“You should be pleased. That would leave more matrimonial candidates for you and your mother to sift through.”
“Lucien, don’t change—”
Lucien stopped, his breath catching as he abruptly realized what he’d been missing all morning. “What was that you said?”
“I said it was dangerous terri—”
“No. Before that.”
Robert looked puzzled. “I said a lot. My pearls of wisdom are for you to commit to memory, not me. What—”
“You said ‘highborn mistress.’”
“I said ‘highborn governess,’” the viscount amended uneasily. “It was just a general point of information. I didn’t mean—”
“Robert, I forgot. I have an errand,” Lucien interrupted, stepping out into the street to hail a hack. “I’ll see you tonight.”
“Yes…well, all right.” Lord Belton said from behind him as Lucien ordered the driver to Grosvenor Street.
Alexandrawashighborn. Terribly scandalized—ruined, actually—but highborn. And he needed to think, which was not his strongest suit where Miss Gallant was concerned.
“I’m not going.” Alexandra unfastened her necklace and set it back on the dressing table.
Shakespeare looked up at her and wagged his tail.
“Thank you, Shakes. I’m glad you agree.”
The door connecting her bedchamber to Rose’s rattled. “Lex?”
“Come in,” she called, frowning at herself in the mirror.She wasn’t going.
“Is it too pink?” Miss Delacroix glided into the room, trying to see Alexandra’s reaction and the dressing mirror at the same time as she spun about the floor. “I think it’s too pink.”
“It’s perfection. You look lovely.”
The girl leaned over and kissed her on the cheek. “Oh, I know. Isn’t it wonderful?” She twirled again, all curls and pink silk and lace. “Cousin Lucien can’t possibly say I look like a flamingo tonight.”
“I’m certain he’ll say no such thing.” If none of her other lessons had sunk in, at least he knew better than to give Rose even the remotest cause to cry.
“Why aren’t you ready to go?” Rose stopped long enough to notice that Alexandra hadn’t put on her shoes or her necklace, and that her hair still hung loose down her back. “Cousin Lucien will be angry if we keep him waiting.”
“I’m not going.” Trying to make light of the news, Alexandra smiled at Rose’s surprised expression. “You scarcely need me tonight, and your mother can chaperone you.”
“Why aren’t you going? What happens if I forget what I’m supposed to say, or if I start conversing with an unacceptable person?”
Pointing out that her own governess was probably the most unacceptable person she would encounter didn’t seem helpful. “I just have a bit of a headache,” she lied. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
“Oh, I hope so.”
Rose hurried downstairs, and Alexandra sat back in her dressing chair. She wasn’t precisely abandoning her charge; while the gossip was still fresh, she’d be doing more for Rose by her absence than by her presence. And it had nothing to do with her own misgivings about mingling with thehaute tonafter the other evening.
Every time she’d been outside over the past few days, she’d looked for Virgil, and whispers, and people laughing behind her back. She’d only been able to stand luncheon with Vixen for an hour. To deliberately attend a gathering of theton, knowing that they all knew what the Retting side of the family thought of her, was too painful to contemplate.
Her door suddenly opened. “Get dressed,” Lord Kilcairn said, stopping just inside the room.
She jumped, remembering Vixen’s warning about locked doors, and knowing at the same time why she hadn’t heeded it for the past week. “I have a headache.”
His expression curious rather than angry, he took in her scanty additions to the lavish room. “And I will have a larger headache with no one to herd the harpies. Get dressed.”
