Reforming a Rake (27 page)

Lucien stood. He needed to open her eyes, as she’d opened his. Not to love, because he knew, he sensed, that she loved him—but to herself.

“Cousin Lucien?” Rose asked, looking up at him with a concerned frown.

“Make the arrangements, Mr. Mullins,” he said. “And when you’ve finished, see me in my office. We have one more matter to take care of.”

Alexandra sat on the edge of her desk and looked into the fresh, naive faces of her students. She’d been one of them herself not so long ago, though there were times, like this afternoon, when she couldn’t remember ever being so young.

“Well,” she mused, “when someone expresses a view about a work of fiction, the commentary is generally thought to be that person’s opinion.”

“But that’s what I said, Miss Gallant,” Alison, one of the rosy-cheeked young ladies, protested. “‘In my opinion, Juliet should have listened to her parents.’”

“Miss Gallant is saying that you’re being redundant, Alison,” another of the girls piped up.

“You be quiet, Penelope Walters,” Alison retorted.

Stifling an exasperated sigh, and grateful Emma had only given her a dozen of the young ladies to begin with, Alexandra stepped forward to restore order. “Now, now. Romeo and Juliet experienced enough bloodshed. We don’t need to add to it.”

The classroom door burst open and Jane Hantfeld, one of the Academy’s older students, hurried past the desks to the windows at the far end of the room. Her face flushed with excitement, she barely spared the other girls a glance. “Oh, my goodness, look! You have to see this!”

“Miss Hantfeld,” Alexandra chastised, too late to stop the stampede to the windows, “class is in session here.”

“Who is he?” Alison asked, giggling. “He’s so handsome.”

“I like his horse,” one of the younger girls chimed in.

“Who cares about his horse?”

Moving as nonchalantly as she could, Alexandra sidled over to the window—and stopped breathing.

Tall and powerful looking in a dark gray riding coat, Lucien Balfour sat on Faust at the Academy’s gated entrance. As she watched, Emma reached him and scattered the gathered cluster of gawking girls. He tipped his hat, obviously introducing himself, and Emma said something in response.

As soon as she spoke, he dismounted and stepped forward to shake her hand. Alexandra drew a ragged breath. In his letter he’d said he looked forward to meeting Miss Grenville; from his reaction, he’d been sincere.

They were too blasted far away for her to be able to hear or even to interpret what they might be saying,
though her students provided a lively commentary of their own. The consensus seemed to be that he was a wealthy nobleman, come to Miss Grenville’s Academy in search of a bride. Alexandra clutched the windowsill to keep her fingers from trembling.

“Do you know who he is, Miss Gallant?” one of the girls asked. “Alison says he’s a duke.”

“He’s an earl,” she corrected, and cleared her throat as they all turned to look at her. “We have a lesson to finish, ladies.”

“Ooh, you know him? Who is he? Tell us, Miss Gallant!”

Alexandra winced at the cacophony of questions and demands. “He is the Earl of Kilcairn Abbey, and he is undoubtedly lost. Shall we continue?”

“Oh, he’s leaving,” Jane moaned. “Dash it. I wanted him to come in and visit.”

“So you could swoon into his arms?”

Alexandra felt nearly ready to swoon herself. She watched, unable to move or to look away, as he swung back up into the saddle, tipped his hat again, and trotted back toward the road. He’d come all this way, apparently to see her, and then left without doing so? Besides being hugely disappointed, she couldn’t believe it of him. Lucien Balfour wouldn’t go to this much effort for nothing.

“Miss Gallant, do you know him from London?”

She blinked and returned to her desk. “Yes. Now, back to the nonoffensive expression of opinions and point of view.”

The girls reluctantly resumed the lesson, but Alexandra seemed to have completely lost her ability to form a coherent thought. What the devil was Lucien Balfour
doing in Hampshire, much less at Miss Grenville’s Academy?

A few moments later, her classroom door opened again. Emma Grenville leaned into the doorway and gestured at her. “May I speak with you for a moment, Miss Gallant?”

Alexandra stood too quickly, and grimaced at the resulting hushed commentary coming from her students. “Of course. Jane, please read the next sonnet. I’ll be back in a moment.”

She followed Emma a short distance down the hall. When Emma faced her, Alexandra tried to decipher the headmistress’s expression, but Emma seemed as blasted unflappable as always.

“You saw our visitor, I presume?” she asked.

Alexandra nodded. “I have no idea why he would come here. I made my feelings quite clear to—”

“He’s looking for you, Lex.”

