When day broke, she'd convinced herself he would be there. She'd delayed her travels, until she was forced to realize he had changed his mind. A single drop of rain landed on her nose. She brushed it off with the tip of her gloved finger.

"My lady?" the servant asked, concern lacing his question.

She gave a shake of her head and, with a small smile, climbed inside the carriage. The door closed behind her with a soft click. Eloise peeled back the red velvet curtain and stared out at the gloomy London streets. Thick, gray storm clouds hung in the sky, blotting out day's bright light. The impending storm perfectly suited her mood that morning.

The carriage dipped under the weight of her driver climbing onto his perch and then a moment later the carriage rocked forward. She stared out at the pink stucco faade of her townhouse. Except for Colin's pa.s.sing five years earlier, when she'd retired to the country for her period of mourning, she'd not left her modest, comfortable townhouse.

Palmer had written to her frequently, urging her to visit but the pain of her memories were too great to go back to the place she'd loved, lost, and then suffered the pain of Lucien's loss. A ball lodged in her throat and she swallowed several times, but it remained. How very like this day was to the day Sara had drawn her last breath. Her fever had raged for nearly a week, climbing until delirium replaced sanity, and vacancy replaced knowing in the woman's eyes. For all the doctor's efforts and then Eloise's, ultimately nothing she'd done had mattered. She pressed her eyes tightly closed to blot out the memories, but they'd slipped in and would not relinquish their hold.

Lucien's son had succ.u.mbed to the fever that same evening. It had been as though the small, cherub-cheeked babe had decided a world without his mother and father was not a world worth living in.

Eloise released her hold on the curtain and the velvet fabric fluttered into place. She dug her fingers into her temple and rubbed in small, continuous circles. Lucien blamed her for having interfered in his life. As the carriage rattled along the quiet, London streets, carrying her to the Kent countryside, she wondered how much greater that blame would be if he'd known just how greatly she'd failed Sara and his child.

She sighed. It seemed for all her intentions where Lucien was concerned, she was determined to fail him.

She'd waited for him. For the hours Lucien had sat astride a chestnut mount provided by the Marquess of Drake, discreetly out of view of Eloise's servants running back and forth with trunks and then empty arms. She'd always been a perfunctory young girl, expressing annoyance when he'd kept her waiting on several scores. He'd never taken her for a young lady who'd delay her journey by hours.

Then, she exited the townhouse, her small shoulders squared and her chin tilted up. With her poise, she had the gracefulness to rival the queen herself. He ran his gaze down her frame. And in her emerald green cloak, fine fabric of an expert cut highlighting her station, lest he forgot the great divide between them. His breath snagged in his lungs as she accepted the hand of a servant, allowing him to a.s.sist her up into the carriage.

Lucien narrowed his eyes on the handsome footman who took her hand in his. Even with the s.p.a.ce between them, he would have to be blind to fail to note the l.u.s.t in the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's eyes. By the Devil and all his army of demons, if the man was in his employ he'd have sacked him without a reference for daring to look at Eloise as he now did. Why should you care? She is not your responsibility. And after this journey, she will be nothing at all to you.

Just then, Eloise froze, one foot inside her black lacquer carriage. She glanced about and he suspected that he was in fact the person she sought...and worse...her delay was, in fact...because of him.

Her plump, red lips he'd worshiped with his mouth just yesterday turned down in a disappointed frown and then she disappeared inside the coach. Moments later, her carriage rocked forward and continued a rumbling path down the empty London streets.

He nudged his borrowed mount forward and set out after her. This sudden urge to join her inside her fine carriage had nothing to do with the uncharacteristic chill of the spring air. And everything to do with her.

A single raindrop hit his eye. Followed by another. With the reins to his horse gathered in his hand, he pulled the brim of his hat lower but it did little to protect him from the steady rain now streaming down. It ran in cold rivulets down his cheeks. But he no longer felt the chill. Living in the muddied, cold and wet fields of European battlefields, one tended to no longer feel inconveniences such as a little rain. Lightning streaked across the sky and then the heavens opened up in a torrent of rain.

With a silent curse he kicked his mount forward and followed her as they put the streets of London behind them. The relentless storm soaked his garments. He embraced the discomfort, welcoming the sting of the rain until it chilled him through, leaving him numb for it distracted him from the memory of her hurt last evening.

