AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“As she would have done had you begun dropping ‘helpful’ hints,” cut in Rowena, patting her husband’s arm. “I offered to speak with her on his behalf, as well, but he made me swear not to say anything that might influence her.”
“Why?” asked Charles, baffled. “We would have been glad to intercede on your behalf. I’ve no doubt it would have been an easy matter to convince her to accept you—she adores you already.”
“As a friend only,” Sorin clarified bitterly. “I wanted to wait until I’d had the opportunity to make her see me as more.”
“Yes, well, as you’ve said, time has run out,” his best friend pointed out.
“Charles.” Rowena stared at him, one brow arched in silent command.
Closing his eyes, her husband passed a hand over his face. “Of course. Yes. I give you leave to ask for Eleanor’s hand.”
“Thank you,” Sorin replied, every bone and sinew atremble with relief. He sat in the nearest chair and tried to gather his wits. “I’ve so dreaded telling you the truth. In all honesty, I was unsure how you’d react.”
The look Charles directed at him was one of compassion. “Daft fool. You ought to have known better. I’ve considered you family almost from the day we met.”
Sorin found speech impossible at the moment, so he nodded. Taking a deep breath, he marshaled his self-control. “Now I must decide how to tell Eleanor.” If telling Charles had been hard, telling her would be bloody awful.
“A word of advice, if I may,” said Rowena, her eyes boring into his. “Under the circumstances, she has little choice but to accept you. But if you declare yourself now, at least she’ll know your proposal is more than just a matter of honor. Tell her the truth.”
Rowena was right. Come what may, it was time. He nodded.
“I’ll go and get her,” she said, rising.
Feeling like a leaf caught on the surface of a rushing river, Sorin watched her leave. His fate was out of his hands now. All he could do was hope.
Charles looked at him for a long moment. “You know, I’d venture to say your worries are needless.”
“What? Why?”
His friend’s face was wry. “Because at one point I thought I might have to speak to Eleanor about you. She pestered you so when she was younger, always hanging at your elbow, full of endless prattle. Everything was ‘Sorin said this’ or ‘Sorin did that.’ She practically worshipped you. I thought it would diminish as she grew older and made other friends, and it did, to some extent. But not nearly enough. I worried that you would be bothered by it, but you never seemed to mind.”
“No. I never minded,” Sorin replied, smiling fondly. “Our friendship has always been a natural and easy one. If I was overly tolerant, it was because I knew how much she needed someone to just listen.” He looked at Charles. “You must believe that I never intended anything more than friendship. When I realized my feelings had begun to change, I fled on the fastest ship I could find.”
“She was devastated when you left,” said Charles, shaking his head. “Such that I was concerned she’d developed the sort of tendre dramatic young ladies sometimes do for an older gentleman in their acquaintance. But after we returned from London her melancholy seemed to ease. I introduced her to every young man we knew, hoping one of them would catch her eye. But none did, and
I could not understand it.” He fixed Sorin with a piercing gaze. “Now I begin to wonder if I was right after all and she already had her heart set on someone else.”
The temperature in the room climbed a notch, and Sorin debated confiding in him that Eleanor had been comparing those other men to him. He elected against it. She’d included Charles as part of her comparison criteria, after all, and she certainly hadn’t given him any reason to believe that he was viewed any differently than her cousin. With one exception. And that event was not something he cared to divulge to Charles. Ever. “If so, then she concealed it from me.” He shifted nervously. “Charles, I will not impose myself on her against her wishes.”
His friend flushed to the roots of his hair. “You cannot make such a promise. Not when you both love her and require an heir.”
“I won’t sacrifice her happiness for my own,” Sorin insisted, vowing it to himself at the same time. “I’ve controlled myself thus far. I can do so forever, as long as she is happy.”
His friend chuckled. “If there is one thing I’ve learned from marriage, it is that a wife is never content unless she owns her husband body and soul. And a husband in love with his wife is never satisfied with less than his love returned fully.”
“He did what?” Eleanor sat abruptly as flashes of heat and cold warred with each other across the battlefield of her flesh.
“Shh!” hissed Caroline, hurrying to close the door. She lowered her voice yet further, so that it was barely above a whisper. “I overheard one of the footmen say he’d heard it from his sister who works as a maid for Lady Wincanton that Lord Wincanton came to blows with Yarborough last night at his club. And now he’s here—before breakfast!—asking to speak with your cousin.”
It couldn’t be true. “Are you absolutely certain the footman was not speaking of someone else?” Her heart seemed to pause as one fiery brow lifted in answer. She bit her lip. “Yarborough must have said something truly vile.”
“I know not what prompted Lord Wincanton’s violent reaction, but whatever the circumstances leading up to the event, I think we can be assured of what will follow,” said Caroline with a mischievous smirk. “Any moment now, you’ll be summoned so that he may ask for your hand.”
Eleanor suppressed a sudden urge to run downstairs to find out if it was true. Guilt and excitement mingled, making her head throb as her heart began to gallop. She folded her shaking hands in her lap to prevent giving away just how anxious she was. “That would be most inconvenient,” she said, struggling to project outward detachment.
“Inconvenient?”
“Yes. Inconvenient. For I should be forced to refuse him.”
