The Marquess Who Loved Me

Chapter TWO


Elinor Claiborne, the widowed Marchioness of Folkestone, didn’t see her doom when the ballroom doors opened. She didn’t even suspect that someone might thwart her plans. This night, for reasons that were a mystery to everyone else, was hers to command. Her guests saw it as a lively entertainment. But for her, it was a living painting, one in which all the players bowed to her artistic vision.

She was still confident in the spectacle she had created, even if her heart wasn’t entirely satisfied. The Folkestone ballroom was freshly decorated, redone for the fifth time in her tenure as marchioness. The walls were a light blue this time, with plaster half-columns and elaborate scrollwork to mirror the shape of the French doors on the wall behind her. The Tudor era guards were her addition — actors hired from the West End to look as perfect as possible with their pikes and helmets. And the guests who entered, two hundred lords and ladies from the highest reaches of the ton, were a river of jewel-toned velvet unleashed at her command.

Ellie sat perfectly still on her throne, slipping into her role — cool, unaffected, with a hint of steel. She usually enjoyed parties — and was grateful that she did, since there was precious little else to engage her time — but tonight she was on edge.

Her annual masquerade ball, coming at the start of a large, weeklong house party, would be Ellie’s last public display as the Marchioness of Folkestone. If she were cursed to bear the title and couldn’t bring herself to marry anyone else just to be rid of it, then surely it would be easier to bear it on some distant shore — somewhere with no memories left to torment her.

Her father’s sister Sophronia, the Dowager Duchess of Harwich, was at the head of the line, moving across the ballroom to greet Ellie with a speed that neither her age nor her extravagant gown could slow. “I trust you aren’t seeking a husband with this sudden display of respectability?” Sophronia demanded as she approached the throne.

Those who came to Folkestone this year expecting scarcely-clothed opera dancers or venues for tacitly approved rendezvouses would be disappointed — not due to some sudden change in Ellie’s morals, but to the presence of her less debauched siblings. Ellie drummed her fingers on the arm of her throne. “Did the Virgin Queen ever seek a husband?”

“Good,” Sophronia said. “I’ll grant you, I would be pleased to see you behave yourself after all this time. But I knew you had more sense than to relinquish the advantages of widowhood.”

She slid away before Ellie could answer. Ellie’s brother Ferguson, the Duke of Rothwell, and his wife stepped up to take Sophronia’s place. “Are there to be monkeys released into the crowd this year?” he asked. “Or have you hired some company to play Francis Drake and his band of pirates?”

She sighed as he kissed her hand. “I do not repeat myself, so no monkeys. They made a dreadful mess anyway.”

“A shame — when I heard of them in Scotland years ago, I almost begged Father’s forgiveness just so I could return to England and attend your parties. Tell me there shall be pirates, at least.”

“No pirates. Be glad, brother — at my usual parties, you might have seen your wife stolen away for the evening.”

Madeleine, his new duchess, grinned beneath her elaborate Elizabethan hairstyle. “I am quite happy with my lot, wretched as Ferguson is. But if there were to be pirates…”

She trailed off with a laugh as Ferguson whispered in her ear and dragged her away. Ellie resolutely turned back to the receiving line. But Madeleine’s laughter was a distracting hum under her perfect show of calm.

Ellie had always thought she wanted a carefree, unencumbered life — one she lived on her own terms, not her father’s or husband’s or anyone else’s. She hadn’t felt grief when her husband had died.

She’d felt relief.

But there was freedom…and then there was solitude. She liked to be alone. She didn’t need to surround herself with admirers to stay entertained, even if she did enjoy the social amusements London offered. The walls she’d thrown up had preserved her freedom perfectly, keeping her detached and untouched even when her house and calendar were full.

The cost, though…

Her eyes found Ferguson and Madeleine again. They stood a bit apart, sipping champagne — an island around which the crowd broke. There was no mistaking how united they were, even from this distance.

Ferguson’s hand slipped possessively to his wife’s waist. Madeleine smiled up at him, then leaned in to whisper in his ear. He laughed. Heads turned toward them, but he was too busy whispering back to care what others thought. He brushed a hand over Madeleine’s headdress and she swatted at him. They were complete together, somehow more than just the simple sum of two people.

She wanted that, with a harsh, bitter jealously that poisoned her every time she saw Ferguson and Madeleine together. Her fingers curled on her throne. Something ugly seethed inside her, clawing at her, reminding her.

