AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I know what it is, but it doesn’t make your comment any better.” Eleanor sat forward. Her expression was steely, her eyes hardening as she glowered at him. “Do you think I don’t need to be shown how things are as a Countess? If we’re going to be able to back each other up, at the very least. Be a partnership. I don’t want to be treated like a stranger in my house by my own husband.”
Whoa. Nathan had not been expecting that. Then again, maybe he should have expected it. Eleanor was not like other women. And, he had to admit, he liked this fiery side of her. It was fascinating to see.
“I’m not that callous, Lady Eleanor.”
“From the way you spoke just now, you were hardly anything else.”
She was right. Nathan hadn’t been thinking. Not clearly, anyway. His mind jumbled a little once he stepped outside. When he had accidentally touched Eleanor. Now his mind was getting foggy. This was not him at all. Nathan swallowed and shifted in his chair.
“Forgive me, my lady. That’s not who I am.”
“I’m sure it isn’t.” Eleanor’s hardened expression softened just a little. “I’m in the same boat as you. You were foisted into this marriage as much as I am. Your mother wants you married with an heir, and my father lost me in a card game.”
“He what?” Nathan sat up. “To whom?”
“He wouldn’t say. I doubt the man used his own name.” Eleanor wrinkled her nose and looked away. “But apparently it was someone with enough strings round him to pull this match.”
If Nathan hadn’t known any better, he would have thought Simon did this. But Simon had looked equally shocked when Nathan had told him the news. He wasn’t even that good at cards, so getting to a point where he could wager another man’s daughter for marriage didn’t sound plausible. What on earth was going on?
With everything happening lately Nathan wasn’t even sure anymore.
“Sounds like we’re bound to more than just simple marriage,” he said quietly.
“I won’t argue with that.” Eleanor looked back at him. “I know I can’t expect a loving marriage, which is what I want, but I would like to be friends with my husband. We may have been thrust together, but that doesn’t mean we have to hate each other.”
Nathan smiled. She was a practical woman. Used that head on her shoulders. He could work with that.
“That I can do.” He rested his elbows on the table. “I try to respect women, Lady Eleanor. And I will do that with you.”
The smile he got in return had Nathan’s heart missing a few beats. He had a feeling keeping this on a strictly friendship basis was going to be easier said than done.
“Thank you, Captain.” Eleanor gave him a nod. “That does mean a lot to me.”
Nathan regarded her. How was it someone like Eleanor Heavenly had been put aside by everyone else to be unmarried at her age? She would be a diamond to anyone. Clearly, no one had noticed.
“You’re the only woman I know who addresses me by the title I want,” Nathan said. “Since I’ve been back, I can count on one hand who calls me Captain instead of Lord Brixton, and that’s not including the male servants.”
“I saw the way you flinched whenever your mother called you Brixton. You wanted to be addressed as such, so I will respect your decision. Besides,” Eleanor added with that lovely smile of hers, “Captain Reynolds sounds better than Lord Brixton.”
“I’m glad you think so.” Nathan looked at the table. Why did this suddenly feel harder to get out? “The army is my life, Lady Eleanor. I will be returning. Certainly, until the war with France is wrapped up.”
“If that’s what you want to do, I won’t stop you.” Eleanor raised her eyebrows. “As long as you respond to my letters to let me know you’re still alive and guide me on what I need to do as a countess. I don’t want you to forget that you have a wife.”
“Of course.”
That Nathan could do. It was the least he could do if he wasn’t going to be around. While leaving Eleanor to society on her own didn’t sit well with him, he wasn’t about to shirk his duty when he was needed at the line more.
“And as long as you let me do my activities that I’m currently doing as well,” Eleanor went on, “I won’t sway on that once we’re married.”
“Your activities?” Then Nathan remembered. “You mean working with the children at the orphanage?”
“Yes.” Eleanor didn’t blink. “Someone needs to look after them, and they look to me. I’m not going to get married and then forget them because my status has elevated to wife.”
Nathan frowned. It had surprised him when Eleanor had started talking about her work with orphans in her spare time. Even Vanity had been bewildered. But it was clear from the way she talked about what she did and how fondly she spoke of the children that Eleanor loved what she did. However, when she said where the orphanage was, near her home, Nathan found himself wishing she didn’t go. It was a rough area of London, and it certainly wasn’t safe.
That and the fact that people were stealing children meant Eleanor could end up in the crossfire. If the gang were taking children from the orphanage itself, Eleanor might have seen something. If they found out she was married to the man investigating the disappearances, she could be used as a pawn. Nathan wasn’t about to let that happen.
“I don’t like the fact you’re involved with all that, Lady Eleanor.” He fixed her with a stare. “You shouldn’t be doing anything like that at all.”
