“Maxim would never listen to them if it came to banishing me. He loves me far too much, though he is loath to admit it.”
“You came to London of your own volition, then?” The realization surprised her.
She had supposed that the king had sent his brother to London.
He nodded. “When my nephew, Prince Caspian Ferdinando, was born, I knew that Maxim had finally found the happiness he deserved. I was superfluous. I decided to roam.”
His use of the prince’s full name took her by surprise. “He is named after you, the young prince?”
Nando’s chest puffed with pride. “Of course. I suggested Ferdo, but Maxim and his queen decided against it.”
Eleanora bit her lip to stifle her chuckle. “Ferdo is a rather…interesting suggestion.”
“Now you sound like my brother,” Nando groused, looking sullen. “He told me it was a terrible name. I’m still quite vexedabout it. But in the end, Caspian is an honorable choice, after our father.”
More delicate threads of his past were being revealed, little by little.
“Were you close to your father?”
Stark sadness flashed across his expressive countenance before he hid it. “I scarcely knew him. I was a lad of ten when he was killed in the Varros Great War. Much of my life, he was in battle, leading his army, fighting for what should have rightfully been his.” He paused, biting his lower lip as if to collect his composure before continuing. “He never had the opportunity to ascend the throne. I was kept hidden safely away, cosseted and soft, scarcely knowing a hint of the death my brother and father and the loyalists to the House of Tayrnes faced daily. It was only when my father died that I began to realize what being at war truly meant.”
Her heart ached for the young man he had been, hidden away, barely having the chance to know his father, losing him at such a young age.
She placed her hand on his, wanting to give him comfort. “I am sorry for what you endured.”
“You needn’t be sorry for me.” His smile was bitter now. “As I said, I was coddled. I’ve never had to kill a man, nor have I ever shed blood. Until recently, that is.”
“That doesn’t make the loss of your father any less,” she said with feeling. “I lost my father as well, but not to death. Rather, it was his own callousness. I was a bastard, and he scarcely cared for my existence at all. I met him only on a few occasions, and when he had tired of my mother, he evicted us from the home he had settled my mother in, and our life changed. She had to return to the stage, and although she did her best to keep the truth of our situation from me, I understood that something had happened. Our house was not as large, not as tidy, ourfurniture not as elegant. We had only two servants instead of the maids, butler, cook, and housekeeper to which I had grown accustomed. Later, I realized the bevy of servants and fine home and furnishings had been for his benefit, not ours. And when my mother had no longer been of use to him, he had cast us away as if we were rubbish.”
Realizing she had been talking about herself, and revealing far more than she had intended, Eleanora stopped her tale of woe.
“As I said,” she added, intensely aware of his stare upon her, studying, searching, seeing, “it was naught compared to what you faced in the Great War.”
“To the devil with what I faced. Your father was a heartless scoundrel. Tell me his name. I’d like to challenge him to a duel in your honor. I’d never more happily shoot a fellow at dawn.”
He was grim, his jaw tense and hard, and the harshness in his voice melted something inside her. He was outraged on her behalf. But that was not the way the world worked for women like her mother, for women like Eleanora. No one was outraged for them.
“I don’t know his name,” she admitted. “I couldn’t tell you if I wanted.”
And she most assuredly didn’t want her husband to challenge the man who had sired her to a duel. Although she did appreciate the sentiment behind Nando’s declaration. It was almost as if he was being protective of her. Championing her.
“I’ll set Tierney and his men on it,” Nando said, determined. “I’ll find out his name and make him pay for what he did to you and your mother.”
“No,” she said swiftly. “Thank you, but no. Mr. Tierney has enough to concern him, particularly since he still has men making certain to keep you safe.”
“I don’t need them.”
The worry for him that had never been far returned, a bud unfurling into a full blossom. And it was the perfect moment to say what she had been thinking since well before they had wed.
“Perhaps we should return to Varros, where you will be safer in the court with your brother’s men to surround you.”
“Like a mongrel with his tail between his legs?” Nando curled his lip. “Never. I do not flee from my enemies. Ferdinando of the House of Tayrnes is no coward. I face my enemies like a man. I will not run. I would rather die first.”
“But the danger to you?—”
“The danger to me is nothing,” he interrupted. “I have already told you, Eleanora. This is my concern and not yours. I’ll not speak another word on the matter.”
The sharpness in his voice cut her as surely as a blade. After learning so much about him, she couldn’t help but to feel his hasty denial was the verbal equivalent of a slamming door. And she was left on the other side of it, helpless and alone. The sensual abandon that had held her in its spell dissipated.