She had once had what they had. She could have kept it, if she’d been strong enough — if she had recognized the truth of what she felt for Nick rather than the illusion of approval her father had offered.

And it was her fault that she would never have it again.

Ellie turned back to the next guest, her jaw firm. It all felt wrong, somehow. Not the dire wrong of an omen — she still didn’t know what waited in her foyer. But she had to find a way to silence all that regret. She had to stop.

Stop. Stop throwing parties like the noise could drown out her memories.

Stop throwing this party, every single bloody year without ever giving herself peace, on an anniversary no one remembered but her. The night that had once, long ago, seemed like a pure beginning, full of promise and light — but ultimately was the beginning of the end.

Did Nick remember tonight as she did, in whatever ancient bazaar or Mughal palace he was striding through right now? Or had he forgotten her so thoroughly that he didn’t even remember her enough to curse her name?

The receiving line stopped before her thoughts did, of course. Wasn’t that how it always happened? The musicians in the hidden gallery above the ballroom started the closing flourish of the processional they’d played during her guests’ entrances. She took a deep breath. No one had ever guessed that, beneath her reputation as the merriest widow in England, she hid a heart of ice. She wouldn’t let them see it tonight, either.

She would dance like she was made of fire. She would indulge in her annual cry at the end of the party, a harsh jag of emotion that, once a year, she couldn’t contain.

And then she would wake up, play the perfect hostess for the forty or so friends and family she already regretted inviting, and then shut up Folkestone and leave for the Continent. If she couldn’t stop the memories, she could at least change the pattern of them.

The ballroom doors began to close. This wasn’t Almack’s, but Ellie demanded punctuality at this party and was formidable enough to receive it. But just before the door shut, a man shouldered it open.

Her eyes narrowed. He wore a plain mask that her servants kept for rulebreakers. His impeccably tailored evening suit was stark black and white — a shocking declaration in a crowd of people wearing the velvet and brocade she’d prescribed. He strode down her carpet like he owned it — not a penitent apologizing for tardiness, or even a green youth too exuberant to see the danger he was in, but a man who simply didn’t give a damn what her invitation said.

If there was purpose in his stride, though, his speed was almost leisurely. William the Conqueror might have walked to his coronation like that, already king by destiny if not by law. Ellie leaned back in her throne, feigning indolence even though her stomach flipped and her heart sped up. Later she wondered if she’d known, then, that her doom was upon her…

But she didn’t. She was a woman, not an oracle. All she felt was irritation that someone might dare to ruin her perfectly-planned display — and the tiniest, unacknowledged interest in finding someone who didn’t yet toe her line.

When he reached her throne, she extended her hand. “You’re late,” she said.

“Later than you know.” He crossed his arms. Her hand became an embarrassing relic between them. “The Virgin Queen suits you, Lady Folkestone. Even if we both know the adjective doesn’t apply.”

She dropped her hand. Dressing as Queen Elizabeth was her own private joke; there were always suitors in the wings, but she never intended to marry again. But her voice still turned to ice. “There’s no place for you at this party if you’ve only come to give insults.”

His lips were savage under his mask, so sharply defined that she might have cut them there with a palette knife. “Oh, there will be a place for me. You should have trained your staff better, Ellie my love. Once the Trojan horse is inside the gates, there’s no stopping it.”

Her mind fired wildly when she heard the old endearment, the one she’d never thought to hear again. The caress, the dark promise in his voice sounded like something she’d heard a decade earlier from a mouth not yet reforged by hate. She leaned forward, her control breaking under the onslaught of memory. “Who are you?” she demanded.

He pulled off his mask and flung it at her feet.

The last time he’d flung something there, it had been a bouquet of flowers.

She looked down, expecting to see roses where the mask was — dead, brittle roses, the ones she’d kept until they’d crumbled to dust.

“Don’t say you still can’t bear to look at me,” he said.

“Nick,” she whispered.

Ellie never whispered.

She cleared her throat and forced herself to look at his face. He’d put on at least a stone of muscle in the last decade. It was little wonder she hadn’t seen the lean boy he’d been when he walked down her — his — carpet. But his face was taut and sculpted, with the same cheekbones and stubborn chin she’d painted any number of times. And his eyes were still a vivid, startling blue under the inky slash of his eyebrows — eyes that held darkness lurking within them now, even though he smiled.

