And when he did, she would find a way to be so calm, so remote, that he couldn’t possibly affect her again.
CHAPTER THREE
How was she more beautiful than he remembered? She’d been pretty at seventeen, even lovelier at nineteen — the toast of the season in ’02, when her father had belatedly, begrudgingly brought her out in a bid to make her forget Nick. She’d vowed that nothing could induce her to marry someone else. But by the end of the season, she was married to — and, three days later, widowed by — his cousin. And Nick was somewhere in the Atlantic, wishing he could drown his love for her as effectively as she had suffocated her love for him.
She had been beautiful that season, even on the day when she’d tossed him aside for a title. But beautiful wasn’t quite the right word now. She was too fierce for mere beauty. Her hair was down, shockingly so — an homage to the famous portrait of Queen Elizabeth, surely. He knew it was a coincidence that it was exactly the way he liked it. As she navigated the turns and dips of the first country dance, her hair flared around her like a curtain of fire. She was pale, though. Paler than she had been before he removed his mask.
The Virgin Queen would not show weakness. But he’d seen the first tiny cracks in her armor.
Ellie — beautiful, traitorous bitch that she was — hadn’t forgotten him.
Nick leaned against the pillar, searching for a comfortable angle. Women had frequently danced for his pleasure when he visited the Hyderabadi court. This dance wasn’t for him. None of it was for him, unless Ellie’s memory for dates was as good as his. But it was somehow more seductive than anything he’d seen with bells and scarves. Ellie moved through the patterns perfectly, effortlessly, tantalizing him every time she disappeared behind another couple.
Tormenting him every time she smiled at the prig who was her partner.
Those who didn’t dance gave Nick a wide berth. He heard the whispers, though, and knew they guessed his identity. Whether they avoided him because they hadn’t been introduced or because of his heavy involvement in trade didn’t matter — he didn’t mind their aversion, at least not tonight. The less others disturbed him, the more he could look his fill.
One guest, though, found him almost immediately. The man, two inches shorter and much slimmer than Nick, wore an elaborately embroidered doublet and breeches that would have done a young Henry VIII proud, and the disbelieving look of one who has seen a ghost.
“I should kill you for coming back without so much as a warning letter,” his brother Marcus said, clapping him on the shoulder.
“You know the vagaries of communication,” he replied. An exact account of why Nick had returned now, and the possible threat he faced, could wait until morning. Instead, he offered a more innocuous reason for his return. “I trust that with Grandfather Corwyn’s death last year, you’ll be happy to have me back at home despite my lack of notice.”
Marcus laughed. “Of course I’m happy to have you home. Rupert would be happy too, if he weren’t still in the West Indies. With you here, perhaps I can finally take a holiday.”
Marcus was Nick’s middle brother, and had managed the London office of Corwyn, Claiborne and Sons, Ltd., with their maternal grandfather while Nick focused on their India operations and their youngest brother, Rupert, concentrated on the Caribbean trade. But after their grandfather’s death the previous year, the burdens on Marcus would have increased substantially.
“Take all the holiday you want, if it makes you happy,” Nick said. “But when have the Corwyns — or Claibornes, for that matter — ever been satisfied with idleness?”
“Never in my memory,” Marcus said. “But I would be more satisfied if we could have this conversation in my office — or rather, your office — and I wasn’t dressed like a prime fool. Come have a drink with me and escape this nonsense.”
The lure of a drink with his brother, after years of inferior libations taken alone, was strong. Ellie’s pull was stronger. “You’re not the only one the marchioness has turned into a fool,” Nick said, gesturing at the dancers.
“I would say the same, but I doubt for the same reasons.”
Nick’s gaze had unerringly found Ellie, but he pulled back to look at his brother. “Gone over to the enemy, have we?”
Marcus adjusted the ruffled lace at