Not Just a Wallflower (A Season Of Secrets #2)(27)
Author: Carole Mortimer

Although the fact that Justin had just walked into her bedchamber, as if he had a perfect right to do so, obviously did not sit well with her brand-new father!

Justin ignored the older man’s disapproval, having eyes only for Eleanor as she sat on the stool in front of the dressing-table; her face was still very pale, her eyes dark-green smudges and the freckles on her nose very noticeable against that pallor. ‘Should you not be in bed?’ he demanded as he quickly crossed the room to stand in front of her.

‘I only fainted—’

‘You have received a severe shock.’

‘But a pleasant one.’ She turned to reach up and clasp her father’s hand, the earl returning the shyness of her smile with one of warm affection. ‘Justin, may I present my father, Lord Bryan Anderson, the Earl of Richmond. Father, Justin St Just, the Duke of Royston.’

Justin’s admiration for this young woman grew to chest-bursting proportions at the gracious elegance and ease with which she made the introductions. Most females in Eleanor’s present situation would be having fits of hysterical vapours by now, crying and carrying on to an unpleasant degree. But she was made of much sterner stuff than that, had so obviously absorbed, and then swiftly accepted her change in circumstances.

‘Richmond.’ He nodded stiffly to the older man.

‘Royston.’ The earl’s nod was just as terse.

Eleanor gave a puzzled smile. ‘I thought the two of you were friends?’

‘We were,’ the two men said together.

She looked taken aback. ‘What has happened to change that?’

Richmond gave a humourless smile. ‘Will you tell her, Royston, or shall I?’

Justin’s frustration was evident as he glared at the earl; this was not the way he had wanted to approach this. ‘I am afraid, Eleanor, that your father seems to be aware of the closeness that exists between us and he is feeling protective and disapproving, to say the least.’

‘Oh,’ she gasped, her cheeks flushing a becoming rose.

‘It would be impossible not to know,’ Richmond rasped, ‘when the very air seems to quiver and shift whenever the two of you are in the same room together!’

‘Oh,’ Eleanor breathed again.

‘The question is, what are you going to do about it, Royston?’ Richmond said bullishly.

‘Oh, but—’

‘I,’ Justin cut in firmly over Eleanor’s protest, ‘am going to do what any gentleman should in these circumstances, and ask for the honour of your daughter’s hand in marriage.’

Ellie stared up at Justin, sure that he had gone mad; her circumstances might have changed, but her heartfelt desire, her determination to marry a man who loved her as deeply as she loved him, had not changed in the slightest!

In truth, she loved Justin, more than anything else in the world, just as she was certain she would continue to do so for the rest of her life. Nor could she deny that she had felt a brief thrill just now—a very brief thrill—at the thought of becoming his wife. Until good sense had prevailed and Ellie accepted that Justin had made the offer only because honour dictated he do so and not because he loved her, too.

She stood up. ‘I would like to answer that request for myself, your Grace,’ she said stiffly, her chin raised proudly high. ‘And my answer in no. Thank you. Nor is there any reason why you need make such an offer.’ She looked at her father. ‘There may be a detectable frisson in the air whenever we are together, Father, but I assure you, nothing has happened that the duke should ever feel he must propose marriage for.’

‘If you would allow us a few minutes alone, Richmond?’ Justin quirked a questioning brow at her father.

‘My answer will not change—’

‘Richmond?’ Justin spoke ruthlessly over Ellie’s objection.

‘I believe, Eleanor, that it is in your own best interest to listen to what Royston wishes to say to you,’ the earl encouraged, satisfied that Justin wanted to do the honourable thing by his daughter.

Her lips pressed stubbornly together. ‘My answer will not change, no matter what he has to say. And Justi—his Grace is well aware of the reasons why it will not.’

‘It is always a bad sign when she resorts to calling me that,’ Justin confided, smiling ruefully.

Richmond did not return the smile. ‘You understand that I will fully accept whatever decision Eleanor makes?’

He sobered. ‘I do.’

‘Very well,’ the earl said briskly. ‘I will rejoin the two ladies downstairs. I am sure I must still have some explaining to do in that quarter.’ He grimaced.

Eleanor looked distraught. ‘There is no need for you to leave—’

‘There is every need, damn it!’ Justin’s temper was not as even as he wished and he made a visible effort to suppress it.