“He’s…What did you tell him?”

“I told him you were here and in good health, and that I was not at liberty to allow him onto the Academy’s grounds.”

He was looking for her. Did that mean he still intended to convince her to marry him? Or had he come to Hampshire simply to be sure he had the last word? Or—

“Lex.” Emma interrupted her thoughts, making her jump. “He will be back tomorrow at noon. You need to speak to him.”

A flutter of pure terror ran down her spine. “But I don’t know what—I have no idea what—”

“I am teaching young ladies propriety,” the headmistress broke in again. “I can’t have the notorious Earl of Kilcairn Abbey lurking on my doorstep.” She leaned
closer, humor touching her gaze. “It doesn’t look well. And I’d lose most of my students.”

Alexandra closed her eyes. “I know, I know. I never thought he would follow me here. I can’t even guess why he’s come.”

“But he did come.” Emma took her arm, and Alexandra opened her eyes again. “You have to resolve this.”

She sighed. “Obviously, Emma, you’ve never been in love.”

The headmistress smiled. “And obviously, Lex, you are in love.”

L
ucien arrived at Miss Grenville’s Academy a few minutes early.

He felt like a damned idiot waiting outside the front gates, a sinner banned from heaven, but Miss Emma Grenville had made it very clear that he was not to set foot inside the grounds. The old Lucien would have stormed the gates anyway, but today he didn’t relish the thought of scores of young ladies screaming and fleeing and fainting before him.

As the time for his rendezvous came and went, though, he was beginning to contemplate a strategic incursion. And then his goddess appeared, walking up the long, curving drive. It felt like far more than a fortnight since he’d last seen her, and he had to stifle the sudden impulse to break down the gates, throw her over the saddle, and make off with her.

“Lucien,” she said, as she reached the closed gates.

At least she hadn’t decided to pretend they’d never been acquainted. “Alexandra.” Belatedly he dismounted. He wanted to be as close to her as he could manage. “How is Shakespeare?”

She tilted her head a little. “My dog is well, thank you.”

“Good. And how are you?”

“I’m well.”

Lucien blew out his breath. This was fairly useless. He preferred the direct approach—and he knew she did, as well. “You have completely upset the order of my life,” he said. “I didn’t think anyone could do that.”

“Is that what you came here to tell me—that I’ve ruined your life? What do you think you’ve—”

“I didn’t say you’d ruined anything,” he interrupted, scowling. Obviously he wasn’t being direct enough. “You did
change
everything—the way I look at people, and at myself. And considering the magnitude of that task, you deserve congratulations. And my thanks.”

She fiddled with a button on her pelisse, avoiding his gaze as he looked for a chink in her well-polished armor. “You’re welcome, then. That was what you paid me for, though.”

He shook his head. “I paid you so you wouldn’t leave.” Lucien reached through the gate’s iron bars to touch her cheek. “I miss you.”

Alexandra took an unsteady breath and backed away from his caress. “Of course you do. Now you have to go to the bother of finding someone else whose life you can play with.”

Her defensiveness hadn’t lessened a whit, but he understood it now. “No one else will let me play,” he said softly, and smiled.

She blushed. “Stop that. What are you doing here?”

“You do still like me.”

“It’s a purely physical reaction. You’re better off without me, anyway.”

“I thought I was going to be the one apologizing,” he
returned. “Come out of there and walk with me.”

“No. Go away, Lucien.”

“I feel like I’m trying to steal a nun away from a convent,” he grumbled, watching her face for a glimpse of her usual humor.

Her lips twitched. “This used to be a monastery.”

He leaned against the gate, his fingers curled around two of the vertical iron bars. “It’s larger than the cellar, my dear, but you still seem to be trapped inside.” Experimentally he rattled the bars. “At least come closer and kiss me.”

She folded her arms. “Allow me to remind you that you
locked
me in the cellar. I am here by choice.”

Lucien nodded. “You’re here because you can’t think of anywhere else to run.”

“According to you and my dear uncle, I don’t need to run any longer. I have his so-called support now.”

“I apologize for setting you free into Monmouth’s arms. But it had to be done.”

“Why did it have to be done?”

“Because you wouldn’t marry me if you had to rely on my support. Now you don’t have to do that.”

For a moment she looked at him, curiosity warring with her damned stubbornness. “You’ve left me other reasons to refuse you.”

“Yes, I have. About those,” he said, and with a nervous breath he hoped she didn’t notice, he reached into his breast pocket to produce a folded piece of parchment. “I hope this will help to dispel them.” He slid the paper through the bars.

