Page 31 of How to Tempt a Duke

This was not going to go smoothly.

Lottie nodded at him, and he knew it was time to make their wrongs right. She strode in first, with Charles following behind her, as they’d always done.

Lady Eleanor rose from the stiff-backed seat she hadn’t truly needed and turned a blank face in his direction. Despite her implacability, her cheeks were flushed with a brilliant red, as they’d been during tea. She was not as unaffected as she would have liked herself to be perceived.

Charles stepped around Lottie. “Lady Eleanor, I can explain. If you’d give me—”

“I understand well enough.” Her eyes flashed behind her emotionless mask. “You thought I’d be at the modiste, and you presumed to impose upon my mother in my absence so your identity might remain a secret. My presence startled you into offering to court me rather than admit your true purpose.”

Well. There wasn’t much more to add to it than that. She’d surmised it quite succinctly. Surprisingly and rather unfortunately.

“You lied to me when I confided in you.”

Her voice gave a delicate tremble. The slight break in her tightly reined composure cut into him more deeply than any slice she could make with her tongue.

“Why were you there?”

Charles remained mute, unable to tell her, unable even to open his mouth under the weight of the truth.

Lady Eleanor scoffed. “You can’t even tell me? After you lied about why you were there? After you lied about your title? After you lied about finding me desirable enough to court?”

“It was me,” Lottie said softly. “I didn’t tell you he was a duke. I only meant to keep you from casting him out due to your fathers’ association. I knew he would be ideal to assist you and I trust him implicitly.”

Lady Eleanor regarded Lottie for a long moment. When she finally spoke, Charles knew the words were meant for him.

“Your trust is more steadfast than my own. But then he did not seek to avoid you as a means of taking advantage of your mother. He did not make a fool of you.”

Lady Eleanor drew in a long, slow breath and carefully let it out, the inhalation and exhalation both very apparent in the silence of the room. “I need your help, Lottie, or I would leave posthaste. The Duke of Somersville, however, is no longer necessary, and I find his assistance bothersome. Will you be so kind as to ask him to leave?”

The request smacked Charles in the chest like a punch. This woman who had confided in him with their candid discussions, who had smiled at him with all the warmth of a summer sun, was now casting him out. But then, he truly deserved it. His deception had been deplorable and his cover attempt unforgivable.

Lottie pulled her head back, as if she too had been viscerally struck by so powerful a request. She turned to Charles, all pretense of poise and her newly adopted sensuality giving way to wide-eyed shock. Her mouth opened and closed without issuing either an order or a protest.

Charles would not be able to call himself a gentleman if he left Lottie in the awkward predicament of having to choose between her sole pupil and source of income and her lifelong friend.

He bowed first to Lady Eleanor, and his heart dragged into his stomach as though it had been affixed with a weight. “Forgive me my transgressions. I understand that they were egregious and hope you do not seek to exact your frustrations upon Lottie, as she truly wants nothing more than to help you succeed.” Next he bowed to Lottie. “I shall take my leave.”

Lottie nodded, her eyes luminous with regret and quiet gratitude.

He strode from the room with all the confidence a cad such as he could muster. His error had been egregious indeed, and the cost had been heavy. Aside from jeopardizing the opportunity to reclaim the journals, he had also compromised his ability to help Lottie in her new endeavor. There was also the loss of Lady Eleanor’s hard-won trust.

The entire ordeal left his stomach knotted and a dull, aching sensation in his chest.

Rather than show him out, Lottie’s butler escorted him to the library. “Miss Lottie will wish to speak with you once Lady Eleanor has gone.”

Charles gave him an appreciative nod and sank into an oversized chair beside the hearth. He stared into the flames, watching them writhe and twist against one another as a similar inferno blazed within him.

At long last, the door to the library groaned open.

“She’s gone,” Lottie said in a somber tone. “And she’s quite upset. I do not believe she trusts often...but I think—I think she did trust you.”

Charles closed his eyes against the pain of Lottie’s words. There was more truth to what she said than he wanted to admit. He knew Lady Eleanor had indeed spoken to him in confidence. Their conversation on the path flashed back to him, when she’d thanked him for his honesty and expressed her genuine appreciation for having an opportunity to speak frankly. She’d given him her confidence and he’d responded with betrayal.

He’d hurt her.

The thought made something in his heart wrench painfully.

Regaining his composure, he rose from the chair and faced Lottie. “I should have told her the truth about my title.”