Could it be called a smile, when all she saw was malice? The lips were in the right position and his teeth gleamed behind them — but more like a wolf about to take its prey than an old friend greeting her again. Ellie wished that the only reason he fascinated her was because capturing his feral appeal in paint would be a challenge. But her sudden flush, and all the heat building in her belly, had nothing to do with art.

She forced herself to take a breath. The musicians had, quite awkwardly, started another round of the processional. She was still aware enough of the crowd to notice the murmurs rippling across the ballroom as everyone turned toward her unknown guest. She smiled coolly, searching for the grace that had seemed unassailable moments earlier.

“I am sorry it took so long to recognize you, my lord.” Her voice was strong again. She would do anything before she showed how much it cost her to stay on that throne. “I had so nearly forgotten you, after all.”

“‘My lord,’” he repeated. “I heard in London that your father died a year ago. Pity. I would have liked to watch him as I took my place in the Lords.”

In another world, she might have liked it too.

“Why are you here?” she asked. “You vowed not to return until you had forgotten me, and yet you still seem to remember my name.”

“It would have been better if we had both forgotten.”

“You can forget me just as well here as anywhere else. Welcome to your home, Lord Folkestone,” she said, calling him by his title for the first time. She was gratified to see him flinch. “I’ll remove myself to London in the morning. If you’ve anything to say, please direct it to my solicitors.”

She stood, ready to descend to the dancing floor. She saw Lord Norbury hovering nearby — the escort she’d requested for the first dance, since he was attending without his wife and needed a partner. But Nick took her elbow before she could walk away.

“We have unfinished business between us, Ellie. Whatever else you may have forgotten, I assume you remember why I left. You owe me a conversation.”

He hadn’t come all the way from India to converse with her. The very idea was preposterous. And if anything, he owed her a conversation — or at least a chance to explain herself.

She couldn’t do it here, not in the middle of her — his — ballroom. He wanted something from her — something she would not like, if she correctly read the menace in his tone. But whatever he wanted, she couldn’t consider it when her heart still raced from his return. Changing the battlefield and giving herself time to regroup would at least put her on better footing.

She nodded, pretending that she was entirely unaffected by his touch on her arm. “The servants will see to it that you have a room and whatever accoutrements you require. Shall we adjourn until morning, my lord?”

He stepped closer, destroying the distance her words had attempted to create. For a dizzy moment she thought he would kiss her. His eyes looked the same as they had before past kisses — suddenly warm, intent, focused on her and only her. He leaned in, his lips almost touching hers. Hers parted of their own accord, ready physically even though she knew it was the worst thing that could possibly happen to her.

He wouldn’t — he couldn’t — kiss her in front of half the ton.

As it turned out, he didn’t kiss her. Her lips were impertinent enough to be disappointed. Instead, he turned and whispered in her ear. “I don’t wait for you — not anymore. Entertain your guests, but we will be having our conversation tonight.”

He was gone before she could protest, striding back up the carpet to the double doors. He didn’t leave, though. He leaned against a pillar beside them, as though guarding the room — or preventing her escape.

She shivered.

Norbury was at her side an instant later. “Is that man bothering you?” he asked. “I will ask the guards to see him out.”

Ellie shook her head. The final notes of the processional sounded again. She stepped over the mask that lay at her feet and gave her hand to Norbury. “It’s Folkestone,” she said briefly. “We’ve no cause to remove him, and even if he could be gotten rid of, I doubt those ornamental guards are up to the task. Shall we begin?”

Norbury was startled. It was evident from the sudden tightening of his grip on her hand and the chill in his voice as he said, “I thought he planned to remain in India.”

Ellie shrugged. “Didn’t we all?”

She feigned boredom, so well that Norbury didn’t press. He never pressed, at least not with her. They had never been lovers, but they had been friends for half a decade — and anyone who remained her friend knew when to leave well enough alone.

As the music started, she felt Nick watching, and frowning, from the opposite side of the room. She let her mind go blank. Her thoughts flowed away like water, as she had trained herself to do in those awful months after her wedding and sudden widowhood. She would dance the country dance, then a waltz, then a reel — every dance she had the stamina for, if it kept Nick away.

He would come, though. And when he did, she would find a way to be so calm, so remote, that he couldn’t possibly affect her again.