She allowed him to keep her hand, studying him for a moment as the carriage rocked them in rhythmic motion, admiring the way the sunlight filtering through the Venetian blinds caught in his golden curls. How angelic he looked. No one gazing upon him now would ever suppose him capable of such sinful, wicked pleasures of the flesh.
“I was thinking about how all the times in my life where Mama and I were happy, we were quickly dealt a bad turn of Fortune’s fickle wheel,” she said softly. “It started with the man who was my father. Mama had been a famed actress when they had met, one of the most sought-after thespians in all England. He fell in love with her almost at once, she said, but he was a wealthy and powerful man, and taking an actress to wife would have proven too much of a scandal for his family to bear. So, he gave her a fine town house to use and installed her there as his mistress.”
Eleanora paused, thinking of those charmed years, when she had yet to realize her true place in life and how tentative it was. Then, she had been a spoiled girl, for Mama’s protector had spent a fortune on her, and Mama had diverted a great deal of that fortune to Eleanora. Nothing but the finest dresses, a polite governess to teach her everything a genteel lady should know, dolls, and whatever trinkets she had wished.
“If he loved her, he should have married her, whatever the cost to his reputation,” Nando said with great feeling. “The man was a coldhearted coward, as evidenced by the manner in which he later so callously abandoned the both of you.”
She squeezed Nando’s hand in appreciation. “When he gave her the congé, it tore our world apart. I believe with all my heart that she thought he would keep her forever. That the three of us would be something like a family, even if he did have another wife and other children, who were legitimate, at home.”
Her mother had been disconsolate for months afterward, scarcely able to force herself to resume acting. Only the need for a roof over their heads and food in their bellies had done so.
“Are you certain you don’t know the bastard’s name?” Nando asked, his voice taut, his jaw tensed.
He was angry on her behalf, and the realization touched her.
She shook her head. “My mother never told me, not even on her deathbed. I am grateful, in a way, because I wouldn’t have wished to know him. If I had, I would have run the risk of recognizing him in society, and my emotions may have been too much to control.”
“The reserved Miss Brett?” Nando brought her hand to his lips for a reverent kiss on first her knuckles, then her inner wrist. “I doubt she could have been so lacking in circumspection.”
“I think I’ve proven my lack of circumspection by now,” she said wryly, thinking of how easily and thoroughly she had succumbed to her own wanton nature.
“No, my dear. You’ve just proven yourself deliciously susceptible to corruption.” He winked, bringing her hand back to his lap. “And I am devious enough to capitalize upon that weakness.”
There was something beneath his lighthearted quip that sank its claws into her heart. He excelled in self-deprecation, forever painting himself as the villain. And yet, for Eleanora, Nando had very much been the hero.
She swallowed hard against a sudden rush of emotion and forced her mind back to the original thread of her story. “The day that the man who sired me ended his arrangement with my mother, Mama and I had been shopping on Bond Street. We returned with a carriage laden with all manner of things, including a beautiful new doll made of porcelain for me, along with a miniature house for her to live in. When we had to leave our happy home, the doll and her house were some of the firstto be sold off, along with Mama’s jewels. Many of the gifts he had given her, we were to discover, were worthless paste, and the sum he had settled upon her had been a pittance too small to provide for a woman and child alone in the world for long.”
Her heart ached anew as she thought of how much her mother had endured, how hard she had worked to ensure that Eleanora would continue to enjoy the sort of life she had once lived in that glorious town house, providing her with an education and fine dresses. Even if it had meant, as Eleanora had only realized far too late, sacrificing herself.
“How old were you?” Nando asked softly, stroking her palm with his thumb.
“A girl of seven.”
He ground out something guttural and utterly foreign in his native tongue. It was the first time she had ever heard him speak it, and the abrupt switch startled her, for she hadn’t expected it.
“What did you say?” she asked. “I’m afraid I don’t understand Varrosian.”
“And it’s fortunate you don’t.” He was grim. “I said something that doesn’t bear repeating. I’m sorry, Eleanora. Sorry for you and for your mother.”
She managed a tremulous smile for his benefit, grateful for him, for his understanding, for this weight lifted from her. For everything.
“Thank you.”
He shifted on the squabs suddenly, peering out the carriage window to the street, then rapped on the roof. “Stop,” he called out loudly enough for his coachman to hear. “Stop right here, if you please.”
The conveyance swerved and nearly sent Eleanora careening to the floor before coming to an abrupt halt.
“Is this where you are taking me?” she asked, confused.
“No.” He kissed her hand again. “Stay right here, my dear. There is something I need to fetch. I’ll be back.”
“But—”
He silenced her protest with a swift, hard kiss before withdrawing and giving her a smile. A genuine one. Not his ne’er-do-well grin. But a true smile that reached his eyes.
“No protesting, if you please. I’ll be but a few moments.”
He kissed her again, and then he threw open the door to the brougham and leapt to the street, leaving her alone.
