Kate Noble (23 page)

“I have a question for you,” Max drawled. “This man, it seems, thought himself always right, and took care to make sure everyone knew. Don’t you think his shipmates found him a bit, shall we say, annoying?”

Her head snapped up.

“If he was right, why should he care if others found him annoying?” Fire flashed in her eyes. “Personally, I can’t imagine a life more revolting than compromising every opinion, desire, and truth I have to simply get along with others!”

Max opened his mouth to respond to that explosion of feeling, when a sudden change went through Gail. It was as if all the wind left her body, leaving her once blustery self hollowed, and tired. She smiled weakly. “Now, Lord Fontaine, I have a question for you: How long are we going to keep doing this?”

Whatever question Max was expecting, that wasn’t it.

“Doing what?” he asked, befuddled.

“Fighting. Bickering. Get each other’s back up. I don’t know about you, but whenever we engage in our little battle of wills, I end the day exhausted.”

For a moment, Max stood stunned. Then a great burst of air left him.

“God yes, it’s tiring.”

Gail smiled in relief and then leaned forward, whispering as if taking Max into confidence.

“But fun, too.” Her eyes twinkled.

Max grinned. “Fun, too. Sometimes.”

She cleared her throat and straightened her back. “I think we need to find some middle ground, Max.”

“I apologize if my earlier words were too harsh. I…don’t know what the boundaries are with you,” he said sincerely, meeting her eyes.

She nodded slowly, her mouth a grim line. “I don’t know the rules with you, either.”

“Half the time, we’re sniping at each other, other times I, well I—”

“Want to kick my throat in?” Gail suggested wryly.

“Nothing so violent. I might wish you a prolonged bout of laryngitis, though.”

Gail chuckled. It was a nice sound, deep and warm. Max smiled lopsidedly at hearing it.

“I propose,” he said leaning on the shelves, relaxing a little, “that we let it go, just for this afternoon.”

“Do you mean we pretend to like each other?” Gail lifted an eyebrow.

“Yes, just for today, you never pushed me off my horse into a lake, and I—”

“Never compromised my sister and are therefore not forcing her to marry?”

“Exactly.” He nodded resolutely.

“But we start bickering again tomorrow?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

Lit by the sconce on the wall, Max’s eyes sparkled in good humor.

“Yes. I accept.” Her smile broke forth like sunshine on that gray English afternoon. She extended her hand.

“Excellent.” He took her offered hand and shook it once, in binding resolution. Never mind that it took him a second before giving it back.

They stood for a moment staring at each other, before each returned to the books they had been perusing earlier. Standing side by side in that row of shelves, each looking at their books, neither reading. Eventually, Gail, as was her way, broke the silence.

“Well, if we can’t snipe at each other, what are we to talk about?”

AS
it turned out, the temporary negotiated truce allowed for the most carefree afternoon that Max had enjoyed since the start of this torturous Season. He found that when she wasn’t restricted by fear, or politeness, or a desire to provoke her companion, Gail Alton was quite pleasant company. Playing at being friends opened a wealth of curiosity each had about the other.

It started slowly. As Max was walking from one set of shelves to the next, he passed the open door and saw Mr. Ellis intently sorting papers.

“How did your family become acquainted with Mr. Ellis?” Max asked casually.

Gail looked up from her own volume. “He met my father in…India, I believe. They struck up conversation right away. After that, he would meet us in Greece, Egypt, anywhere our paths crossed. He quickly became a favorite uncle with us, popping up with toys and stories from his travels, always eager to listen to two little girls who moved around too much to have many steady friends.”

“Both he and your father are well traveled. I imagine they have much in common.”

“Not as much as you would think. They are friendly, yes, but they are forever in the middle of a row. Mr. Ellis is very liberal minded. He believes we should not attempt to enforce our British ideals on other cultures—that we really shouldn’t engage them at all. He would say that the best way to learn about another place is to become part of it, blend in, meeting locals, learning the language, et cetera. Basically renouncing everything English.”

“Sounds close to your own philosophy. And your father, the diplomat, is very much opposed to Mr. Ellis’s extreme view,” Max concluded.

“Such differing points of view can cause some friction,” Gail conceded.

“Friction?”

“I believe furniture was thrown at one time,” she admitted.

Max guffawed in disbelief.

“But in the end,” Gail continued, “they respect each other and enjoy the fights. Healthy debate was the foundation of a solid friendship—as opposed to mutual loathing.”

A skeptical eyebrow rose. “Thrown furniture is the foundation of a solid friendship?”

Gail shrugged. “It was merely a foot stool. Hardly worth signifying.”

