CHAPTER 14
Nando watched Eleanora intently as he awaited her response. She was dressed as sparsely and primly as she had been earlier, her golden hair beneath a cap, tucked into the same serviceable chignon she always wore, but this time nary a stray tendril having escaped to curl about her face. Perfect in her poise, as icy and glorious as ever. She gave him no hint of what she was thinking, her face as still as a mask.
He had expected more. A reaction, at least.
“You must know that I cannot.” Her tone was measured, calm.
Ah, the answer he had been anticipating, a denial, a refusal. But Nando had spent the hours since his meeting with Tierney considering all the ways in which he might somehow persuade the stubborn Eleanora Brett to accompany him, and the answer, when he had fallen upon it, had been obvious. The more he thought about it, the more pleased he became.
“I want you to come with me as my betrothed,” he added.
And then, the mask broke.
Her lips parted, her eyes widened, and the velvet depths of those blue orbs seemed to plumb his soul. “You make a mockery of me.”
“Never.”
He could understand her distrust of his proposal. He was not often a serious man. He was a voluptuary who had spent much of his life in search of pleasure as a means of distracting himself from the sorrows that haunted him. He had come of age in the shadows of war, and though his older brother had shielded and protected him, Nando had been more than aware of the danger, the blood that had been shed, the loss.
“I…I fail to understand.” Her words were slow, halting.
Nando took both her hands in his, drawing her against him. “I want to marry you. From the moment I first saw you, you have haunted my dreams and all my waking hours. Come with me. Be my wife.”
Her hands trembled in his, and a laugh bubbled up from her, the sound incredulous. “If this is your attempt at a sally, forgive me for finding it cruel.”
He gave her hands an urgent squeeze. “This is no jest. Marry me, Eleanora.”
Nando had turned the notion over in his mind, again and again. The thought of this woman being his had been more intoxicating than any opium or whisky he had ever consumed. He’d been obsessed with the prospect ever since it occurred to him. He would marry her, pleasure her beyond her ability to comprehend. Her artless sensuality the night before had proven to him that she was his match. She was responsive and eager, and he could scarcely wait to begin teaching her the art of pleasure.
“You are a prince.”
He had never cared for the title less than he did now, standing before a woman who deemed it an impediment rather than a boon.
“Regretfully, yes.” He grinned. “I do hope you would have me anyway.”
She shook her head. “What I meant to say is that you are a prince, and I am not just a commoner, but the daughter of an actress.”
This was news—his stern Eleanora the daughter to a woman who had trod the boards. However, he didn’t care.
“I am more than aware of who you are, my dear.”
“No, you are not.” She tugged her hands from his grip and turned to walk the length of the room, her back to him as she waged some inner battle he didn’t comprehend. When at last she spun to face him, her expression was stricken. “You cannot possibly believe that a marriage between the two of us could ever happen. It would be the misalliance of the century. Princes do not marry spinster chaperones who were born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
Her words took him aback.
Nando went to her, genuinely confused. “The wrong side of the blanket? I don’t understand. Forgive my pitiful English.”
His English was eloquent, far from pitiful, but the term was unfamiliar to him.
She squared her shoulders. “I was born a bastard. That is what it means. My surname is not Brett. All that I am, all that I have made of myself, is a lie. If any of the grand households where I have been employed knew what and who I truly am, they would have cast me into the streets rather than expose their innocent daughters to me.”
Her confession astounded him. Not because he was horrified to discover her mother had been an actress who hadn’t been wedded to her father. Not even because he was surprised to learn she had been deceiving everyone with the proper façade of Eleanora Brett. But rather because of what her revelation meant. Everything she had just told him could lead to her ruination, and yet she had trusted him with this information.
A rush of something foreign and potent swept over him, and he took her into his arms instinctively, ignoring the nagging pain of his wounded arm. He held her stiff form in a gentle hold that she could escape if she wished.
“Thank you.”
Her brow furrowed, her expression one of pure befuddlement. “Why do you thank me?”
