She turned. Viscount Crewe stood a polite distance away, bowing with economy. Up close, he was handsomer than he had any right to be, with a straight nose and decisive mouth. The air of a man who had learned to master himself and now applied the lesson to the world. The faint smell of tobacco clung to his coat, sharpened by starch and soap.
“Lord Crewe,” she returned, the curtsyeffortless. “Have you come to ensure I do not rearrange the seating to suit my improprieties?”
“I had assumed,” he said dryly, “that your purposes required no assistance.”
Her smile sharpened. “How comforting to be understood so quickly.”
Clara glided away with hostess authority. “I must leave you to each other’s mercies. Alice, send for anything you wish. Lord Crewe, would you be so good as to show Lady Alice the painting at the end of the gallery? Crispin’s grandfather in hunting pink. We have tried to hide it for years, yet it refuses.”
Crewe inclined his head. “With pleasure.”
Clara strode away.
Alice and Crewe fell into step. The portrait proved impossible to ignore—Crispin’s grandsire in full pomp, a pheasant under one arm, triumph painted into the set of his jaw. Alice laughed. Crewe glanced at her as though laughter were a code he meant to decipher.
“Do you enjoy house parties, Lord Crewe?” she asked, idly examining the gilded frame.
“I enjoy the hours before they begin,” he said. “And the hours after they end.”
“How you suffer,” she murmured. “An entire fortnight forced to endure conversation and civilization.”
“Civilization I can bear,” he said. “It is conversation that proves treacherous.”
She tilted her head. “You prefer silence?”
“I prefer purpose.”
“Purpose,” she repeated, tasting it. “How exhausting. Mine is pleasure.”
There it was. A flash of heat, quickly banked. “I had heard as much,” he said coolly.
“From whom?” Her tone stayed sweet, her gaze intent.
He did not look away. “From half of Mayfair and all the mothers.”
“Then everyone needs a hobby,” Alice said lightly, and for the first time his composure shifted as if the ground were not quite as firm as he preferred.
A footman appeared with a cough. “Lady Alice, your chamber is prepared. If you require a maid?—”
“Thank you.” She twined the violets from her reticule between her fingers and faced Crewe once more. “Until dinner, my lord.”
“Until dinner,” he echoed.
Alice walked toward the east corridor with the sense of stepping into a dance whose steps she did not yet know. Behind her, the gallery hummed. Below, a groom called. Outside, the last of the mist burned off the parkland.
At the landing, she paused to lookdown over the hall. Place cards gleamed like invitations to temptation. And on a tray, the morrow’s program lay where she had left it, the line about pairings catching the light.
She smiled to herself. Let fate draw lots. Let hosts meddle. Let Viscount Crewe wrap himself in his armor of purpose, gleaming and blinding to all but her own amused eyes.
Still, beneath her brightness stirred the faintest pulse of apprehension, an awareness that the fortnight ahead might test more than her wit.
She pushed a loose curl behind her ear. Better peril at dinner than the slow death of tedium, and Viscount Crewe looked perilous indeed.
CHAPTER 2
The dining room at Oakford Hall shone with warm candlelight. Flames stood to attention along the table, glasses chimed, a quartet stitched melody through the talk. Alice let the room wash over her as she took her seat—two chairs down from Viscount Crewe, exactly where Clara promised. Beside her, Mr. Davenant sat in amiable comfort, all kindly whiskers and dinner-table tales.
Alice’s mother would have called this a perfect arrangement. Near enough to be noticed, far enough to be safe. Alice, who liked her games played at the edge of the board, found the distance both vexing and invigorating. Safety might please her mother, but Alice preferred the thrill of unsteady ground.
