"How dare you, sir? Her Ladyship is-"

"Oh, she'll receive me, G.o.dd.a.m.n it."

Her feet drew to a sudden halt at the familiar, gruff baritone. She widened her eyes. Oh, dear.

"Find her now."

For one moment of sheer cowardice, she cast a longing glance down the corridor toward the safety and peace of her chambers.

"If you do not leave this instant," Forde rumbled, "I will have you forcibly removed."

That threat propelled her forward. Eloise sprinted the remaining length of the corridor and halted at the top of the stairwell. She rested a trembling hand along the top rail. As if he felt her presence, Lucien looked up, volatile rage simmering in his eyes. She chewed her lower lip a moment and then managed a forced smile. "H-h.e.l.lo." She gave a halfhearted wave. "S-so lovely of you to call."

The butler, Forde, stared up at her as though she'd sprouted wings and intended to fly the distance down to the front entrance.

Lucien took a step forward, effortlessly striding past the ineffectual, aging butler. "This is no social call." That seething whisper carried in the generous foyer like a shot in the dead of night.

She bit back a sigh. First her horrid brother-in-law, now her long ago friend. Did no one pay social calls, anymore? "Oh." She took a tentative step, pausing at the top step. "Then perhaps we might wait until the morn-?"

"Oh." Poor Forde. He gulped nervously.

She took pity on the graying servant who'd likely just added a handful of additional silver streaks to his coa.r.s.e hair. "Forde, it is quite all right," she a.s.sured him. Or lied. By the seething tension emanating from Lucien's taut frame, she rather suspected it was not at all...all right.

The loyal servant hesitated.

She gave him a rea.s.suring smile and with that, he moved with stiff steps...until Eloise and Lucien were-alone. "You do know you really shouldn't come around at this late hour frightening my servants, Lucien. It isn't at all well-done of you."

"I don't give a d.a.m.n what it is," he hissed, rocking forward on the b.a.l.l.s of his feet as though he were one wrong comment from her away from stalking up the stairs.

She swallowed hard. "I gather you are here following a conversation you had with the marquess." Her fingers quaked in an involuntary tremble and she buried them within her dressing gown to keep from revealing her unease.

His black eyebrows met in a punishing line.

Oh, dear, he was a good deal more menacing than she recalled. She mustered a smile. "I take it he was as supportive and kind as the papers purported him to be."

And that proved to be the one Eloise-comment that set his feet into motion. He boldly climbed the stairs as effortlessly as if he were the master of her modest townhouse-a role she'd gladly have him in forever. She scrambled backward. Well, mayhap not in this icy, domineering role he'd a.s.sumed since he'd terrified poor Forde. "What are you doing?" she asked as he continued his slow, menacing climb.

His silence was all the more infuriating. And terrifying. Her heart hammered hard and she retreated another step. She didn't believe he'd hurt her, but his unpredictability made him dangerous. Her heel caught the hem of her robe and she teetered precariously.

She threw her arms out searching for purchase when Lucien closed the distance, easily catching her to him. He folded his arm about her and braced her against his chest. "You b.l.o.o.d.y fool. Are you trying to break your neck?"

Oh help her. Her eyes slid closed of their own volition and she soaked in the comforting feel of his form pressed to hers. Until she left this Earth she would recall the moment-his powerful body strong, powerful, heated. "Wh-why would I try to break my neck? That's utter nonsense." Her weak-hearted attempt at levity did little to diminish the hardness in his dark gray, now very nearly black, eyes. "Perhaps we should meet in my receiving room?"

He jerked and it was the moment he remembered himself. As a butler in the Marquess of Drake's employ, he likely knew the frequent gossip to fly about a household. Lucien gave a brusque nod, setting her away from him.

Eloise led the way down the stairs, through the foyer, and down the darkened corridor lit by but a handful of sconces to the receiving room. Lucien trailed behind, remarkably stealthy for one of his commanding size. So much so that she shot a quick glance over her shoulder to be sure he still followed. Fury marked his face and she gulped hard. This is Lucien. Her dearest friend. Once closer than any two souls could be. He'd never harm her. His low growl echoed behind her. She jumped and quickened her strides. Then, he was in many ways a stranger now.