She hesitated, then took it. “What is it?”

“Don’t read it yet. Wait until this evening. When you’re alone, preferably.”

“All right.” Alexandra gazed at it, then returned her
attention to him. “Do you intend to wait here all night, then?”

“No. I have to get back to London. Robert wants to wed Rose before the end of the Season, while everyone’s still in town.”

“Then this is good-bye again.”

“I hope not,” he murmured, wishing he could simply pull her into his arms and make her let go of everything that caused her to hold on to her stubborn independence. “I want you to marry me, Alexandra. But I won’t ask you again. Read that. If you feel inclined to travel, I’ll be at Balfour House until the tenth of August.” He reached through the gate again, but she eluded his grasp. “The next time, Alexandra, you have to ask me.” He smiled. “But I’ll say yes.”

A tear ran down her soft, smooth cheek. “I won’t ask.”

“I hope you will.” He released the gate and backed toward Faust. “I’ll see you soon.”

Turning his back and riding away was the hardest thing he’d ever done. He wanted her—needed her—in his life. If she chose not to follow, he would at least know that he’d done everything he could. If that wasn’t enough, if she didn’t care for him as much as he cared for her…well, he’d have a lifetime to torture himself with those questions.

As he reached the first curve in the road, he looked over his shoulder toward the Academy’s gates. She was gone.

Alexandra stuffed the parchment into the pocket of her pelisse and hurried back to the main building. It would never do for Lucien to see her standing at the gate and blubbering like an infant as he rode away.

She was crying so hard that she ran into Emma before she even noticed her friend lurking near the front doorway. “Oh! I’m sorry,” she said raggedly, between sniffles.

Wordlessly Emma handed her a kerchief.

“Thank you.” She blew her nose. “He’s just impossible. I should never have gone out to see him.”

“You ended it?”

“I ended it in London. He just didn’t want to listen to me.” A group of girls on their way out for their daily walk passed by them. “There was never any ‘it,’ anyway,” she said more quietly, when they’d gone.

“Anyone watching the two of you would have trouble believing that. Why can’t you simply admit that you care for him?”

Wiping her eyes again, Alexandra started up the stairs to her tiny private room, Emma on her heels. “I don’t know. Because he expects me to, I suppose. He decides I’m going to fall in love with him, and so I do.”

“And that’s not the way it’s supposed to be?”

“Oh, he’s just so damned sure of himself.”

A chorus of giggles rained down on them from the stair landing above. Wonderful. Now she was teaching profanity to her students.

Emma grimaced. “I know you’re overwrought, Miss Gallant,” she said in a carrying voice, “but didn’t you mean to say ‘dashed’?”

“Yes, I did, Miss Grenville. My apologies.”

The headmistress tucked her arm around Alexandra’s as they continued up the stairs. “At least it’s over with,” she stated. “And we have the recitals this afternoon to take your mind off your troubles.”

“Yes, thank goodness,” Alexandra muttered, though she was fairly certain that nothing was over with, and
she knew the recitals wouldn’t stop her thinking about Lucien for one blasted second.

She fidgeted all afternoon. Usually she enjoyed the weekly recitals, for some of the Academy’s students played exceptionally well. Today, though, all she could think about was the piece of paper in her pocket, and Lucien saying he wouldn’t pursue her any longer. That was precisely what she wanted, of course—no one trying to use her for his own ends, or judging her by someone else’s actions.

If only she could stop thinking about him—about how much she enjoyed conversing with him, and how she longed for his kisses and his touch—she would realize how perfectly happy she was.

Of course, if she was so happy, she had no real reason to keep reaching into her pocket to touch the letter; and she certainly had no cause to wait and open the stupid thing exactly when and how he instructed. Twice during the recitals she pulled it free and started to unfold it. Both times she put it back, unopened.

As soon as Jane Hantfeld finished her rendition of Haydn, Alexandra stood. The sun had descended halfway through the western band of scattered trees; technically, that made it evening.

“Miss Gallant,” Elizabeth Banks, one of the other instructors, said as she passed, “I do hope you will tell us about your mysterious earl at dinner tonight. All of the girls seem quite mad about him.”

Alexandra paused. “I’ve something of a headache this evening. I think I’ll forgo dinner. Please give my excuses to Miss Grenville.”

No one would believe she had a headache, of course, and they would likely think she was in her bedchamber mooning over her lost love. Well, that was a fair enough
description of what she had planned for the evening.

