close my eyes for only one minute. Then I’d return to the party.
• • •
He found her in the study. He hadn’t even known he’d been searching for her until he opened the door and there she was, relaxed in one of the chairs, her head tipped back and her hands in her lap, very much asleep.
The bracket clock on Reginald’s desk ticked away the seconds, six, seven, eight, as Armand remained at the doorway, taking her in. Then he stole inside his father’s sanctum, closing the door carefully behind him. Making as little noise as possible, he settled into the chair closest to Eleanore’s.
What was it about her, he wondered, that made her so impossible to ignore? Little orphan girl, proud skinny waif, with secrets and music inside her that filled him with a crazed combination of exhilaration and fear. Like morphine pumping through him, but sharper than that. Not muddy. She’d made it as clear as could be that she didn’t even like him, but still Mandy found himself thinking of her and fantasizing about her so often it was stupid. He was stupid.
Yet here he was yet again. Because she was here and, for whatever the hell reason, he couldn’t stop wanting to be near her.
Her eyes opened. She registered his presence without an ounce of surprise.
“It’s not your birthday, is it?” she said, straightening. “It’s his.”
Neither of them glanced up at the portrait. Certainly Mandy didn’t need to look at it; he’d memorized it years ago.
“Aubrey Emerson Hugo, the Most Honourable Marquess of Sherborne. He’s a glorious twenty-one years old today, wherever he is.”
“No one told me you had a brother.”
“Didn’t they?” he said lightly. “I’m flabbergasted. It seems to me I can hardly go anywhere without people singing his praises.”
“Is he dead?” she asked, with that open candor no one else ever offered him.
“I hope not,” Mandy replied. “Because I don’t want to be a sodding duke.”
She nodded at that, unoffended. Another rare quality. Nothing he seemed to say or do ever amazed her.
“He’s a pilot,” he heard himself explaining. “Royal Flying Corps. Somehow even Reginald’s bluster couldn’t keep him from enlisting, although God knows Reggie tried. He bribed everyone he could think of to keep his golden boy here at home, but in the end, Aubrey just left. Just got up and went. And since he was of age, there was nothing Reggie could do about it.”
“You’re almost of age,” Eleanore said quietly, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees.
“Yes.” He smiled at her and wondered how it looked, if it was as bitter and twisted as he felt inside. “But Reginald learned his lesson, you see. He learned that when bluster and money don’t work, class does. Associations do. Family links. Insinuations. I went to the recruiting station at Eton with Laurence. I did everything he did, exactly the same. And now Laurence is part of the University and Public Schools Brigade, and I’m stuck here. I was told, officially, that as I’m still months short of the legal age, I should try again later. And then I was told, unofficially, not to bother.”
She held him in that frank, luminous gaze. “Why?”
“Oh, because I’m touched. Just like my mother.”
He stood up. He walked to his father’s desk, then to the window. The rage in him felt like a clenched fist in his chest.
“Such is the power of words, waif.” He fixed his focus beyond the panes, beyond the splash of light that was his father’s party to the very blackest part of the night. “Such is the power of having the ears of mighty men. Lost your heir to the cause? Don’t lose the spare. Whisper to all the right people about how your second son isn’t right. That his mother’s blood flows too freely in his veins. No one’s going to give a regiment to a madman.”
He heard her moving. He heard the rustle of her clothing as she stood, the footsteps that took her up to the fireplace and the portrait above it. He turned about to see her.
“She died of consumption. That’s what we say. I’ve repeated it so often now that I half-believe it myself. Consumption. As if anyone dies of that any longer.”
Eleanore kept her silence, but her eyes went back to his.
“She leapt from the roof of the castle,” Mandy said. “She killed herself, and Reggie moved us here. Not one mad parent but two. Bodes well for me, don’t you think?”