‘Garrick.’
He spun around.
She looked lovely, almost ethereal, in her white muslin gown. Tiny curls framed a face that seemed thinner and paler than he remembered. He could see no sign of Lady Moonlight in this very proper young lady, with her hands clasped at her waist in a dignified manner. This was Lady Eleanor.
In two strides he reached her, kissed each cool hand. ‘Ellie.’ He cupped her lovely face in his palms, brushed his mouth across her lips, losing himself in her taste as she parted to his questing tongue.
God, he’d missed her. He dropped his hands to her shoulders, enfolded her in his embrace. She arched into him. Kissing him with avid desperation, clutching at his shoulders. He cupped her buttocks, pulled her against his length, felt the stirring of his blood and sighed. His woman. He pulled back, smiling into her lovely face.
She bit her lip.
‘What is it, sweet?’ he asked, tipping her chin to look into her eyes.
They were shadowed, wary. His stomach plunged in a sickening rush. ‘What is wrong?’
She pulled away, paced to the other side of the room before facing him. ‘Why are you here?’
The ground felt unsteady beneath his feet. ‘Didn’t you receive my letter?’
Her eyes widened. ‘Did you write, indeed?’ She shook her head. ‘I suppose William…’ She made a small helpless gesture.
Suspicion writhed in his gut. ‘I wrote to your brother for permission to pay my addresses to you. Didn’t he tell you?’
‘William is angry, disappointed in me.’ She averted her face. ‘I am fortunate he didn’t turn me out.’
Turn her out? The heat of terrible rage flowed like lava in his veins. The accursed Le Clere temper gripped him in vice-like claws. His clenched fists shook with the effort to hold them at his sides and not strike out blindly.
He drew in a deep breath, forced his hands to unclench. ‘Believe me, had I known who you were, I would never have offered you a carte blanche. I’m here to make it right as honour demands.’
‘Honour?’ She stiffened, drawing back. He felt as if he’d missed something important. He crossed the room to her side, took her hand in both of his, held tight so she could not pull away. He dropped to one knee and gazed into her face. ‘Lady Eleanor Hadley, please do me the honour of becoming my wife. I will protect and cherish you all the days of my life. I swear, I will never cause you harm. Please, Ellie. Give me a chance.’ He was begging and he didn’t care.
Her eyes glittered with moisture. She pulled her hand free. ‘You don’t understand.’
He rose to his feet, paced away from her, then looked back, where she stood stiff and pale. She had never fully given herself to him and never freely. She’d only come to him because she’d needed money for her brother, but he’d been sure there was more between them than lust.
She swallowed. ‘What about what you did?’ The agony in her voice ripped through his heart. In her eyes, he saw fear.
Pain speared his heart. She knew him better than anyone. Did she sense the evil lurking in his blood? The thought filled him with a grief so deep, he didn’t know how he remained standing. He forced himself to answer. ‘You said it yourself. Why admit to something I don’t recall?’
‘What about what you did to William?’ Her voice was a strangled whisper of pain. ‘Do you deny that, too?’
A knot balled in his gut. He felt as if he’d entered a maze to discover all of the exits blocked and a monster breathing at his heels. ‘Yes, I deny it. My friends vouched I never left the dorm.’
‘Your friends.’ Her lip curled. ‘How very convenient. He bested you in a fight and everyone heard you swear your revenge. What kind of monster beats a boy in his bed? He wanted a cavalry regiment. Because of you he can’t sit on a horse for more than an hour or two.’
She spun away. Left him standing mute, accused, trembling with rage and something deeper. Fear. Fear he was losing her.
She covered her face with her hands. ‘Back then, he told us it was an accident. After all, men don’t tell tales. If I had known, I never would have come to you. Never.’
‘I didn’t do it.’
She raised her gaze, the grey of her eyes fractured, as if something inside her had broken. ‘Or do you simply not remember?’
The bitterness raked him like a cat-o’-nine tails. He hesitated. Oh God. His friends had said he never left his bed. But if he was honest, he really wasn’t sure. Because he feared it might be true. He shrugged to hide the pain of her words stabbing his heart. ‘I was asleep.’
‘My older brother died for Beauworth’s cause and once again William’s dreams were shattered. He’s angry, Garrick. He swears if I have any more to do with you, I will never see him or Sissy again. I can’t let that happen.’
An iron band seemed to tighten around his chest. ‘You care more for your sister than you do for me.’ A painful truth entered his mind. ‘You believe I did those things.’
Tears ran silently down her face. ‘I don’t know any more. I want to believe you. But…how?’ She flung her arms wide. ‘And besides, it doesn’t matter what I believe. I promised Sissy I wouldn’t leave her.’
Her tears ran and he couldn’t think straight. Her family came first. She’d given up everything for the sake of her family. He’d ruined her and all she could think about was her sister. ‘What about you? About your reputation?’
She stared at him, silent, sad, an island, a lonely rock, the tears drying on her face. ‘No one else knows about us, unless you tell them,’ she whispered.
She was ashamed of her time with him. And how could he blame her for keeping her word to a child? He felt as if someone had pitched him headlong into a bottomless well. He couldn’t see a glimmer of light, or any way to climb out of the depths.
A bitter laugh rose in his throat. All those days in his cell, thinking about her, about her kisses, about the warmth in her eyes for him, were the dreams of a fool. He’d been nothing but a means to save her family. If she cared at all, she’d trust in his innocence.
You don’t trust yourself, a small voice whispered in his head.
The sorrow in her face slid like arrows, wicked and barbed, between his ribs, tearing into his flesh, into his battered soul, releasing a monster of anger, a writhing twisting being with fangs bared and ready to strike.
‘If you ever change your mind, Lady Eleanor,’ he said softly, his lips drawing back in a caricature of a smile, ‘you will need to tell me so on your knees. After all, you owe me the rest of my three months.’
Her soft gasp didn’t ease his pain, nor did the glisten of moisture in her eyes. If anything, it made him feel like a wolf wounding a fawn and it was far too easy. None of this was her fault. He swung away, opened the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. God, he was a bastard. ‘I apologise. I did not mean that. I truly wish you and your family well.’
How he left the room on his feet, he wasn’t sure, because he seemed to be walking through chest-high water, wet and cold and sluggish. He felt older than England’s green hills as he crossed the hallway.
A child ran down the stairs. She halted at the sight of him. ‘Oh, it’s Len’s wicked Marquess.’ She beamed and started towards him.
‘Lady Sissy,’ he said harshly, ‘I bid you good day.’
He stormed out of the door to his carriage and Johnson set the horses in motion. As the carriage drew away, the truth seeped like bitter bile into his mind. She was right not to trust him.
Desolation,