As if he saw the storm roiling within Alex, he asked, “Whatever has happened?”
“Send for the carriage, damn you,” Alex snapped at him. “Do not question me.”
Guilt clawed him the second the words were out, but he could not take them back. He felt all too many prying eyes upon him. They had been upon him all night but somehow, now, they felt worse.
His dance with Lady Moreau had somehow made him feel everything more powerfully. The guards he had placed up around himself for so long had slipped a little on the dancefloor. He had actually smiled. And until she had told him her name, he had managed to forget for a while.
She didn't look at him the way others did. Of course, she had stared at him. Everyone stared at his scars. Ordinarily, however, there was horror or fear or even disgust in a person's eyes. In Lady Moreau's sparkling green gaze, he had seen nothing of the sort.
And that frightened him even more than having learned her identity.
“Yes, Your Grace,” Sean said, dipping his head. He darted off in a manner Alex had not seen in Sean's servitude to his father. He felt overwhelmingly guilty.
His only relief was that he had found his friend in the hallway, clearly on his way back from some clandestine meeting with a young lady. The signs were all there, the smirk on his face and the tilted angle of his cravat, the single button on his breeches he appeared to have missed when buttoning them back up.
Though he could not have said which young lady his friend had so quickly won over, he was glad at least one of them had experienced a little fun that evening.
He strode from the house, for once relieved that many of the guests were too put off by his scars to give him anything but a dip of their heads or a curtsey.
As soon as he hit the fresh air outside, he started to feel better. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, frightened when he realized he was not alone in his own head.
Lady Emmaline Moreau was there, staring back at him. Her eyes, green as lily leaves dazzled him with the way they shimmered.
No!He told himself firmly, opening his eyes to look out for the carriage.
No sooner had it arrived at the door than Alex threw himself inside to find Sean already seated within.
Slamming the door shut, Alex called out of the window, “To the club!”
He couldn't go home. Not yet. Not with her still so fresh in his mind. He was a fool. He never should have taken any lady to the dance floor. She had been the only one, the one who had drawn his attention again and again over the course of the evening.
He should have guessed who she was when he saw her dance first with the two eldest of Richard's brood. But he had been distracted by the uncomfortable look on her face as she had danced with the Beaufort boys, and he had even cringed when he had seen the way the one of them continued to stomp her poor delicate toes.
“Alex, what is going on?” Sean asked when Alex battered his fist on the roof.
“Step on it!” he yelled before he turned to his friend and said, “Coming here tonight was a bad idea. I have much too much to do at the club.”
Sean stared at him with suspicion. He cocked his golden head to one side and rubbed his chin. “Does this have anything to do with the beautiful young miss I saw you dancing with?”
“You saw that, did you? Even with your sneaking off for a little playtime?” Alex grumbled, glowering back at his friend.
“Don't try and change the subject, Alex, you and I both know wealthy widows are lonely and in need of company too.”
That was some small relief to Alex. At least his friend had not been foolish enough to steal some young woman's maiden head on the first big night of the Season.
“Did anybody see you?” Alex demanded. When his friend shook his head, Alex turned his attention to staring out of the window.
All he saw were the dark streets of London flitting back with small chunks of starry night sky between the rows of houses.
He sucked deep lungfuls of the cool evening air and yet still felt feverish.
“But everyone saw you,” Sean said, and Alex felt him watching him closely, too closely. “Who was she, Alex?”
His jaw clenched, his stomach churned, and he felt quite sick.
“It does not matter.”
He continued to glower out of the carriage window, wondering whether he ought to get out and walk. It might help to cool him better.
