Not Just a Wallflower (A Season Of Secrets #2)(7)
Author: Carole Mortimer

Colour blazed in Eleanor’s cheeks at his deliberate insult. ‘I assure you that I am perfectly well aware of how to behave in the company of both ladies and gentleman without your help, sir.’

‘Your implication being that you do not consider me as being one of the latter?’

There was no missing the dangerous edge to his tone now, and Ellie—in keeping with her changed circumstances in life a year ago—wisely decided to heed that warning. This time. ‘There was no implication intended, your Grace. Now, if you will excuse me…’ She gave a brief curtsy before crossing to the library door.

‘And if I do not excuse you?’

Ellie came to an abrupt halt, her heart pounding loudly in her chest, the hand she had raised to open the door trembling slightly as she turned to face Justin. ‘Do you have something more you wished to say to me tonight, your Grace?’

What Justin ‘wished’ to do at this moment was place this determined but politely rebellious young lady across his knee and administer several hard slaps to her backside; indeed, he could not remember another woman infuriating him as much as this one did—or who tempted him to kiss her as much as this one did either, and all without too much effort on her part, it seemed. ‘You will remember to send word to me concerning my grandmother’s health,’ he commanded instead.

‘I have said I will, your Grace.’ She gave another cool inclination of her head. ‘Will that be all?’

Justin’s hands clenched at his sides as he resisted the impulse he felt to reach out and clasp her by the shoulders before soundly shaking her. After which he would probably be tempted into pulling her into his arms and kissing her once again. And heaven—or more likely hell—only knew where that might lead! ‘For now,’ he bit out between clenched teeth.

She turned and made good her escape, closing the library door softly behind her.

Leaving Justin with the unpleasant knowledge that he might have given his grandmother’s companion little thought until this evening—apart from noticing those kissable lips and the tempting swell of her br**sts like any other red-blooded male would!—but he was now far too aware of the physical attributes, and the amusement to be derived from the sharp tongue, of one Miss Eleanor Rosewood.

* * *

‘Would you care to explain to me exactly why it is I am out riding with you in the park this afternoon, your Grace, chaperoned by her Grace’s own maid…’ Ellie glanced back to where poor Mary was currently being bounced and jostled about in the dowager duchess’s least best carriage ‘…when I am sure my time might be better occupied in helping her Grace with the last-minute preparations for the Royston Ball later this evening?’ She shot the duke a questioning glance as she rode beside him perched atop the docile chestnut mare he had requested be saddled for her use.

His chiselled lips were curved into a humourless smile, blue eyes narrowed beneath his beaver hat, his muscled thighs, in buff-coloured pantaloons, easily keeping his own feisty mount in check, so that he might keep apace with her much slower progress as the horses walked the bridal-path side by side. ‘I believe you are riding with me in the park because it is my grandmother’s wish to incite the ton’s curiosity by allowing you to see and be seen with me before this evening.’

Ellie shot him a curious glance. ‘And what of your own wishes? I am sure that you can have no real interest in escorting me for a ride in the park?’

Justin bit back his irritated reply, aware as he was that Eleanor was not the cause of his present bad temper. He had spent much of his time these past three days hunting down Dr Franklyn, determined as he was to learn the full nature of his grandmother’s ill health and what might be done about it.

To his deep irritation, the physician, once found, had been adamant about maintaining his doctor/patient confidentiality. A determination that neither the threats of a duke, nor the appeal of an affectionate grandson, had succeeded in moving. Nor had he been in the least comforted by Dr Franklyn’s answer, ‘We all die a little each day, your Grace’, when Justin had questioned him as to whether or not the dowager duchess was indeed knocking at death’s door.

The physician’s professionalism was commendable, of course—with the exception of when, as now, it was in direct opposition to Justin’s own wishes. As a consequence, he had left the physician’s rooms highly frustrated and none the wiser for having visited, and spoken with, the good Dr Franklyn.

