Not Just a Wallflower (A Season Of Secrets #2)(18)
Author: Carole Mortimer

Ellie bristled defensively as she saw the contemptuous curl of the duke’s top lip, and the scathing amusement in his gaze, as he also took in the other man’s foppish appearance. ‘I believe you are mistaken in that, your Grace.’ She refused to so much as blink or lower her gaze as he raised one haughty brow in question. ‘I am certain her Grace will concur that we have accepted Lady Littleton’s invitation for her soirée this evening.’

‘Then you, at least, will have to unaccept it,’ Justin informed her implacably.

Her eyes widened. ‘And why should I wish to do that?’

He looked down the length of his arrogant nose at her. ‘You are looking tired, no doubt from all the gadding about you have indulged in recently, and an evening at home will be far more beneficial to you than another evening out.’

Telling Ellie more succinctly, than if he had spoken the words aloud, that—despite the deliberate brightness of her gown and her efforts to give the appearance of being both contented and happy—he did not consider her to be looking her best!

As if she was not already aware of that. As if she was not also aware at whose highly polished, booted feet the blame for that lay!

Her last few days had been filled with a flurry of engagements, in an effort to keep busy and at the same time absent herself from Royston House. Her nights had been…restless and sleepless, to say the least, caught as she was in the puzzling dichotomy of deeply regretting that the intimacies she had shared with Justin had ever happened, and the quivers of pleasure, the love for him, which still coursed through her each and every time she thought of what they had done together!

Nevertheless, she did not welcome him bringing attention to her fatigue, or even in mentioning it at all! ‘I have no intentions of cancelling attending Lady Littleton’s soirée this evening.’

‘Oh, I believe that you will,’ the duke answered softly, dangerously, as their gazes remained locked, his challenging, Eleanor’s defiant.

‘No.’

‘Yes!’

‘Royston?’ the dowager duchess prompted sharply at this public battle of wills.

* * *

It had not been Justin’s intention to leave the carriage when he had instructed his driver to return to Royston House by way of Berkeley Square, but a single glance towards the establishment known as Gunter’s had revealed Eleanor and his grandmother to be standing outside, in the company of the female members of Hawthorne’s family.

And that blasted Endicott fellow!

Justin had not given himself time to think as he instructed his driver to stop, barely allowing his carriage to come to a halt before jumping out on to the cobbled road and marching towards where the happy group lingered in conversation.

Just in time, it would seem, to prevent Eleanor from making yet another assignation with Endicott, for later this evening!

Chapter Twelve

‘I trust you will forgive me for intruding on your outing, ladies.’ Justin chose to ignore Eleanor’s furious glare for the moment as he turned to bestow a charming smile upon the other ladies gathered outside Gunter’s.

His grandmother was predictably frowning her disapproval of his behaviour, Lady Cicely and Miss Matthews gazed at him with polite curiosity and Miss Amanda Hawthorne, a beautiful little angel with golden-blonde curls, still bore evidence of her recently eaten ice-cream about her little rosebud of a happily smiling mouth.

‘I happened to be passing by in my carriage,’ Justin continued lightly, ‘and could not help but notice you all standing here in conversation. It would have been rude of me to just drive past without stopping to pay my respects.’ He made a polite bow.

A gesture of politeness that was immediately answered by his grandmother’s loud and disgusted ‘humph’! ‘That is all very well, Royston,’ she snapped. ‘But what is your reason for denying Elli—Eleanor the pleasure of going to Lady Littleton’s soirée this evening?’

It had been Justin’s experience that such evenings were both tedious and tiresome, rather than a pleasure! ‘As I have already stated, Grandmama—’ he maintained a pleasant, reasoning tone ‘—Eleanor looks somewhat fatigued and I simply feel that an evening at home resting would be more beneficial to her health than another night out.’

‘I—’

‘You must forgive me, Eleanor, I had not noticed before now,’ the dowager duchess spoke over Eleanor’s angry protest, ‘but Royston is right; you are indeed looking slightly pale and fatigued this afternoon.’

