“Rayne,” she greeted warmly, her heart singing with gratitude that he had returned to check upon her.
When he had delivered her to her chamber earlier, she had been too distraught to give him a proper greeting. After several hours of solitude, she had calmed herself enough to allow happiness to overtake her at this unexpected reunion with him, even if it had occurred for all the wrong reasons. She loved Alessandro very much, and she was pleased to see him once more, though this new version of him appeared harder, harsher, and gaunter than the brother who had last departed for Spain.
“Forgive me, am I intruding,hermanita?” he asked, his accent less pronounced now than it had been earlier during his angry confrontation with Searle.
“Of course not. You could never intrude,” she assured him. “Come, sit with me.”
Caesar growled, his hackles raising. She patted the pug, calming him, wishing the little fellow had exhibited the same protective instinct whenever she had been in Searle’s presence. Perhaps she would have taken a hint from his instincts and guarded her heart better.
Alessandro seated himself opposite her, looking brooding and dark and very much out of place in the faded femininity of the marchioness’s apartments. “Are you in much pain, my dear?”
Only the most excruciating pain she had ever experienced. A broken heart hurt more than a broken bone, the agony blossoming from within, radiating throughout her entire body. Not even falling from the staircase as a girl had been so traumatic. Or perhaps it was that too much time had elapsed, and her memories had begun to fade. She could not be certain.
All shewascertain of was that she hurt.Dear God, did she hurt. Everywhere.
She swallowed down another rush of tears, brought on by the combination of her brother’s concern, and her inner self-loathing. “I shall be fine.” The smile she managed for Alessandro’s benefit was tremulous at best. She wondered if her nose was red and swollen.
His countenance gentled with sympathy. “Is it the old break in your bone, or is it your pride?”
“Both.” She sniffed. “But, also, my heart, I am afraid.”
Her brother’s jaw clenched. “You have feelings for Searle,hermanita?”
She nodded grimly, unable to form the words lest she once more burst into tears.
“I will kill him,” he vowed savagely. Rage vibrated in his voice, darkening his expression. “I was going to shoot to maim him on the field of honor, but by God, I shall kill him for you, Leonora. No one in the world would mourn such a vile excuse for a man.”
“No,” she implored, finding her voice at last. “I do not want the two of you to duel. I beg of you, cry off. Do not go.”
She feared for her brother, and in truth, she feared for Searle as well. She had witnessed the virulence of the enmity between the two men with her own eyes, and she did not know what each was capable of. As angry and hurt as she was, as deeply entrenched in despair over Searle’s betrayal, she did not wish for anything ill to befall him. And neither did she want Alessandro to be injured or worse on her behalf.
Alessandro’s expression tightened even further, his mouth flattening into a pinched line. “I must go. He had no right to use you as a pawn in his quarrel against me. You are my family, my sister. Can you truly believe I would allow him to ruin you without making him answer for his sins?”
She flinched, for here was the answer she feared. While Alessandro had spent much of her life abroad where he felt more at home than within the stifling constraints of English ballrooms, he was her brother, and she loved him fiercely. Like her, he was an outsider, laughed at behind fans because his mother had been a Spanish tavern wench when she had wed Leonora and Alessandro’s father. From all accounts, Alessandro’s mother had been miserable as a countess until her untimely death, even though her match with the former earl had been one founded in love.
“I was not ruined, Alessandro,” she said, using his given name for effect. “Searle and I were alone in a salon when Mama and some of my friends happened upon us.”
“Ruined,” her brother repeated grimly. “Precisely as that bastard intended.”
“What happened between the two of you?” she asked then, needing to know. She had overheard fragments of his conversation with Searle, but not enough for her to know for certain what had occurred between them.
Alessandro’s lip curled. “What happened is none of your concern.”
Irritation surged within her, momentarily supplanting her inner torment. “How dare you say such a thing? The bad blood between you is the reason I now find myself here, the Marchioness of Searle, with a husband who has spent the entirety of our acquaintance lying to me.”
Her brother made a low sound of disgust. “All the more reason for me to aim with the intention of killing.”
“Alessandro,” she bit out, the ferocity of her response making Caesar stir uneasily at her side. “Please.”
His nostrils flared. He resembled nothing so much as a horse about to bolt. But at last, he appeared to calm himself, relenting. “It is not done to speak of war before a lady.”
“I do not care,” she countered. “We are not in a drawing room, and the laws of propriety do not govern us here, not with so much at stake. Tell me, Alessandro. I deserve to know, do I not?”
A guttural, vicious oath escaped him, but it was in his mother’s tongue and not hers, so its definition was lost upon Leonora, and she deemed her ignorance just as well. For the expression upon her brother’s face was murderous.
“You wish to know? Very well,” he growled. “I shall tell you. I have been aiding our army in my mother’s homeland. Because I have spent so much time there, because I have a reputation amongst the people, I am able to move freely there. Unlike here, I am trusted there, treated with honor and respect. When the war came to us, I decided I needed to do my part.”
Of course he would. His most recent, lengthy absence from home made perfect sense now.
