Not Just a Wallflower

As always happened, at first sight of this powerful and impressive gentleman, Ellie was struck momentarily speechless, as she could only stand and stare at him.

Excessively tall, at least a couple of inches over six feet, with fashionably ruffled hair of pure gold, Justin St Just’s features were harshly patrician—deep blue eyes, high cheekbones aside a long and aristocratic nose, chiselled lips and a square, determined jaw—and his wide shoulders and tapered waist were shown to advantage in the black superfine and snowy white linen, buff pantaloons and high black Hessians fitting snugly to the long length of muscled calf and thigh; he was without doubt the most handsome gentleman Ellie had ever beheld—

‘Well?’ he demanded even as he swept off his cloak and hat and handed them to Stanhope before striding across the vast hallway to where Ellie stood at the bottom of the wide and curving staircase.

—as well as being the most arrogant—

She drew in a breath. ‘I sent a note earlier this evening requesting that you call—’

‘Which is the very reason I am here now,’ he cut in.

—and impatient!

And considering that Ellie had sent the note over two hours ago, she found his delayed response to that request to be less than helpful! ‘I had expected you sooner...’

He stilled. ‘Do I detect a measure of rebuke in your tone?’

Her cheeks felt warm at the underlying steel beneath the mildness of his tone. ‘I—no...’

He relaxed his shoulders. ‘I am gratified to hear it.’

Her chin rose determinedly. ‘It is your grandmother whom I believe may have expected a more immediate response from you, your Grace.’ Indeed, that dear lady had been asking every quarter of the hour, since she had requested Ellie, as her companion, to send a note to her grandson, as to whether or not there had been any word from him. The duke’s arrival here now, so many hours after the note had been sent, was tardy to say the least.

‘This is my immediate response.’

She raised red-gold brows. ‘Indeed?’

Justin looked at her as if seeing her for the first time—which he no doubt was; companions to elderly ladies were of no consequence to dukes!—his eyes glinting deeply blue between narrowed lids as that disdainful glance swept over her from the red of her hair, her slenderness in the plain brown gown, down to the slippers upon her feet, and then back up to her now flushed face. ‘The two of us are related in some way, are we not?’

Not exactly. Ellie’s mother had been a widow with a nine-year-old daughter—Ellie—when she had married this gentlemen’s cousin some ten years ago. But as both her mother and stepfather had since been killed in a carriage accident, it rather rendered the relationship between herself and the duke so tenuous as to be practically non-existent. And if not for the kindness of his grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Royston, in taking Ellie into her own household as her companion when she had been left alone in the world without a penny to call her own, Ellie very much doubted she would have seen any of the St Just family ever again following her mother’s demise.

‘We are stepcousins once removed, at best, your Grace,’ she now allowed huskily.

He raised an eyebrow, the candlelight giving a gold lustre to his fashionably tousled hair, the expression in those deep-blue eyes now hidden behind those lowered lids. ‘Cousin Eleanor,’ he acknowledged mockingly. ‘The fact of the matter is, I was not at my rooms when your note was delivered earlier this evening and it took one of my servants some time in which to...locate me.’

Justin had no idea why it was he was even bothering to explain himself to this particular young woman. She was only a distant relative by marriage. Indeed, he could not remember even having spoken to Miss Eleanor Rosewood before now. He had noticed her, of course—bored and cynical he might be, but he was also a man!

Her hair was an intriguing shade of red, despite attempts on her part to mute its fieriness and curl in the severity of its style. Her eyes were a stunning clear green and surrounded by thick dark lashes, freckles sprinkled the tops of her creamy cheeks and the pertness of her tiny nose, and her mouth—

Ah, her mouth... Full and pouting, and naturally the colour of ripe strawberries, it was far too easy for a man to imagine such a mouth being put to far better uses than talking or eating!

She was tiny in both stature and figure, and yet the fullness of her breasts, visible above the neckline of her plain and unbecoming brown gown, emphasised the slenderness of her waist and thighs, her hands also tiny and delicate, the fingers long and slender in wrist-length cream lace gloves.

