Eleanor's gaze jerked to her sister. "I beg your pardon?"
"And well you should," her sister chastised. "You have not listened to a word I said!"
"I heard you. A woman needs a man to look after her. A man needs a woman for companionship."
Arabella arched a shapely brow. "And?"
"It is her duty to provide him with children."
"And?"
There was more? Oh dear. "Um…"
Arabella waited patiently, despite the pained look Eleanor shot her.
"Fine." Eleanor scowled. Sometimes her sister was so cruel. "I was not listening."
A smug smile curved Arabella's cupid's-bow lips— another trait that had escaped Eleanor— as she deftly pierced the hooped canvas in her lap with her needle. "I said that Papa only wants to see you happy, no matter how you choose to see it. You know he will not force you to marry anyone you do not want."
That was true. None of her sisters had been forced into marriage, and Eleanor knew she would be no different. After all, her father had allowed her to refuse Brahm, and he had been Papa's favorite of any of her suitors.
Of course, there might be something to be said for allowing her father to choose for her— two of her sisters were vocally unhappy with the choices they made, and Muriel, married but a year, showed signs of soon joining them. But not Arabella, who had come to Eleanor the night Henry proposed to ask for her opinion— and for her blessing. Eleanor had been all too happy to give both.
She sighed. This was all so confusing. "I know no one will force me, Belle. It is just so embarrassing. People will gossip about it, you know."
Her sister nodded and added another stitch to her sampler. "I know. That is why I talked Papa into inviting some young ladies from the marriage mart."
"You did what?" Eleanor could not believe her ears. "How did you manage that?"
Arabella smiled conspiratorially. "I told him you might try harder if you thought you had competition."
Eleanor laughed at that. How could she not? "Oh, Belle! Thank you."
Her sister nodded. "I thought that might make you feel a little less pressured. I saw some guests arrive this morning. Were any bachelors among them?"
Eleanor shook her head. "Lord and Lady Boothe. You know how they like to arrive early. And a few families came in early to get settled." Her gaze drifted to the clock on the mantel. "I suspect others will start arriving soon, however. This afternoon and this evening will be the busiest time."
Another dip of the needle. "Does Papa expect you to greet the guests?"
Eleanor shook her head. Normally she would, but even she didn't have enough composure to face all those gentlemen, not to mention the ladies and their knowing glances. "Muriel and Phoebe offered to take turns doing it." More than likely her sisters had volunteered so they could be the first to get any gossip.
"Good. It will heighten their anticipation if they do not see you until dinner."
Anticipation? For her? Eleanor would have laughed if she weren't so close to choking on it. She wasn't ugly by any means, but everyone knew she was the least comely of her sisters. She was too tall to be fashionable, and she often thought her mouth made her face resemble a duck's. There was just something about the way her upper lip was wider and fuller than her bottom, and it curved slightly upward, making her look as though she was always on the verge of smiling— or quacking.
Why would anyone be anxious to see an old maid? She was past her prime. She wouldn't produce as many children as a girl one-and-twenty. The only thing she had to offer for anyone to get excited for was her fortune— and possibly her maidenhead, if that was all that much of a prize. The poor thing probably had dust on it.
As soon as that ludicrous and entirely improper thought crossed her mind, she knew she was in danger of going as mad as she feared.
"I cannot do this!" she exclaimed, leaping to her feet and pacing back and forth. "I cannot pretend to go along with this. Never mind that it is humiliating, but what if one of them actually wants to marry me?" The thought hadn't occurred to her before this. Good God, what if she played along to please her father and one of these men proposed? Worse yet, what if the impossible happened and a gentleman actually became attached to her? It would be too cruel of her.
Arabella looked up from her work. "What if you find yourself wanting to marry one of them?"
That wouldn't happen. It just couldn't. Could it?
How she wished this party was already over. She had agreed to this scheme of her father's to appease an ill man, but how much was she expected to endure? How much worse could this debacle possibly get?
"Oh my Lord!" Eleanor's sister Muriel barged into the room, slamming the door behind her and bracing her back against it as though something awful lurked on the other side. Her dark blue eyes were wide, her cheeks blooming with high color. Muriel was young enough still that everything seemed to be worthy of theatrical reactions.
"What is it?" Arabella cried, her hand over her bosom. Melodrama apparently ran in the family.
Eleanor would have rolled her eyes at Arabella's dramatics if Muriel didn't seem truly out of sorts.
"Yes, Muriel," she added, hoping that her voice would push their sister to replying. "What is it?"
Muriel's shocked gaze locked with hers. "Viscount Creed is just arrived."
Eleanor's heart came to a lurching halt in her chest. Viscount Creed?
Brahm.
Now she knew the situation could not possibly get any worse.
Chapter 2
T
he minute Brahm saw Muriel scamper away, he knew he was in trouble. No one was that anxious to run off and report the arrival of an expected guest— not even an anticipated one. He might have received an invitation, but Muriel hadn't known it, and he was willing to bet that Eleanor hadn't issued it.
Muriel's evacuation left him standing in the hall with the other one— what was her name? Phoebe, one of the younger sisters— the brunette. She watched him with an expression of wary curiosity in her blue eyes. She was a pretty girl, but then Lord and Lady Burrough hadn't produced anything but comely children, which was fortunate considering they had all girls. Pretty heiresses were just that much easier to marry off than homely ones.
So why had Eleanor not married? Surely he hadn't left her with such an awful view of his sex, had he?
He was opening his mouth, about to make inane chitchat, when the pitter-patter of hurrying little feet echoed through the hall. Muriel was returning. Would she be armed with a pistol to drive him out of the house? A rapier perhaps?
