Regency High Society Vol 5: The Disgraced Marchioness / The Reluctant Escort / The Outrageous Debutante / A Damnable Rogue

‘You must find your family most supportive.’ Lady Sefton picked up Eleanor’s thoughts before she moved away to greet more guests.

‘I do indeed.’

‘And I am interested to note a predatory look in Lord Henry’s eye for anyone he suspects of showing you less than good manners.’

‘Do you?’ Eleanor looked across the room to Henry in some confusion.

‘Of course. He is most attentive. And so very handsome. I am quite jealous.’ She tapped Eleanor’s wrist playfully with a pretty ivory-sticked fan and laughed. ‘Perhaps you should try to persuade him to remain in London. There are so few very attractive men in comparison. And certainly none, I suggest, in the marriage market!’ On a little laugh, seeing Eleanor’s deepening colour, Lady Sefton made her departure.

Does she suspect me of flirting with Henry? With my husband dead little more than four months? Eleanor was horrified as she turned to look to where Henry was in conversation with his aunt, Lady Beatrice Faringdon, a stout Dowager of considerable presence in sumptuous maroon satin and nodding ostrich feathers. Formidable indeed, as her mother had intimated. Then his lordship looked up as if he sensed her questioning gaze on him and, unsmiling, very grave, raised a hand in tacit recognition before bending an ear back to the Dowager, who was holding forth on some subject. Yes. He is attractive. And he cares. No matter what was between us in the past, he cares. Whatever happens, I am not alone in this.

And Nick watched the silent exchange. And understood. The flash of recognition, the almost intimate connection between them. Hal might as well have kissed her! The fierce heat, the intense possession in Hal’s eyes were unmistakable. He had set himself up as Nell’s protector, but there was far more involved here than family support in a potentially stressful situation. Just as there was no mistaking the delicate flush on Nell’s cheeks as she turned away. They might deny it, as he was sure they would. They might succeed in hiding it from the fashionable world, as was doubtless their intent, but Nick could read the love between them as clearly as if they had shouted it from the rooftops. He swallowed against the dismay as he contemplated the terrible uncertainty of the future.

With a lighter heart, unaware of Nick’s concern, Eleanor turned her thoughts back to the pleasures of the evening. Behind her a familiar voice took her attention and she soon found herself deep in conversation about the prevailing fashion for silkedged bonnets with Cousin Judith and Miss Hestlerton, a pretty girl related to the Seftons and in her first Season. Perhaps the polite world was not so quick to judge after all.

But her renewed confidence was to be short lived. Lady Sefton requested in her gentle voice that her guests take a seat to listen to a poem, an ‘Ode to Love and Romance', which was to be read by its author, a young man very much in the Byronic mode with ruffled dark locks and pale features.

There was some manoeuvring and much comment in the salon as guests took their places or attempted to withdraw to a little side salon, which had been set aside for those whose taste ran to a hand of whist.

‘Eleanor.’ Judith drew her notice with a hand on her arm. ‘Can I introduce you to Lady Firth? I am not sure that you are acquainted. She has been out of town for some months with her husband who is a keen traveller.’

Before them stood a thin, fair lady of her mother’s generation. Eleanor noticed that she had the coldest grey eyes. And for the first time there was no polite or welcoming smile, no exchange of light talk, nothing but contempt, barely concealed.

The thought flitted across Eleanor’s mind. Lady Firth. No, she did not know the lady, but she knew of her. An associate of the Princess Lieven, which would explain much. The lady looked at Eleanor with a frown. She raised a pearl-handled lorgnette, with thin-lipped superiority. There was a world of distaste imprinted on her haughty features and in her gesture as she raked Eleanor from head to foot with condemnation in her eyes.

‘No, my dear.’ Lady Firth addressed herself to Judith. ‘I do not think that I wish to be introduced to this person.’ Her smile could have cut through glass, all edges sharp. ‘I believe that she is here under false pretences and has no right to the title that she claims as hers through marriage. Lady Sefton really should have chosen with more discrimination for her guest list—but I suppose it is difficult to believe the depths to which some people will descend to be noticed.’ The lady’s voice had an unfortunate carrying quality that drifted across the elegant room, slicing through the conversations. Heads turned in their direction. Silence fell. All attention was drawn away from the budding poet.

