Devil in My Arms (10 page)

Hil took the drink and downed it. The fiery burn of the whiskey soothed his ruffled vanity. “What did she say? Exactly.”

“She said, ‘I do not wish to see him.’ I don’t believe I can misinterpret that.” Roger’s sarcasm was unwelcome at that moment.

“Tell her that I will wait all day. She owes me an explanation.” He wouldn’t be able to focus on anything at all until he had settled this with Eleanor.

“She owes you?” Roger said incredulously. “Whatever for? Did she slap you? I would have liked to have seen that.”

“Don’t be so bloody stupid,” Hil snapped.

“Oh ho,” Roger said with a delighted grin. “She has you off temper. Can’t say I’ve ever known a woman to be able to do that. Trust Eleanor to accomplish the
impossible.”

“I went too far,” Hil confessed. He sounded angry, and he was. With himself. “I owe her an apology.”

“What the hell do you mean you went too far?” Roger said angrily, all amusement gone. “What did you do?”

“I kissed her.”

“You had better keep your mouth to yourself,” Roger warned. “I’m not above thrashing you, friend.”

“It was a kiss,” Hil dismissed. “A rather … intense kiss, but only a kiss, just the same.” He shook his head. “But to her, it seemed as if it were much more. I forgot, damn it. I forgot where she’s come from, what she’s doing here. She made me forget it all.” His hand was a fist at his side, his inner turmoil leaking out.

“Come back tomorrow,” Roger said. “Today she’s snappish and out of sorts. Your fault, I’m sure. You do that to people.”

“I do nothing of the sort,” Hil said, spreading his coattails and taking a seat on the divan. “And I’m not going anywhere. I’m a busy man. I cleared my schedule to come here to see Eleanor today. And see her I shall.”

“That’s Mrs. Fairchild to you,” Roger growled. “And I don’t want you growing mold on my sofa. Leave. Come back tomorrow.”

“No.”

Roger blew out an exasperated breath. “You are so annoying. Fine. I shall go plead your case.”

“No need, Roger,” Eleanor said crisply from the doorway. “He is annoying. I knew he wasn’t going to leave until he said his piece. So here I am. Go ahead.” She marched into the room and sat down across from Hil. He’d jumped up at her arrival and after a moment sat back down, wary of her mood. He didn’t like not being able to tell what a person would say or do. He was usually such a good judge of character. He was at sea with Eleanor. One minute she was melting in his arms, passionately kissing him, the next she was cool and disdainful.

He glanced over and saw Mrs. Templeton hovering in the doorway. “Alone, if you please,” he said to her and Roger.

“I don’t please,” Roger said, moving over to sit down in a chair not far from them.

“I’ll be fine, Roger,” Eleanor assured him. “I can handle Sir Hilary. And our conversation is going to involve personal things I don’t wish to share with you, family or not.”

“You don’t know him,” Roger warned. “He’s underhanded.”

“I am not,” Hil said, affronted. “First I cause people to become snappish and out of sorts, and now I’m underhanded. I can’t imagine why you still call me friend.”

“I’m not too sure right now, either,” Roger told him, “so mind your manners.”

Roger glared at him and he glared back. Eleanor made a shooing motion and Roger left, obviously reluctant to do so. He and his wife were whispering furiously as Hil stood up and closed the door in their surprised faces.

“It doesn’t lock from the inside,” Eleanor offered unhelpfully.

“Roger will not breach our privacy,” Hil told her with false confidence.

“Got him under your heel, have you?” she asked. “Don’t think to train me so well.”

“He is not under my heel. He is a friend who trusts me. There is a difference.” Hil stood away from the door once he was sure Roger wasn’t going to try to open it. He straightened his jacket and walked sedately over to the divan and once again sat down. “Good morning, madam,” he said. “You look lovely.”

“Both of those are questionable observations,” she commented drily. “You have my attention. I make no guarantee how long that will last.”

“I have never met a woman with more cheek,” he said testily.

“Then don’t let me disrupt your schedule any more than I have already,” she said, beginning to stand.

“You don’t get to run away again,” he told her, sitting back and getting comfortable. He crossed his legs and waited for her riposte.

