There was no reason for him to feel guilt over what he’d done. Elise had come to Vivien’s seeking a lover and she’d said she wanted him. She’dprovenshe wanted him. If he walked away from her at the end, wasn’t that exactly what she’d done to him all those years ago?
Didn’t that make them even in some way?
He pursed his lips at the vengeful thought. Whatever he believed of Elise, she was still a lady. And he had used her in the worst way possible. Yes, he had thought of her pleasure, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t used her. It wasn’t gentlemanly, to say the least.
And when he was honest with himself about his cruelty, he also had to be honest with himself about the need to address it. Only that meant seeing her. Going to the home she lived in now, the dower house, andseeingher. Tomorrow would be best, to clear the air on this matter immediately.
A thousand thoughts went through his head. Was he just doing this to look at her again? No, no, of course not. That was pure poppycock.
He was going in order to set things straight between them. He was going so that he could walk away from her and no longer be haunted.
At least he hoped he wouldn’t be haunted. Right now that wasallhe felt.
Chapter Four
Lucien swung down from his horse and looked up at the modest townhouse that rose before him. Elise’s dowager residence, the one she had taken up after the death of her duke. It had been a long time since he’d approached her door. The last time was when he’d come demanding to see her after she wrote her letter dismissing him.
Pain shot through him and he tamped it down with violent force. This wasn’t even the same house. That horrible night he’d gone to her father’s residence. There was nothing remotely similar about the experiences.
He strode to the door, extending a card to the butler who greeted him. He thought he saw the barest reaction of surprise when the man read his name, but he didn’t turn Lucien back. Instead, he led him to a parlor off the foyer and went to ascertain if Her Grace was in residence.
Lucien pinched the bridge of his nose as he paced the room. What if she refused him again as she had that long-ago night? His jaw tightened at the thought that she would do such a thing…twice.
The door behind him closed and he turned toward the sound to find Elise standing there. He caught his breath. At Vivien’s club she had been dressed in vibrant colors and a plunging neckline. Today she was wrapped in mourning black and covered modestly. Her hair was pulled back in a simple chignon rather than the glorious waves he had pulled down to cover them as they made love. She also had a slight darkness beneath her eyes, the only mar on her skin telling the tale that their night together had affected her the same way it affected him.
She was beautiful. Almost unbelievably beautiful.
“Wh-what are you doing here, Lucien?” she whispered.
He swallowed hard, trying to remember the answer to that very good question. It was near impossible when his mind was whispering how easy to would be to cross the room and kiss her. Better yet, unwrap her from those bloody mourning clothes and have her right then and there.
“I came to talk to you about last night,” he burst out, too loudly, he knew.
Her lips thinned as she pressed them together and her expression grew cool and distant. “I don’t think there’s anything more to be said, my lord. You made yourself very clear.”
He cleared his throat. This was not going exactly the way he’d planned it as he tossed and turned in his bed the night before. He drew a long breath and started again.
“It was ungentlemanly…the way I acted last night. From start to finish.” He met her gaze and forced himself to hold it. “I’m sorry.”
There was no mistaking the shock on her face at his apology. Her eyes went wide as saucers and her lips parted. But she swiftly wiped the reaction away, returning to the cool and collected Elise he wished so desperately to move. Beneath that stony exterior had to be the Elise he’d once known. That womanhadto exist. Didn’t she?
“You needn’t be,” she said. She shifted slightly, the only indication of her discomfort. “I—we were both swept away, my lord. I’m as much to blame for what transpired in Vivien’s club as you are.”
He took a long step toward her. “Why did you, Elise? Why did you let me?”
The coolness fled again and her face crumpled ever so slightly. She seemed to be fighting a battle within herself, truth versus lies, vulnerability versus the walls she’d erected between them for some unknown reason.
“Because—” she began, her voice trembling.
But she didn’t get to finish. Before she could, the parlor door flew open and the new Duke of Kirkford strode inside.
Elise flinched as her late husband’s pompous cousin marched into her parlor unannounced and uninvited. Of course, that was what he always did, declaring that the dower house was his property as much as any other he had inherited.
And the way he often looked at her, Elise wondered if he felt he had some right of claim onher, as well. The new duke’s focused attention was part of the reason she was so desperate to escape these walls.
She moved to face him and shuddered. It wasn’t that he was physically ugly. Like his late cousin before him, Ambrose, the ninth Duke of Kirkford, had an interesting face that likely many a woman would desire. But he was, also like his late cousin, unbearably stupid, oafish and rude.
Ambrose let his gaze flit over her from head to toe in the same way he always had and likely always would. Elise felt stripped by the action and she swallowed back the rise of bile in her throat.
