problem with seeing her safely settled elsewhere if she’s not interested in our revels.”
“Last night she was Elinor.”
“Well, today she is Miss Harriman.”
“And her sister?” Charles demanded, barely containing his temper.
Some good could come of all this, Rohan thought wearily. He smiled at Charles. “I think I might have her after all. Miss Harriman makes the most delicious noises when she comes, and it would be interesting if Miss Lydia did the same.”
He barely got to finish the sentence before Charles flew across the desk, crashing onto the floor with him.
It was what he needed. A violent outlet, to hit and be hit. The battle was short and immediate, punctuated by grunts and curses seldom heard outside a stable. They were too-well matched, and eventually they both lay on their backs, bloody and bruised and struggling to catch their breath.
“Hardly a fair fight,” Rohan wheezed. “I’m still recovering from a duel.”
“You bastard,” Reading said, his chest going up and down. “You touch Miss Lydia and I’ll kill you.”
“Perhaps, dear Charles, I wouldn’t mind,” he said, and then laughed at himself. “My, how maudlin I’m being.” He managed to sit up, groaning. “There’s only one way to keep her safe from me, Charles. Marry the chit. If you’re worried about money I suggest that is a mere trifle in the face of nauseating true love. I expect you will find a way to manage things.”
Charles stared at him. “Never in all my life have I ever heard you advocate marriage.”
“Of course you have! I thought Etienne should marry Miss Harriman. He thought he should marry Miss Lydia. If he does, I get her. And I don’t think you want that, do you?”
Charles sprung to his feet with an agility Rohan could envy. “I won’t let you touch her.”
“So you said. Well, do something about it.”
Charles slammed out of the office. With luck he wouldn’t realize he’d been manipulated until he arrived at the château. Any earlier and he might turn around and come back. He expected one look at Lydia Harriman’s exquisite face and tear-filled blue eyes and the last amount of his reserve would leave.
Love was a tedious thing, he thought wearily, reaching for his ale. He was heartily glad he was above such things. He’d been ridiculously sentimental last night, but then physical pleasure on that level caused its own kind of madness. Amour fou, the French called it. Mad, passionate love, the kind that drove one crazy and made no sense.
He was very lucky he was able to put all that aside. It was going to be difficult, handing Elinor the money to get away. And whether she’d go without her sister was always a question, but he expected, once she was certain Lydia was well taken care of, that she would be more than happy to quit these shores. Secure in the knowledge that she’d be in the one place he couldn’t reach her.
Sanity would hit her as it had hit him, and her disgust would be total. Anything would be better than fancying herself in love with him. Love was the one thing he couldn’t tolerate.
Perhaps he could count on Charles to make the arrangements, once he realized that Rohan had no real interest in his virgin bride. In the meantime he needed to stay away from Elinor. Amour fou was for the young and resilient.
Not for the old and jaded, who knew there were no such things as happy endings, true love, or the dangerous, deceptive peace that had swept over him last night.
Best to dispense with it before it crumbled beneath his touch. She would be far better off without him. His hands and his soul were stained with too much blood, and there was no washing them clean.
He leaned back in his chair. In the distance he could hear the sounds of the Revels, going full tilt. And he closed his eyes and began to curse.
Elinor backed away from the door. “You can’t treat her like one of your whores,” Charles had said.
And his devastating reply: “That is exactly what I did, and she liked it enormously…one night’s tup shouldn’t equal a lifetime of support.”
She listened until she could listen no more, each word like a sharp stone thrown at her, until she felt as if she were dying from the constant, cruel blows. She backed away, too numb to cry, until she knocked into someone.
She turned, ready to snarl at the first hapless libertine she saw, but instead found herself looking up