Page 44 of A Secret Consequence for the Viscount
‘It is in parts, but there is a sort of beauty in that. Perhaps it was the same for you in Scotland?’
‘Scotland?’
‘Where you lived with your husband?’
‘Oh, yes, it was.’
Digging into his pocket, he felt the small plaited bracelet and brought it out on his palm to show her.
‘Is this yours, Eleanor? I found it in a wooden box on the mantelpiece in my library.’
She began crying just like that, one moment shocked and the next inconsolable, large tears running down her cheeks even as her hands came to wipe them away.
Crossing the room, he took her in his arms and liked how her head fitted exactly beneath his chin, the warmth and softness of her astonishingly right. She smelt of violets and freshness. He knew the moment she gained control because she stiffened and pulled away.
‘I am sorry.’
He noticed that she held the colourful circle of thread tightly in her fist as though she might never let it go.
‘It is valuable?’
‘To me? Yes.’
* * *
Eleanor could feel her bottom lip still quivering and knew her eyes were red. When he gave her his kerchief she blew into it and then began to worry because she did not quite know whether to hand it back to him or tuck it into her sleeve to wash later.
These huge swings of emotion were something she had not felt with Nicholas six years ago in the happy haze of their new love. Then it had been easy and light.
Now everything weighed heavily upon them. Their past and their future and the present, too, because there was a danger close that she could not quite decipher.
She had given him her bracelet after he had made love to her. A circle of threads plaited for her by her mother from her tapestry basket and beaded at the end in the colours of primrose, green, cerulean-blue andcoquelicot-red. When she’d explained how important it was he had held the gift and looked as though she had given him the world.
Today the limp gaudy bracelet had appeared tired and out of place between his thumb and forefinger, fingers that gave no impression at all of being that of a cosseted lord. There were small thin white scars across his knuckles now.
The hand of a fighter, the hand of one who had endured much hardship. A tougher hand altogether.
And yet when he had held her in his arms a few minutes ago all those elements of danger, menace, toughness and peril had only made her feel safe.
‘I did not sleep well last night, my lord, and I am sorry for such an outburst.’ She felt she needed to explain.
‘Did I give you anything back in return?’
‘Pardon?’
‘When you gave me the bracelet, did I find something of mine for you?’
Another kiss.She nearly said it.
Instead she shook her head and simply looked at him, at the small gold chips at the outer edges of his brown eyes, at the wound on his cheek which today seemed lessened and a part of him, another way of how his time in the Americas had been imprinted into now.
He was even more handsome than he had been, the hard and thinner planes of his face melding into high cheekbones and a strong chin. Not in the manner of the Greek gods, unmarred and perfect, but following in the fashion of a Norse one, scarred by battle and war and the fighting arts held dear by the Viking marauders.
He could protect Lucy and her. From everything.
He had kissed her right here last time in the slant of sunbeams coming in from the window. He had taken her hand and pulled her into him, slowly, never looking away, and with his fingers in the nape of her hair his mouth had come down upon her own, allowing no escape as he had deepened the connection and taken her heart.
Unforgettable.
