“Take all the time you like. It won’t change anything.”
“You gave me a list—alist—of reasons you wouldn’t marry me. I have resolved them, one by one. You have no reason to be angry with me for something you instigated.”
“Iinstigated? How dare you, for your own convenience, bring the Duke of Monmouth here and blame it on me?”
“That doesn’t make any blasted sense, Alexandra. We—”
“You had no right to try to force a reconciliation just because it suited you! Is that clear enough?”
Furious, Lucien stalked a circle around her. “I have done everything for you,” he growled. “You worried over Rose’s happiness. I made certain she would be happy. You feared your reputation would mean trouble for those around you if you stayed here. Your reputation is now repaired.”
“My reputation is now conveniently swept under a rug so you can have your way. You still need an heir to keep Rose’s children from inheriting, and you’re still the same stupid Lucien Balfour who said love was only a socially acceptable synonym for fornication!”
“I’mstupid,” he repeated. “I’mthe idiot who tried to make you happy. For God’s sake, since I met you, I don’t even recognize myself in the mirror anymore! Now I go frolicking about trying to solve people’s problems—and Ilikeit!”
“I don’t—”
“I’m not finished,” he snarled. “I even quit smoking cigars, because I knew you didn’t approve. You have changed me. You have made me a different man, and one I actually like better than the old one. My question for you, Alexandra, is where does it say that you get to have exactly everything you want?”
“I didn’t ask you for anything. Don’t expect me to compromise for something I never wanted.”
“You did want it. You still do. You’re just too damned stubborn to admit it.” Breathing hard, Lucien glared at her as she glared back at him. “It’s your turn to bend,” he snapped. “I’ll be upstairs if you want to find me.”
Chapter 20
“Iwas not wrong!” Alexandra stamped about the small office. “I was not wrong! He had no right to do what he did!”
“Lex, I didn’t say anything. You’re arguing with yourself. Which may be helpful to you, but it’s giving me a headache.”
Alexandra stopped in front of the scarred oak desk and looked at the young woman seated behind it. “I’m sorry, Emma,” she muttered, and then stomped her foot. “He just made me so angry!”
“So I gathered,” Emma Grenville said dryly. Tucking a strand of her ever-straying auburn hair behind one ear, she stood and came around the desk. “Sit down,” she ordered. “I will fetch you some tea.” The headmistress bent down and ruffled Shakespeare’s ears. “And Shakes needs a cookie.”
Reluctantly Alexandra grinned. “I’ve been yelling so much, he’s probably deaf.”
“Sit.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Petite and slender, with an irresistible pair of dimples that appeared when she laughed, Emma looked more like a wood sprite than the owner of a girls’ school. At the same time, her air of calm unflappability and kindness made her seem older than her twenty-four years. Alexandra sighed and took a seat by the window as Emma slipped out to the small kitchen.
Outside the door she heard laughter, quickly quieted, as a group of Academy students headed to the main hall for dinner. The former monastery had always seemed a perfect place for a school, though the addition of society’s daughters had forced several modifications to the old building. The windows added to the classrooms, the study, and the offices were only the most minor of the changes.
“Now,” Emma said as she stepped back into the room, “I gather that you and Lord Kilcairn had an argument.” She set the tea tray on her desk and took her seat again.
“Yes, we had an argument. But it was his fault.” Alexandra scooted forward in her chair and poured each of them a cup of tea. Shakespeare eagerly received his cookie, and retreated under the desk to gnaw on it.
“Since when do you argue with your employers?”
“Since they’re wrong.” With a small sigh, she sat back and sipped her tea. She couldn’t remember how many times she’d sat in this same elegant chair and poured out her troubles to Emma’s aunt. It felt…comfortable to be back, except that she had hoped by this time not to have any more troubles. Yet here she was with the same old ones, bolstered by the new ones Lucien had provided her. “He locked me in his cellar, you know.”
“He did? What a barbaric thing to do!”
“It wasn’t even his primary wine cellar. Just the secondary one.”
Emma’s lips twitched. “So you’re angry because Lord Kilcairn didn’t lock you in the main wine cellar?”
“Of course not. Don’t make fun.”
