“Why waste good gunpowder?” he’d allegedly remarked absently as he worked with the other gentleman passengers to tie them up. He hadn’t even reached for his pistol.
They’d left the robbers bound hand and foot on the side of the road and carried on their journeywithin minutes. Brightwall had taken the robbers’ weapons. He still owned them.
It was what he was built for: inspiringruein anyone who dared cross him.
“So it’s just the general... fact of me.” He swept a hand vaguely about his vast person. “That made you flinch away, as one might from any alarming thing. A dragon, for instance.”
She’d always known him to be economical with words. But she recalled how now and again out came something so intriguingly, delightfully vivid it had made her restless to know the other thoughts that milled about in his mind, unspoken.
“The sudden appearance of a dragonwouldbe alarming,” she agreed politely.
And for a breathtaking, vanishing instant, shared amusement arced between them.
They had liked each other, once. Though they’d known each other for so short a time before they wed.
Of course, it had become all too clear they hadn’t truly known each other at all.
Even now she could probably charm him.
To what end? He would soon resent her for it. For it would remind him of what a fool he’d been to be charmed once before, and this had led to what he surely now considered the one great folly of his brilliant, storied life: marrying her.
Well. He had bought her.
Or her father had sold her.
However one preferred to look at it.
Caveat emptor, Colonel Brightwall.
Did he think the notion shemightgenuinely fear him outlandish? Had he never stood in front of a mirror?
And then she had it: likely it was simply a matter of honor for him. For if she’d been a man, he might have killed her with pistols at dawn or some such for what she’d done five years ago. The rules were different for women.
And what did a military man understand better than rules?
Her father, Lord Bellamy, was a widower who loved to entertain, and when he held house parties, it was Alexandra’s habit to circulate through the gathered guests like a breeze, making certain everyone felt comfortable and welcome and seen. The night of the reception in honor of Colonel Brightwall, sweet, shy Mary Hotchkiss had been sitting alone near the hearth, pushing her sliding-down spectacles back up her nose at intervals and trying to disappear into the wallpaper, valiantly pretending she was not suffering. Alexandra had gone to sit with her. Soon she had Mary laughing, and one by one guests were drawn to their effervescence, until they were the center of a small, merry crowd.
Whereupon Alexandra melted away to the arched window that looked out over the back garden of the house they might soon lose forever thanks to her father’s bad luck with investments, and admired Mary’s face shining amidst her new friends. Her own world was rife with concerns. She knew life to be both beautiful and pockedwith injustices and hurts. But there was such relief to be had in making it all just a bit easier for someone else, if only for a moment or two.
“You’re a kind person, Miss Bellamy.”
With a start she turned to discover Colonel Brightwall leaning against the wall near her.
She studied him. Hanging in the British Museum was a painting of Brightwall atop a rearing, wild-eyed horse, his leonine head wreathed in the smoke of battle. Defeated enemies were heaped all around like cordwood. She’d thought it an exaggeration bordering on parody. She was not so sure now.
He looked exactly like the sort of man who would swing a musket at the skull of a highwayman.
His entrance into the party tonight had precipitated a hush. Jaded adults with glittering pedigrees craned their heads, staring mutely up at him like bashful children. The air was practically misted with awe.
Brightwall was clearly accustomed to this. Her proud father had led him about the gathering. The colonel apportioned to each introduced guest a few gruffly gracious words and brisk nods of thanks for what were clearly compliments. He clasped both hands behind him when he listened. His bearing recalled the mast of a ship. He left in his wake eased postures and glowing faces, as though he’d bestowed benedictions.
He moved, and occupied space, with utter self-possession. There wasn’t a single tentative thingabout him. Alexandra found him thoroughly intimidating.
Another person might have said “you are kind” as a matter of rote, as one might say “please” or “thank you.” But he’d said this almost gravely. As though he was imparting something significant he felt she should know.
She soon learned that almost nothing he said sounded casual.
She was not a shy person. But what she saw in his eyes then made her cheeks warm. She found she could think of nothing to say, which was a rare occurrence, indeed.