Judith rose to the occasion without hesitation, eyes fierce, her red curls aflame with indignation. ‘I am certain, Lady Firth, that it is no such thing. The Marchioness of Burford is my dear cousin and worthy of all respect.’

Eleanor drew herself together, all dignity and pride and glittering diamonds. She had expected to be overwhelmed with shame, but it was anger that surged through her veins in a veritable tidal wave. She would not bow her head before idle gossip and common innuendo. How dare this woman snub her in so public a manner! How dare she presume intimate knowledge on so delicate and private a matter! If Judith’s eyes sparkled with indignation, Eleanor’s flashed fury, entirely at odds with their beautiful, soft-violet hue. ‘It is no matter, Judith. Do not allow yourself to be disturbed.’ She bent her cold regard on the lady with a curl of derision to her soft mouth, spine held rigid. ‘If Lady Firth is sufficiently ill mannered as to discuss my private affairs in Lady Sefton’s salon, she does not deserve any word of explanation or apology from our lips. If she chooses not to recognise me, then—’

A cold voice, frigid and lethal as the wind from arctic snows, interrupted and finished the sentiment, ‘—then it is her loss.’ A strong arm was placed beneath Eleanor’s and a long-fingered hand closed around her wrist in a firm embrace. At the same time she was aware of Nicholas, unusually stern and forbidding, standing to her other side.

‘Forgive me, Lady Firth.’ Lord Henry bowed with impeccable grace and deliberate intent. ‘Considering your ill-bred comment, it is not suitable that my sister remain in your presence. Come, Eleanor. You should not remain with one who listens to scurrilous gossip from the gutters and would give credence to it.’ The silence in the room increased, positively crackling with tension as ears strained to grasp Henry Faringdon’s words. He bowed again. ‘Since the Countess of Sefton has made us welcome here tonight in her home, may I suggest that your own presence, Lady Firth, is suspect indeed if you would choose to be discourteous to one of her guests.’ He turned his back on the astonished lady with deliberate and graceful arrogance and led Eleanor away towards a chair beside Lady Beatrice.

‘An excellent response, my dear Eleanor,’ he murmured through gritted teeth. ‘There is no need for you to feel in any way discomfited by such ill manners. Just think of what is due to the fortune in stones around your pretty neck!’

‘Of course.’ And she smiled, a little startled at his barely repressed temper. ‘Thank you for rescuing me, Hal.’

‘I do not deserve your thanks! You should not have had to suffer such crude indignities. Permit me to say that you handled the whole affair magnificently. You have my total admiration, my lady.’

Eleanor made no reply, unless it might be the hot colour in her cheeks, unwilling to exacerbate the rigid tension in the muscles and tendons of Henry’s arm beneath her hand, masked by the softness of the satin. Conversation flowed on around them. Everyone keen to gloss over the slight to one of their number—for the moment at least. She took her seat beside Aunt Beatrice, who patted her hand whilst scowling at the distant figure and flushed face of Lady Firth. For the rest of the evening, Eleanor rose to the occasion superbly, with grace and assurance and humour, a residue of anger sending ripples of energy and exhilaration through her bloodstream. No one watching her would know the fear that lurked below the surface. But Lord Henry saw and understood.

‘I know that you do not want my gratitude, but indeed, Hal, I—’

‘I did nothing.’ Henry interrupted, more than a little curt. ‘You seemed to be perfectly capable of conducting your own affairs. Your demeanour and response to Lady Firth were both incomparable, sufficient to quell the most arrogant comment. A positive rout, I would wager, without any real need for intervention on my part.’

‘Why will you not accept my thanks?’ He saw hurt and confusion in her face, which strengthened his resolve further. He knew without doubt that this was the wrong time and certainly the wrong place for an intimate exchange of views between them. He had delivered Eleanor home to Park Lane and would now make himself scarce, for both their sakes. It would be too easy for emotions to run high.

‘Any man of honour would have acted as I did.’ His reply was thus even more brusque.

‘Yet you have in the past accused me of treachery and betrayal. If true, if you truly believed me capable of such things, then you have no duty or demands of honour towards me. Yet you came to my defence with devastating effect and in full public gaze. I cannot let such kindness go unacknowledged.’

