liked. Looking back, Nick knew he should have heaved him out of his life when his majority was reached, but he had been too self-destructive to even bother, his days revolving around the fast London set, Vitium et Virtus and gambling.
A mistake, he thought now, looking back. He would see his man of business and his lawyer as soon as he could to find out where he stood with his inheritance. But a day or two away in the quiet English countryside might be just what he needed and the sooner he got rid of his father’s scheming younger brother from influencing any part of his future, the better.
* * *
The hours seemed to have flown by at this soirée of Frederick’s. Nicholas Bartlett had not come near her again, but she had watched him across the other side of the room, ensconced in a group of admirers both female and male.
He looked much recovered, she thought, and the fact that her brother and Frederick Challenger were there beside him probably had something to do with that.
Rose, next to her, saw where she was looking. ‘There is something about Lord Bromley that makes him fascinating, do you not think? He looks both vulnerable and dangerous, a man whose history sits upon him with weight.’
‘Did Jacob tell you of his time in the Americas?’
‘A little. He said the Viscount was always moving to the next place of work and that he had a hard life there. I think people here are watching to find the careless dissolute lord they used to know, for the young girls certainly have their eyes on him. But he does not seem to be rising to any expectation and that is what is causing a quandary. Who is he now seems to be the general question. Did you know him well before he left, Eleanor? Can you see similarities with who he is now?’
Eleanor ignored the first question and answered the second. ‘I think he was a lot less dangerous and more easily swayed perhaps.’
Nicholas Bartlett tipped his head as she said this and looked straight at her, across the distance of the room, across the music and the movement and the chatter and it was as if the tableau of everything faded. Only him. Only her. Only the memory of what had been. Her memory, but not his. She looked away and fidgeted with her reticule, hating the way her fingers shook as she reached for her fan.
‘Do you ever imagine yourself marrying again, Ellie?’ Rose’s voice was soft.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because you are a beautiful woman with much to offer a man.’
‘No.’ The word burst from her very being, the truth of such emotion worrying. Because she did not. If she could not have Nicholas Bartlett to love her again as he had done before then she did not want anyone. Ever.
‘Secrets can be lonely things, Eleanor. If you wish to talk...’
Rose left it there as they both looked across to watch the orchestra tune up for their next round of songs and then the Viscount was right next to her, holding out his hand.
‘You promised me a dance, Lady Eleanor, and I have come to claim it.’
‘I think this one is a waltz, sir,’ she clarified, hearing the tell-tale three-beat music.
‘Good,’ he returned, ‘for I am sure I can remember those steps.’
‘And your injured hand?’ When she looked she saw he had taken off the sling in readiness, only the bandage left, a snowy white against the dark edge of the cuff of his jacket.
‘The doctor assured me that if needs be I could remove the sling without too much harm.’
He had not danced at all that evening and she could see the interest in those around them as he made his way to the floor with her in tow. Her brother was watching, as was Rose and myriad other faces from further afield.
‘One turn about the floor shall not drag you into the mire of who I am, I think. It should be safe.’
His fingers were at her side now, the other injured hand coming carefully on to hers. She could feel his breath in her hair as he counted in the steps and see up close the damage done to his face.
He did not try to hide it from her and she liked that, but the scar was substantial and recent, the reddened edges of it only just knitted.
‘The wife of the owner of the tavern I worked at sewed it up for me.’ He said this when he saw her observing him. ‘She was an accomplished seamstress so I was lucky.’
‘Lucky...’ she echoed his word.
‘Not to die from it. Lucky to have escaped a second blow and still live.’
‘What happened to the man who did this to you?’
When he glanced at her and she saw the darkness in his eyes she knew exactly what had happened to his assailant.
A further difference. Another danger.
‘Scars can be hidden, too, Lord Bromley.’
The upturn of his mouth told her he had heard her whisper even when he did not answer.
‘And rest assured that in a room like this there will be people who have been hurt just as surely as you.’
‘But they have not the luck to dance with the most beautiful woman in the house.’
‘I think your eyesight must have suffered with your injury.’
‘Gold suits you.’
She was quiet.
‘So does silence.’
At that she laughed, because thus far since meeting him again she had voiced her opinion without reserve. He made her talk again. He made her take risks.
He was quickly catching on to the rhythm of the dance and manoeuvred her easily about the room despite the number of others on the floor. She could feel hardness in his body where before there had been softness. He smelt of lemon soap and cleanliness, the lack of any other perfume refreshing.
At five foot six she was quite tall for a woman. With him she felt almost tiny, her head fitting easily into the space beneath his chin. Breathing him in, she allowed him to lead her, closing her eyes for a second just to feel what she once had at the Bromley town house the night before his disappearance. The night Lucy was conceived.
She had sent Lucy away today, back to Millbrook, just so that as a mother she might understand the road she must now travel.
Towards him or away? The quick squeeze of his fingers against hers brought her eyes up to his own, an emotion there she could not interpret.
‘A lack of memory is a hard taskmaster,’ he whispered, ‘because sometimes I imagine...’ He stopped.
‘What? What do you imagine?’
‘That I have danced with you before.’
She looked away and hated the lump that had formed in the back of her throat.
The night lights of the city had glowed through the large sashed windows of his town house as he had taken her into his arms and danced her to his bed.
Please remember, she thought. Please remember and love me. Then Mr Dromorne’s face at the side of the floor came into view, watching with eyes that held no warmth whatsoever and as the music ran down into the final notes Nicholas escorted her back to her brother.
She did not see him again that evening, but knew he had gone into the card room because the whispers of his luck there began to float into the salon.
An hour later when Rose pleaded tiredness, Eleanor was more than grateful to accompany her home.
* * *
Nicholas sat with a whisky in his room and listened to the clock strike the hour of five. The fire in the grate was still ablaze for he had fed it for all the small hours of the early morning with the coal piled near the hearth in a shining copper holder.
Eleanor Huntingdon was asleep somewhere