Eleanor arched a skeptical eyebrow. “No? There are several fountains nearby.”
She thought she saw humor spark in his dark eyes at her veiled threat. “At least suppress your urge for retribution until you hear me out.”
Suppressing that urge would be harder than she'd thought. Yet Eleanor held her tongue as Damon continued more slowly. “I doubt you will readily forgive me for what happened two years ago-”
“Whatever gave you that impression?” she interrupted sweetly. “Merely because you turned me into a laughingstock and a figure of pity in front of the entire ton, you think my magnanimity would be in short supply?”
“No one would ever think you a figure of pity, Elle.”
She stiffened this time at his soubriquet. “I prefer you not call me that silly name. The proper form of address now is ‘Lady Eleanor.’ ”
“Ah, yes. I had heard Marcus petitioned the Crown to raise your precedence from a baron's sister to an earl's. Very well, then, my Lady Eleanor… will you grant me a brief audience?”
Damon's cordiality was beginning to wear on her nerves. “What do you wish to say to me, Lord Wrex-ham? You needn't apologize for your despicable behavior so long ago. It is over and done with and I scarcely ever think of it anymore.”
At her lie, his expression remained enigmatic, even as his gaze searched her face. “I regret hurting you, Eleanor, but I did not seek you out tonight in order to apologize.”
“Then why did you employ such machinations?”
“I hoped we could declare a truce. For your sake more than mine.”
“My sake? How so?”
“I don't want your reputation to suffer for my past sins, so I hoped we could avoid any awkwardness when we are seen in public together for the first time. Even if you were merely to cut me, it would provide more fodder for the tongue-waggers.”
“I agree. We can behave civilly toward one another when we officially meet.”
“I thought we could go one step further tonight. Perhaps I could request your hand for a set. A simple country dance, nothing more,” Damon added when her eyes narrowed.
“Why on earth would I wish to dance with you?”
“To put any gossip to rest.”
“On the contrary, my dancing with you would only inflame the gossip by making it appear as if we were on familiar terms again. No, there is no need for such intimacy, Damon. But I will not cut you dead whenever I see you. Now, if that is all…?”
“Don't go just yet.”
His low remark was neither a command nor an entreaty, yet it made Eleanor pause. The temptation to stay with Damon was overwhelming, even if she didn't like being in such close proximity to him, particularly all alone at night. “I don't wish to be seen alone with you,” she began.
“We can remedy that.”
Startling her, Damon took her elbow and drew her a few yards off the gravel path, behind a topiary yew and deeper into the shadows.
Eleanor didn't protest, even though she knew she should. Perhaps it was better to get their first meeting over in private, so there would be no awkward moments when they met in public. But understandably, she was not in a generous mood.
“I cannot fathom what you hope to accomplish,” she said rather peevishly. “We can have little to say to each other.”
“We can catch up on the past two years.”
But she didn't wish to catch up, Eleanor thought. She didn't want to dwell on what Damon had been doing all the time he was away-what women he had been with-or to recall how lonely and abandoned she had felt when he left. Even so, she managed a polite response.
“I understand you have been traveling on the Continent?”
“For much of my absence, yes. Chiefly in Italy.”
“And you have returned to England to stay?”
“For a time, at least. I enjoyed my travels but found myself longing for home.”
Eleanor felt a twinge of envy since she had always wanted to travel. A single young lady, however, jaunting all over the globe was considered highly improper, particularly by her aunt. Moreover, Europe had been extremely unsafe until the defeat of Napoleon's ar mies three years ago. But someday she hoped to fulfill her dream to see more of the world than her own country.
Then Damon surprised her again by reaching up to touch a curling tendril on her forehead. For a moment she thought he meant to straighten the narrow silk bandeau she wore, which was adorned with blue ostrich plumes to match her empire-waisted gown of pale blue lustring and overskirt of silver net.
“Your glorious hair… Why the devil did you cut it off?”
The question took Eleanor aback. She wore her raven hair in short curls now. The style was quite fashionable, but in truth she'd cut it severely two years ago in an act of defiance, since Damon had professed to cherish her long hair.
“What does it matter to you, my lord?” she retorted archly. “You haven't the right to care how I wear my hair.”
“True.”
Giving a casual shrug of his broad shoulders, he unexpectedly changed the subject again. “How is Marcus faring?”
Eleanor breathed more easily. She could relax a measure if Damon would only speak of such mundane matters as her brother. “He is faring very well, as it happens.”
“I understand he married this past summer.”
“Yes… Marcus wed Miss Arabella Loring of Chis wick. They are in France at the moment, visiting Arabella's mother in Brittany, along with her two younger sisters, who also recently wed. I believe you know her sisters’ husbands, the Duke of Arden and the Marquess of Claybourne?”
“I know them well.” Damon paused. “It surprises me they all three succumbed to matrimony so suddenly. I thought them confirmed bachelors.”
“Matrimony is not catching, if that worries you.”
Her wry quip elicited a quick smile from Damon. “I am cured of any desire to wed, believe me.”
Eleanor bit her lip at his implication that she was the one who had cured him of his momentary madness.
A long pause followed as Damon grimaced, appearing to regret his careless remark. And his tone was more serious when he said, “I heard that you were betrothed shortly after I left England, but that it did not last long.”
Eleanor raised her chin, once more feeling defensive. “No, it did not.” She had quickly broken her second engagement, a betrothal she had made out of defiance and pain and had regretted almost instantly. “I decided I was not willing to settle for a marriage of convenience after all. I was not in love with him, nor he with me.”
I still loved you, Damon, she thought with a wistful ache.
Damon's voice lowered another register. “It is just as well that you broke off our betrothal. I could not have given you my heart.”
“You could not, or would not?”