“Edmund and I had a…different sort of marriage. He needed my help. I do not think that Lord Neale does.”
“Perhaps he just does not know it.”
Eleanor cast her friend a sardonic glance, one eyebrow raised. “Why are you so set on Lord Neale?”
Juliana shrugged. “I am not set on him. It is just that there seemed to be…I don’t know. I cannot explain it, really. There was just something between the two of you this evening.”
“I think it is called mutual dislike,” Eleanor responded.
“You may call it that if you wish. But I have never noticed dislike putting such a glow on a woman’s face as I saw on yours tonight.”
Eleanor’s eyes widened in surprise, and she was suddenly at a loss for words. She was saved from having to respond to her friend by the arrival of Juliana’s husband and Lord Neale, who strolled into the drawing room and sat down with them.
Nicholas suggested that Juliana play for them, so she moved to the piano and played a few songs, insisting that Eleanor join her. Eleanor turned the pages for her and added her passable alto voice to Juliana’s melodious soprano. Eleanor was grateful for something to do. She would have been hard-pressed to carry on a decent conversation, the way her mind was whirling from Juliana’s words.
Her friend was wrong, of course, she told herself. If there was any special glow on her face this evening, it had sprung from anger, not any sort of interest in Lord Neale. Perhaps, she admitted, she had felt some small tug of attraction to the man when she first met him, but that had been before she talked to him, before she found out what a rude and thoroughly dislikeable man he was. And if her pulse had picked up tonight when he entered her carriage, it was only because he had startled her. It had nothing to do with his well-modeled lips or clear gray eyes.
She glanced at him as she sang. He was leaning back in his chair, long legs stretched out in front of him and his arms crossed, watching her. She stumbled on the words and turned quickly back to the music, a blush rising in her cheeks. The devil take the man!
She was careful not to look at him again.
Not long after that, Eleanor took her leave, thanking Juliana and Nicholas for the evening and the meal. She had, despite Lord Neale’s presence, enjoyed it. Neale, of course, was quick to offer his escort.
“Thank you, but it is not necessary, my lord,” Eleanor told him without any real hope that he would agree. “I can manage quite well, I assure you.”
“No doubt. But I insist.” His gray eyes gazed into hers challengingly.
“Of course.” Eleanor thrust her hands into her gloves with a trifle more force than was necessary.
She took the arm he offered and, with another farewell to their hosts, walked with him out to the waiting carriage. She allowed him to assist her into the carriage and watched, resigned, as he settled onto the seat across from her.
“Well?” he asked, as the coach rattled over the cobblestone streets. “Are you ready to answer my questions?”
Eleanor set her jaw. Her pride made her want to refuse. His very questions were an insult, and to answer them seemed to admit that he had some sort of right to question her. She hated to give him the satisfaction of explaining anything to him.
However, she had been thinking about the problem all evening, and she knew that it would be foolish to let her pride dictate to her in this matter. If she did not quash this story of his right at the beginning, she knew that he and his sister would spread the rumor all over the city. While she cared little for the opinion of the ton, she knew that this sort of story would travel into the set among which she and Edmund had socialized. She did care what many of that group thought of her, and such a rumor, once started, was difficult to dispel. Moreover, it would embroil Juliana in exactly the sort of situation in which Eleanor did not want to involve her. Juliana would, of course, defend her friend; Eleanor knew how loyal she was. And that would put her at odds with the aristocratic society in which her marriage to Lord Barre had placed her.
Above all, she did not want Edmund’s memory to be touched in any way by a scandal. His death had been a tragedy for the world of music, and she refused to let that fact be submerged under a storm of gossip and innuendo.
“I will not be questioned by you like a criminal,” Eleanor told him coldly. “However, I have no intention of allowing you to drag Edmund’s name or mine through the mud of scandal. So I will show you exactly how wrong you are.”
“Very well.”
They continued their ride to Eleanor’s house in stony silence.
When they pulled up in front of the elegant white townhome some minutes later, Eleanor saw to her surprise that it was blazing with lights. A little prickle of unease ran through her, and she hurried down from the carriage, ignoring Lord Neale’s proffered hand. He followed her as she swept up the steps and through the front door.
Instead of the tranquility of a houseful of inhabitants retired for the night, as one would have expected at this late hour, the front hall was a hubbub of people and noise. Two children in their nightgowns sat on the stairs, interestedly watching the scene below them, where several servants in varying states of dress milled around, everyone seemingly talking at once. At the center of the activity was a dark, attractive young woman wrapped in a blue sari, her liquid dark eyes large and frightened, as she talked in a low voice to the two men before her. One of the men, a rough-looking sort whom Anthony remembered as Eleanor’s butler, handed the woman a small glass of an amber liquid. The other man, a tall African dressed in a suit, was on one knee before the woman, looking anxiously into her face.
Eleanor’s voice cut through the hum of talk. “What is going on here?”
Everyone turned and began to talk at once, their voices rising in a babble, until finally Lord Neale’s voice rang out, overpowering all the others. “Silence!”
In the ringing quiet that followed, Eleanor said, “Bartwell?”
The rough-looking man replied, “A thief got into the house, Miss Elly.”
The African man, who had risen and turned, but stayed protectively by the Indian woman’s side, added, “And he assaulted Kerani.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“WHAT!” Eleanor gasped, and swept forward toward the young woman. The servants parted quickly before her. She scarcely noticed that Lord Neale stayed at her side. “Kerani, are you all right?”
“No, no, it was not as it sounds,” the woman replied softly, standing up and inclining her head in a little bow to Eleanor. “He only pushed me aside as he ran away. I stumbled and fell.”
The man beside her snorted and said, “You would excuse the devil himself, ma’am. Pushing you down is an attack.”
“Yes, of course it is, Zachary, but you are scarcely helping the poor girl standing over her glowering like that,” Eleanor told him. “Now, Kerani…” She reached down and took the smaller woman’s hand in hers and looked into her face. “Tell me what happened.”
“I—” Kerani drew a shaky breath and straightened her shoulders, seeming to draw strength from Eleanor’s grasp. “I had just put the children to bed,” she went on in her soft, lilting accent. “I was going down to the library. I wanted to read a bit before I went to bed and—I walked by your room, my lady. I saw a man inside. I—he was standing in front of the dresser. He was turned away from me. But I gasped, I think, and he turned and saw me.”
The woman began to tremble, and Eleanor slid a comforting arm around her shoulders. “It’s all right, Kerani. He’s gone now. You are safe.”
“I know. I am sorry. It is just…he looked so—so frightening. His face—it was not human.”
“What?”
“He