Page 38 of A Secret Consequence for the Viscount
‘I doubt Rose would like to see my brother more involved. The same might go for Georgiana and Cecilia.’
At that he laughed, the worry of the past few moments dwindling as he saw her smile. ‘For a club steeped in secrecy there are now many who know the names of its founders.’
‘Frederick’s youngest brother keeps harping at them all for the chance of it, too. He is just finishing at university and is as wild as the rest of the chaotic and out-of-control Challengers. You might consider him? He’d undoubtedly be perfect.’
As she moved closer it was as if everything in the world was better. He liked her near. He liked the way it felt when her thigh came into contact with his own as they walked across the grass.
He liked her questions and her truth. He liked how she had put all the facts of things together to come up with a portrait of now. He liked how she made him happy.
If he had Eleanor Huntingdon in his bed he would feel as if he could conquer the world.
He cursed under his breath and decided such invented fantasies might rival any thought up in the passion of the moment at Vitium et Virtus.
* * *
She felt him withdraw, just as he had done every other time they had come closer. Did he think she might deceive him in some way or harry him into making a decision he would come to regret.
Nash Bowles had riled him and yet it was more than that. Nicholas Bartlett’s touch was tight as he took her arm and turned towards the road, chestnuts forgotten in his haste to be away. He also vibrated with an anger that was unfathomable.
‘What did he do to you? This Bowles?’
He needed to talk so when silence was his only answer she kept on speaking.
‘In the times that I thought the world was landing on my shoulders I realised confiding in someone trusted is often a helpful thing.’
His glance came around to her, wary and suspicious, full of the ghosts she could only guess at. The damage on his face today was so very easily seen in this light. She could imagine the force of the blade that had come down upon him and the pain he must have endured afterwards.
‘Jacob was my confidant and he was a good one, too, because he mostly listened. As you are. To me, I mean. Listening.’ Now she was flustered, his very presence warming her insides. It was confusing, this strength he had, this power to make her unsettled. She could not remember it before.
Finally, a smile curled at the end of his lips. ‘I doubt some of my stories would allow you to sleep at night, Eleanor, were I to unburden myself of the past. You might be well pleased never to hear them.’
But she did not allow him that excuse. ‘After being ill in the home of the Reverend in Boston, where did you go?’
‘South.’ The word was flat and quiet.
‘Because you had to leave?’
‘The Reverend had a daughter. A small child called Emily. When I was walking along the cliffs one day she followed me and was hurt.’ He swallowed and she could see the strength of emotion in the grinding action of the muscles in his jaw. ‘She was pushed,’ he finally uttered.
‘So you went south to protect them? To draw off the one who had pushed her. Was it the same man who hurt your arm and face?’
‘I hope so because he is dead. I killed him.’
He looked at her directly as he said this, refusing to allow for misinterpretation, ensuring her understanding in a way he had not when they had talked during the waltz at Frederick Challenger’s party. There was no line of apology or uncertainty anywhere. She could imagine a weapon in the ruined fingers of his left hand raised against evil. She hoped the death had been quick. Nicholas Bartlett was a warrior wrought from the softer bones of an English aristocrat. How different would he feel from each and every other coddled lord of theton? A man who had been places not one of them would have the misfortune to venture or the endurance to see himself safe. She could not quite leave it at that, though.
‘Would he have killed you?’
‘Pardon?’
‘The man who hurt you. Would you have been dead had you not fought back?’
He nodded.
‘Then my opinion is that evil does not deserve to win out under any circumstance and he warranted his fate.’ Her words held that certain conviction she heard herself use in some of her dealings with her daughter. An unequivocal truth. An unarguable logic.
She watched him run his hand carefully through his hair, pushing the long and untidy fringe from his face. ‘I am glad, Eleanor, that you have been safe here in England.’
Safe?Six years of the cutting words of others. Six years of pretence. Six years of lonely isolation. Six years of carefulness tempered by politeness and manners. She was so safe she could scream with the cloying breathlessness of it. Better a cut like his to the very bone and then an ending. Quick. Final. Though in all honesty it seemed that the wolves might still be circling.
