Authors: The Dangerous Debutante

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Odette looked at her for a long time, and Eleanor returned that gaze as steadily as she could, until the older woman sighed, shook her head. "I'll be ordering more candles, I suppose. A bonfire of candles burning for you Beckets."

Eleanor impulsively hugged the woman, neither of them comfortable with such physical displays of affection. Yet Odette put her arms around Eleanor's shoulders and held her tightly for a moment before pushing her away, using the pad of her thumb to trace the sign of the cross on Eleanor's forehead.

"Thank you, Odette," Eleanor said, then squared her slim shoulders and walked into her papa's study to

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confront the man who had been coming to Becket Hall for over two years, and had never noticed her, never noticed the quiet one in the corner.

He'd notice her now...

"A shame Morgan is married," Jacko was saying. "She'd be perfect, you know. Right, Cap'n? Fire and spirit, that's Morgan. Give her a set of balls and— Eleanor." Jacko looked to Ainsley, who had already gotten to his feet.

"Eleanor? I hadn't expected you to be up and about this late at night. Is there something you wanted before you retire?" And that, she knew, was Ainsley's way of reprimanding her. Two quiet, polite questions, both meant to send her scurrying off, because she most certainly wasn't welcome here at this moment.

She could hardly hear for the sound of her blood rushing in her ears, and she seemed only able to see Jack Eastwood, who had slowly unbent his length from one of the chairs and now stood towering over her.

"I..
.
I'll do it," Eleanor said, still looking up at Jack, at the lean, handsome face she saw nearly every night in her dreams. The thick, sandy hair he wore just a little too long, with sideburns that reached to the bottom of his ears. The slashes around his wide mouth, that fuller lower lip. And
his eyes. So green, shaded by low brows; so intense, yet so capable of looking at her and never seeing her.

His look could be best described as constrained; quiet, reserved, even vaguely disinterested. Yet she knew that appearances could be purposely deceiving, and felt sure the man was actually of mass of barely-leashed power behind a careful fa
ç
ade. There was

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emotion there. He simply hid his feelings deep inside, and Eleanor didn't know if she most longed to know why he hid those emotions, or if she only wanted him to look at her, see her, feel safe to relax his careful shields with her.

"Eleanor..." Ainsley said, stepping out from behind the desk. "I'll assume you heard us, bu
t
—"

"I said, I'll do it," Eleanor interrupted, still looking at Jack Eastwood, still half lost in her daydrea
m
—
s
he, who rarely dreamed, and only about Jack. "I'll pretend to be your wife, Mr. Eastwood. Go to London. Be your ears and eyes around the women. You can't buy loyalty, no matter how high the price. I'm the logical choice, the only logical, safe choice."

Jack quickly looked to Ainsley as if for help, then back to Eleanor, shaking his head. "I don't think your father approves, Miss Becket."

Was the woman out of her mind? Look at her. A puff of wind would blow her away. All right, so there was a hint of determination about that slightly square jaw she held so high on the long, slender stalk of her neck. God, even that mass of dark hair seemed too heavy for her finely-boned head. Yet she had the look of a lady, he'd give her that. Refined. Genteel. A sculptor's masterpiece, actually, if he was in a mood to be poetical, which he damn well was not.

The large-eyed, delicately constructed Eleanor Becket reminded Jack mostly of a fawn in the woods. Huge brown eyes, vulnerable eyes. But that limp? London society could be cruel, and they'd smell the wounded fawn and destroy her in an instant.

Would she stop staring at him! Stop making him feel

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377

so large, so clumsy, so very much the bumpkin. The skin tightened around his eyes, drew his brows down, and he stared at her, tried to stare through her. Scare her off, damn her. He had enough on his plate, he didn't need any more complications. Certainly not one in skirts.

At last she looked away, to speak to her father. "Papa? You do see the lightness of this, don't you? No one knows me, and when the need is past, I will come back here to live in quiet retirement, as we've always planned. Mr. Eastwood, should he choose to stay in society, can certainly find some explanation for my disappearance. A divorce? Death?"

Eleanor abruptly shut her mouth, knowing she had gone too far. Keep in the moment, that's what she must do, not muddy up the waters with thoughts of consequences.

"We'll speak later," Ainsley said, taking hold of her shoulders, to turn her toward the door.

"No, Papa," Eleanor said in her quiet way, holding her ground. "We'll not speak at all, not about this decision, which is mine. Mr. Eastwood? When do you wish me to be ready to leave?"

Jacko yanked at his waistband with both hands, pulling the material up and over his generous belly. "Always said there was pure Toledo steel there, Cap'n, and you know it, too. She knows what's for. Probably the smartest of the bunch, for all she's a female. Let her g
o
"

Jack narrowed his eyes as he looked to Ainsley, to the grinning Jacko and, lastly, to Miss Eleanor Becket. Smartest of the bunch? Toledo steel? He doubted that.

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And yet her gaze was steady on
him, and he recognized determination when
he
saw
it. "Ainsley
? We could leave tomorrow afternoon. Spend a night on the road while I send someone ahead to alert my staff in Portland Square?"

It took everything she had, but Eleanor did not reach out to Ainsley when he retreated behind his desk, sat down once more, looking very weary, and older than he had only a few minutes earlier. 'Tomorrow will b
e
fine, Jack."

Jack was ready to say something else, something on
t
he order of a promise to take very good care of the man's daughter. But Jacko slung a beefy arm across his shoulders and gave him a might squeeze against his hard body, and
the breath was all
but knocked from
him.

Jacko's voice boomed in his ear. "We trust you, see? That's the only reason you're getting within ten feet of ou
r
Eleanor here. We're all friends here, too, aren't we? Remember that, my fine young gentleman. You saved that fool Billy, and I'm grateful, so I don't want to have to tie your guts in a bow around your neck."

"No, Jacko, you don't, and neither do I want you to have to try," Jack said when the big man released him, feeling as if he'd just been mauled by a large bear. He shook back his shoulders, bowed to Eleanor. "Miss Becket, with your kind permission?"

She inclined her head slightly, then watched as Jack brushed past her and left the study before turning to her adoptive father. Waiting.

"Rowley Maddox," Ainsley said at last. "Of all the names the man might have said..."

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379

"Should we tell him, Cap'n? In case he has to watch out for her?"

"No," Eleanor said quickly. "Tell him, and he won't let me go. I
have
to go."

Ains
l
ey nodded his agreement, then added, "We don't know, Eleanor. Remember that. We can suspect, but we don't
know."

"No, Papa, but we've always wondered. I know what we decided, what we both felt best, that the past is in the past and won't change. But I can't look away from this chance. I just can't. I've lived too long with the question, we both have."

"And you'll take one look at the bugger and have all our answers?" Jacko shook his head. "Maybe we've all been stuck here too long, if any of us believes
that!"

KASEY MICHAELS

USA TODAY
bestselling author Kasey Michaels is
the author of more than ninety books. She has earned three starred reviews from
Publishers Weekly,
and has been awarded the RIT
A
Award from Romance Writers of America
,
the
Romantic Times
Career Achievement Award, the W
a
ldenbooks and BookRak awards
,
and several other commendations for her writing excellence in both contemporary and historical novels. There are more than eight million copies of her books in print around the world.

K
ase
y
resides in Pennsylvania with her family, where she is always at work on her next book.