Last night, when he'd sought her out, he'd done so filled with a fiery rage of having his life dictated for him yet again. And this, in Eloise, the woman he'd considered a great friend, had felt like the very worst sort of betrayal. In the light of this new, gray day with her fast-moving carriage bearing her onward to his family, he was humbled under the realization of just what a foul brute he'd become. That, in matters of betrayal, he'd failed Eloise far more than she'd ever failed him. Loyal and steadfast since they'd first taken an oath of friendship with mud and saliva, he'd repaid that loyalty then...and now...? By shutting her out of his life.

He closed his eyes a moment. Then opened them, blinking back the pouring rain that blurred her carriage. He squinted into the distance and his guilty musings fled. What was her driver thinking? The foolish man sped along at a breakneck speed. Lucien's heart froze as her carriage precariously tilted left and, with a curse, he kicked his mount into a full gallop.

By G.o.d, if she broke her G.o.dd.a.m.n neck in these muddied roads racing to his father, he'd first off her driver and then kill her all over again for her foolishness.

Chapter 15.

Eloise read the contents of the note in her hand, her stomach churning. She set it aside on the carriage bench, abandoning her efforts. Since she'd been a child, she'd been squeamish in a carriage. Reading only exacerbated the discomfort. She sucked in several slow breaths through her nose. All quite unnatural...and a real bother. She sighed. Regardless, she well knew what the missive from Palmer said. She also knew even as neither he nor Richard would ever say anything...they would be disappointed in her inability to sway Lucien's mind.

Of course, they long knew Lucien's obstinacies to know that he'd never welcome interference in his life and when pushed... he merely pushed back, all the harder.

They hit another particularly deep b.u.mp in the road and her teeth cracked together. She grunted and gripped the edges of her seat to keep from toppling over.

b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l.

She drew in another shallow breath and pressed her eyes closed to combat the nausea when the carriage lurched to a jarring halt. Eloise pitched forward and crashed against the opposite bench. She blinked, momentarily relieved at the cessation of the infernal motion of the carriage, and then shouts split the quiet.

"What in b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l are you doing barreling along these roads in that manner?"

Eloise widened her eyes and felt her heart hammering. She shoved herself upright and scrambled into her seat. She yanked at the curtain hard enough to nearly tear it from its hangings just as Lucien swung his well-muscled leg over the side of an enormous, chestnut mount.

What...?

d.a.m.ning the steady, pounding rain that blurred the gla.s.s window, she shoved the door open. A gust of wind slapped at her face. "Lucien?" she shouted into the howling storm.

He stomped over. His serviceable, black riding boots kicked up mud, splattering his black trousers. With the stinging bite of the cold rain, he must be uncomfortable.

Then she met his gaze.

Correction.

By his black scowl, he wasn't uncomfortable...she swallowed hard-he was furious. Stoic and elegant with his hard, determined footsteps, he may as well have been striding through a ballroom than the old, battered, Roman roads to Kent.

"What in h.e.l.l are you doing?"

She opened her mouth and then it occurred to her-he spoke to her driver.

"I beg your pardon, you brigand."

Her lips twitched. Sopping as he was, Lucien didn't appear either a viscount's son or a distinguished butler.

Lucien stopped beside her carriage and glared down at the five foot nothing driver guiding the team. "Traveling at this pace, you'll see your mistress with a broken neck," he seethed.

The man opened and closed his mouth, an indignant glint in his rheumy eyes. "I beg your-"

"That will be all," Eloise ordered, her attention on Lucien.

He stiffened at her interruption and turned slowly. "Eloise."

Eloise must appear the lackwit with her body half-inside, half-outside of the carriage and the cold rain battering away at her head and stinging her eyes, but she grinned. "You came."

Lucien swiped his hand over his face and mouthed a silent prayer. He lowered his arm to his side. "Get inside your d.a.m.ned carriage."

Her smile dipped and she bristled at his commanding tone. Why, she was not one of the servants in his staff, answering to him. She was- "Now," he bit out.

Eloise hastily scurried back inside, which had nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with his angry charge and more to do with the rain. Yes, it was simply an effort to remain dry.

The carriage dipped under his weight as he hefted himself in after her and what had previously been a comfortable, generous s.p.a.ce shrunk with his towering figure.

The shock of his presence now absorbed, Eloise registered the absolute chill stinging her skin. She folded her arms across her chest and hugged herself. "L-Lucien," she stammered, her teeth noisily chattering.

His eyebrows dipped.

"Wh-what...?"

He cursed and reached for her. "You are going to catch your death of a chill."