They stood facing each other, rigidly polite, uncomfortably distant, hostility sparkling between them as bright as Eleanor’s hated diamonds, on the landing of the first floor of the Park Lane town house. Lord Henry had escorted Eleanor home from the Seftons’ soirée with the intention of going on to relax over a hand of cards and a glass of brandy at Brooks’s. The night, although it had been fraught with dangers both personal and public, was not too far advanced. The last thing Henry had wanted tonight was this confrontation with Eleanor where, against all his best intentions, all his determination to keep a circumspect distance between them, his self-control might be stretched to the limit—and beyond. But he must play out the present scene before he could leave her with formal courtesy and cool respect. Neither of which sentiments was responsible for the vicious and aching need that held him in an iron grasp. He wanted her, in his arms, in his bed.

‘So I should leave one who bears my family name to be ripped at before the avid gaze of the polite world by the likes of Dorothea Firth?’ Ice coated Eleanor’s veins as she listened to Lord Henry’s aloof assessment of the event. ‘It was merely a matter of family honour, nothing more and nothing less. As I said, it does not require your gratitude. Nicholas would have done the same if he had been nearer to you.’

‘Why are you so cold towards me?’ Eleanor shook her head in a little movement of denial, unable to comprehend the chill that emanated from his lordship to settle around her. ‘I find your attitude incomprehensible. You would condemn me, reject me in one breath and yet come to my rescue with the next. One moment you are caring and protective, the next your tone would freeze me to the marrow. You escorted me to Whitchurch and held me when it all became too much to bear and I wept in your arms. You have stood between me and society’s condemnation here in London. But now… I do not understand. What have I done to earn your displeasure?’

She stood before him, tall and straight, yet intensely vulnerable. Challenging him. Demanding an answer. Yet it would be so easy to hurt her. Lord Henry groaned inwardly with frustration, a quick brush of temper. Why could she not simply retire to bed and allow the stresses of the night to calm before they must, by necessity, meet again over the breakfast table? He did not know what drove her. He only knew that desire and need had begun to simmer in his blood when he saw the proud light in her eyes, the indomitable spirit. Through narrowed eyes, he took in her flawless complexion, glowing in the soft light from the branch of candles at his right hand. Her soft lips, eminently kissable. The curve of her breast, enhanced by the low neckline of her gown and the glitter of precious stones. By God, he wanted her! He clenched his hands into fists and breathed carefully.

Eleanor stared at him, unable to interpret his stern expression, trying to clear her brain from the mist that engulfed it. Some unknown force seemed to be pushing her tonight. There was no need for this conversation, confrontation even. She should, if she were sensible, turn on her heel and leave him, ignore his ill temper, whatever the cause. She had played her role, held her head high through the whole nerve-wrenching proceedings, thanked him for his supreme moment of chivalry. And surely that was enough. But he stood there in the silent shadowed space where tension all but crackled around them. All dark power and male magnetism. And something kept her from sensible retreat. A need to provoke, she admitted to herself in that moment, honesty demanding that she see her motives for what they were. A need to strip away the polite exterior, the bland response. To discover what really lurked behind his cool, sophisticated, superbly governed outer defences. To see if this man before her bore any resemblance to the Hal she had known two years before, when she remembered his spirit and energy, his unquenchable thirst for a life of excitement and achievement that would cause his pulse to beat and his blood to run hot. When she remembered the heat in his eyes when he looked at her.

But did she know what she was doing? Unlikely, she decided, with a quick wash of panic that brushed the skin along her arms. It was like teasing a fireside cat, all fur and soft paws, only to discover a panther, sleekly elegant, but hiding lethal intent and deadly claws.

Emotion arced between them on that upper landing, unbidden, undesired and as yet unacknowledged. Created by their close proximity, the high, tension-filled emotions of the evening and their own past history. Alone, separate from time and space, they faced each other. Only themselves, so it seemed to be, in the silent, shadowed house. Caught, entangled in a fine web of silken strands, magical and unbreakable, which drew them together and bound them for ever whether they wished for it or not.

And they did. Albeit unacknowledged. The desire was there, unspoken, in their eyes, in the tingling awareness of their bodies, one for the other.

Henry was the first to speak, to break the spell.