‘I will not leave the house until I have spoken to you again,’ Richmond reassured Eleanor gruffly as he bent to kiss her lightly on the cheek. He gave Justin a warning frown before crossing over to the door and closing it quietly behind him as he left.

Leaving a tense and awkward silence behind him.

A silence Justin knew, as Eleanor glared at him so mutinously, that it was his responsibility to fill. ‘Will you at least agree to hear what I have to say?’

Her eyes flashed deeply green. ‘I do not see the point in it, when you are already aware that I refuse to marry any man whom I do not love and who does not love me.’

Justin continued to meet that stormy gaze as he answered her huskily. ‘Yes, I am.’

She grimaced. ‘There is your answer then.’

‘What if I were to say I am already in love with you, and was willing to wait, in the hope that you would eventually fall in love with me too?’

Her face paled as she shook her head. ‘You do not love me.’

Justin had spent years hiding his emotions behind a barrier of arrogance and cynicism, out of a desire, he now knew, not to be hurt and rejected again. There was no place between them for that barrier now.

Nor did he attempt to prevent that barrier from falling away from his emotions, as he moved down on one knee in front of her. ‘I love you more than life itself, Eleanor Rosewood-Anderson,’ he stated clearly. ‘More than anything or anyone. If you feel anything for me at all, desire or even only liking, then would you please marry me and allow me the opportunity to show you my love, prove it to you, and perhaps one day persuade you into loving me in return?’

Ellie felt numb as she stared down at him, sure that this usually proud man could not just have declared on bended knee that he was in love with her and that he wished to make her his duchess.

‘There will never be anyone else for me, Eleanor,’ he continued fervently at her continued silence. ‘Much as I did not want to ever fall in love with any woman, I know that I love you beyond life itself. I think I’ve been in love with you since the night of my grandmother’s illness when you summoned me here—which was not a true illness, by the way, but a wilful machination on her part to persuade me into moving back here—and then you brought me to task for my tardiness.’

‘The dowager was not really ill?’ Ellie found it safer to focus on that part of his statement rather than those other wonderful—unbelievable!—things he was saying to her.

‘Not in the least,’ Justin said with a twinkle. ‘Nor was it my true reason for moving back to Royston House.’

‘What was your true reason?’ Ellie’s heart was now beating so loudly in her chest she felt sure he must be able to hear it. Justin had said that he loved her. More than anyone and anything. Beyond life itself!

‘To protect you,’ he revealed grimly. ‘From Litchfield and other men like him.’ He sighed deeply before admitting, ‘Also I know now that I was beside myself with jealously of the attentions being shown to you by so many younger men. It was my intention to thwart those attentions as often as possible.’

Justin had been jealous? The proud, the haughty, the arrogant, the self-assured Duke of Royston, the man who gave the impression of needing no one, had been jealous of the attentions shown to her by dandified young boys like Lord Charles Endicott? Did Justin not know—could he not see that no other man existed for her but him? That they never had, and never would?

‘Oh, Justin…!’ Eleanor sank gracefully to her knees in front of him before raising her hands to cup either side of his dearly beloved face. ‘I have loved you for months now. Have fallen even more deeply in love with you this past week or more. I will always love you, Justin. I could not have responded to you as I do, have made love with you in the way we have, if I was not already in love with you!’

Such an expression of joy lit up his face at her declaration, a glow in the deep blue of his eyes, his cheeks flushing, the wideness of his smile making him appear almost boyish. ‘How much I love you, Eleanor!’ He swept her into his arms, cradling her against him as if she were the most precious being upon the earth. ‘Please marry me and be my duchess,’ he pleaded as he moved back slightly to look at her with all of that love shining in his eyes. ‘I promise you will never ever have cause to regret it.’

‘Yes! Oh, yes, Justin, I will marry you!’ Eleanor’s expression was as joyous as his as she launched herself into his arms and the two of them became lost in the wonder of their love for each other.

* * *

One floor below them, in the Blue Salon, Edith St Just smiled with a quiet inner satisfaction at the knowledge that, on the morrow, she would be able to show her two closest friends the name of the young lady, written on a piece of paper to be held in safekeeping by Lady Jocelyn’s butler, in which she had predicted who would become Royston’s duchess.

That name was Miss Eleanor Rosewood…