“I do not run away,” she said, sitting back down. “I remove myself from unpleasant situations. There is a difference.”

“Hmm.” He could tell his noncommittal mutter infuriated her.

“Kindly state your business,” she snapped. “I have other appointments.”

“With whom?” he asked suspiciously. Was Caron coming today? It was the thing
to do the day after a man danced with a woman.

“That is none of your business.” She gave a satisfied grin at his obvious annoyance at her failure to answer his question.

“I am here to discuss what happened last night.” If he’d thought to throw her off balance with his announcement, he failed.

“I assumed as much. Apology accepted.”

He took a deep breath. Getting angry would accomplish nothing. “I did not come here to apologize. I am not sorry for kissing you, and I would do so again if given the opportunity.”

“You will not be given the opportunity, so you need not waste another thought on it.”

“I have wasted a whole night of thoughts about it, but that is not what I want to discuss right now.” She gave no sign she’d comprehended his meaning. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot and swollen, either from crying or lack of sleep. He hated seeing that. “I want to know what exactly you cannot do, and why.”

“I beg your pardon?” she asked, but she was clearly stalling.

“When you ran off—”

“I did not run.”

“—you said, ‘I cannot do this.’ What did you mean?”

“I meant that we risked discovery and I could not have that happen. I also meant that I could not have an affair with you.” She wouldn’t look at him as she said it, but he didn’t need that telltale sign to know she wasn’t being completely truthful.

“Why?”

She was sitting ramrod straight, part of her defenses. A woman’s posture was never better than when she was under attack. He made a show of settling deeper into the cushions, relaxed as only a man in the right could be.

“Discovery would surely have destroyed my reputation and put my name in the gossip sheets. I cannot afford that sort of notoriety. It is imperative that I maintain an exemplary reputation if I am to avoid detection.”

“I think you are wrong. Your husband has a vested interest in protecting your real identity. And most people are fools who will accept the simplest explanation given them.
They will believe you are your cousin, whether you are caught in flagrante delicto with a man or not. What I meant is, why can you not have an affair with me?”

She stood then, and walked over to the window, throwing it open and leaning out before she took several deep breaths. “I have led a very quiet life, Sir Hilary,” she said. “Neither passion nor defiance have ruled my life. An affair with you would involve both. I don’t wish it. There, you have my answer.” She turned to look at him, and despite her declaration there was passion and defiance in her expression. She was angry and hiding something, and daring him all at once.

“You admit you have a passion for me. I reciprocate. Who, or what does this passion defy?”

“Society,” she answered immediately. “Morals, ethics.”

He waved his hand as if swatting away gnats. “Society means nothing. It is a human construct and can be manipulated as such. There are passionate affairs being conducted by numerous members of the ton, and they all turn a blind eye to it. You worry needlessly. As for morals and ethics, whose? You are a widow in society’s eyes. It is accepted that widows may on occasion take a lover.”

“I am married,” she reminded him as she finally turned her back to the open window.

“No, you are not,” he argued, letting his temper get the best of him. He stood and faced her. “You ran away from him, the ultimate defiance. You let him declare you dead. You do not exist to him, or to the world as a married woman anymore. I know your heart is not engaged there. You are free in every way. Don’t tell me you don’t feel that way. I know you do.”

She sighed as she wrapped her arms around herself. “You are right, of course. Don’t you tire of always being right?”

“No.” He walked up to her and lightly placed his hands on her upper arms. “Tell me, Eleanor. Tell me why you ran.”

“Because he was killing me.”

Involuntarily, his hands tightened on her arms, but she seemed not to notice. “It wasn’t just the deprivations. He was killing the essence of me, of who I am. He was killing Eleanor and turning her into an empty shell. And I couldn’t let him do that. I
wouldn’t. And so I ran. It wasn’t the first time, and if I had failed again, I would have tried over and over until he either killed me in truth, or I succeeded.”

He had so many questions that he had to take a moment to sort them out by priority. He finally settled on, “Deprivations?”

“Yes,” she said, looking up at him. She didn’t move away and he didn’t remove his hands from her arms. “His favorite form of punishment.”

“Eleanor,” he said, crushing his anger before it could overwhelm him. He’d indulge that later. “How many times did you try to run away?” he asked, moving on to his next question.

