Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
SEAN SLIPPED THROUGH the window of Eleanor’s room. Once inside, he had to pause. He had been in her room countless times, but not since he had left four years before.
He pushed past the heavy gold velvet draperies there and slowly looked around. Once, her bedroom had been blue and white; now, it was green and gold, lush and feminine, the bedroom of a woman, not a child. It felt and looked and even smelled terribly sensual.
He saw the table, set for one. She had made certain a meal was waiting for him.
His heart stirred with gratitude. Then he thought about Rex and Cliff, looking for him in the woods.
She had betrayed him and that infuriated him, but he had easily eluded his brothers.
He shouldn’t have come. He should be on his way to Cobh.
But he had to say goodbye. He could not leave otherwise.
Her image filled his mind now, as she had been the first moment he had seen her yesterday night, in Sinclair’s arms, passionate and breathless and clinging to the other man’s shoulders.
He wished he could forget her damnable offer; even now, he was acutely aware of it and it was affecting him terribly.
A huge tension filled him but he intended to ignore it.
He understood now that he needed release.
There would be whores on the ship—there always were.
He’d never used a whore in his entire life.
From the time he’d lost his innocence, there had always been young women in pursuit of him.
But they had wanted Sean O’Neill, the dashing younger son of an Irish nobleman, the stepson of an earl.
None of those past lovers would look at him twice now, not that he cared.
He wouldn’t look at any of them a second time, either.
And as he stood in Eleanor’s luxurious accommodations, he wondered for the hundredth time how his life had come to this.
How had he become such a stranger, even to himself?
He wanted to remain disconnected from that other man, that boisterous yet solidly dependable younger son who would do anything for his family and who had a penchant for the ladies.
The bridge to that past remained and he saw it in his mind’s eye, a trestle bridge spanning a huge gaping gulf of events, emotions and time, but it was rotting and pieces of it were missing.
What would it take, he wondered, to completely sever the connection, to watch that bridge released from its cables so it might shatter on the deadly rocks of mistaken choices below?
His two years spent in prison had not been enough to destroy it, he now realized. While there, he had believed the past completely erased. He had been wrong.
A new life in America might do the trick. If not, he would have to throw stones at that bridge, day after day, until it finally came down.
Suddenly he saw the old stone bridge that was on the roadway between Askeaton and Adare.
It spanned a particularly deep part of the river that was an offshoot of the Shannon.
As boys, he and his brother had leaped from the bridge a hundred times, but that was only half the fun.
The currents were strong at certain times of the day and once in the river, it would sweep them swiftly downstream, through a series of rapids, until it bent and slowed in a calm pool.
They would leave two horses at the pool, riding two horses up to the bridge, one horse double, another ridden triple if all five of them were present.
They would spend entire afternoons leaping off that bridge.
He didn’t want to remember; it was too damned late.
“SEAN!”
He was soaking wet and shirtless, riding back up to the bridge with Rex and Cliff, Devlin and Tyrell behind them on a different mount.
At the sound of Eleanor’s voice, his gaze veered, searching for her, and he was already alarmed.
Had she followed them? She was only six years old, but she was becoming far more than fearless recently.
She was as reckless as any of them, even though she was half their age.
“Sean!”
He saw her standing on the bridge, grinning happily and waving at them in her white dress.
His heart stopped. He knew what she intended. “Elle! Don’t you dare!” he screamed at her.
She laughed and lifted her skirts, revealing thick white stockings and black button-up shoes, and started to climb onto the balustrade of the bridge.
“Shit,” Rex exclaimed. He rode in front and he spurred the hack into a canter.
“Elle, get down!” Sean yelled, sandwiched between his stepbrothers.
Elle stood on the balustrade now, no longer smiling, staring down at the river.
She was going to jump, he realized in horror. And Cliff verbalized his worst fears. “She is going to do it.”
Sean pushed Cliff off the back of the horse, then followed. Eleanor suddenly lifted her arms and leaped off the bridge.
He ran to the edge of the road and scrambled down the grassy and slick bank, never taking his eyes from her. She hit the water with a cry and as she disappeared beneath its surface, he saw exactly where she had gone in.