Neither, actually. She came into view with no defense other than a mischievous— no, malicious— smile. She was far too young to be able to smile like that.
"Lord Creed, would you be so kind as to come with me?"
Ah, so she was going to lure him to his death, was she? Take him somewhere quiet and do him in with no one the wiser? He should be so fortunate. No doubt she was taking him to face either her father or her eldest sister. If his luck ran par for the course, then the entire Durbane family would be waiting to tear him limb from limb.
Still, he followed after the blond woman anyway, his gaze casually drifting over his surroundings. The house looked the same as it had the last time he had visited. Oh, perhaps there were a few new draperies, one or two newer pieces of furniture, but the floor was still Italian marble and the portraits were still of pompous ancestors, and the air still smelled of beeswax and fresh flowers.
Perhaps the most marked difference was with himself. The last time he entered this house it was with nothing to prove and no thought as to whom to prove it to. Now he sought to prove to one woman that he was a changed man. He would have better luck trying to prove to Parliament that England did
not
rule the world.
Muriel stopped beside a door and turned to face him. Her pink lips curved into a peculiar smile, anticipatory and a little bloodthirsty. She was going to take pleasure in watching her sister slowly dismember him, the little wench.
"Wait here," she commanded.
While I get my ax
, Brahm silently added for her. If he was going to turn tail and run, now was the time to do it. Instead he returned Muriel's smile with a wolfish one of his own. If she thought he was going to run scared from her and her sisters, she was going to be sadly mistaken. He had fought hallucinations, trials, and demons far more frightening than the Durbane sisters— and all of them had been of his own making.
Besides, he couldn't run anymore— not just figuratively, but literally as well. The best he could manage was a fast limp.
Muriel did seem somewhat taken aback by his smile, which afforded him some degree of pleasure as she slipped into the room and quickly closed the door behind her. She hadn't allowed him even the slightest glimpse inside. Prepared for a long wait, Brahm leaned most of his weight on his good leg and studied the portraits on the walls.
A few excruciating minutes later, as he was contemplating one particularly amusing likeness of an old lord with a crooked wig, the door opened once more. Smiling at the askew hairpiece, Brahm glanced over his shoulder and was rewarded by Muriel's scowl.
It was then that he noticed that the other sister— Phoebe— had followed them from the hall. He hadn't heard her, hadn't even been aware of her presence. Odd, he would have thought a sharp stinging between his shoulder blades would have accompanied her. Fortunately for him, she seemed to have forgotten to bring a dagger with her.
"You may come in," Muriel informed him, displeasure twisting her otherwise pretty mouth. There was a hardness about her— a trait that elicited sympathy for one so young.
Eleanor had been about this girl's age when he met her, but Eleanor had the look of someone much sweeter and more innocent. When he saw her now, would he find this same hardness in her features? And if so, how much responsibility would he have to take for it?
Brahm bowed his head in acquiescence. Squaring his shoulders, he entered the room with both sisters behind him, feeling very much like a hapless fly stepping onto a spider's web. Eleanor was in this room. Was the other one? How much did the other sisters know of his stupid indiscretion? He had always assumed that Lydia had confessed all to Eleanor, but what about the others? Did they know as well, or had Eleanor kept the truth from them? He would choose the latter. There had never been any gossip about why Eleanor had cried off— none that had been
that
accurate, at any rate. Quite a few loose-tongued matrons had hinted that his penchant for drunkenness played a part, but that wasn't so much a speculation as it was a simple truth.
He had been in this room before. It was still decorated in shades of blue, rose, and gold. The carpet beneath his feet was the same Aubusson that had welcomed him years earlier when he set his gaze upon Eleanor Durbane and his heart gave that mighty thump that told him she was the woman he wanted as his wife.
He found her instantly, his gaze locking with the cool blue of hers. She stood in the center of the room, with one of her sisters behind her. The two that had followed him into the room moved from behind him to come around and flank their sister. Cold they might be, ignorant of his betrayal perhaps, but these women knew he had done something in the past to injure their sister, and they weren't about to give him a chance to do so again. He could respect that— he had three brothers, after all.
But her sisters meant nothing to him. Only Eleanor's reception mattered. She stood there, surrounded by her sisters, but untouched by them. Her spine was iron stiff and straight beneath a gown of cream muslin with blue ribbon around the scalloped hem and beneath her lovely breasts. As always, Eleanor was fashionable but not fussy, another trait that set her apart from her sisters. Her rich blond hair was pulled back from her face and knotted high on the back of her head.
Simple and unadorned, she stood as still and fair as a statue, just as delicately chiseled and smooth. Eyes of silvered blue watched him warily beneath hooded lids. That sharp little nose lifted ever so haughtily, and her mouth— that unusual mouth with its fuller upper lip— was unforgivingly grim.
This
was the woman who had haunted his dreams of late? She was the one person whose forgiveness he craved? This woman, who watched him with such disdain, who looked so cold and remote, he thought he might have fabricated the memory of her smile? Was this bitter-looking woman the same one who had once made him entertain the notion of becoming a better man just so he could see adoration in the mirrored depths of her eyes?
Yes, it was, because his heart gave that same damn rolling, twisting, painful thump when his gaze locked with hers.
She was no longer that girl who had made him believe waking up with the same person for the rest of his life might be tolerable. He was no longer that arrogant boy who believed himself happily immune to a woman's charms. Until Eleanor he'd believed himself a good catch, a lofty trophy for any husband-hunting young woman, who would be more than happy to stand by, silent and docile, while he lived his life exactly as he wanted. Then he had met Lord Burrough's oldest daughter, Eleanor, and he began to entertain the notion that there might be such a thing as a "happy" marriage and that he just might find that kind of friendship, support, and passion with her.