“Three times,” she answered. “The first time I had no plan, nowhere to go, just a desire to get away. It wasn’t enough. I was gone barely three hours before I was found and dragged back.”

“The second time?” he asked.

“I ran to Harry’s,” she said. “Or, more correctly, to Mercer’s. He sent me back. Never even let me see Harry or the baby. Harry says she didn’t know I was ever there.”

“So close,” he murmured.

“Yes.” She didn’t sound the least perturbed by their conversation. He supposed she’d had years to be angry. “And the third … well, this is the third. Success.” She smiled, but there was more pain behind it than joy.

Hil wrapped his arms around her and held her as he had last night, when she had melted into him. He understood her reaction now. Had any man ever held her thus? He wished there had been hundreds, thousands before him who had, rather than none. He wished she’d known nothing but care and passion instead of pain and hate. Because it was hate. No man treats a woman like that if there is love between them. “Why?” he asked.

“Why?” Eleanor sounded confused as she stood in his embrace, her arms still wrapped around herself. She was accepting his warmth, but still closing him out. He didn’t want that. But he had to proceed as she wished.

“Why did he hate you?”

She laughed and laid her head against his shoulder. He felt as if he’d won a great prize. “Because he is a stupid, graceless baboon, that’s why. He knew I was smarter than
he was. That I was born above him and raised a lady, and he didn’t deserve me. And it ate at him. He hated to hear me speak, because my speech reminded him of his lowly origins. He hated my conversation, because he couldn’t converse on intelligent subjects. He hated the very sight of me when …” She paused and he waited. “When it was discovered that I was barren. The only reason he married me, you see, was to have children that would be considered gentry. My father sold me to him so he could enter society, and create a dynasty or some such rot. He was a bastard.”

“Yes. Yes, he was.” Hil really didn’t know what else to say on the subject. He didn’t tell her that eventually, sometime in the future when he wouldn’t be expecting it, and couldn’t tie it to Eleanor, Hil would ruin him. He had men watching Enderby, just as he had them watching Eleanor, and soon he’d have enough information to do it. He did have Prinny’s ear, after all. What was one more favor owed?

“What if he discovers I’m alive?” she whispered. Hil held her tighter. “We don’t know whose body he produced at the inquest, or how he came by it. Now he has remarried and rumor says a child is on the way. If he finds me, I am all that stands between him and his new life. I hate to put Harry and Roger and the children in the middle of this, but I have nowhere else to go. The authorities already believe me dead. What is there to stop him from making that lie a reality?”

“Me.” He rubbed her arms. She seemed to like that last night. She snuggled closer and uncrossed her arms, resting her palms on his chest. Progress. But he wasn’t going to take advantage, not this morning. Not ever. It was obvious she was skittish of men and intimacy. Who could blame her? She needed time to adjust to the idea. So he would give her time. “He can’t get to you, Eleanor,” he said softly. “I won’t let him. I am not without connections. Even if he tried to get you back, I’d prevent it. You must trust me on this.” He took a deep breath and confessed, “I have men watching the house. Watching you, actually. For your protection. Until we know what Enderby is going to do.”

“You do?” she asked incredulously. “But, why?”

“You must know that I want you,” he said, careful to keep a neutral tone.

“I do have a rudimentary knowledge of physiology and sexual relations,” she told him wryly. “I did figure that out.”

He smiled at her sarcasm. She couldn’t be kept down for long, could she?
“Good.” He stopped rubbing her arms and pushed her away just a bit, so he could look into her face. She didn’t appear to be confused or upset, just curious. There was something else in her eyes he couldn’t read. He’d never had his ability to read people disappear so often as it had recently with Eleanor. “I’ll let you ruminate on that knowledge for a while. But think about this as well. If you were with me, I could protect you even better. I would.” He patted her arm and stepped around her and headed for the door. Before he opened it, he looked back. She was still just staring at him, as inscrutable as ever. “I am going to discover the real identity of the late Eleanor Enderby. You are correct. Until we know who his dead body was and how he got it, he has the advantage. But until then … I want you and I can protect you. When you are ready to discuss it, please let me know.”