The Marquess Who Loved Me - By Sara Ramsey Page 0,4
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