‘Eleanor…'He grasped at sense, control, honour, all of which seemed to be sliding inexorably beyond his reach. ‘I must go.’ He took a step back from her.

‘Hal—’ Stretching out her hand, that one word and the plea in her voice proved to be all that was needed to bring him to a halt. Was she really so wanton? The possibility astonished her, as did the answer in her mind. It did not seem to matter any more. Only this moment mattered. ‘Ah, Hal—don’t go. Don’t leave me.’

‘What do you ask of me, lady?’ A hint of desperation crept into his voice.

‘I don’t know.’ And indeed she did not. A suspicion of a tear escaped from the amethyst depths onto her lashes, as bright as any diamond, a rival to the brilliance of the fortune which clasped her throat.

It was his undoing. He answered the demand in his body rather than the sane advice of his mind, now completely overthrown. ‘I know only one thing, Eleanor. I want you. I do not know if this is good or ill. Wise or unwise. But I can no longer deny it. I wanted you then—two long years ago. And I want you now—the feelings are no different.’

Before she could regret her ungoverned and blatant invitation, he took one stride towards her, grasped her wrist and stalked the length of the corridor, pulling her with him, deaf and blind to any resistance. Except that there was no resistance, which merely enhanced his desire for an ultimate fulfilment of this shattering revelation. Determined on privacy, he opened the door to his own room, pulled her through and closed it behind them. Locked it behind them. Then simply stood and looked down into her eyes, wide with anticipation, her lips parted, her breathing shallow.

‘Tell me that you do not want this,’ he demanded, ‘and I will open the door and let you go free. But tell me now before it is too late.’

‘You know that I cannot.’ Her voice might be soft, but her reply was immediate. Her eyes never faltered.

‘Have you then become a temptress, my lady?’ She could not read the expression on his face, the edge in his words.

‘No. Or perhaps yes.’ She would not lie, caught in the forcefield of his power. ‘I am not the naïve innocent that I was, no longer a green girl with no knowledge or acceptance of the desires of my own heart. And I remember you, Hal. I remember what it was like to lie in your arms. I remember only too well. So, yes, I want you. I would be a fool to deny it.’

He could wait no longer but pulled her close, destroying the distance between them. Her body was held hard against his, that she would feel the strength and urgency of his desire for her. His mouth met hers, hot, feverish, her lips parting beneath his in willing submission as his tongue sought out the inner softness of her lips. Yet it was no submission. There was no force here. Her response was as heated as his, meeting fire with fire, as demanding and overwhelming as the need that surged through his own blood.

Now, although he released her to stand alone, he gave her no chance to retreat. They were beyond that. With clever fingers he dealt with the intricacies of her gown, removing it with all due care to her and the delicate fabric that she wore, all the while subjugating the force that drove him to tear and ravage, to permit the sensation of his hands against her skin. Her silk stockings were unrolled to reveal elegant calves and high-arched feet, as soft and smooth as their delicate covering. The diamonds were unpinned and unclasped to be discarded at her feet as so much dross. Until she stood before him in her chemise, her feet bare, her face naked and vulnerable before his searching gaze.

‘I had forgotten how very beautiful you are.’

With neither reply nor response to the stunned amazement in his voice, Eleanor bent her head and began to unfasten the ribbons to remove her own chemise. She would not allow him this final intimacy, but would accomplish it herself. The gesture stripped him to the bone. Took his breath—and even more, when the silk and lace folds slithered unhindered down her limbs to lie on the floor.

‘I had indeed forgotten. I have longed to see you. How could I possibly forget such perfection?’ He simply looked at her, could not take his eyes from her, transfixed for the moment by the magnitude of the gift she was offering him with such deliberate concentration. If she had been vulnerable before, now she was at his mercy, yet she met his gaze with her own, a challenge still in her raised head. He allowed himself the ultimate pleasure of his eyes lingering on every curve and dip of her body. Feminine with high breasts, the soft swell of hip and thigh from her slim waist, she had indeed matured into a beautiful woman from the shy débutante of the moon-shadowed summer house. Flickering light from the single candle on the nightstand illuminated and cast shadows as it would, to entrance and invite his touch. She simply stood, arms loosely by her side, and let him look his fill.