Justin was well aware that his grandmother had lost no time in gathering this orphaned chick into her own household as her companion after Eleanor had been left alone in the world, following the death of her mother and stepfather, Justin’s own profligate cousin Frederick; Edith St Just might like to give the outward appearance of haughtiness and disdain, but to any who knew her well, it was an outer shell which hid a soft and yielding heart.

‘Your note implied the request was urgent in nature,’ Justin now drawled pointedly.

‘Yes.’ Colour now warmed those creamy cheeks. ‘I—the physician was called to attend the dowager duchess earlier this evening.’

‘The physician?’ he repeated sharply. ‘Is my grandmother ill?’

‘I do not believe she would have requested the physician be called if that were not the case, your Grace.’

Justin’s eyes narrowed suspiciously as he privately questioned whether or not she was daring to mock him; the green of her gaze was clear and unwavering, with no hint of the emotion for which he searched. Which was not to say it was not there, but merely hidden behind that annoyingly cool façade. ‘What is the nature of her illness?’ he enquired coldly.

She shrugged. ‘Your grandmother did not confide in me, sir.’

Justin barely restrained his impatience with her unhelpful reply. ‘But surely you must have overheard some of her conversation with the physician?’

Her gaze lowered from his piercing one. ‘I was not in the room for all of his visit—’

‘Might I ask why the devil not?’

Eleanor blinked those long dark lashes as the only outward sign of her shock at the profanity. ‘She asked that I collect her shawl from her private parlour. By the time I returned Dr Franklyn was preparing to leave.’

Justin’s impatience deepened. ‘At which time I presume my grandmother asked that I be sent for?’

She nodded. ‘She also requested that you go up to her bedchamber the moment you arrived.’

A request this lady had obviously forgotten to relay to him until now. Because his arrival had diverted her from the task, perhaps...? It was a possibility he found as intriguing as he did amusing.

He nodded. ‘I will go up to her now. Perhaps you would arrange for some brandy to be brought to the library for when I return downstairs?’

‘Of course.’ Ellie found she was relieved to have something practical to do, her usual calm competence seeming to have deserted her the moment she found herself in Justin’s overpoweringly masculine presence. ‘Do you wish me to accompany you?’

The duke came to a halt on the second step of the wide staircase in order to turn and give her a pointed look. ‘I believe I am well aware of where my grandmother’s bedchamber is located, but you may accompany me up the stairs, to ensure I do not attempt to make away with the family silver, if that is your wish.’

‘Is that “family silver” not already yours?’ she asked, trying hard to keep hold of her composure against his needling.

‘It is.’ He smiled briefly. ‘Then perhaps you fear I may become lost in my own house, Cousin?’

Ellie was well aware that this was his house. As was everything connected with the Duchy of Royston. ‘I believe my time might be better served in seeking out Stanhope and requesting the decanter of brandy be brought to the library.’ Even the thought of accompanying the duke up the stairs was enough to cause Ellie’s cheeks to burn—something she knew from past experience to be most unbecoming against the red of her hair.

‘And two glasses.’

She raised surprised brows. ‘You are expecting company?’ The fact that the duke had been so difficult to locate this evening would seem to imply that he had been otherwise...occupied, and perhaps less than reputably. Even so, Ellie could not imagine him inviting one of his less-than-acceptable friends here, especially if he had been spending the evening in the company of a lady.

‘It is you whom I am expecting to join me there,’ he explained with a sigh.

Ellie’s eyes widened. ‘Me?’

Justin almost laughed at the stunned expression on her face. A natural reaction, perhaps, when this was the longest conversation they had ever exchanged.

Surprisingly, he found her naivety amusing, and, Justin readily admitted, very little succeeded in amusing him.

His childhood had been spent in the country until the age of ten, when he had been sent away to boarding school, after which he had seen his parents rarely and had felt an exclusion from their deep love for each other when he did, to the extent that it had coloured his own feelings about marriage. He accepted that a duke must necessarily marry, in order to provide an heir to the duchy, but Justin’s own isolated upbringing had dictated his own would be a marriage of convenience, rather than love. A marriage that would not exclude his children in the way that he had been excluded.

His three years as the Duke of Royston had ensured that he was denied nothing and certainly not any woman he expressed the least desire for—and, on several occasions, some he had not, such as other gentlemen’s wives and the daughters of marriage-minded mamas!