A chill settled on him like a coat of ice.“Hissister?Is the man a monster?I cannot understand … It is not … Please, Miss Chivenham, allow me to take you to my house, where we can discuss this situation.I assure you, despite everything, you can trust yourself to me.”
How strange it was, Eleanor thought, that he be so agitated and she so calm.After a moment she agreed to his plan.“After all, my lord, it cannot matter much what you do now.If you can find a solution other than the river, I will be grateful.”
They did not speak for the remainder of the journey.
Lord Stainbridge fidgeted while Eleanor struggled to remain calm.Inside she was all turmoil, but it was heavily overlaid by shock and despair.She turned her head at one point to look wonderingly at the man beside her.She knew of the earls of Stainbridge, for she’d grown up not ten miles from their seat, Grattingley.The Delaney family were rich and powerful, and Grattingley known for its elegance.
How had this Earl of Stainbridge come to this?
As he was staring fixedly out the window she felt able to study him.
He was surprisingly young, only a few years older than herself.He was handsome in a fine-drawn manner that did not particularly appeal to her.He looked oversensitive and highly strung, but that could be just the occasion.She remembered her impression of the night before that he was like a medieval saint.It had not been false.His was a sensitive, oval face, and his hands could be those of an artist.
She thought ruefully that two less likely partners in debauchery would be hard to find.
Lord Stainbridge’s principal thought, as he stared out at the increasingly busy streets, was that he was almost certainly playing into someone’s hands and being a gullible fool … Nicky would not have behaved like this.He could hardly convince himself, however, that his twin would abandon a lady in distress.
It was all so difficult.He hated the unpredictable.
It was Lord Stainbridge’s habit when in a quandary to think, “What would Nicky do?”In this case, however, it was not helping much.His outrageous twin would doubtless seduce the lady into compliance and then send her on her way with a handsome douceur, and happy too, no doubt.A vague idea stirred in his head.He began to see a way out of the situation.
When Lord Stainbridge ushered Eleanor into his elegant town house he treated her as an honored guest.Eleanor saw the shielded astonishment on the face of his footman.
“This way, ma’am,” said Lord Stainbridge, ushering her into a richly appointed salon.“Perhaps you would care for some breakfast?”
Eleanor shuddered at the mere thought of food.“No, thank you, my lord.”
“Perhaps some tea, then?”he persisted.“I am sure it would do you good.”
To end his fussing, which she found most peculiar, Eleanor agreed to this.When the tea came she sugared it more than was her habit and did find it settled her nerves a little.
The servants were too well trained to exhibit shock, and yet she was conscious of embarrassment at being here, unescorted.Then she remembered she was no longer a respectable woman who need consider such matters.
For a few minutes they sat drinking tea and making desultory conversation.Eleanor guessed Lord Stainbridge was finding it difficult to raise the subject that needed to be discussed.She found she could not raise it either.
A bubble of hysteria was growing in her at this grotesque parody of a morning call.
Was this all an extension of the nightmare?It seemed as unreal as the events of the night before.Despite her knowledge that it was so, she found it impossible to believe that this elegant gentleman was the monster who had attacked her.
Then her idly wandering eyes caught sight of a graceful prancing horse of green jade.
Could it be?The fact that it was carelessly placed on a small table, not displayed in any way, made her think it was in fact the piece that Lionel had told her had been Lord Stainbridge’s reward for her ravishment.
Mesmerized, she interrupted Lord Stainbridge’s small talk and walked over to the statue.She picked it up and turned it gently in her hands.The horse was such a free spirit, leaping blithely into the air.
“It is very beautiful, is it not?”she mused.“Perhaps I should be honored to be priced so high.I understand other less fortunate women are bought for pennies every day.But then you did not pay, you were paid…” She turned to look at him.“It is most peculiar.”
She had broken through the veneer of social normality and he looked lost, unable to respond.His teeth worried at his lower lip.
“I did not know my brother had the taste or the money for such as this,” Eleanor remarked dryly.“Please don’t concern yourself.I will not smash it, though it is perhaps what you deserve.”
“Jade does not break easily,” he said as he rose.He was looking at her with great care, but she had no way of telling whether his concern was for her or for the piece of art.
“How very strange,” she said, stroking the sinuous curve of the horse, from head to flowing tail.“How very strange that an ornament should endure longer than a human being, and be less easily hurt … No, what an inane thing to say!”She sat down abruptly in a nearby chair, biting her lips for fear of what she might reveal.
He took the horse from her limp fingers warily, as if he expected her to bite.
She had to know.“Why did you do it?For a piece of rock?”