As they entered the handsomely decorated room with Chippendale furniture, she closed the door softly behind them, knowing her efforts at privacy were futile. She had little doubt that word of this scandalous nighttime visitor would reach her brother-in-law's condescending ears. "I understand you are upset," she said, speaking to him the way she had her mare after the poor creature had injured his front hoof.

He matched her steps. "I am not upset," he whispered.

Eloise hurried to place much needed distance between them. Her shoulders sagged under the weight of her relief. She smiled. "Splendid, then! I-"

"I'm livid."

She flattened her lips. "Oh." Eloise raced behind the rose-inlaid, rectangular table and placed her palms upon the surface. "I needed to reason with you."

Lucien continued coming and stopped at the opposite end of the table and leaned across. "But you didn't reason with me, did you? You forced my hand."

Eloise removed her hands and made to step back. "I can explain." Guilt needled at her conscience once more. She really was very justified in her actions, if he'd but listen.

"There is nothing to explain, madam." A gasp escaped her as he shot his hand out and captured her wrist, halting her flight. Her skin tingled at the power of his hard, callused palm upon her skin. She closed her eyes a moment. Not once in all the years that her husband had come to her chambers had she burned from his touch. She'd believed herself incapable of pa.s.sion and never expected to know the thrill of desire. Until she'd again found Lucien and had at last known his kiss...and his touch.

"What, do you have nothing to say?" he jeered.

How very humbling it was to ache for a person so wholly unaffected by you. Forcibly she thrust aside any and all weakness, knowing she required strength in this exchange. "I had no other choice," she said, angling her chin up.

Lucien moved a cold stare over her face and then with a black curse that scorched her ears, swiftly released her. "My family is not your business, Eloise," he said, this time there was no lethal edge to his words, but rather a matter-of-factness that was all the more painful for it.

"No, they are not my business," she said softly. "They are like my family." With her father's death the same year Lucien had gone off to fight, the bond between she and Lucien's brothers had only been strengthened. They'd sustained each other, offering and providing solace in some of those darkest times.

Lucien strode around the table and held a finger up. "Ah, yes." He paused, then stopped so close she was forced to crane her head back to meet his gaze. "But they actually are my family."

She flinched. When had he become so cruel? Had it been the years of fighting? Perhaps he would have returned this same cynical, wary man to his wife and child. Her heart spasmed. No, their love would have restored him to who he'd been. By the expectant glint in his eyes, he antic.i.p.ated her volatile outburst. Tears, even. She'd not rise to his bait. Instead, she claimed his hand and held it between her own. "I am glad you at last remembered that important fact, Lucien."

His body jerked erect at her touch. She expected him to wrench his hand free. Instead, he remained rooted to the floor, gaze fixed on her hands twined with his one. The muscles of his throat moved up and down.

A gentle hope stirred in her breast that she'd managed to reason with him. Help him see that for all he'd lost, he still had known love. But for the affection of her doting father, that emotion had been rather spa.r.s.e in her own life. "Your father loves you," she said. "He-"

Lucien yanked his hand free, shattering the fragile moment of peace between them. He stuck his face close to hers, fury teeming in his eyes. "I lost everything I was, everything I had, because of him." He spun away and she thought he intended to leave, but he merely stalked like a savage beast over to the window. "You live in a world untouched by the horrors of the world, Eloise," he said tiredly. With his disapproving tone he may as well have delivered a gentle rebuke to a child. "With that commission purchased by my father, a path he was determined I take as a third son of little value, I killed men."

She flinched, wanting to stop the flow of his words, but needing to hear the h.e.l.l he'd endured. "Frenchmen not older than you were when I left gutted by my bayonet. Men I called friends, writhing on the fields of battle with their insides splayed open begging to die..."

Eloise clamped her hands over her ears, but he strode over and, with his hand, removed them, awkwardly clasping them within his grip. "If you are insistent on returning me to the man responsible for the nightmares, then you'll hear it all."

She shook her head, tears clogged her throat, filled her eyes until he blurred before her. "Please."

An ugly grin formed on his lips. "What do you know of it? You never held someone in your arms while they died. You never knew the agony as that person sucked in a final breath and was no more..."