And he knew that it could not be enough. It pleased him that when he finally stretched out his hand she did not flinch from his touch or withdraw into shy embarrassment. Yet he did not touch her yet, still intent on savouring the moment to come, but removed the pins from her hair, one by one, until the lustrous glory of it cascaded into his hands and over her breasts in a shining fall. Until his own needs allowed him to hesitate no longer.

Then, stripping off his own clothes, leaving the single candle burning, he came to her. Without further thought of the sense of his actions, he lifted her high in his arms and tumbled her onto the bed. To join her there, flesh against flesh at last. ‘Why can I not rid my dreams of you? You haunt me so.’ A touch of anger here as he framed her face with his hands. ‘I feel the touch of your hands on my skin, your lips on mine—both waking and sleeping. I can’t get you out of my mind.’ He crushed his mouth to hers, holding her as he wished, angling his head to take her lips more completely.

‘I have dreamed of this moment through so many nights.’ He rolled with her, pinning her body beneath him with his weight, braceleting her wrists with strong fingers to stretch her arms above her head. Even though his dominance might underline her vulnerability to him, Eleanor accepted it with a low purr of pleasure in her throat, secure in the knowledge that he would never be capable of hurting her. Only to drive her to the sharp edge of desire—and then over into dark delight.

Tracing a burning path with his mouth, Henry claimed her from her lips to slender throat, to satin shoulder, intoxicated by the heavy pulse that throbbed beneath her skin. He could not get enough of her, nor she of him. Here were no soft moments of tender reminiscence. No gentle interludes full of earlier memories. Only an onslaught of lips and hands to touch, to caress, to excite. Her wrists released, Eleanor was free to explore the man she remembered, as he explored her, hands stroking and moulding the taut muscles of his chest and arms, the flat planes of waist and hip and thigh. Ravaged bedcovers were pushed aside, as tangled and tumultuous as their emotions. Candlelight gleamed on sweat-streaked limbs that entwined, stretched, slid and clung luxuriously one against the other.

Relentlessly, refusing to let her rest, he brought her to the peak of arousal when her body shivered under his hands regardless of the heat. And raised his head as he felt the beginning of her response. Looked into her face.

‘Look at me.’ It was a demand from which she found no retreat, as she could find no escape from the glorious heat spreading from between her thighs, flushing her skin a delicate rose. ‘Open your eyes, Eleanor. Know who owns you, who possesses you this night. You are mine. I took your innocence—now I claim you again. You will never forget me.’

‘I cannot forget you.’ Her admission was wrung from her on a sharp intake of break as his teeth closed around one taut nipple, driving her near to insanity.

‘You torment me,’ he murmured against the hollow between her breasts where he planted flesh-searing kisses. ‘But I will not suffer alone. I will make you want me tonight.’ Hands slid, held, fingers drifting over the gentle swell of her belly to search out the ultimate softness between her thighs. She arched her body on a cry at the intrusion, but in welcome. As urgent, as aroused as he. Hot and wet, she opened for him.

Oh God, he wanted her, must have her.

‘Want me, Eleanor. Tell me that you want me.’ Past and future held no meaning, only this one moment together in the flickering candle-flame. Perhaps the only moment they would ever have. A moment that should never have been theirs to claim. His conscience damned him for it, but he ruthlessly closed his mind against it, unable to see past the fierce call of his heart and body.

‘I do. I want you.’ Her reply, the rise and fall of her breasts on ragged breathing, destroyed any conscience which he might have held to. As did the immediate response of her body to his.

As she had given him her virginal innocence, now Eleanor gave him her maturity cloaked in fire and inner knowledge. Touched him, stroked him, set him ablaze with her fine but confident fingers, closed her hand around him, revelling in his groan of shock, of desire. Tomorrow was soon enough for regrets. Tonight she would relive all her hopes and dreams. She burned for him. Flames coursed through her as she enticed him, lured him, the very temptress he had called her. She had dreamed of a night such as this for so long, long nights when it had seemed such an impossibility and she had awoken with tears on her face. Now reality made it true and she would not hold back from him. Moulding herself against him, marvelling at his strength, his muscled power, his weight as he lowered his body to hers, the heat of his erection against her thigh, she laughed softly as she covered his face with kisses. Ah, yes. Henry wanted her as much as she wanted him. It was no time for maidenly blushes or shy hesitancy on her part.