‘There.’ Justin turned to Eleanor, triumph glittering in his eyes. ‘I do not believe the dowager and I can both be wrong?’

Ellie narrowed her eyes on her tormentor’s gaze, dearly wishing that the two of them were alone at this moment—so that she might launch another cup and saucer at his arrogant head! Or a heavy tome. Or perhaps something even deadlier than that! For she did not believe a word of what he had just said, from his ‘having just been passing by’ in his carriage to his obviously fake concern about her supposed ‘fatigue’.

Considering the size of the city, and the numerous other pursuits the duke could have been enjoying today, it seemed far too coincidental that he should have been ‘driving past’ Gunter’s at this precise moment. Nor did Ellie believe the duke had ever given a single thought about the state of her health, this day or any other.

No, Ellie was utterly convinced that Justin was merely determined to once again exercise his steely will upon her. As determined as she was that he would not succeed in that endeavour!

She smiled up at him now with sugary and insincere sweetness, a smile that instantly caused him to narrow his own eyes in suspicion. ‘I agree the dowager is never wrong, your Grace,’ she conceded lightly—at the same time implying that he, on the other hand, did not have that same distinction. ‘But in this instance she is misinformed. I feel perfectly well and am greatly looking forward to attending Lady Littleton’s soirée with her this evening.’

His mouth thinned. ‘And I would rather you did not.’

‘I have noted your objection, your Grace.’ She nodded.

‘But choose to ignore it?’

‘Yes.’ It was as if they were the only two present, so intense was their current battle of wills.

Something Justin was also aware of as his mouth tightened. ‘Perhaps we should leave these dear ladies to their shopping and continue this conversation in my carriage?’ he suggested through gritted teeth.

Her chin rose. ‘I believe we had finished shopping, your Grace, and are now returning to have tea with Lady Cicely.’

Nostrils flared on that aquiline nose. ‘We are leaving now, Eleanor.’

‘Oh, I say—’

‘Did you have something you wished to add to this conversation, Endicott?’ Cold blue eyes focused with deadly intent on the younger man at his interruption.

Ellie could not help but feel sorry for Charles Endicott at that moment, his face first suffusing with embarrassed colour, and then as quickly paling, as Justin continued to glower down at him, appearing every inch the powerful and haughty Duke of Royston; it was like watching a fluffy little lapdog being confronted by a ferocious wolfhound. Indeed, Ellie would not have been in the least surprised if the duke’s top lip had not curled back in a snarl to bare a long and pointed incisor at the younger man!

‘Perhaps it would be as well if you were to return with Royston, Eleanor.’ The dowager duchess, ever sensitive to not causing a scene in public—unlike her arrogant grandson!—agreed smoothly. ‘I am perfectly happy to go alone to Lady Cicely’s.’

Ellie was bursting with indignation at Justin’s high-handedness, longing to tell him exactly what he could do with his offer to drive her home in his carriage—which had not been an offer at all but an instruction! At the same time she knew she could not, would not, do or say anything which might upset the dowager duchess; she owed that dear lady too much to ever wish to cause her embarrassment—the very clothes she stood up in, in fact!

‘Then we are all agreed.’ The duke took a firm hold of Ellie’s arm. ‘Ladies.’ He bowed to them politely. ‘Endicott.’ His voice had cooled noticeably, eyes once again icy blue as he scowled at the younger man.

Charles Endicott was the first to lower his gaze. ‘Your Grace,’ he mumbled indistinctly before his expression brightened as he turned to Ellie. ‘If you are not to be at Lady Littleton’s this evening, perhaps I might call upon you tomorrow—’

‘My ward is otherwise engaged tomorrow, Endicott.’ To Ellie’s ever-increasing annoyance, it was once again Justin who answered the other man glacially. ‘And the day following that one, too,’ he added for good measure.

The younger man frowned. ‘But surely—’

‘Come along, Eleanor.’ The duke did not wait for her to agree or disagree, allowing her time only to sketch a brief curtsy as her own goodbye before turning on one booted heel and walking in the direction of his waiting carriage, Ellie pulled along in his wake.

