whatever she’d felt for him so comprehensively that it was as though she’d never felt at all.

But in her paintings — the fierce, wild ones that stood unframed, not the pretty, predictable efforts that hung from the walls — he had seen glorious, focused, fiery passion. Not the icy Virgin Queen she played for her guests; not the jaded, indolent widow she feigned for him.

Those paintings, like the Ellie who always came apart for him when she gave in and forgot the past, were the Ellie who might have been.

Could Nick resurrect her? Could that Ellie unlock who
he
might have been — make him a better man than the one who looked forward, with shameless hunger, to having her again? Or did he still hate her too much? Did he hate her enough to leave that would-be Ellie locked away in the darkest pits of her own heart, a goddess condemned to gnaw at her own flesh for all eternity?

Did he hate himself enough to refuse what they could have? Or could he give up on the plans of the past ten years and choose a different path?

Ellie spent most of the night wide awake. She almost drank from the bottle she’d taken from Nick, but the fumes put her off the stuff. In the morning, she didn’t feel tired — just restless and unhappy, wondering what Nick’s response to her demands would be.

She had to stop thinking of him. She rang for Lucia early, dressed in a comfortable morning gown, and went to her salon. Her books would distract her until she had to mix with her guests. But her salon wasn’t empty. Prudence sat there alone, scribbling something on a piece of paper as she perused the book propped open on her writing desk. Most mornings, Ellie was glad to see her. But her greeting, when it left her lips, sounded annoyed rather than pleased.

Prudence was too perceptive by half. “Are you feeling unwell?” Prudence asked, laying aside her pen. “You seem…piqued.”

Ellie must have sounded worse than that to make Prudence stop writing. “Is that what you would call it? To tell the truth, I don’t know what I feel.”

“Shall I ring for tea?“

Ellie noticed that Prudence did not offer to leave. She tried to ignore her flaring annoyance. “No need — I sent for a tray. But I believe I shall take my chocolate and my thoughts elsewhere.”

Prudence eyed her thoughtfully. “I know how tempting it is to think you might find it easier to be alone. But you are a reasonable woman. You may find that company may help if solitude has yet to do the trick.”

“You are the first to ever call me a reasonable woman.”

“Intelligent, then,” Prudence said with a grin. “Reason is given too much adulation anyway.”

Ellie sat down across from Prudence, lounging on the same chaise where she had received Nick — was it only four nights earlier? It felt like four months. The broken glass had all been swept up, but it seemed that Nick’s scent still hung in the air, an invisible web that held her down and wouldn’t let her forget.

“Do you smell bergamot?” she asked Prudence.

Prudence sniffed the air tentatively. “No?”

Then it was on her skin, not in the air. She had slept in his shirt, with his scent wrapped around her. A proper woman might have blushed, but Ellie shrugged it off.

Further questions were forestalled by a footman bearing Ellie’s chocolate. “Would you care for a cup?” Ellie asked as she poured.

Prudence shook her head. Ellie waited until the footman was gone before she picked up the conversation again. “What did you mean, earlier? About finding that solitude isn’t doing the trick?”

“I won’t claim to understand you, Ellie. We’ve both lost brothers and had our share of difficulties with our parents, but we aren’t the same. Witness how you’ve been your own mistress all these years, while I escaped my mother only by taking refuge with Lady Salford.”

“I think you give yourself too little credit,” Ellie interjected.

Prudence held up a hand. “I know my failings. Solitude does that, you know — gives us a chance to chew endlessly over what we might have said or done or been.”

“It’s not so bad as that,” Ellie said. “And you can’t accuse me of solitude. When is my social calendar ever empty?”

“But you only host lavish crushes. When was the last time you had an intimate
tête-à-tête
?” Prudence pressed on despite the way Ellie’s mouth compressed. “Your calendar is full, but what do you get from those engagements? Something that enriches you? Or merely peace from the voices in your head?”

Peace
. It was what she had told Nick she wanted. But Prudence made it sound so bleak — and Ellie wasn’t ready to give her the point. “When have you ever known me to have doubts?” Ellie asked.

Prudence saw through the diversion. Still, her voice softened. “I only guess, Ellie. Perhaps…perhaps I need to understand you so I can see what I would have to do to secure my own independence. But my current guess is that you haven’t enjoyed being the merry marchioness — you’ve survived it.”

“Leave me,” Ellie ordered suddenly, with the same abrupt, frosty tone she used when Lucia, or Marcus, or anyone else stepped out of line with her. “If you’re going to prattle on about things you know nothing of, then leave.”