After a moment he said, “I always did think you would be a credit to me.” He said it quietly. Again, no recrimination. Simple truth. He sounded almost puzzled.
She dug her fingernails into her palms to keep the tears from spilling from her burning eyes.
She cleared her throat. “Before we formalize our agreement, I have a request.”
His eyebrows leaped.
She pulled in a long sustaining breath. And then she pulled in another one, because the first wasn’t sufficient to fuel her nerves.
“I expect the habit of ordering people about dies hard. I understand that you are accustomed to getting soldiers to jump to do your bidding with sharp commands and to frightening subalterns with stony looks of displeasure or icy silences. In the context of war, I imagine these are very useful skills. I am... struggling to say this politely. I’m not a soldier, Magnus. I understandyou have a grievance, but bullying is beneath you. I fear I simply will not respond toorders. I ask that for the duration of our agreement you treat me with the politeness and respect you would a partner. Because I have discovered that I am willing to throw things if that’s my only recourse and I cannot promise I won’t do it again, even if we’re in the middle of a ballroom.”
He had listened to most of this in absolute rigid stillness, apart from his eyebrows flicking with amazement.
Then his jaw had set.
But halfway through this recitation he’d propped his elbow on his knee and placed his chin on his hand, his expression absorbed. Listening to, and watching her.
And damned if his expression hadn’t reflected something like rueful admiration.
When she’d finished, her heart was knocking so hard it seemed a miracle that neither of them could hear it.
They regarded each other intently.
And for an odd moment, a slippage in time, she saw him as if for the first time, outside of the context of all she knew of him. Almost as if another woman entirely was sitting beside her and asking: “Who is this man?” She noticed how beautifully his dark coat fitted across his shoulders. She noticed the noble set of his head, and his remarkable, weathered, singular face, and the burn of his pale gaze, and how his thick, hard-muscled thighs pushed against the nankeen of his trousers. Hispresence was soweighty, so thoroughly intimidating and compelling, it left her nearly airless. It was impossible to imagine a circumstance over which he wouldn’t triumph.
But the shadows around his eyes looked less like fatigue, and more like grief.
He had meted justice to her, but she would warrant he had paid a cost in loneliness, too.
Finally Magnus straightened again, and pressed his lips together. He pushed a hand through his hair.
“Everything you’ve said is correct,” he said simply. “I apologize sincerely for being a rude bastard. You have my word I shall endeavor to be respectful. And consider this the last time I say ‘bastard’ within your hearing.”
She shakily released the breath she’d been holding. “Thank you.” Her voice was scraped raw.
“But if you take a notion to throw things... you may have noticed my reflexes are excellent.”
She made a soft sound. Not quite a laugh.
She ducked her head because she didn’t want to dash tears away from her now-brimming eyes while he was watching.
She’d never wept easily, and almost never in front of anyone else; she supposed that was pride, too.
“Alexandra.” He said it softly. But the word was taut with emotion.
She glanced up in surprise to find he was extending a handkerchief.
She could have sworn his hand was shaking a little.
She glanced from it to his face and discovered there was a peculiar tension around his eyes.
She stared at him, suddenly wondering if he’d ever wept over her while he was alone in Spain. Did he ever weep at all, or had war evaporated all of his tears forever? Perhaps he’d simply been born incapable of ever being thoroughly crushed.
But she thought of that ribbon scrap in the box.
She took the handkerchief from him. “Thank you.” Her voice was thick.
“I expect you’ll want to rest more before dinner. I’ll return before then,” he said abruptly.