As Gail’s attention returned to her book, Max allowed his gaze to drift over her. Her eyes moved rapidly over the text, her small pink tongue pressing into her upper lip, her face a picture of studious concentration. Max remembered how Sir Geoffrey had commented that Gail was much more like himself than Evangeline was. She didn’t have her father’s penchant for blustering or his ability to negotiate the intricacies of a peace treaty with a hostile but defeated nation, but she certainly seemed to have inherited his love of impassioned debate.

Smiling just a little, he turned his attention back to the shelves. After a while, all Max heard was the rustling of skirts in the next aisle over, the turn of a page. Since they had agreed not to bait each other, they were able to go about in companionable silence. Which was a nice change, he decided. He certainly had never had any companionable silences with Evangeline, although silence itself was abundant. Whenever he was alone with Evangeline, the air was so fraught with awkwardness he could barely breathe. Luckily, they weren’t alone too often.

“Do you know,” Max began, and heard the distinct clunk of a book being dropped. “Did I startle you?” he asked, grinning.

“No…er, well, yes,” came the voice from the side of the shelves. “But pray continue.”

“I was simply going to comment on how I think I have been in your exclusive company far more than I have been in your sister’s.”

After a silence, she replied, “Well, yes I suppose you have. But there’s alone, and then there’s alone-kissing-in-a-moonlit-garden.”

“We called a truce, remember?”

“Apologies,” she said quickly. “What I mean to say is your current situation is predicated not on the amount of time you spent alone with a lady. It’s based on your being caught in a compromising position. Really, you’re quite lucky. Imagine if you had been caught alone with me at the ball when we were behind the curtain. In my state, it would have looked to anyone as if something untoward was going on, and then it would be
we
who were engaged quicker than you could say ‘jack rabbit.’ What a horror that would be, eh Max?”

“Definitely,” was the immediate reply, standard and ingrained. He was lucky that it was Evangeline he found himself attached to. But a niggling little voice in the back of his mind started to whisper.
What if?
What if it had been Gail?

Would it have been so bad?

“Besides, they don’t worry about me,” she said quietly. “Not like they do Evangeline.”

“They should,” Max answered automatically and honestly. More honestly than he cared to admit.

He could hear the eye-roll in her voice. “Max…”

“You shouldn’t do that, you know.”

“Do what?” She poked her head around the corner, her brow creased with confusion.

“Call me Max,” he said clearly. “’Tis wholly improper. Your sister doesn’t call me Max, and one would think she has more right to it than you.”

Gail smiled reflectively. “Sometimes I call you Max to provoke you,” she admitted, stepping into full view, leaning her long frame against the shelves, arms crossed over a book held to her chest. “But the rest of the time, I forget not to.”

“Huh,” Max said, nonplussed at her bold-faced honesty. “You do realize, such an intimacy would give me automatic leave to address you as Gail.”

“But you won’t,” Gail stated.

“No,” he admitted. “I probably won’t. It wouldn’t provoke you the same way ‘Brat’ does.”

“And provoke it does,” Gail said, her voice full of dry humor.

Max regarded her quizzically. “Does it truly bother you so much?”

“I hate it,” she replied vehemently. “Almost as much as I despise being called ‘Abigail.’”

“I’ll stop, then.”

She blinked at him a few moments. The corners of his mouth turned up. That certainly threw her off balance.

“But if you don’t call me ‘Brat,’ I shall have to leave off calling you Max,” she replied pertly, once she had regained her voice.

He lifted a shoulder. “Now that I know you do it to be provoking, it shan’t provoke any longer.”

“Your logic astounds me, Max.”

“I should imagine it does, Gail.”

“I thought you weren’t going to call me Gail, either.” She eyed him suspiciously.

Another shrug. “With ‘Brat’ and ‘Abigail’ off limits, I changed my mind about ‘Gail.’ Have to keep the field even, don’t I?”

As she was reduced to laughter, Mr. Ellis stuck his head in and shushed them with all the gravity of the principal librarian. When he had again retreated to his classification system, and Gail and Max snickered their way to the next isle of books, Max realized that he was truly enjoying himself. How very peculiar.

Soon enough, each had a stack of books under their arms, and they made their way to the private reading rooms. The one they were directed to was about the size of a small drawing room, fully paneled in wood, with oil lamps and magnifying glasses available to assist detailed inspection. A small fire grate was lit and situated next to a pair of winged velvet chairs. A large table was in the center of the room, with sturdy chairs on each side. Max and Gail reverently placed their stacks of books on the table and began to sort through them.

Max was quickly engrossed in a collection of maps, drawn by the first explorers to the New World.

“Have you ever been here?” he asked Gail, drawing her away from a tome on the Greek system of congress.

“No.” She stood closely behind him, looking over his shoulder. “We never traveled to the colonies.”

