Now he just had to figure out how to overcome all that had separated them. Not the years, but the real things that kept the wall up between them. Because he wanted a life with her.
He just had to figure out how.
Chapter Twenty
It was almost another week until Elise found herself sitting in a carriage with Felicity and Stenfax, winding their way down the final miles to Caraway Court. She glanced down in her lap and scowled at what she saw there.
When she did so, Felicity let out a sigh and snatched the paper resting there. “Stop reading this tripe!”
She held it up, shaking theScandal Sheetwith one hand. It was a special paper, delivered once a week, that only detailed the scandals in Society. The paper that had been delivered the previous day, before the family left London, featured the murder of the Duke of Kirkford and a huge article about Elise and Lucien’s engagement.
It was meant to be “blind”, their names not used in the description of their scandalous past and reunion, but since the author had linked it to strongly to the murder, which was not blind, there was no doubt to whom the paper referred.
Not that London had been silent on the subject even before the article. Word of their engagement had gotten out almost immediately, and Elise had been receiving nearly constant calls from the curious and the judgmental for days.
She was exhausted, both mentally and physically. And it wasn’t just the strain of the rumors that did it. Stenfax had been increasingly withdrawn in their remaining time in London. Oh, he had spoken to her, yes. But always in the company of others. And since that last searing kiss at his mother’s home, he hadn’t touched her except to escort her from one room to another.
Sometimes she caught himwatchingher…rather like he was watching her at the moment from his place across from her in the carriage. She felt like he was trying to decide something and she rather feared what that something was.
“How can I ignore it when theScandal Sheetis the most popular paper in London that no one admits to reading?”
“Felicity is right,” Stenfax said, taking the sheet and balling it up before he opened the carriage window and tossed it out. “Whatever is being said changesnothingof our plans. We’ll be in Caraway Court a while for the wedding and then working on whatever plans we make for dealing with Roger. By the time we return, much of the gossip will have faded.”
Elise wasn’t so certain of that, but at present she was more troubled by Lucien’s withdrawn demeanor than the tales being told. Why did he pull away? And how could she ever bring him back after everything that had happened?
The carriage slowed as they turned up the final winding drive to the estate. Elise looked out as the big house rose up in her view, as beautiful as she remembered it all those years ago. She had once loved it here and now all that love rushed back, and tears leapt into her eyes at the joy of returning when she’d never thought it possible.
“Here come Celia and John Dane,” Felicity said, reaching out to wave.
Elise straightened, trying to see the famous Celia Dane. The woman who had once almost been the Countess of Stenfax. As the vehicle slowed, it turned, and she caught nothing more than a glimpse of dark hair.
She pursed her lips as the carriage stopped and the footmen rushed to free them. They helped Felicity down first and she heard her friend say Celia’s name. Lucien went next and he turned back to help her down himself.
She smiled at him and he returned a rather distracted expression of his own before he drew her forward. Gray and Rosalinde were pulling up behind in their carriage, which also included Stenfax’s mother, but he didn’t wait as he faced Elise to the couple on the drive.
Elise stared. She’d seen this woman before, but only from a distance. Up close, there was no denying how beautiful Celia Dane was. She had coloring similar to her sister, dark hair with bright blue eyes and porcelain skin. She had a more mischievous look to her, though, a sparkle and a light.
Elise swallowed hard in the face of it. No wonder Stenfax had chosen her.
“Mr. and Mrs. Dane, may I present the Duchess of Kirkford,” Stenfax said. “Soon to be the Countess of Stenfax.”
Somehow Elise found her voice and extended her hand first to John Dane. “Elise,” she said, her words faint. “The rest is too complicated and with the help you are offering us, I don’t think it right to stand on such ceremony.”
Dane took her hand and shook it. She’d hardly noticed him in her focused attention on Celia, but he was a handsome man with longish dark blond hair and a neatly trimmed beard.
“My lady,” he said.
When he released her, she turned to Celia. The other woman was smiling faintly, but there was an expression on her face that let Elise know she was being watched, analyzed.
“Elise,” Celia said at last, putting out her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Elise balked and her hand fell away from the other woman’s. Celia’s expression softened. “Oh, I meant from Rosalinde. She has written me a few times since you and Stenfax renewed your engagement.”
There was a true kindness to Celia’s voice that put Elise at ease despite the utterly awkward situation. She nodded. “Of—of course.”
At that moment, Rosalinde rushed up to the group, and she and Celia exchanged a fierce hug before she lifted up on her toes to buss Dane’s cheek. “You look wonderful,” Rosalinde said. “The beard really does suit you.”
That elicited a quick smile from John Dane that entirely changed his serious face. But Elise’s attention was drawn away as there were other introductions to be made and everyone buzzed politely for a while as Elise stepped back. She felt a little out of place here, with this group of people who knew each other so well. Funny since once she’d been in the inner circle.
