Page 18 of A Sense of Paradise
She buried her face in his shoulder and cried tears of relief. Tears of regret. Tears for lost opportunities. Tears for what might have been but never would.
Tears of self-pity.
Her relief at being held by Archie, no matter the reason for it, was short-lived, because someone had the temerity to tap at the door. Before Archie could release her, it flew open and a lady stood in the opening, her mouth falling open when she observed Eloise in Archie’s embrace.
‘Excuse me,’ she said stiffly.
‘Flora!’ Archie said at the same time, releasing Eloise so abruptly that she almost toppled over.
Eloise recognised the newcomer as the bridesmaid whom Archie had found so fascinating. There was nothing out of the ordinary about her as far as Eloise, who was admittedly biased, could detect. Other perhaps than a good body and a waterfall of copper curls that had escaped from beneath her hat and now tumbled over her shoulder.
‘Clearly, I am interrupting.’
‘Don’t go!’ Archie said with authority. ‘Pawson, show Eloise the gardens and we will finish our discussion directly.’
‘Discussion?’ The woman called Flora looked justifiably confused. She was clearly special to Archie and that realisation caused the grip of jealousy to squeeze Eloise’s already battered heart.
Before Eloise could decide quite what to make of the woman’s appearance, Pawson took her shoulder and ushered her from the room.
Archie was aware of the stifling silence as the door closed behind Pawson and Flora stood there, just inside it, looking totally crestfallen.
‘I wish you had not walked in at that precise moment,’ he said, smiling at her.
‘I’m sure you do.’ He could see that she was furious, confused and close to tears—tears that she was too stubborn to allow to fall.
‘Despite what you saw, it wasn’t what you assume.’
‘Archie, please!’ She walked further into the room and stripped off her gloves. ‘I have always known that I would never be enough to satisfy your needs. Now I have seen evidence of it with my own eyes, even before we are married.’ She turned away from him. ‘The countess did warn me but…well, I suppose I am not the first woman to think she has sufficient strength to change a man’s character.’
‘Come and sit down, darling, and I will explain.’
He held out a hand, which she ignored as she assumed the chair that Eloise had just vacated. ‘She is the lady who was outside the church,’ she said in a listless tone. ‘I asked you at the time, but I wasn’t going to remind you about her. I thought I could trust you. I am clearly delusional.’
‘Her name is Eloise. She nursed me during my illness for all those years in France.’
‘Nursed?’ Flora raised a disbelieving brow.
‘Well…’ Archie spread his thighs, rested his forearms on them, clasped his hands together and found something to engage his interest on the rug beneath his feet. ‘We became close. It was inevitable, I suppose. I was at the lowest point in my life and she gave it some meaning. But I never offered her any reason to suppose that my feelings were engaged. When it was time for me to return to England, I rewarded her handsomely—’
‘You paid her off like a common whore?’ Flora looked outraged on Eloise’s behalf, which said a great deal about her compassionate nature and caused Archie to fall even more deeply in love with her—a feat that he would have thought impossible before then.
‘I thought a clean break would be for the best. It was a difficult time. My priorities had changed and my father needed me here.’ He ran a hand abstractedly through his hair. ‘God alone knew I had disappointed him quite enough and I realised he was nearing the end of his days.’
‘Well her priorities certainly haven’t changed. Presumably she came to England in the hope of rekindling your affair—but be warned, I will not marry you if you plan to take a mistress. I know it is the done thing for a wife to turn a blind eye to such arrangements, but I have no intention of sharing you, so if you would like to call our agreement off, I shall not…’
‘Call it off?’ He shook his head decisively, overwhelmed with relief when he realised that she hadn’t yet made up her mind to break the engagement herself. ‘Not on your life! And just so that you are aware, there will be no mistresses. You have my word on that. You long ago claimed my heart and you will be more than enough to satisfy me.’
‘I shall remind you of that the next time a pretty girl smiles at you, but even so, if you have no feelings for Eloise, why was she in your arms?’
‘Ah, that will require some explaining.’
She folded her hands primly in her lap and looked at him. ‘I have all the time in the world.’
She sighed with compassion when the story spilled from Archie’s lips. ‘And so you see,’ he said when it reached its end, ‘I feel responsible for inadvertently encouraging Maurice’s curiosity about English ways.’
‘Yes, I can quite see why you would,’ she replied. ‘You have not treated either member of that family well, so naturally we must attempt to locate her missing brother. It is the very least you can do for her and much less than she deserves.’
‘We?’