“I don’t suppose they take kindly to being called ‘colonies’ anymore.” He flipped a page. “What about here?”

“The West Indies?” She shook her head. “No, never been there, either.” An errant curl that had escaped her coiffure bobbed along with the movement of her head, momentarily capturing his attention.

“So, there is still much in the world left for you to explore,” he said after clearing his throat.

“And I intend to see it all.”

Silently Max agreed. He longed to see the tropical islands of the Caribbean, the shores of Boston, the pyramids on the Nile. But being an Earl, or next in line, with a huge property to maintain was not conducive to year-round travel. But then again, neither was being a single young lady.

“You’re lucky to have seen all that you have,” he ventured. “But what if your husband doesn’t wish to travel?”

Gail scoffed. “If my nonexistent husband doesn’t wish to travel with me, I shall go alone. There are some things that do not yield to the wishes of others.”

Max shook his head. “You only say that because your desires have never been tested. You will marry, have a brood of children—very impertinent ones—and find yourself ten years from now leg-shackled to the life you have, and the dreams of exotic places just that. Only dreams.”

“That won’t happen,” she replied staunchly.

He simply looked at her, sad that for once, he knew more of the world than she. She seemed to understand his thoughts, for she replied adamantly, “In that case I shan’t marry.”

“Yes, you will.” And though the thought gave him a moment’s pause, he plunged on. “You will be married and subject to the rule of your husband. If he doesn’t wish you to go, then…” He shrugged, allowing the sentence to trail off.

She quirked her head. “Is that what happened to you?”

His eyebrows shot up.

“Not the husband, exactly. But every book you picked is about some far-off place. And yet, beyond your grand tour, you never traveled. Why?”

Max sighed. “It’s quite complicated. My father…” he trailed off. “Well, suffice to say, it’s a long story.”

“Oh, I have time,” Gail said, seating herself in one of the large wingback chairs by the fire grate. “Indeed, the world seems to have forgotten us.”

It was true. The private reading room lived up to its name. No one had come to check on them. Mr. Ellis and his assistants were engrossed in their work, and Evangeline and Will had promised to make their excuses to Romilla. They were completely alone, and no one seemed to care.

“The door is closed,” Max said, dazedly.

Gail waved off his unspoken question in her very Gail-like way. “They saw us before in the other room. They don’t worry about you and me.”

Unbidden,
they should
, again flashed through his brain. Instead, he said, “I doubt your mother would be much pleased by that closed door.”

“Stepmother, and you are purposely avoiding the subject. I have settled into a somewhat comfortable chair for the promised long story. I suggest you do the same.”

Max weighed his options before her steady golden stare and realized he might as well admit defeat. Gail’s intense curiosity would not allow her to give up until she knew what she wanted to know.

And strangely enough, Max wanted to tell her.

“To understand my situation, I think you have to understand how I grew up,” Max started as he settled into the chair opposite Gail. The firelight flickered against her hair, making the ordinary brown glow with red flame.

“I was raised in Sussex, near a small coastal town called Hollings. For such a small place, it has a fairly good-sized shipping trade in place. Holt Shipping established its first port there, you know.” When she nodded, he continued. “Of course you know, you know everything. Well at any rate, I spent my formative years at Longsbowe Park. I spent a good amount of time by myself. My parents had separate lives. I had nurses and governesses. My father was still active in the House of Lords, so he wasn’t in the country some of the time. But when he was…he taught me to fish in a stream on the estate. And to shoot. And about the lands that would one day be mine. My father…Longsbowe hasn’t changed in generations, you see. Hundreds of years and the land, estates, it’s all been exactly the same. I was taught the history of every tree, who planted it and why, the crops and how long we’ve been growing the same thing in the same place. Now, I enjoy history. Learning about new places and things and ideas that never landed on our shores is interesting—after all, without knowing what came before how can we advance? But Longsbowe
is
history. It can be…” Max’s voice became a little too rough for his liking. He cleared his throat, and began again.

“Anyway, my father wasn’t around often when I was young, and I was relatively alone, which isn’t abnormal. I would run three miles into town as a boy and watch the ships go out to sea, and I adored it. I would ask sailors where they had been and what they had brought back, and they would laugh and tell me I’d be a devil of a sailor one day. And I wanted to be—Lord, did I want to be—but I was to be an Earl. That’s the way it was, the way it is, and the way it always will be. And Earls are not common sailors. But I was very young. When the Holt family purchased an estate that was not too far from ours, I finally had a friend nearby. Their blood may not have been as blue as my father would have liked, but their money was certainly the right color—and amount. So now, instead of just me running into town, it was Holt and I harassing the sailors and fishermen.”