But that was not where she would surface. He knew the currents and he kept racing for a point farther down the river. He didn’t look upstream now—he reached the bank and dived in.
The water rushed over him, pulling him downstream. He heard her choking and he fought to tread, an impossible task, so he could visually locate her. And he saw her white face and her frightened eyes, just before the river sucked her into its depths.
He reached out as he dived underwater and seized a piece of her skirt.
He was absolutely determined that the river was not going to beat him.
He fought to swim closer, against the raging current, and he put his arm around her.
Then he charged to the surface, where he threw her above him. He heard her choking for air.
“I’ve got her,” Tyrell said, taking her from him.
“Sean.” Devlin seized him, helping him stay above the surface now so he had a chance to breathe.
A moment later the four of them were in the quiet, still pool. Sean stood up, trembling. The child was mad. She was only six years old; she had almost drowned! Devlin had also stood, grimly silent, but Tyrell sat in the shallow waters, appearing relieved. Elle sat with him, her eyes wide.
She looked up at him, her face beginning to lose its pallor. She started to smile as she stood. “Can we do that again?”
He charged her. Seizing her hand, he yanked her from the water, hard enough to hurt her and she cried out in protest. “Are you stupid?” he shouted at her when they were on the bank.
“If you can do it, so can I!” she yelled back.
He was so angry he reached for the closest branch he could find. She understood; she paled and backed up. “You wouldn’t.”
“Someone has to have the honor,” he said furiously. His heart was still racing in pure terror, he realized. He wasn’t sure it would ever stop.
“Sean.” Tyrell took the branch from him. “She won’t do it again.”
Sean felt an odd moistness on his face and realized he was starting to cry. Horrified, he turned away from everyone.
Elle hurried to stand there. She took his hand, her mouth pursing. “I won’t do it again. Why are you so sad, Sean?”
HE WAS STIFF WITH TENSION now. He did not want to recall any more of the past. Once, he and Elle had shared a special bond, and he would have done anything to protect her. They no longer had that bond, and she had Sinclair to protect her now.
Sean sat down on the edge of the canopied bed, the soft mattress giving way to his body instantly.
He had lost his best friend a long time ago, and there was simply no going backward.
Old memories did not help, they only deepened the confusion.
When he looked at her now, he didn’t know what to think or do.
He saw Eleanor, but then he saw Elle. He was in the present, but the past beckoned. Nothing made sense anymore.
Especially not his being in her bedroom and her having made such a damnable offer.
He had to stay in the present, he decided. It was too dangerous otherwise. Elle was gone. She’d been gone for years. He had no friends. And what he needed to remember was that he was a traitor and a fugitive and she was a stranger named Eleanor.
But he still needed to say goodbye.
HAVING PLEADED a headache she genuinely suffered, Eleanor had left Peter with the men and the ladies by themselves.
Supper had been interminable; all evening she had been acutely aware that Cliff and Rex had not been able to find Sean in the woods.
He had disappeared and she knew he had left, as he had said he would.
It was incredible. He was gone. Just like that, as if he had never come home, a nightmare come true. There wouldn’t even be a farewell.
“Eleanor, dear,” the countess said, approaching from behind her.
Instantly Eleanor stiffened. It was a moment before she could breathe and turn to face her mother as she stood there on the stairs.
The countess, Mary de Warenne, was a very beautiful woman.
Technically, of course, she was not Eleanor’s mother, but the mother of Sean and Devlin.
But Eleanor’s mother had died giving birth to her.
Until she was two years old, she had been raised by a nurse and her father.
Mary was the only mother Eleanor had ever known and she loved her deeply.
In fact, she had often secretly wished that she could be more like the countess, who was graceful, gracious and generous to no end.
Eleanor tried to smile at her.
Mary paused before her. “My dear, I can see that you are terribly distressed. Would you like to speak about it?”
“I can’t.”
Mary’s blue eyes were searching. “All brides worry and fret before their weddings, but I am afraid that this is something more. I only wish to help.”