She blinked, fighting to keep from crying, lest he misconstrue her tears as a sign of weakness, but a lone, dratted drop escaped. Followed by another. And another. Until they streamed down her cheeks in a silent, steady torrent. He was wrong. She had known that pain. She'd held Sara and Matthew in her arms and heard that very same uneven, agonizing breath he now described. The memory of that day would forever haunt her. "I know more than you think," she said on a broken whisper.

His lips twisted again in that dark, macabre rending of a smile that spoke more clearly than words his doubts. "I'm returning to see my family. Not because I wish to, but because you willed it. There will be no joyous reunion. There will be no grand showing of remorse and repentance between father and son, if that is what you desire, Eloise." He raked a stare over her that brimmed with resentment and fury. "I leave in the morning and when I return to London, I don't want to see you. I'll resume my responsibilities in the marquess' service and you and I shall continue to move in our different social spheres. I want the memory of you to end with my father. Is that clear?"

Eloise managed a shaky nod. "Yes," she said, amazed that he couldn't hear the cracking of her heart. "Abundantly." He started for the door. She didn't know where she found the courage, but she called out, "Lucien?"

His steps slowed and he turned back to face her.

Eloise wet her lips. "I just thought I should mention I intend to leave in the morning, as well."

"For where?" he blurted, and for that slight moment, there were none of the harsh lines, no frown on his face and he was the Lucien of old.

"Why, for Kent." She c.o.c.ked her head. "To see your father."

Chapter 13.

She was going to drive him b.l.o.o.d.y mad. He'd always known it. First when she'd been a girl of six and insisted his toy soldiers dance with her ruffled dolls. Then when she'd insisted on picking flowers in the fields of daisies after they'd gone fishing as children. And now... at his thirty years to her twenty-eight, with her so casually dismissing his rage and cold demands and expressing her intentions to journey to Kent.

"You're mad," he managed to get out.

She pursed her lips. "Indeed, I am. Livid. But I'll not allow that to prevent me from seeing your father once more."

He drew in a breath, counting silently to five. "I meant insane. Bound for Bedlam."

Eloise's eyes formed moons in her face. "Oh." She shook her head. "No, I'm the other type of mad. The angry one."

He felt his lips turning up in a grin and he quickly suppressed it, refusing to allow Eloise and her charming mouth and sweet spirit to overshadow her betrayal.

She folded her arms mutinously over her chest, plumping the lush mounds of her breast, drawing his attention downward. "And I'll have you know, despite your displeasure, I intend on going."

Lucien tried to process her words. He really did. However, the burning rage that had driven him to her doorstep and into her townhouse like a madman receded under the sudden realization that nothing but a thin robe and nightshift shielded her slender but generously curved body from his gaze.

"Did you hear me?" she snapped, her bosom moved up and down with the force of her breathing.

He stared transfixed by the ethereal sight of her, bathed in the faint candle's glow. When had Eloise Gage grown from the stubborn, wild child running the hills of Kent to...this enticing, captivating creature with a woman's curves and a siren's mouth?

She waved a hand in front of his face. "Hullo, Lucien." Fire snapped in her eyes.

The one constant for Eloise would appear to be the whole stubborn business. He shot his arm around her waist and angled her body close to his. A startled squeak escaped her as he angled her body close. "You always did interfere, didn't you," he whispered against her temple.

She frowned up him. "I prefer to think of it as helping."

"It isn't. A help," he clarified, lest any doubt remain.

The muscles of her throat moved and he took in the length of her graceful neck. He'd never before found a neck as a thing of beauty. Quite practical and not at all s.e.xual, there was something wholly enticing about the graceful length of Eloise's. "Wh-what are you d-doing?" she whispered.

Going mad right alongside you. Lucien groaned and crushed her lips under his, swallowing her breathless moan with his. He slanted his mouth over hers again and again until she whimpered. She reached her arms up and twisted her fingers in his hair, tugging his head forcefully down, better opening herself to his kiss.

He deepened the kiss, giving her what she craved, his tongue engaged in a wild thrust and parry that evoked erotic images, all of which involved Eloise stretched on her back, arms up, legs open. Lucien dragged his mouth away, to her groan of protest, but he merely shifted his lips to the wildly beating pulse in her neck. He nipped and sucked at the delicate flesh that had so enticed. Her head fell back and a small, keening cry escaped her.