His evenings had been no more enjoyable, spent at one gaming hell or another, usually with the result that he had arrived back at his rooms in the late hours or early morning, nursing a full purse, but also a raging headache from inhaling too much of other gentlemen’s cigar smoke and drinking far too much of the club’s brandy. Last night had been no exception, resulting in Justin having risen only hours ago from his bed. He had then had to rush through his toilet in order that he might be ready to go riding in the park with Eleanor at the fashionable time of five o’clock.

An occurrence which had made him regret ever having agreed to his grandmother’s request today. ‘My own wishes are unimportant at this time,’ he dismissed flatly.

Eleanor eyed him with a slight frown. ‘I had thought her Grace seems slightly improved these past few days?’

Justin gave her a rueful glance, having no intention of discussing his grandmother’s health with this young woman, or anyone else. ‘You believe my grandmother’s possible ill health to be the only reason I would have consented to ride in the park with you?’

Eleanor shrugged slender shoulders, her appearance thoroughly enchanting today in a fashionable green-velvet riding habit and matching bonnet, the red of her curls peaking enticingly from beneath the brim of that bonnet. ‘You obviously have a deep regard for your grandmother’s happiness, your Grace.’

‘But I have no regard for your own happiness, is that what you are saying?’

Ellie avoided that piercing blue gaze. ‘I do not believe anyone actually enquired as to whether or not I wished to go riding in the park with you, no…’

‘Then I shall enquire now,’ the duke drawled as some of the tension seemed to ease from those impossibly wide shoulders shown to advantage in the cobalt-blue riding jacket. ‘Would you care to go riding in the park with me this afternoon, Miss Rosewood?’

Ellie had tried in vain these past three days to persuade the dowager duchess into changing her mind about Ellie attending the Royston Ball, or accepting Justin St Just as her escort for that evening.

Having failed miserably in that endeavour, Ellie had then been forced to spend much of those same three days being pushed and prodded and pinned into not only the velvet riding habit she wore today, but also several new gowns, one of which she was to wear to attend the Royston Ball this evening. Tediously long hours when the poor seamstress had been requested to return again and again by the dowager duchess, in order that the fit of Ellie’s new gowns should meet the older lady’s exacting standards.

As a consequence, Ellie would much rather have spent the day of the ball composing herself for this evening, than putting herself through the equally unpleasant ordeal of first riding in the park with the arrogantly indifferent, and highly noticeable Duke of Royston. Especially when his taciturn mood and scowling countenance showed he was obviously as reluctant to be here as she was!

‘No, I would not,’ she now answered him firmly.

Once again Justin found it impossible not to laugh out loud at her honesty. ‘Even though, as I have previously stated, it is well known amongst the ton that I never escort young ladies, in the park or anywhere else?’

‘Even then,’ she stated firmly. ‘Indeed, I do not know how you manage to stand all the gawking and gossiping which has taken place since we arrived here together.’

Justin raised surprised brows as he turned to look about them. Having been lost in his own sleep-deprived drink-induced misery until now, he had taken little note of any interest being shown in them.

An interest that became far less overt when openly challenged by his icy-blue gaze. ‘Ignore it, as I do,’ he advised dismissively as he turned back to the young woman riding beside him.

Green eyes widened in the pallor of Eleanor’s face. ‘I find that somewhat impossible to do.’

‘Perhaps a compliment or two might help divert you?’ he mused. ‘I should have told you earlier what a capable horsewoman you so obviously are.’ Far too accomplished for the docile mount he had allocated to her. A horse, Justin now realised, whose chestnut coat was very similar in colouring to the red of her hair.

‘Are you so surprised?’ she taunted before giving him a rueful smile. ‘My stepfather, your own cousin Frederick, may have been offhand in his attentions, but he possessed an exceptionally fine stable, which he regularly allowed me to use.’

Justin’s gaze narrowed. ‘“Offhand in his attentions”…?’ he repeated slowly. ‘Was Frederick an unkind stepfather to you?’

‘Not at all.’ Eleanor gave a reassuring shake of her head. ‘He was merely uninterested in either my mother’s or my own happiness once his interest in bedding my mother had waned.’

‘Eleanor!’

