Alix’s mindwas still on Lamartine’s visit during her ride that afternoon with Rafe—Louisa and Elizabeth trotting a respectable distance behind.
“Come now, Alix, I have twitted you twice on your very smart, but still very gray riding habit, and you have responded without so much as a flash of your lovely eyes, much less an acerbic comment on my tastes. Perhaps I might have a better chance of attracting your interest if I were to begin declaiming in verse.” Rafe paused. “Let me see, how aboutOde to a Gray Gamine.”
Alix glanced over at him, startled. “I beg pardon, Rafe, my mind was elsewhere.” She gave him a puzzled look. “Were you saying something about verse? I confess, I hadn’t really thought you a poetical spirit.”
Rafe smiled. “There is much you have to learn about me sweetheart, but never mind the verse, it was of no importance, a simple ploy to gain your attention.”
Alix gave him a thoughtful look. There it was again, that indecipherable something in his eyes. He had been increasingly attentive lately, and she’d heard nothing about him spending time in Lady Anne’s company.
“Perhaps I can help with what’s bothering you,” he said gently.
Trusting him, she mused, was as dangerously tempting as his body. After a moment, she gave way. “There is a servant, the steward of my father’s estates, who has sent my mother a letter indicating that he has some information for her and would like to meet with us this afternoon. I can’t help wondering what’s brought him here and what he wants.”
Rafe’s mind turned immediately to Jervis’s report about the Frenchman spying on Lady Melbourne’s home. If he were a betting man, he would lay odds that he and the comte’s steward were the same. But he didn’t want to alarm Alix; perhaps it was all quite innocent. “Would it help if I were to join you when he arrives?” he asked.
Alix had been worrying over this question as well. Truth be told, since they were married, the estates were as good as his. And yet, he’d never even been there. He’d never seen the way the summer sun struck the peaked roofs of the towers, turning the worn stone the color of ripe apricots. He’d never walked its wide lawns, or seen its formal gardens in full bloom. Alix felt a pain in her chest, as if her heart had brittle edges. What difference did it make? She’d probably never see her father’s lands again.
She glanced at Rafe, sitting straight and proud in his saddle, his broad shoulders accented by his close-fittingriding jacket, the sun through the trees picking gold strands out of his chestnut hair. Perhaps it would be good to meet the past with this man at her side, she thought.
“I’d like to have you there, Rafe,” she said softly.
“Thank you, Alix,” he said, sensing that her decision had been a struggle and that in some small measure he had won; she had decided to let him into a part of her world. Perhaps she was beginning to trust him, he thought, pleased that he hadn’t had to demand she invite him as his right. He wanted to say more than thank you, silently cursing the presence of his sister and stepmother. It was all too ridiculous. He needed to see Alix alone, to talk with her—really talk, not just chatter about fashion and the weather, without the constant intrusion of chaperones.
As they turned back toward Melbourne House, Rafe’s eyes wandered to the servant’s entrance and the window he knew to be Alix’s. It was time, he reflected, to pay another late night call on his wife.
Rafe was helping Alix to dismount when a footman came hurrying down the stairs towards them. “Madame la Comtesse has a visitor and she would like mademoiselle and your lordship to join her in the sitting room as soon possible.”
Rafe looked over to Louisa and Elizabeth, still mounted on their horses. “Would you mind terribly, Louisa,” he called over to her, “if I didn’t accompany you back to Moreham House?’
Louisa smiled. “I wouldn’t mind at all my dear. I have some business to attend to and Elizabeth needs to change her gown. James Dinsmore is coming by to take her round to a poetry reading.”
A whisper of concern crossed Rafe’s mind; he didn’t generally associate James Dinsmore with poetry readings.Reminding himself to discuss it with Elizabeth later that evening, he turned back to the footman. “Will you ask Morris to arrange for a groom to accompany my mother and sister home?”
The footman rushed off as Rafe and Alix went up into the house. When they reached the sitting room, Rafe saw Madeleine, in her customary black, seated on the edge of a brocade armchair. Directly across from her was a slight figure in an old-fashioned bagwig and a plain brown suit. As the man turned his pale face and watery blue eyes to meet them, Rafe realized with a shock that his suspicions had been correct. Sitting with the comtesse was the man he had struck with the candlestick and left unconscious in her apartments in Paris.
The man rose, his eyes flickering quickly over Rafe’s face, and Rafe understood that he, too, recalled their last meeting.
Madeleine waved her hand in Alix and Rafe’s direction. “I’ve asked my daughter and Lord Moreham to join us, Lamartine.”
Lamartine gave a slight bow of his head. “As you wish, madame.” He fixed his watery gaze on Rafe. “If I am not mistaken, his lordship and I have met before.”
Madeleine looked confused. “I beg your pardon, how can that be?”
Rafe moved swiftly, anxious to avoid having to explain to Madeleine that he’d encountered Lamartine while breaking into her apartments with Alix dressed as a man. Drawing himself up so that he towered over the little man, he said in a dismissive tone. “I am certain he is mistaken. It is simply not possible for our paths to have crossed before.”
Lamartine’s face was expressionless, his only movement a slight flaring of his nostrils, as the earl’s words reminded him of the difference in their stations. He was uncertain whether the long-nosed Englishman was a fooland had faded to recognize him, or whether he was simply a liar. He smiled, fool or liar, either explanation might work to his advantage. “My apologies, your lordship, I thought your features seemed familiar.”
Rafe waved a careless hand in Lamartine’s direction as he took a seat. “It is of no matter.”
Alix remained standing, her eyes taking in every inch of the steward’s form. She’d never particularly liked Lamartine, but now he represented everything familiar that she’d known and lost. She moved closer to him and took both his smooth white hands in hers. “Robert, it is so good to see you again, and simply astonishing to see you here in London. How ever did you get here?”
“Yes, how did you find your way here?” Rafe asked, his pleasant tone belying his intense interest in what the man would say.
Lamartine folded his hands together. “It was after the peasants stormed the château, after...” He paused and dropped his eyes. “The death of my good master. I was endeavoring to clean up some of the destruction when I came across some of Monsieur’s papers scattered about. Among them was a letter from Madame la Comtesse, explaining that she was leaving France and hoping to stay with Lady Melbourne.”
Alix frowned as she settled into a chair. She hadn’t known her father knew Madeleine had left the country. Usually he would have railed about such a thing, but perhaps knowing she would have argued that they ought to join her mother, he had decided not to make an issue of it. She leaned forward, anxious to hear what else Lamartine had to say. “You were in the château when the mob attacked?” she prompted.
“Ah, yes,” he said in a dolorous voice. “I was reviewing some accounts when I heard them coming up the drive.” He wrung his hands. “So often I had begged Monsieur leComte to prepare for such an event, but he had such faith in his people.”
