“I don’t have children,” she said pleasantly. “I know nothing of raising children.”
He cleared his throat and said, very low, “You know more than I do.”
Eleanor looked down at her hands, clenched together in her lap. “I think I should like to return to my house now.” By some miracle her voice was quite steady.
“But we are here, at Kensington Gardens,” Mr. Ormston said. The carriage glided to a halt and he leapt out and stood, holding up his gloved hand.
Eleanor sat for a moment. She felt as empty as a vase without flowers or water. She had no emotion, not anger, grief, or even longing. So there could be no harm in taking a brief stroll, she thought.
She numbly put her hand in his, and dropped it the moment she descended. Then she opened her parasol at such an angle that it entirely shielded her face from that of her companion. “How lovely,” she said. “The fuchsias are in bloom.”
“Yes,” he said. “Shall we rest for a moment, Lady Eleanor? There seems to be a suitable bench overlooking the Round Pond. I thought you might like to feed the swans.”
She glanced to the side. He was holding a cotton bag, presumably filled with bread crusts. That was rather interesting. Mr. Ormston, alias Leopold Dautry, alias the Duke of Villiers, did not appear to be the sort of man whom she imagined carrying bread around.
They sat down next to each other and in total silence threw crusts at the swans. There were seven of them, counting a mated pair and five cygnets. The parents curled and bobbed their long necks, pushing their offspring out of the way in order to gobble bread.
“So why have you disguised yourself as Mr. Ormston?” she asked after a time.
“It is more than a mere disguise. I want to be everything that you wish me to be. If you don’t want a duke, then I don’t want to be a duke.”
She closed her parasol and took a deep breath before replying. “You will forgive me if I impute your motives to an entirely commendable paternal instinct rather than a wish to please me.”
“I can find a mother for my children anywhere.”
“I am quite certain that is true,” she said. She pulled out a large crust and threw it unerringly at the male swan, hitting him in the beak. The cob took no affront and gobbled it up.
“That being the case, my motives are purely selfish.”
“As surprising as it may seem to those who know you—or know of you,” she corrected herself, “I doubt that very much. Your attention to your children’s well-being is commendable. I am sure that you will be successful with the daughter of a marquis. Though one should not discount the distressful possibility that you will have to lower yourself to the level of earl.”
“I’m not here because of the children. I have hired an excellent tutor and two more nannies. They are fine.”
“Marvelous,” Eleanor said tonelessly. “Who would have thought it was so easy to be a parent?” This time she tried to hit the female swan, but missed.
“Will you look at me before you brain those hapless birds?”
She drew a deep breath. Of course she would look at him. She raised her eyes reluctantly. Mr. Ormston’s coat did not clamor for attention; neither did his discreet, if fashionable, wig. Instead, those accoutrements framed his face.
What they really framed were his eyes.
Without the distraction of his famous hair, the gleaming embroidery of his coats…when she looked at Leopold, she saw his eyes.
“Oh…” she said quietly.
“I love you. I will always love you, until the day I die.” His voice was sure and deep, the voice of a man who knew himself. “The kind of love I feel has nothing to do with the children I have, or children we might have together.”
“But you said—” She reached out to take his hand without even realizing what she was doing.
“I went about things the wrong way. I didn’t know how to recognize a mother, Eleanor. I never really had one.”
“I see.”
“I recognized motherhood in Lisette, because she reminded me of my mother. She liked my brother and me to behave like little dukes, and she dressed us like royalty, almost as if we were dolls. When my brother became ill, she cut him out of her life. And though he didn’t die for eight days, as far as I know, she never faltered in her resolution.”
Eleanor’s hand tightened. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
“I don’t believe Lisette’s accusation that her mother was the one to bring her son to the Earl of Gryffyn. I would guess that she dispensed with the child herself. Did you realize Gryffyn was the father of her son?”
“My mother told me everything on the journey home,” she admitted.
“Lisette and my mother are quite similar. That is not an excuse, but an explanation for why I so foolishly chose the one woman likely to wound my children to the core. And worse, I didn’t see you; I threw away what you offered.” His voice was lashed with self-hatred. “But I never, ever, thought of you as only good enough to bed, Eleanor. Never. I wanted you—more than I could even let myself know. More than I’ve ever wanted to be with a woman in my life.”
Eleanor felt the corner of her mouth curl up.
“I—” He broke off, rose and held out his hand. “Lady Eleanor, would you care to continue our stroll?”
She took one more look at those beautiful gray eyes, drank deep of the emotion in them, stood up and opened her parasol again. She tucked her hand through her companion’s arm.
“Do tell me, Lady Eleanor, why you have stayed in London now that the season is almost over?”
“I dislike the artificial boundary created by the season,” she said, tilting her parasol so its pale silk lining cast its shadow over her face. “During the season people are all chasing after each other with matrimony on their minds. The grouse season starts in August, but I believe it is truly all the same.”
“Although people do not always engage in a matrimonial pursuit,” he added gravely, “but often in something less respectable. After all, many a wife seeks to avoid her husband. And gentlemen often pursue matrimony out of season.”
“So you would say that when ladies are not hunting down gentlemen, they are engaged in hiding from them? Yes, that sounds reasonable.”
“On occasion the gentleman must, like a hunter, employ subterfuge.”
“Hiding in a blind built from willow?”
“A black coat and wig, or even a distant cousin’s identity. There is a chess exhibition tomorrow in Hyde Park. As I understand it, you are a fine player in your own right. May I escort you?”
“What on earth is a chess exhibition?” Eleanor inquired.
“A demonstration,” he said. “I gather that a number of England’s best chess players will be pitted against each other for the edification and pleasure of the public.”
“I have heard that the Duke of Villiers is the best player in England,” she said, twirling her parasol. They were almost back at the carriage.
“Not so. The top two players are the Duke and Duchess of Beaumont.”
“Will they participate in the exhibition?”
“I have no idea,” he said. “I’m afraid that the doings of such elevated beings is quite outside the purview of Mr. Ormston.”