She had never felt so humiliated, so—so manhandled and managed in her life before, as she did at this moment. And by Justin St Just, of all people.

But who else would dare to treat someone—anyone!—with such overriding arrogance but the arrogantly insufferable Duke of Royston!

He—

‘You may give vent to your feelings now, Eleanor, for we are quite alone.’

The haze of red anger shifted from in front of Ellie’s eyes at this mockingly drawled comment, enabling her to realise that she had been so consumed with that fury she had allowed herself to be put into his carriage, the door having already been closed to shut them inside.

It was the first time Ellie had been completely alone with him since—well, since ‘that night’, as she had taken to referring to it in her mind. And to her chagrin she was instantly, achingly aware, of everything about him. The golden sweep of his hair, the glitter of deep-blue eyes set in that hard and chiselled face, the way the superb cut of his superfine emphasised the width of his shoulders and tapered waist, his legs long and powerful in pale grey pantaloons and black Hessians.

Her feelings for him also made her aware of the tingle of sensations which now coursed through her own body, her br**sts feeling achingly sensitive, that now familiar warmth between her thighs.

A reaction which only increased her growing anger towards him…

* * *

Justin did not need to look at Eleanor’s face to know that she was furious with him; he could feel the heat of that anger as her eyes shot daggers across the short distance of the carriage that separated them.

Justifiably so, perhaps. He had behaved badly just now. Very badly. Towards both Eleanor and Endicott. A fact his grandmother would no doubt bring him to task over at her earliest opportunity.

And yet Justin did not regret his actions. Not for a moment. He had been incensed from the first moment he had seen that young dandy Endicott made up one of his grandmother’s party. To add insult to injury, his first glimpse of Eleanor, as bright as a butterfly in her gown of pale green, had been as she was laughing at something that young popinjay had just said to her.

Justin’s mouth tightened as he thought of the scowls or blank looks he had received from her over the past few days! ‘If you have something you wish to say, then for God’s sake say it now and get it over with!’

‘If I have something to say?’ she repeated incredulously. ‘I—it—you, sir, have the manners of a guttersnipe!’

‘It would seem that today I have, yes.’ His mouth twisted into a humourless and unapologetic smile. ‘And if you intend to insult me, Eleanor, then you will have to do better than that.’

‘You are the most insufferable, obnoxious bully it has ever been my misfortune to meet!’ she hissed angrily, obviously warming to the subject, her cheeks also heating, those green eyes glittering across at him like twin emeralds.

His lips thinned. ‘Because I prevented you from embarrassing yourself?’

She gasped. ‘I do not believe I was the one causing any embarrassment!’

‘I disagree.’

‘I—you—in what way was I embarrassing myself?’ she finally managed to gasp through her indignation.

‘By your flirtation with Endicott.’

‘What?’

‘But of course.’ Justin flicked an imaginary piece of lint from the cuff of his superfine. ‘And, as I will never give my permission for you to marry that young peacock, you might just as well give it up now and cease your encouragement of him.’

‘I was not encouraging him—’

‘I beg to differ,’ he cut in harshly. ‘And it is not only I who appears to think so,’ he continued as she would have made another protest. ‘Indeed, the society gossips have it that there will be an announcement made before the end of the Season!’

Her eyes widened. ‘I beg your pardon?’

Justin shrugged. ‘The two of you are currently the talk of the ton.’

She gave another gasp. ‘But I have only spoken to Lord Endicott on three occasions, once at the Royston Ball, again at a dinner party the evening before last, and then again at the park yesterday in the company of Miss Matthews.’

‘And again just now,’ he reminded her. ‘That would appear to be four occasions in four days.’

‘Well. Yes. But—I had no idea we would even be seeing Lord Endicott today!’

That was something, at least; Justin had been sure the two of them must have prearranged this latest meeting. ‘I doubt Endicott’s presence at Gunter’s was as innocent as your own.’

A blush coloured her cheeks. ‘He did mention something about having overheard Magdelena and I discussing the outing yesterday. Do you believe that Lord Endicott has serious intentions towards me?’ she asked.