He looped his arm about her lithe form, never mourning the loss of his arm more than he did in the moment. The empty place his forearm used to be fairly itched with a hungering to hold her, drag her close and use both arms as he longed to, exploring every curve and contour of her body.

"Lucien," she whispered.

Just that. His name. His name uttered on a hungry, whispering moan jerked him back to the moment. He set her away so quickly she stumbled back. Desire clouded the blue-green of her eyes, turning them a cobalt blue. She blinked. Panic built in his chest. "This will not happen again."

"Why?" She may as well have been asking the time of day or for tea and biscuits as calm as that one word utterance was.

Yes, why not? A traitorous voice inside his head chimed in agreement.

He steeled his jaw. "I've already told you, Eloise. After I've visited my father, I'll return to my life and you'll return to yours. And this," whatever madness now gripped them both, "will be forgotten."

She settled her hands on her hips in her resolute I've-made-up-my-mind-and-you-have-no-other-choice way of hers. "You will join me on the journey?" she said in a question that was not at all a question.

"Will I...?" He closed his mouth and counted once more to five, praying for patience. "No, I will not join you on your journey. You are not going."

She pointed her eyes to the ceiling, similar to the way she'd done as a young girl trying to convince a fifteen year old boy there was nothing more natural in the world than partnering a young lady in the steps of the scandalous waltz as set out by her d.a.m.ned tutors. "I'm going," she said. "I intend to leave at first light." She gave a toss of her head. A single blonde curl fell over her eye. "After all, I'm a widow now, Lucien. I'm permitted certain liberties."

With her pledge, all she forced him to consider was her setting out on the d.a.m.ned roads without a chaperone, with no company but perhaps that of a lady's maid and mayhap a strapping footman. He frowned.

"What are you thinking?" she asked, angling her head.

Except, by her aging butler's total lack of ability at tossing him out on his ear as he'd surely deserved, as a member of the marquess' staff himself, he had to admit that the lack of footmen to protect and defend their mistress from a furious gentleman did not speak volumes of their capability. With a growl, he spun on his heel and marched to the door once more.

The rustle of skirts indicated that she gave chase. "What-?"

"I intend to ride. You shall remain in your carriage and beyond that, I'll have nothing else to do with you or your interfering," he directed that to the doorway. With that, he stalked from the room. The skin of his neck burning from her stare trained on his retreating frame.

Eloise stared after Lucien. She touched her fingers to her mouth. Her lips still burned with the taste of his kiss, her flesh throbbed to know more of his touch. In all her greatest dreams of him, she'd imagined a life that included him in it. A life where he viewed her as more than the childhood friend who'd kept stride with him and his brothers. The day he'd fallen in love with Sara, half of Eloise's heart had died. The other half had lived, in the hope that one day he would at last realize she was there.

Then the muscles of her stomach knotted. Even with the pa.s.sion between them, and the now three times he'd taken her in his arms, he still did not belong to her.

Eloise sat with shaky legs into the nearest seat, sinking into the stiff folds of the pink satin sofa. Worse, he despised her. Blamed her for trying to restore the loving relationship he'd once known with his family. She stared down absently at her lap. However, he spoke with all the pa.s.sionate ire of a man who still had family. Yes, he'd lost Sara and his child and that loss would forever haunt him. But for the loss, he still had Palmer, Richard, and, for now, his father.

She had come to appreciate in the aftermath of her father's death and then the sudden loss of her own husband just how alone she was. Her world once full of those who cared had become remarkably empty, leaving her with nothing more than a disapproving brother-in-law for occasional company. No, Lucien was not alone. He'd merely chosen to subsist in a state of solitude. She firmed her lips. He might resent her, even hate her for her interference in his life, but her actions were driven by love for him...and his family. If she could somehow bring him together with his brothers, then the total loss of him from her life would cripple her, but would bring her some measure of peace in her rather lonely life.

Only, if she were being truthful with at least herself, she wanted more. She wanted him.

Chapter 14.

The following morning, with her trunks loaded into a waiting carriage, Eloise accepted the proffered hand of a waiting servant. She gave a murmur of thanks and paused in the threshold of the doorway to survey the quiet streets. The same niggling fear that had danced about her mind all that morning while her belongings were packed and her carriages readied, resurfaced.

Lucien did not intend to come.