Allie didn’t give her brother the satisfaction of a reaction, choosing to remain standing just inside the closed door.
Mr. Penn-Leith had departed a quarter-hour past.
She refused to think of him asEthan. The familiarity of his given name rendered his exit from her life too personal. How quixotic, knowing she would never speak with him again even as her lips still thrummed from the feel of his mouth.
And now, Kendall had ushered her into his private study. Would her ducal brother finally upgrade her captivity to a locked cell and shackles?
At the very least, meeting in his study precipitated a sound tongue-lashing for herself. The room was nestled behind his bedchamber and dressing room, ensuring a buffer between their voices and the keen ears of servants.
For not the first time, Allie wondered why her brother took privacy so seriously it bordered on paranoia. What past event had precipitated such caution? Knowing their bastard of a sire as she did, it had assuredly been traumatic. At least Allie and their mother had escaped the man’s influence, though they had only traded one hardship for another in the end.
Her brother had not been so fortunate.
Allie stomped on the pity that threatened to expand under her breastbone.
He keeps you prisoner,she reminded herself.He expects you to marry some domineering, elderly lord.
She would break Kendall first. Her unruly behavior had to eventually crack his armored resolve.
To that end, Allie crossed the room and, opening a small cabinet to the left of Kendall’s desk, poured herself a solid two fingers of French brandy from a crystal decanter.
For the record, she detested brandy.
But given Kendall’s hiss of breath behind her, she had no regrets either.
Turning back toward the hearth, she sat in one of the leather armchairs before the fireplace, slouching into the chair’s back and looping one leg over the arm, her red skirts sprawling. Meeting Kendall’s dark gaze, she took a belligerent sip of her brandy.
Uffa.How could men drink this abominable stuff? Particularly when wines like an agedchianti rossoexisted in the world?
Regardless, the awful taste was worth it as she watched a muscle twitch in Kendall’s left cheek.
“As I was saying,” her brother continued, “we cannot continue like this.”
“Like what?” Allie asked, setting her tumbler down on a side table to her left and reaching for a humidor full of cheroots.
With a grunt, Kendall closed the space between them and snatched the humidor out of her hands.
Allie suppressed a gleeful grin.
Hah!She would break him yet.
“I see what you are about, Lady Allegra.” He crossed the room and slid the humidor into a drawer in his desk. “You seek to provoke me into tossing you from my residence. That will never happen, mark my word.”
“You always were unconscionably stubborn.” Allie slumped back in her chair once more. “It will be your downfall.”
“And overconfidence will be yours.” He slammed his desk drawer shut. “I have noticed the disappearing trinkets. A pair of ruby earbobs and matching bracelet. Three silver candlesticks from the library. A set of spoons from an old cutlery chest. A cache of coins from my bedside table. My favorite cravat pin. The list goes on.”
Allie stilled, unsurprised that Kendall had noticed. She had hardly been circumspect in her pilfering. Every move had been carefully calculated to enrage him.
“If you would grant me pin money or, heaven forbid, the portion due me as your sister,” she replied, tone annoyingly sweet, “then I wouldn’t feel the need to pinch items from our late father’s estate.”
Kendall poured himself a matching tumbler of brandy before sitting in the chair opposite her, his long legs stretched out before him. Gray whiskers already stubbled his jaw, though he had surely been clean-shaven this morning. His similarly gray hair grew long over his ears, wavy with a hint of curl, while his broad shoulders strained the seams of his immaculately cut coat.
Allie detested the lingering ache in her chest. That she had missed witnessing her shy twin transform into this indomitable beast of a man. That somehow, had she been present, she might have prevented the worst of their father’s imprinting upon him.
But, like herself, he had been thrown to the wolves.
Unlike her, he had lost most of his humanity in the ensuing carnage.
