To Romance a Charming Rogue

window seat, if you want to retrieve them.”

Apparently Damon saw through her attempt to apologize, for a hard note entered his voice when he replied. “I don't want your pity, Elle.”

“It is not pity. It is sympathy. I can only imagine my grief were I to lose Marcus.”

Damon's face remained closed, shuttered, yet for a fleeting moment, she could feel his vulnerability.

“It is hard without Joshua, isn't it?”

An old, savage pain flickered over his features but was gone just as quickly. Then Damon shot her a piercing glance. “You seem to have forgotten where we are, sweeting,” he pointed out curtly. “My brother's wretched fate is inappropriate conversation for a ball.” He rose just as abruptly. “You should be dancing with your prince.”

This time it was Damon who walked away. Eleanor stared after him, yearning to follow and offer him comfort. She regretted that she had struck such a raw nerve in Damon. Obviously his brother's death was not something he liked to dwell on, but she had unwittingly laid his painful memories bare.

Regretting their conversation also, Damon found himself wishing that he had better deflected Eleanor's probing questions and unwanted observations. For the remainder of the evening, his chest felt tight, a circumstance that reminded him why he'd contrived to end his betrothal to her in the first place: Eleanor made him feel too much.

At least his attention was diverted for a time during the carriage ride home as Otto told him about finding traces of a stomach purge in Prince Lazzara's punch cup. But learning that his suspicions about the danger were correct couldn't curb the restless agitation Damon still felt when he arrived home.

Therefore, instead of repairing to his bedchamber to sleep, he went to his study, where he poured himself a very large brandy and sat drinking in the dark. An indulgence, Damon reflected, that was much like his ritual observance each year on the anniversary of his brother's death, which would occur next week. He was merely getting an early start.

When he could feel himself sinking into a stupor, Damon stretched out on the sofa and closed his eyes.

Sometime later he was dredged up out of an abyss of pain and darkness by a persistent voice urging him to awaken.

With a jerking shudder, Damon suddenly became aware of his surroundings. His valet was bent over him in the dim glow of candlelight, gently shaking his shoulders while he fought off the miasma of his bad dreams. Through his drugged senses, Damon could feel his heart pounding, while a sheen of sweat slicked his body.

“You were shouting, my lord,” Cornby said quietly. “It appears you suffered the nightmare again.”

Yes, of course. That was his trouble.

Sitting up slowly, Damon ran a hand roughly down his face. “Did I wake the entire household?”

“No, my lord. I had not yet retired, so I came here directly when I heard you.”

“You should know better than to wait up for me, Cornby.”

“It is no matter, sir.”

Damon was in no mood to continue their ongoing argument about the valet's outsized sense of duty and protectiveness. “Thank you, then. You may go.”

When the valet hesitated, Damon insisted gruffly, “I am all right, truly.”

He was not all right, however, he reflected when his elderly servant had left him in peace, for he couldn't shake the savage tumult of his emotions.

He hadn't had the nightmare about his brother's death for a long while, although it had haunted him for years afterward.

Joshua lying there on his deathbed, struggling for breath, the scattering of bloodstained handkerchiefs a macabre contrast to his ghostly pallor.

Joshua coughing harshly and grimacing in agony, then smiling with cracked lips, trying to offer reassurance to his family as they kept vigil during his last hours.

Their parents sat beside his bed, striving to keep up a brave front. Damon stood back, however, fighting tears of grief and rage.

Then Joshua slipped back into a drugged slumber, never to awaken. When finally his breath ceased and his ravaged body grew still, Damon's sobs had matched their mother's.

He felt as if he too had died that day, although his pain didn't dissipate readily, nor did his deep streak of anger. In the ensuing years, he had taunted death often, rebelling against fate, railing against life's injustice and the guilt assaulting him.

Why had he survived? Why had he not been the one stricken? Why had he inherited the title and fortune when he was no more deserving than his twin?

It wasn't even certain how Joshua had contracted consumption, except that he'd shown an amorous interest in a barmaid at a local tavern, who later was discovered to have the pernicious disease. But Joshua was the firstborn, the eldest by an hour. He should have been the one to live a full, joyful life.

Damon had never found the answers to his un answerable questions. He'd merely learned to crush his emotions while relegating his memories of his brother's demise to his nightmares.

It was many years, however, before he'd begun channeling his anger toward a more productive course, using science and the latest innovations in medical thinking to make a difference in the lives of those stricken with consumption.

Eleanor was right, Damon acknowledged. He couldn't save his brother, but he'd come to hope that he could save others.

Yet even years later, it was little consolation for being the twin who had survived.

Lady Beldon was highly disappointed to learn that Signor Vecchi had left the ball early with Prince Laz-zara and without even taking leave of her. She was also quite concerned that the prince had become ill, since it would hamper his courtship of her niece.

“Did they mention the alfresco picnic tomorrow at the Royal Gardens?” Beatrix asked Eleanor as they stood waiting for their carriage to reach the head of the long queue of equipages in front of the Haviland mansion.

“The prince may not be feeling well enough to attend a picnic, Aunt,” Eleanor replied, deciding not to share the particular details about what had ailed him tonight. The probability that someone was threatening his health if not his life would only upset her aunt to no purpose.

“Of all the ill luck,” the elder lady complained. “I believe our servants should arrange the picnic tomorrow. We can be certain to provide dishes that will tempt his highness's appetite, which he will appreciate if he still suffers from a sickly stomach. I shall write to Signor Vecchi first thing in the morning to propose my change in plan.”

“You are very generous, Aunt,” Eleanor murmured, thinking that it might indeed be wise to supply tomorrow's repast from their own kitchens. That way they could ensure the dishes and wine would be untainted.

Beatrix smiled. “Generosity has little to do with my motives, my dear. I am determined we should take every opportunity to encourage Prince Lazzara's attentions. He would make such a splendid match for you.”

Eleanor refrained from replying, not certain that she agreed with her aunt's view any longer. In fact, she was seriously beginning to doubt that the prince would make her a good match at all.

The question continued to plague Eleanor after arriving home as she tried futilely to fall asleep, and later still as she tossed and turned in her bed much of the night.

When finally she dozed off, once again Damon featured prominently in her dreams, yet this time his bewitching lovemaking played no role, nor did memories of their courtship. Instead, she found herself struggling to reach him beyond a high stone wall overgrown with thick brambles. Damon had imprisoned himself inside, and she needed to scale the treacherous barrier in order to free him…

The strange dream remained with Eleanor when she woke in the gray light of dawn. Feeling an inexplicable sadness, she lay in bed for a long while, contemplating the meaning.

Intuitively she had always sensed the emotional wall Damon had erected around himself. Perhaps now she knew why. The tragic loss of his family would explain his determined remoteness.

In the early days of their courtship, she had broken through that wall for fleeting moments at a time, Eleanor was certain of it. But during their betrothal Damon had become more and more distant, as if he were withdrawing from her. She'd been ready to give herself to him completely, heart and soul, but he had deliberately pulled back as she tried to grow closer.