They registered his words as one. Their bodies stilled. She held her palm outstretched. "I'm so sorry," she whispered softly. Sorry for so much. For the losses he'd known, for her scheming to reunite his family, for his lost arm, for the years he'd spent in London Hospital, for the loss of their friendship...

Lucien managed a terse nod and then the regret in his eyes lifted, replaced with his earlier outrage. With another black curse he opened the door. "To an inn, man." With that brusque command, he closed the door hard behind him. The carriage rocked forward and resumed its ghastly swaying.

How effortless he a.s.sumed command. He would forever be a man of the military. "An inn? Lucien, we must continue on." His father's death was imminent.

He ran a methodical glance up and down, from her tangle of wet, blonde curls to her damp skirts. "Surely you do not intend to travel the remainder of this G.o.dforsaken journey as you are?"

As if her chilled body required any further reminder of her present state, a shudder raked along her spine. She rubbed her forearms to drive back the gooseflesh dotting her skin.

Lucien shrugged out of his wet cloak and tossed it to the floor. "Here," he ordered as he removed his jacket.

"What are you...?" Her words ended as he effortlessly scooped her onto his lap. And just like that, the nauseating rocking of the carriage, the cold of her body, all faded, replaced with rapidly spreading warmth that just came from being in his arms.

The carriage hit a rut in the road, proving her a liar. Her stomach lurched. She swallowed past the wave of nausea, willing herself to not make a humiliating fool of herself by casting the contents of her stomach at his feet. Another rut. She groaned.

Lucien tipped her chin up and when he spoke, his tone emerged gravelly. "What is it?" he asked, as he worked his gaze over her face.

She managed a shaky nod. The carriage swayed and she closed her eyes, concentrating on her breaths, willing the nausea to abate even just a bit.

He brushed his knuckles over her cheeks and she fluttered her lashes, forcing her eyes open. "You still become ill in a carriage?" There was a wistful note to his words, as though a piece of his past had just revisited him in this moment.

Eloise gave her head a slight shake. "N..." Her stomach pitched. "Yes," she finished on an agonized moan.

Lucien rested his still damp, cool palm against her cheek and turned her gently into his chest. The cool sensation eased some of the nausea, made it bearable so she could focus, if even just a bit, on how absolutely right being in his arms was-a coming home. "You would brave this just for my family."

I would brave this all day, every day just for you. "Yes."

He fell silent and this was not the hostile, tense quiet she'd come to expect of the man who'd taken on employment with the marquess. Rather, it was the peaceful, companionable silence they'd once known. Two friends who knew each other so very well they could finish one another's thoughts.

A fierce wind battered at the carriage door and the conveyance swayed. She bit down hard on her lower lip.

Lucien stroked soothing circles over her back "Easy," he whispered into the crown of her hair.

She sucked in another slow breath. He leaned away and she made a sound of protest, but he merely yanked off his dampened cravat. "What...?"

Lucien pressed it against her forehead, his hand firm and rea.s.suring against her skin. "There," he encouraged. "Does that help?"

Barely at all. And yet to say so would result in the loss of his touch. "Yes, it helps." She laid her cheek against his chest and closed her eyes. His heart thumped hard and steady beneath her ear. How many years had she spent worrying after him, waiting for that dreaded note informing her that Lucien had perished in battle? The pain of that loss would have destroyed her. And so, the Eloise Gage who'd hovered on the threshold of girlhood and woman would lie abed bartering with the Lord. And on her most fearful days, the Devil. In the end it seemed the Devil had won. "I missed you." Her whispered words filled the carriage and, as though nature protested her bold utterance, thunder rumbled in the distance.

"I missed you, too," he said, startling her with the quiet words that rumbled up from his chest.

Eloise battled past the nausea and leaned back. "I venture you didn't even give me a single thought."

A twinge of guilt reflected in the stormy, gray irises of his eyes. She glanced away. She'd not have falsity from him. He stroked his thumb over her lower lip and she stiffened, looking at him once more. "I won't lie to you, Eloise. I didn't think of you in a romantic sense." She winced and her body burned with mortification, driving back the previous chill. "But I did think of you. Many times I shared stories of you and me..." He paused. "And my brothers as children. Those moments, for what it may be worth to you, took me momentarily away from the horrors of war."

Those words should be enough and, to a more worthy, honorable woman, they likely would be. Eloise, however, was grasping at all things horrid because selfishly, she wanted more of him.

"What happened to you after I left?" That question seemed dragged out of him, as though he feared an answer, but at the same time, required that piece of her past.

