recognized Hugo instantly. Of course she did. Eleanor knew her sister, but even if she hadn’t she’d have understood the change in her sister’s body language. Suddenly everything was languid, easy. Suddenly Vivi’s eyes seemed smoky, and the little giggle she let out was the same.
Eleanor had never wanted to slap her hand over her sister’s mouth before. Or at least, she’d never wanted it this badly.
“I had no idea, Miss Andrews,” Hugo drawled, coming to a stop a few feet away, his dark gaze unreadable, “that governesses could multiply in the space of an afternoon. Like geese. How extraordinary.”
Eleanor watched that gleaming gaze of his flick over her sister, and was more than a little surprised when it returned to her. But perhaps he was outraged. Perhaps he was looking for an explanation as to why he’d been kissing the likes of Eleanor when all the while he could have had Vivi.
And that ugly thing inside of her grew thicker. Burrowed deeper. But there was no stopping a speeding train, and Vivi had always been far more dangerous than any high-speed rail.
“Your Grace,” Eleanor said stiffly, especially when Vivi seemed to melt into her side, holding on tight to Eleanor as if she was her very own plush toy. “May I present my sister, Vivi.”
“You may,” Hugo said in that same sardonic drawl that made heat bolt through Eleanor, but didn’t seem to have the same effect on Vivi. “If you feel you must.”
Eleanor frowned at that, but her attention was drawn by her sister, who couldn’t seem to stop that damned giggle.
Be kind, Eleanor told herself sternly. Hugo was an overwhelming man. Anyone would be expected to overreact to the sight of him.
“I am honored, Your Grace,” Vivi simpered. Then she batted her eyelashes at Hugo. “And here I thought every duke in the land was over the age of fifty.”
“It only feels that way,” Hugo replied with that liquid ease of his that made the bottom of Eleanor’s stomach disappear. “It is the obsequiousness that ages a man, not the title.”
Eleanor flushed on her sister’s behalf, but it was a wasted effort as Vivi hardly seem to notice that the Duke had just taken her down a peg or two. Or perhaps she did notice. Perhaps that was her sister’s true secret weapon, all this time. Maybe Vivi got her mileage out of pretending not to notice the very clear signals sent all around her.
But in either case, Eleanor frowned at Hugo, because she wasn’t pretending anything.
“If you’ll excuse us,” she said, perhaps too severely, “I must show my sister to my rooms and then return to my duties.”
“I’m sure Geraldine can manage,” Hugo said offhandedly.
“Have you been supervising her reading, Your Grace? I had no idea you had taken such an active interest.”
“I have been supervising my accounts,” Hugo said in a faintly chiding tone that made Eleanor flush slightly. Again. “Which is how I know that I employ a veritable fleet of overpriced nannies. The child is more than fine. Always.”
Vivi laughed again then, though there was nothing to laugh about in Eleanor’s opinion. Then she let herself flop a bit toward Eleanor, as if she was giving her a hug from the side.
“You must forgive my sister, Your Grace,” she said merrily. “She’s ever so serious. She always has been. It won’t surprise you to learn her favorite color is gray.”
Eleanor told herself there was no reason for it, but that didn’t stop the feeling of betrayal that swept over her. And the injustice of it, to have Vivi cut her down like that and call her gray, of all things, when it wasn’t even true.
But there was nothing to be gained by arguing the point. There was no arguing with Vivi.
“My favorite color is not gray,” Eleanor heard herself say, to her own astonishment. And once she’d started it seemed silly not to carry on. “On the contrary, I prefer a bright and cheerful red. It just so happens, however, that one cannot march about life forever dressed like a cardinal.”
Next to her, Vivi slid Eleanor a cool look. She pretended not to see it.
But she was certain Hugo did. Just as she was certain that Vivi was about three seconds away from hurling herself across the space that separated them to make a complete fool of herself. All over him.
And the truth was, Eleanor could hardly blame her. She’d made a fool of herself over him herself, hadn’t she? Such a fool of herself, in fact, that she hadn’t even realized she was doing it until now.
When it was much too late.
Hugo was devastating. Full stop. Today he was affecting his international rock star look again. His dark hair looked messy, the intriguing kind of messy that made Eleanor want to test it with her fingers. His dark eyes were lit with that suppressed humor of his, dark and sardonic. He wore another one of his battered T-shirts that left nothing of his perfect chest to the imagination and another pair of jeans that hugged him in all the wrong places, as if he aspired to give the two-fingered salute to the fusty dukedom with every breath and outfit. And as if there were no autumn drafts snaking along the halls and no wind rattling the windows, come to that.
Or as if he was immune to all of it, because he was that darkly beautiful.
But Eleanor was quite certain that all Vivi saw when she looked at him were pound notes.
“If you wish to wear red, I would not object,” Hugo said, a current of dark laughter in his voice. “There is no required uniform, Miss Andrews. I hope Mrs. Redding didn’t mislead you on that score.”
“Oh, you silly old thing,” Vivi cut in then, with a little trill in her voice, and though her eyes were on Hugo she was clearly speaking to Eleanor. Or pretending to, anyway. “You know that red doesn’t suit you.”
Hugo’s attention swung back to her sister, and Eleanor was glad, because she felt stricken straight through. Ashamed, if she was honest with herself at last.
Had she really imagined that she was anything to a man like this but a diversion while he was bored? Even for a moment?
She knew the way of the world. There was a reason Vivi was the one who flitted about with people of Hugo’s ilk, and it wasn’t only because she was thinner and prettier. It was because she bloomed in such circumstances. She came alive. She stole all the light from the room.
Men like Hugo were destined for women like Vivi. Women like Eleanor were destined to be exactly what she was here in Groves House: staff. And that was all right, she told herself fiercely as she watched her sister show her dimples to Hugo. Some people were meant for the shadows and Eleanor had long since accepted that she was one of them. She didn’t know what had happened to her over the past nearly six weeks, stuck away in this rambling old house with only a seven-year-old to talk to. She’d started believing in the sort of fairy tales she read to Geraldine. Or she’d been tempted to, anyway.
She’d even let Hugo touch her.
When she knew—when everyone knew—that he was a man who toyed with others. And so what if he’d claimed the tabloids had lied about him? That was what he would say.
She didn’t understand how she’d allowed herself
