Otto laughed. “You forget I know you too well, old chap.”
Damon couldn't deny the statement. They had met long ago under grim circumstances, when Otto had taken over the deathbed care of Damon's sixteen-year-old twin brother, Joshua.
“Lady Eleanor is exceptionally beautiful, I must say,” Otto probed. “Did you manage to speak to her tonight?”
“Yes.”
“And? Is that all you mean to tell me?”
“There is nothing more to tell.” Damon had no intention of explaining his feelings for Eleanor, particularly when he wasn't certain exactly what he felt for her now.
“You cannot be happy that Prince Lazzara is courting her,” Otto stated.
That was emphatically true. Upon hearing that Eleanor was being wooed by the Italian prince, Damon had returned to England a week sooner than originally planned. He'd rightly wanted to protect her from being hurt by Lazzara's libertine propensities… although he was hard-pressed to justify the savage surge of jealousy he'd felt at seeing her together with the handsome noble tonight, since he had absolutely no claim on her any longer.
“No, I am not happy about it,” he acknowledged in a low voice.
Otto pursed his lips in a frown. “You should take care, Damon. You would do well to keep away from the lady entirely. You do not want to give her or anyone else a false impression about your intentions by showing too much interest in her.”
“I bow to your superior wisdom,” Damon returned, making light of the moment. Yet he was in full agreement with his friend's advice.
Eleanor was compelling, dangerous, addictive. She had left a deep mark on him, so deep that for the past two years he hadn't been able to get her out of his mind. Indeed, since those few exhilarating weeks of their brief courtship ended, his life had seemed as bland as blancmange pudding, despite the excitement of his travels and the satisfaction of achieving several long-held ambitions.
Damon's frown returned as he averted his head to gaze out the carriage window at the dark streets of London. Until tonight, he'd convinced himself he had conquered his feelings of ardor for Elle. Perhaps that was partly why he had kissed her, because he'd had some vague notion of proving to himself that he was over her. Yet his ill-advised experiment had confirmed just the opposite.
The sparks between them still burned as hot as ever-which made her supremely dangerous to his resolution to keep away from her.
It was probably fortunate that Eleanor was still furious at him for the way he'd treated her. She was unlikely ever to forgive him for his transgressions during their betrothal.
He deeply regretted hurting her and knew he was fully to blame for the entire painful affair. He also knew he never should have proposed marriage to her in the first place, since he couldn't give her what she wanted.
Admittedly, he'd been bowled over by the high-spirited raven-haired beauty with the quick wit and warm laugh. Eleanor had totally set him on his ear when they first met. She'd made him feel truly alive again for one of the first times since his family's deaths. What was more inexplicable was the uncanny bond he felt with her, a closeness almost as powerful as the one he'd shared with his twin.
Which was the prime reason, Damon conceded, that he'd impulsively asked for her hand in marriage. That and the fact that he had wanted her so badly, he was afraid he might take his desire beyond mere kisses and dishonor her if he didn't legitimize his passion with matrimony.
Her shy, sweet declaration of love the next week, however, had stunned him. As soon as he realized how ardent Eleanor's feelings for him had grown- and comprehended how perilously intense his own attraction to her had become-he'd taken steps to end their relationship. He hadn't wanted to compound her pain any further by letting her fall in love with him more deeply, rationalizing that the sooner he made her break off, the sooner she would recover.
You should let the past be a warning to you, an insistent voice in his head admonished. Otto was right, Damon knew; he ought to keep far away from Eleanor. And practically speaking, now that he had seen her again, he should be able to move on with his life.
Except that he felt uneasy leaving her as a target for Prince Lazzara, a charming Lothario who was possibly a fortune hunter and most certainly a rake. In Italy, Lazzara had not only left a trail of broken hearts, he'd ruined a woman of good family and refused to take responsibility.
Damon didn't think Lazzara would actually besmirch Eleanor, since her family and social connections were so powerful. He was worried, however, that the prince could hurt Eleanor just as he himself had done-that she would fall in love and wed Laz-zara and then be devastated by his infidelities.
Damon's mouth curled at the corner. He suspected that in addition to protecting Eleanor, he wanted to salve his own conscience, to absolve his guilt in some measure.
Wishing to take his mind off her, he was glad when Otto changed the subject to speak about his pet topic, his precious hospital. Nor did Damon regret being left to himself when the carriage set the preeminent physician down at his lodgings in Marlebone near the hospital and then proceeded on to the Wrexham mansion in Cavendish Square in Mayfair, London's most fashionable district and home of many of the aristocracy.
The house had been in Damon's family for several generations, but the empty quiet that greeted him as he entered bore little resemblance to the memories of his childhood. The corridors had rung with laughter when he and Joshua were boys.
Now those corridors seemed painfully empty and only echoed the grief he'd felt at age sixteen when he lost his beloved twin brother to consumption, a ravaging lung disease with no cure.
His twin's death had dealt Damon a powerful blow, since the two of them had been as close as shadows. Losing his parents to a violent storm at sea a short time afterward had left Damon bereft of immediate family and purposefully devoid of feeling. From that moment on, he'd buried his emotions so deep, he would allow no one close enough to matter to him. Instead, he had pushed people away.
He'd turned reckless as well, certain he had nothing more to lose. For the next decade, he defied fate at every opportunity and earned himself a wicked reputation.
A reputation that had never concerned him until he met lively, beautiful heiress Eleanor Pierce during her first Season, when she made her social debut under the auspices of her high-stickler aunt, Lady Beldon.
Accepting a lamp from the footman who admitted him, Damon mounted the sweeping staircase and made his way down the hall on the right, to the master's quarters. Entering his bedchamber, he went straight to the windows to throw them wide open.