“Only that I don’t like to be interrupted when I am at work.” Her voice was toneless, save for an edge of ice, “I believe that I’ve mentioned that before.”
He frowned at the sight of her rigid shoulders. “Might I ask you to look at me.”
She turned slowly. Her face was composed, only the rigid set of her jaw betrayed the underlying tension.
“Please don’t play me for a fool. It’s obvious?—”
“Play you for a fool,” she echoed. “No, milord, rather it isIwho does not care for the game any longer.”
Utterly perplexed, Branford took a step closer to her. “What in the name of Hades do you mean?” He reached out his hand to touch her cheek but she shied away.
Her gaze locked with his and her mouth set in a hard line.
“Very well,” said Alex, after drawing in a sharp breath. “Since you seem reluctant to lay things in the open, I shall do it for you. We are both adults after all. There is little need for prevarication.”
Her face now appeared as if it was chiseled out of stone “Is it true that you entered a wager in the betting book at your club for five hundred pounds that you could …” Her throat constricted for an instant before she continued. “… that you could—I believe the term was mount—me?”
Branford felt his face drain of all color. He went utterly still, save for a slight twitch in the muscle of his locked jaw.
“Alex …” he began.
She cut him off sharply. “It’s not a difficult question, Lord Branford. Is it true or isn’t it? Yes or no.”
“Yes.” His voice was barely more than a whisper.
Alex bent her head and began to fiddle with her brushes to hide her trembling hands. She chose one whose sable hair tapered to a perfect point, tested its feel, then returned it to the earthenware jar.
“I must fetch my other brushes—I wish to get back to work, if you please. I assume you are able to find your own way out.”
She made as if to go by him, but Branford took gentle hold of her arm.
“Alex, please allow me to explain …” And yet he hesitated, suddenly at a loss for how to begin.
Her mouth pinched in a tight smile. “Oh come now, you needn’t feel that you must invent some apology. It isn’t necessary. As I said before, we are both adults.” She brushed a ringlet of hair from her cheek, adding another streak to the smudge already there. “In any case, I’m well aware that I’m ruined, but it doesn’t matter as I never intend to marry. To be honest, I was curious about a kiss—and why not experience it with someone who is said to be soveryskilled at it? After all, you’ve had such a great deal of practice, haven’t you?”
Her eyes had become overly bright, brimming with a hurt her words tried to belie. “Now sir, if you will excuse me.” She wrenched her arm free and fled the room, leaving Branford in stunned silence.
He stood motionless, struggling to master his feeling of utter shock. He felt as if he had been pushed from a cliff and was falling, falling into a vast black void.
“Have you a shred of decency left, or do you also intend to break your promise to meet my challenge?”
Branford’s eyes closed for a moment, then he turned slowly to meet Justin’s burning glare. The young man’s face was taut with anger, made fiercer by the look of disillusionment in his eyes. As he stood blocking the doorway, he struggled manfully to keep his shoulders from sagging with disappointment.
“What a bloody sapskull I was to believe you actually …” He grimaced in self-disgust. “Well? Will you show any honor?”
Branford rubbed wearily at his brow. “Send your second to Ashton. He will arrange things,” he said in a low, resigned tone. “But for heaven’s sake, choose someone with discretionand a rein on his tongue, else your sister will be fodder for the gossips!”
A short while later,Alex returned to the library, closed the door firmly and locked it with a twist of the heavy brass key. She undid the strings of a canvas roll and added an assortment of different sized brushes to those already standing in the crock by her easel. Her fingers mechanically reached for a square-tipped one, dipped it in a glass of clean water and began mixing a new tint on her palette.
It was only then that she noticed the small box still sitting on the edge of the oak table. She stared at it for a lengthy time, then put her brush down and slowly walked over to it. After wiping her hands on the sides of her old gown, she lifted the top and stared down at the intricate veined leaves of a small plant, its roots carefully balled in a piece of damp burlap.
Her breath caught in her throat with a tiny sound of anguish.
Sinking into the nearest chair, Alex pressed her palms to her face and let the tears come at last.
“Are you utterly mad!”
Henry Ashton laid aside the papers he had been studying and peeled off his reading spectacles, as if hoping a clearer view of his friend’s face would reveal that the words he had just heard were nothing more than a bad jest.