She shrugged. ‘It is not unusual amongst the gentlemen in society to marry for lust, I believe.’

‘No,’ Justin acknowledged abruptly. ‘And you are saying that Frederick married your mother for just that reason?’

Eleanor nodded. ‘So she explained to me when I had attained an age to understand such things, yes. Frederick married my mother because he desired her, my mother married him in order to secure the future for both herself and her daughter. Once Frederick’s desire for her faded, as it surely must have without the accompaniment of love—’ she grimaced ‘—it was not a particularly happy marriage.’

Justin began to understand now Eleanor’s own aversion to a marriage without love. How ironic, when his parents’ exclusive love for each other had determined his own aversion to a marriage with love.

* * *

Ellie was unsure as to the fleeting emotions that had settled briefly on the duke’s harshly etched features, before as quickly being dismissed in favour of him looking down the length of his nose at her with his usual haughty arrogance. ‘Will your own mother be attending the ball this evening?’ she prompted curiously, not having met Rachel St Just as yet.

Her son scowled darkly. ‘My mother never leaves her country estate.’

‘Never?’

‘Never.’

He answered so coldly, so uncompromisingly, it was impossible for Ellie not to comprehend that his mother was a subject he preferred not to discuss. Not that she was going to let that stand in her way! ‘Was your own parents’ marriage an unhappy one?’

‘Far from it,’ he rasped. ‘They loved each other to the exclusion of all else,’ he added harshly.

To the exclusion of their only child? she pondered, slightly shocked. And, if so, did that also explain his own views on the married state? It was—

‘Good Gad, Royston, what a shock to see your illustrious self out and about in the park!’

Ellie forgot her musings as she turned to look at the man who so obviously greeted the duke with false joviality. A gentleman who might once have been handsome, but whose florid face and heavy jowls now rendered him as being far from attractive, and his obesity was obviously a great trial to the brown horse upon which he sat.

‘No more so than you, Litchfield,’ Justin answered the other man languidly, causing Ellie to look at him searchingly before turning her attention back to the man he had addressed simply as Litchfield.

As if sensing Ellie’s curiosity, the older man turned to return her gaze before his pale hazel eyes moved from her bonneted head to her booted feet, and then back again, with slow and familiar deliberation. ‘Perhaps it is your charming companion we have to thank for your presence here today?’ he suggested admiringly.

Justin’s tightened. ‘Perhaps.’

The other man raised pepper-and-salt brows. ‘Not going to introduce us, Royston?’

‘No.’ The duke’s steely gaze was uncompromising.

The other man’s pale eyes, neither blue nor green nor brown, but a colour somehow indiscriminately between them all, returned to sweep over Ellie with critical assessment. ‘You seem somewhat familiar, my dear. Have we met before?’

‘I am sure I should have remembered if we had,’ Ellie replied ambiguously.

Litchfield turned to grin at Justin. ‘She’s a beauty, I grant you that,’ he drawled appreciatively.

Ellie might be slightly naïve herself when it came to the subtleties of society, but even so she was perfectly well aware that this Litchfield was, in fact, challenging the duke and he was using her as the means with which to do it. ‘You are too kind, sir.’ She gave Litchfield a bright and meaningless smile. ‘If you will excuse us now? We were about to leave.’

‘Indeed?’ Litchfield gave her a leering smile, revealing uneven and brown-stained teeth in his unpleasantly mottled face, wisps of auburn hair, liberally streaked with grey, peeping out from beneath his hat and brushing the soiled collar of his shirt.

‘Indeed,’ Ellie confirmed coolly.

‘If you would care to…ride, another afternoon, then I should be only too pleased to offer my services as…your escort. You have only to send word to my home in Russell Square. Lord Dryden Litchfield is the name.’

The man’s familiar manner and address, considering the two of them had not so much as been formally introduced—deliberately so, on Justin’s part?—were such that even Eleanor recognised it as being far from acceptable in fashionable circles. As she also recognised that Lord Litchfield was far from being a gentleman. Which begged the question as to how Justin came to be acquainted with such an unpleasant man.