He’d forgotten that they were standing in the middle of the ballroom. Because all he could see was Eleanor, and that terrible look on her face. As if there was nothing in the world but the two of them and the way they stood so close together, as if what he was telling her here was far more important than a mere story. As if it was something infinitely more critical than the past he was still paying for.
It was, he understood. He was telling her the truth about the most hated man in England, and she believed him.
She believed him.
Eleanor moved then, tipping herself up on her toes and fitting her palms to his chest. One of them right there where his heart still hurt.
As if she knew.
“I’m so sorry, Hugo,” she whispered, her voice intense and low. “I’m ashamed to say I believed the stories, too.”
Hugo felt a kind of bitterness twist through him then, though there was a warmth in it this time, as if it was something a little more complicated. He reached up and covered the hand over his heart with his.
“Do you know,” he said quietly, “that you are the only person I have ever met who’s apologized? When you are the one who’s done the least damage.”
She bit her lip, and electricity pounded through him, reminding him of all the ways this woman got to him. All the ways she was clearly the death of him.
“I’ve spoken to you as if I knew you. As if the stories I read were the truth, when of course they couldn’t be. The truth is never so black and white, is it? No heroes, no villains, just people.”
“Perhaps. But there are also Isobels in this world. They prey on others because they can. It gives them pleasure. And Eleanor, your sister is one of them.”
She tried to pull her hand away, but Hugo held her fast.
“You don’t understand,” she said, her voice fierce again.
“But I do.” Hugo moved closer then, until there was only the scantest bit of air between the two of them. “Tonight you’re barefoot, your hair is down, every inch of you is feminine and soft.”
“I didn’t expect to run into anyone in what I wear to bed.”
He took his free hand and placed it over her lips. He smiled down into the crease between her eyes. He felt things he’d never thought were real, before tonight.
“Eleanor. Who told you feminine and soft is bad?”
“Not bad,” Eleanor said against his finger, sending delicious little licks of heat spiraling through him. “But not me.” Her frown intensified. “It’s cruel of you to pretend that you can’t see it, now that you’ve met Vivi. I’m not the pretty one. I never was.”
“Your sister is pretty, yes,” Hugo said, dismissively. “In a very particular way that would, I imagine, appeal to a very particular man. But you?” He shifted his hands, smoothing them over her cheeks and then down to curl into the nape of her neck. “Little one. How can you not realize that you are beautiful? Stunning? There is no comparison.”
Her marvelous eyes filled with emotion. Her perfect mouth trembled.
“You don’t have to lie to me, Your Grace,” she whispered.
And Hugo didn’t know what to do with a woman who’d believed that he was a better man than anyone had believed him to be in years—making everything inside him shift and change—but not that she was the most beautiful creature he thought he’d ever beheld.
So he did the only thing he could. He kissed her.
IT WAS LIKE DANCING.
Eleanor wasn’t sure she should let herself fall into something that felt a little too much like a fairy tale here in the middle of a ballroom, but his mouth was on hers again and she couldn’t seem to think of anything else. Or she didn’t want to think about anything else.
She didn’t want to think about how little she’d cared for her sister tonight, which made her feel small. Petty. Selfish beyond measure.
But not enough to stop.
She didn’t want to think about the fact that she’d left her room after tossing and turning for hours, and despite what she might have let Hugo think, she knew that she hadn’t been dressed like a governess should have been. Or even as a guest should have been when she’d eased her door open and crept down the hall. She been filled with a kind of despairing recklessness, a restless need that had urged her to do something with all the pent-up hurt and betrayal she’d felt after dinner. She’d convinced herself that it was an excellent idea to wander the halls of Groves House half-dressed. Hair down. Bare feet.
Had she wanted this all along?
But she didn’t really care if she had, because it felt like dancing.
Hugo kissed her and he kissed her. His hands moved from the nape of her neck, smoothing their way down the line of her back, and fastened thrillingly at her hips, drawing her against him.
He kissed her as if there was nothing else but that. Nothing in all the world but the slide of his mouth on hers.
“I can’t get enough of you,” Hugo muttered against her lips, as if it hurt him to say that. “I can’t get enough.”
And when he bent, then lifted her into his arms, Eleanor knew she should have protested. Nothing had made this any less wrong than it had been yesterday. Or a week ago. Or ever. She was still his employee.
But he was Hugo Grovesmoor. And Vivi was right here, in this house, but he hadn’t chosen her.
He’d chosen Eleanor. He’d called her beautiful and he’d kissed her, after meeting Vivi. After Vivi had launched a full-scale offensive, in fact, and gotten nowhere.
For the first time in her life, someone had chosen Eleanor.
She didn’t have it in her to pull away.
Hugo carried her through the house. Eleanor had no concept of what time it was, only that the last time she’d heard the clocks chime, it had been after midnight. But as far she was concerned, the night could last forever. She hoped it would.
She rested her head against Hugo’s wide shoulder, and let the house drift past her as he carried her. Through the halls and up the stairs that led to his private wing. And this time, he did not take her to his library, or to that dining room of his where she’d spent all evening feeling as if she didn’t exist, but further on. Down to the end of that same hall, and into the rooms that waited there.
She had a dreamy sort of impression of magnificence. Bold, masculine furnishings, dark woods and impressively large paintings and rugs so lavish it seemed a shame to walk on them. A massive stone fireplace that made her think of medieval castles, and that was only the living room.
But Hugo kept going. And with every step he took toward what had to be his bedroom, Eleanor’s heart kicked at her. Harder and harder.
And then they were there, standing by the side of a massive bed that would have dwarfed a room any smaller than this one, and Hugo was shifting her. Placing her down on the edge of his mattress as if she was infinitely precious to him.
And Eleanor felt shivery. Fragile all the way through.
Because she couldn’t think of another time in her life that anyone had treated her like that, as if she mattered. Oh, she assumed her parents had. But the truth was that she couldn’t remember any longer. What she remembered was taking care of others.
She