Read The Marquess Who Loved Me for Free Online

this house was a rabbit warren,” Nick said. Were it not for his unbreakable grip on her arm and the thrum of tension in his voice, he might have been any visitor receiving a tour of the estate.
    “It was. The servants’ domains in the attics and basements could still lose you for a week. But your brother and I renovated the public rooms and bedchambers in a more modern style. You never seemed partial to older modes of living.”
    “How thoughtful of you,” he murmured.
    “Yes, well, I hope you enjoy it as I have. It’s a good house, Nick.”
    He spun her into her salon and let go of her arm, not responding to her inane ramblings. The room usually soothed her. Even more so than the rest of the house, every decoration, every scrap of fabric, was chosen to suit her. The large, overstuffed chaise-longue, identical in shape and size to one she kept in her house in London, was upholstered in rich navy velvet. Two chairs stood across from it, complementing the velvet with a gold fleur-de-lis pattern across their seats. Books of prints and engravings lined the shelves, interspersed with objets d’art from her collection.
    It was a small, lush room that no one used but her. And it was exactly the opposite of the room where they’d had their last conversation, when she had told Nick, for the second time, that she could no longer marry him, and then insulted him to make sure he got the message. In her memory, everything in that room, one of her father’s cold, cavernous drawing rooms, was white — white walls, white upholstery, white hothouse flowers, her white gloves clenched in the lap of her white dress, Nick’s white face as his blood leached away while she cut into him. Only Nick’s flowers had been red, as though it was his heart he’d flung at her instead of his roses.
    She shivered. This was not that room. She was twenty-nine, not nineteen — and her father wasn’t here to remind her of propriety and bloodlines. She walked straight toward the row of decanters on a shelf in the corner, not waiting for Nick to follow. She would rather have wine, but she hadn’t thought to send her butler for a bottle, and she wasn’t of a mind to wait. “Brandy or whisky?” she asked over her shoulder.
    “Whisky.” He locked the door. The sound was a warning shot. Her hand shook as she tilted the decanter toward a glass, and she splashed liquor on the tray beneath it. She bit the inside of her cheek, hard, striving for control.
    She poured a generous amount of whisky into his glass, then poured herself the same amount. Turning, she discovered that he was closer than she thought he was — close enough to reach out and take the glass from her hand. His eyes were hooded under his brows. She couldn’t read the expression there.
    She used to be able to read every expression on his face. The fact that she couldn’t now, even though she shouldn’t have expected to, hurt. She thought she had felt every pain over him that it was possible for one to feel, but she discovered a new one — the pain of realizing that she no longer knew him quite so well as she thought she did.
    It felt like a death. Ellie raised her glass to him, silent, one hand still holding the shelf behind her as though it could keep her upright.
    He raised his glass as well. “To old friends,” he said.
    “To old friends,” she echoed. Perhaps he felt what she did — the shock of knowing that ten years had passed, even though when their eyes connected over the rims of their glasses, it felt like nothing at all had come between them.
    She sipped her whisky, welcoming the burn of alcohol as it slid over her tongue. It no longer made her cough. He raised an eyebrow. “I never thought to see you drink whisky so easily, Ellie.”
    “There are many things I do easily now,” she said, pushing off from the shelf and sliding past him to her chaise. “I’m no longer nineteen.”
    “No, you’re not,” Nick said, turning to watch as she took her seat. She