Wicked Becomes You (8 page)

“Writing to Pennington,” he said. The sound of his own words focused him. He opened his fingers, shedding the feel of her. “What in God’s name is this?” Her optimism went too far if she hoped that bastard would change his mind.

Her jaw squared. “That is not your concern.”

He did not recall the irksome discovery of a backbone being one of hysteria’s symptoms. “I made a promise to your brother,” he reminded her. Alas, alas, for deathbed promises. “I’m afraid it’s very much my concern.”

Mention of Richard seemed to throw her. She hesitated. “All right, then. It’s a list of reasons I hate him.”

“I’ll have the truth,” he said flatly.

“That is the truth!” Her finger caught up a loose strand of hair, twining it around her knuckle. Biting her lip and peering up at him, she looked like a very good approximation of a barroom flirt.

A more annoying development he could not imagine. He relied on her to look prim and untouchable. “Leave your hair alone,” he snapped.

Her hand dropped. She gave him a marveling look. “You’re quite beastly, you know.”

“You’re only now realizing this? I would have assumed the gossips might inform you. Failing them, Belinda.”

“Yes, but . . .” Her eyes narrowed. “Alex,” she said. “Belinda tells me all the time how much you loathe when Lord Weston tries to bully you. Why should you do the same to me? Let me have my letter.”

He laughed, surprised by this devious turn. “Oh, that’s well done, Gwen. Yes, it’s true, of all the roles I might play, the bully is not my favorite. But when you’re determined to play the idiot—”

“I am
not
playing the idiot!” She grabbed again for the letter.

He stepped backward, holding the envelope above her reach. “It doesn’t matter anyway,” he said. “Pennington’s run off. He’s not here to receive your notes.”

The news visibly stunned her. Mouth agape, she retreated a pace toward the stairs. “Run off?” she whispered.

“Train to Dover, bound for the Continent. I’m sorry,” he added. “He’s a piece of filth.”

“But he has my ring!”

He felt a brief flicker of amazement: she had purchased the wedding bands? Had the viscount done nothing for this match?

Why had she been content to sell herself so cheaply?

And then, looking at her face, a new possibility occurred to him. “Richard’s ring.”

“Yes!”

Christ. He remembered all too clearly her face as he had placed that ring in her palm. He sighed. “I’ll get it back, then.”

Her wide eyes looked dazed. She seemed to look through him at some disastrous scene, miles distant. “But if he’s taken it abroad with him—”

“His first stop will be Paris, no doubt, and I’m bound for there tomorrow.” And then, because she was still staring in that broken, addled way that put him disturbingly in mind of a vacant-eyed doll, he added, “Don’t fret, sweetheart. You’ll have it back soon enough. And for the man himself, consider yourself well rid of him.”

She blinked and focused on him. A curious look crossed her face. The sudden slant of her mouth seemed almost . . . calculating.

“All right,” she said slowly. “You want to read the letter? I’ll read it to you myself, if you like. But only if you promise to do a favor in return.”

His instincts stirred, bidding caution.

How ridiculous. Hell, maybe hysteria was catching. Gwen was as harmless as a rabbit. “Ask away,” he said and started to break the seal.

“Not here!” She threw a quick glance around. Now she looked almost feverish—bright spots of color on her pale cheeks, and an odd glitter in her eyes. “Discretion, Alex! The library will do.”

The strange smile she gave him before turning on her heel made his instincts rise up again, clanging.

Misfiring, misfiring.
Rabbit
, he told himself and fell in step behind her for the library.

In fact, by the time she threw open the door to the library, she felt well underway to becoming a smashing success at this routine. On the table in the center of the room lay a volume on womanly virtues that Elma had been reading to her as she’d knitted in the evenings. She would throw it into the street! That map of the world against the left wall, full of so many empty spaces—she would travel to those spaces and document them!

Why not? Her giddiness showed no signs of abating. Perhaps this attitude was not a temporary impulse but a true expression of her nature, long trammeled by tight lacing and endless worrying and abstention from all the many delicious foods that Elma had warned her would make her fat.

Alex walked into the room, sparing her one of those cool head-to-toe looks that, only a day ago, would have made her feel summarized and dismissed as tediously conventional. She slammed the door shut. “I think we should ring for scones,” she said. “And a great boatload of cream! A decadent high tea in the library! What do you say?”

He put his hands into his pockets and tilted his head. Mildly he said, “Perhaps you need something stronger. A dose of laudanum, say.”

“Or brandy!” she exclaimed. “Yes, what a brilliant idea! Why not?”

