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!
Eleanor Rosewood, as companion to his grandmother, was not of that ilk, of course, just as their tenuous family connection ensured she could never be considered as Justin’s social equal. At the same time, though, even that slight family connection meant he could not consider her as a future mistress, either. Frustrating, but true.
‘Your Grace...?’
He frowned his irritation with her insistence on using his title. ‘I believe we established only a few minutes ago that we are cousins of a sort and we should therefore address each other as Cousin Eleanor and Cousin Justin.’
Ellie’s eyes widened in alarm at the mere thought of her using such familiarity with this rakishly handsome gentleman; Justin St Just, the twelfth Duke of Royston, was so top-lofty, so arrogantly haughty as he gave every appearance of looking down the length of his superior nose at the rest of the world, that Ellie would never be able to even think of him as a cousin, let alone address him as such.
‘I believe that you may have implied something of the sort, yes, your Grace,’ she said stubbornly.
He arched one blond brow over suddenly teasing blue eyes. ‘But you did not concur?’
‘I do not believe so, no, your Grace.’
He eyed her in sudden frustration. ‘Perhaps it is a subject we should discuss further when I return downstairs?’
She frowned. ‘I—perhaps.’
He scowled darkly at her intransigence. ‘But again, you do not agree...?’
Ellie believed such a conversation to be a complete waste of his time, as well as her own. What was the point in arguing over what to call one
