“You’re an only son.Your parents must be anxious for an heir.”
He shrugged.“And I’ll do my duty.The title’s been handed from father to son for over two hundred years.Strangely enough, my father, who has all the pride you’d expect, doesn’t push me into marriage.It’s all mother’s doing.”
“Is Miss Swinnamer so impossible?I remember her as very beautiful.”
He smiled in a twisted way.“She’d adorn the coronet, wouldn’t she?”He helped himself to more steak pie.“But she’s not to my taste and I was beginning to worry that I’d find her in my bed one night.So I bolted.”
Eleanor chuckled.“You shouldn’t be such a handsome heir to a dukedom.”
“What am I supposed to do about it?There’s something about a dukedom that drives women wild.”He grinned at her.“Restore my faith in womankind.Tell me you wouldn’t have pursued me, even if we’d met when you were unmarried.”
Eleanor burst out laughing.“I assure you, the thought wouldn’t have crossed my mind.Not from high principles, or because I wouldn’t have found you attractive.You would have been wildly above my touch.”
“Then perhaps I should seek a bride who’d think me wildly above her touch.I can’t stir an interest in those considered of my rank, and I think I have a taste for … ordinary?No, that’s not the right word…” He shrugged.“Women like you.”
Eleanor blushed.“My lord marquess, I’m touched.”
“A woman who says what she thinks and looks a man in the eye.Blanche is like that.”He twinkled at her roguishly.“Going to throw me out?”
“Not at all,” said Eleanor.“I’m an expert on mistresses.”Why had she not realized a nugget of pain remained at the thought of all those nights when Nicholas wasn’t in her bed?
He leaned over and took her hand.“You don’t know anything about it,” he said.When she looked questioningly at him he went on, “A true mistress is a substitute wife.She’s for talking to as well as bed, for company as well as passion.If I’m any judge, Nicholas gave Therese Bellaire nothing but his body.”
She squeezed his hand and let it go.“Thank you.”
“And he didn’t enjoy it.”
Eleanor looked up in surprise.“But doesn’t a man always enjoy…?How can you know?”
“You said once you’d met Deveril.”
Eleanor shuddered and nodded.
“Therese Bellaire is very like him.She may be beautiful where he is ugly, but inside she’s the same.”
“And yet Nicholas was her willing lover once,” Eleanor pointed out.
“Well,” he said with a rueful grin, “she is beautiful and oozes sultry temptations.”
They both laughed, but Eleanor felt it wise to turn the conversation.“So, if you are supposed to marry, what about Phoebe Swinnamer drives you to flee to Somerset?”
He thought about it.“She’s pretty enough, but knows it far too well.There’s never a glossy curl out of place or smudge on her cheek.She never makes a move without a fraction of a second of thought, and she looks in every mirror she passes.”
“Perhaps she’s nervous,” Eleanor offered.
“Not her.She doesn’t have a nerve in her body.She’s a stunningly beautiful doll.I kept having this urge to kiss her silly just to see if I could upset her composure.Do you think its part of her plan?”He laughed.“You can see why I had to run away.”
“I’m afraid so.If you did anything so foolish, the marriage would be announced within the hour.”
“And I want better, Eleanor.I want what you and Nicholas have.”
Eleanor went red.“We?We have nothing.”
“Nonsense.I grew angry with him because it was like watching someone throw ink at a priceless painting.I didn’t really understand then.It must have seemed very like that to him.But sometimes the magic showed through even so.And now I see it in your eyes.”
He raised from the table—rich, handsome, heir to one of the greatest titles in the land.
And, she realized, unhappy.