One of the staff had already brought Shakespeare his dinner, and he jumped up on the bed beside her as she lit her lamp and pulled the letter free. The terrier sniffed at it, then wagged his tail and barked.

“You recognize Lucien, don’t you, Shakes?” she asked, scratching him behind the ears.

She unfolded the parchment. To her surprise it wasn’t a personal letter, but rather some sort of legal document. A smaller piece of paper, folded inside the larger, dropped onto her lap. Alexandra turned her attention to it first.

“Alexandra,” it said, in the same scrawling handwriting that characterized Emma’s letter from the earl, “I believe even you will have to admit that you have only two reasons remaining for not wishing to marry me.”

She took a breath. Why was he still bothering with her? She would have given up the attempt some time ago. The rest of the missive beckoned to her to keep going, so she read on.

“The first reason, as I recall, is that you are a convenient vessel on which I might get an heir and thwart Rose and Fiona from receiving an inheritance. I wish to state here for the record that you are not the least bit convenient.” Alexandra stifled an unexpected smile. “The other half of that reasoning will hopefully be answered to your satisfaction by the accompanying addendum to my will. It states, in short, that whether I have offspring or not, Rose’s children shall inherit my title and lands.”

Alexandra stopped. “It’s a joke,” she said aloud. “It has to be a joke.”

She grabbed the larger piece of paper and read through it once, and then a second time. Couched in
legal terms and clauses, it nevertheless stated very clearly that Lucien Balfour, upon his death and regardless of any blood heirs, transferred all nonentailed titles and lands to Rose Delacroix and her heirs. A stipend of five thousand pounds a year for any and each of his own children and surviving spouse was all he held back from the Delacroix branch of the family.

“My God,” she whispered, and with shaking fingers returned to the first letter.

“Your second and last remaining objection, I believe, was my belief in love—and more specifically, my lack of ability to love you. I think you already know the answer to that, Alexandra. I shan’t debase either of us by protesting to the sun and the moon and the stars how very much I have come to love you, to desire you, and to need you in my life.

“I, then, have one question for you, for I cannot think of anything else that stands between us. Alexandra, do you love me?”

She closed her eyes for a long moment, then read the short signature. “Yours, Lucien.”

A tear plopped onto the page before she even realized she was crying again. The Lord Kilcairn she’d met when she’d first gone to London would never have relinquished his inheritance to anyone, much less to Rose Delacroix. He had done it, though. That he had done it for her, she could scarcely believe.

Alexandra stood, pacing to the window and back while Shakespeare trotted along behind her. The will’s amendment was signed by Lucien, and witnessed by Mr. Mullins, Lord Belton, and another solicitor. It was real; unmistakably and unfakably real.

She made another circuit of the room, the letter clenched in her fist. He’d done it again: made a point in
such a grand fashion that she had no choice but to notice, consider, and explain it to herself. And of course, he’d done it by letter, so she didn’t have the outlet of arguing with him about it.

With a strangled growl she flung the letter to the floor and stomped on it. Then she picked it up and smoothed it against her chest, because she’d never received anything so nice. She swore under her breath, glad there weren’t any students around to overhear her.

“Look at me, Shakes. He’s made me insane.”

Shakespeare only wagged his tail. Sighing, she plunked down on the bed. Insane or not, she knew precisely what she wanted to do now. She wanted to rush back to London and punch him, and then throw herself into his arms and never let go. He’d done this for her, and he’d done it because he loved her. No other explanation fit.

“My goodness,” she breathed, clutching the letter to her breast. Only one person’s motivations remained a mystery, as they had for the past five years. And he was the reason she’d nearly lost Lucien.

“Lex?” Emma knocked at her door.

She started. “Come in.”

The headmistress leaned into the doorway. “I came to ask if you were all right.”

“I don’t know whether I am or not.” She chuckled, wondering whether she sounded as hysterical as she felt.

“I see.” Emma shut the door. “What happened?”

“I finally learned a lesson, I think.” Alexandra stood and dragged her trunk from under the bed. “I’m sorry, Emma. I have to—”

“Resign your position. After seeing the two of you together this morning, I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“After what I’ve put him through, though, I’m not
sure he’ll really want me about. I’m such an idiot, you know.”

“No, you’re not. You’re very lucky.” Emma smiled. “And you’re going back to London.”

A warm, nervous, excited spark glowed to life in her heart. “Yes. But I have one stop to make before I see him again.” She wanted—needed—one more explanation. And thanks to Lucien, she finally had the courage to demand it.