The Marquess Who Loved Me - By Sara Ramsey Page 0,115

knew he wouldn’t overhear when she leaned in to Norbury’s ear. “You should tell him you expect to spend two weeks hunting with him. He hates the country — it might be punishment enough.”

Norbury laughed. “Only if you’re there to organize the entertainments, my lady.”

There was a sly look in his eyes, but she didn’t acknowledge the lurking question about her future. She was just glad that he seemed willing to accept her apology, even if there would still be some awkwardness over what had happened in her breakfast room.

But as the afternoon and evening wore on, Ellie struggled with how to entertain her guests — particularly since all she wanted to do was talk to Nick. There was no clear etiquette for how to handle what had happened. The party should have dispersed after such a shocking development, but no one had left — they were too busy tittering and writing overwrought letters to their friends to bother with making travel arrangements.

When the clock finally tolled midnight, Ellie was still in the drawing room. Sir Percival sat beside her, scrawling something on a piece of paper. From what she could see, it was the start of an awful poem about Folkestone as Odysseus, come back to kill the intruders in his house.

She didn’t fault him for it. At least Percy would take some inspiration from what had happened, rather than dining out on the on dit for the next month as most of her guests planned to do.

She wasn’t being fair to them. The ones who cared about her weren’t spreading tales. The rest didn’t particularly matter.

All that mattered was whether Nick was all right. He had come down for dinner, but he hadn’t joined the ladies in the drawing room afterward. Marcus had told her that Nick had retired early. She couldn’t go to him without being noticed — but by midnight, she was ready to find him no matter what anyone thought.

Just as she stood up, a footman appeared with a note on a silver salver. She took it, trying not to blush as she slid her nail under the wafer and opened it.

E. - Conservatory, ten minutes. - N.

She stopped blushing. Where was the wildly evocative description of what he would do to her?

Surely he wasn’t having second thoughts?

She was in the conservatory in seven minutes, not ten. She couldn’t wait any longer. But it seemed Nick couldn’t wait either. He lounged against a pillar near the entrance, half-concealed in the shadows.

The conservatory wasn’t as cold as the outbuildings. The gardeners built fires during the day to keep the plants warm, and the heat hadn’t been lost overnight. But she still shivered. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t send for me.”

She winced at the plaintive note in her voice. He unfolded himself and came over to her. “I couldn’t make polite conversation with all your guests tonight. But I couldn’t wait any longer to see you.”

He grabbed her hand and pulled her deeper into the conservatory, moving down the paths between the plants like a man rushing headlong into battle — all nerves and energy, abandoning all caution so that he could keep pushing forward.

She kept up with his pace, but her worry grew. “Are you feeling well? I know you had a shock today — should you perhaps be resting?”

He shook his head and didn’t slow down. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

His voice was a closed door. But it wasn’t a locked, barricaded, impassable door — more like a gate that he wouldn’t open today, but might open tomorrow.

She would ask him about it again. The speed in his stride and the thrum of energy in his voice distracted her, though. She’d heard that men were sometimes…voracious after battle, as though the stress of surviving needed an equally strong release.

This might not be a night for conversation. But she would help him however she could.

He cast her a backward glance, one that managed to look both amused and sardonic in the dim light of the waning moon. “When was the last time you let a challenge like that go unanswered?”

She made a wry face at him. “Since I realized how much you like to bait me. You’ll have to try harder than that.”

He stopped suddenly, near one of the back corners of the conservatory, and pulled her into his arms. “Would you take this bait?” he murmured.

She was pressed fully flush against him. She felt him hardening for her, felt herself melting