Phoebe ignored the pointed remark. “What are you reading?”
“A business proposal. What else?”
“Anything interesting?”
“It could be, if they agree to my changes.” Alex sighed andclosed the portfolio. She sat back in her chair and met Phoebe’s eyes. “All right. Out with it.”
“What do you mean?” She added an innocent blink, but unsurprisingly this did not work on Alex, who crossed her arms in response.
“You’ve obviously come here to say something, so get to it.”
“Can’t I visit my sister without an ulterior motive?”
“Of course. But you wouldn’t set foot in here without one.”
Phoebe laughed. “That’s a tad dramatic, Alex.”
Her sister’s expression remained. “Is it? By my count you haven’t come here in at least three years.”
Well, she had her there.
“I met with Alice Clarke today,” Phoebe began. “She told me about Lord Fairbanks. How you bought all his debts.”
Alex softened ever so slightly. “Oh.”
“And I came here to thank you—”
“No need.”
“Alex,” Phoebe said with exasperation. “What you did was… was above and beyond what anyone else would have done. And so very generous.”
“You’re my sister. Besides, it was time someone brought Fairbanks down a notch.”
“I’d say you brought him down far more than that.”
“Yes, well.” Alex glanced away and Phoebe noted the slight blush coloring her pale cheeks. Goodness, she wasembarrassedto have her good deed revealed. But when Alex met her eyes again, she merely shrugged. “I’m charging him a healthy interest rate. And it’s more than I would get having the money sitting in the bank.”
Phoebe couldn’t help smiling at her explanation. It was just soveryAlex. “Well, I’m still incredibly grateful. I only wish you had told me what you were planning.”
“There wasn’t time,” she insisted. Phoebe was tempted to contradict that reason, but let it pass. “It seemed the best way to guarantee the earl’s silence quickly, and Will was so distraught—”
“What?” Phoebe asked before clamping her mouth shut. She didn’twantto know. Because it didn’t matter.
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Surely that isn’t a surprise. The manhadthreatened to publicly ruin you.”
“Yes, but…” Phoebe hesitated. Her stomach churned as she searched for the right words. “Will was annoyed by the whole business, and what he thought it required of him.”
“You mean the proposal?”
“If you could call it that,” Phoebe muttered. “I know he had already decided against marrying Lady Gwen, but I was not the alternative he had been considering before the earl’s threat.”
Even now, after all these weeks, she still couldn’t think of that afternoon without her shoulders hunching with embarrassment. Will’s aloof manner as he dictated his plan to save her reputation via marriage certainly hadn’t read asdistraughtto her. Formal, cold, clinical, even. But never distraught.
Alex was quiet for a long moment. “Speaking as someone who is not entirely comfortable discussing their feelings in delicate situations, or ever, really,” she began. “I suspect that what he actually felt went far beyond annoyance. And you must know that he didn’t propose to you simply because he thought he was required to,” she added in a disbelieving tone that got Phoebe’s back up.
“He made it perfectly clear that wasexactlywhy he was proposing,” she said tartly.
“But, as I said to him, it was hardly the only option,” Alexpointed out. “Yet that was the first one he suggested. And I know how you’ve always felt about him,” she added.