Eloise shifted off his lap and reclaimed the seat opposite him. His mouth tightened. Was it displeasure? Regret? Did a part of him crave her body's nearness the way she craved his? "What you might expect of a young lady," she said with a small shrug. "I went to London. Had a Season. Made a match." Her heart hitched. "My father died shortly after you left." She folded her hands upon her lap and stared at the interlocked digits. The threads holding together the fabric of her life had come undone as neatly as if they'd been plucked and pulled from an embroidery frame.

Lucien leaned across the carriage and rested his hand over hers, comforting, rea.s.suring. She stared at the calluses, rough and coa.r.s.e. Not at all the hands he'd possessed as a young gentleman. "I am so sorry, Ellie. I should have been there for you."

She managed a smile. "It is fine," she said. At one point it hadn't been. At one time, she'd been empty and aching and alone in her grief. As much as she'd loved and missed her husband and father, life had eventually moved on, taking her with it. Eloise found the courage to continue. "My husband and I returned to London not long after..." Lucien's wife and child had succ.u.mbed to their fevers. He gave her a searching look and she amended what she'd intended to say. "He died not even six months after we'd returned to London."

Lucien wiped his hand up and down his cheek then rested it over his lips.

How much loss she'd known.

After he'd returned to find himself a widower, also mourning the loss of his child, he'd languished in a hospital, willing himself to die, contemplating the days and ways in which he could at last end his infernal existence. Yet, Eloise had reentered the world brave and resilient. Admiration built inside him for the woman she'd become. "What was your husband like?" Hopefully the faceless man had been worthy of her.

"Kind," she answered automatically. Good. For if he hadn't been, Lucien would have haunted him in the hereafter. "He was also generous. We became friends and after you'd..."

After he'd left, she'd craved that companionship they'd once known. She didn't need to speak the words.

She colored. "We were friends," she settled for.

An insidious, dark emotion roiled in his gut and threatened to consume him. He balled his hand hard at his side. If he wasn't already bound for h.e.l.l for the crimes he'd committed against too many in the name of war, he'd be going there now with the envy twisting away at his insides for the man who'd wed her. Why should he feel this green snake of jealousy, unless...?

"We didn't have the overwhelming love that clouds all reason and judgment." She shook her head, speaking with a woman's maturity. "But we talked. He cared about my opinions. He listened to me."

She'd deserved that and so much more. So, why did Lucien hate the late earl as he did?

"When most gentlemen treat their wives as property and mere chattel, he entered into a contract that w-would see me..." Her words caught. "That did see me cared for." She looked at him, emotion bleeding through her eyes. "He loved me," she said on a shattered whisper. "And he deserved more. The man he was, good, kind, and everything wonderful, he should have known that love." Eloise drew in a ragged breath. "I didn't love him," she whispered those four words, spoken more to herself.

At her admission, some of the pressure eased in Lucien's chest, somehow freeing and terrifying all at the same time.

She dropped her gaze to her tightly clasped hands. "The guilt of that will follow me until I leave this world to join him." She fell into silence. The steady patter of rain upon the carriage roof filled the s.p.a.ce. The ping-ping-ping echoing the haunting admission she'd made.

Ah, G.o.d. The world was awash in guilt. All these years, he'd lived under the weight of remorse for having failed Sara and his son. That Eloise should know a like guilt, ripped at him. Lucien leaned across the carriage once more and touched her knee. She lifted her head up. "You can't carry the guilt of that, Ellie," he said quietly. Loyal and loving as she'd been, he'd never known Sherborne, but he'd wager what remained of his black soul that the other man would not want that for her. "You were a good wife to him while he lived. Faithful," he ventured, knowing with the intuitiveness of a person who'd known another soul almost as long as he'd been on this earth that she'd never betrayed her husband.

Her lips twisted in a dry smile. "He may as well have had a dog then."

How did she not see her worth? How could she not realize that whatever years she'd given Sherborne had likely been the happiest the man had ever known? Lucien knew that because some of the most joyous moments in his life had been beside her in the fields of Kent. "Loving you as he did," he murmured, "he would want you to be happy."

Eloise met his gaze square on. "And what of Sara? Would she not want the same for you?"

At her words, he went whipcord straight. He clenched and unclenched his jaw. "It's not the same," he said roughly.

Eloise arched a blonde eyebrow. "Isn't it?" She was relentless. "Do you not carry the same sense of guilt-?"