He hesitated briefly. “Order whatever you like,” he said. “I won’t be distracted from the letter, but I am willing to wait.”

Ah, this was more the tone she was accustomed to hearing from him: amused and a touch condescending. In such tones did Lady Milton explain to orphans that it was more important for food to be nourishing than appetizing.

“Oh, I would never wish to inconvenience you,” she said sweetly. “So many countries to visit, so much profit to be made! Very important business; I’ll gladly forgo my brandy for it. Now open the letter, quick as you please.”

His blue eyes widened as he placed his hand to his heart. “Sarcasm, Miss Maudsley?”

She held her smile by sheer dint of will. “I’ve no idea what you mean.”

He shook his head and turned away. She followed him across the carpet, taking a seat near the window as he shook out the letter and propped his shoulder against the sash.

His lounging attitude made her cognizant of her own, sadly proper posture. She tried a slump of her shoulders, but her corset would not allow it.

As he began to read, the light of the setting sun illuminated his face in detail. She kept her eyes on him; she did not want to miss a single nuance of his reaction. He was, after all, the expert at rude behavior—a fact that, all of a sudden, made him very interesting. Educational, even. Did he, too, experience this lovely sense of freedom from flouting convention?

His expression remained disappointingly impassive as he read. She recalled her thoughts of him this morning, in the church. He was handsomer than Mr. Cust, she decided. Even if one preferred blonds, Mr. Cust was merely . . . pretty. But Alex’s face was all angles, as though some mad sculptor had hacked him in a few strokes from a block of wood. His jaw was sharp, his chin squared off, his nose high-bridged but perfectly straight, save the slight thickening in the middle. The last bit didn’t look quite so well on Belinda and Caroline, but since it counterbalanced the way his face winnowed beneath his cheekbones, it made Alex deadly.

His mouth curved. “This is quite . . .”

“Oh!” She sat forward. “Which line?”

He shook his head.

“No, really, you must tell me!”

He made a shooing gesture, as if she were some bothersome six-year-old.

She sat back again, irritated. How useful for him that he happened to be handsome. After all, a rake without looks would require charm, and Alex had none whatsoever.

Rake
. She turned the word over in her mind, curious. His reputation had always seemed to her a sort of dreadful affliction, as unnerving as terminal illness or disfigurement, albeit far more distasteful because he had chosen to acquire it. Bel agreed, of course, but Caroline defended him. She said the women with whom he consorted had no interest in marriage.
Artists, actresses, and suffragettes
, Caro had told her over tea one day.
Radicals
. And then, in a whisper:
Do you know, I think I would prefer it if he seduced the debutantes! Then perhaps some marriage-minded girl would trap him.

Remembering her own titillated shock, Gwen felt irked. Three years ago, now. How smug she’d been, with her wedding to Lord Trent scheduled and the invitations dispatched. How inevitable marriage had seemed to her, then. She’d decided that the women Alex entertained must be unnatural for not wanting to marry—and that, in turn, Alex was unnatural for admiring them.

Now she wondered if these women didn’t have something to teach her. At any rate, none of them would have agreed to marry either of the swine she’d picked.

Alex cleared his throat and refolded the note. “This is . . .” His lips folded together briefly, as if he were biting back a smile. “Not what I expected, shall we say.”

“Oh? What did you expect?” It might be instructive to learn what he thought her capable of doing. He’d visited Heaton Dale last autumn to say farewell to his sisters before leaving for New York, and once or twice she’d caught him looking at her quite peculiarly—as though expecting her at any moment to do something awful, like burst into a cancan.

Learn to cancan!
That was an excellent addition to her list of things to do now that she no longer cared what anybody thought of her. Better yet, Paris was the place to try it.

“Does it matter?” Alex gave a one-shouldered shrug as he slipped the letter into his jacket. “I suppose I assumed it was a plea for him to return to you. But bully for you, Gwen. You certainly gave him what-for.”

The praise might have encouraged her had it not dripped with condescension. She frowned as he straightened off the window frame. The reddening sunlight spread down the length of his body, and she felt her temper sharpen. Drat it. Her criticism of Thomas had not been nearly as comprehensive as she’d hoped. He prided himself on his height, but Alex was taller. His shoulders had been adequate, but Alex’s shoulders were broader. Indeed, their breadth seemed all the more striking for the slimness of Alex’s waist and hips.

She supposed his odd athletic habits must account for that. Everybody knew that he spent an hour each morning hopping about and kicking things like a maddened rabbit. In France they apparently considered this a proper sport of some sort, but then, Frenchmen were an odd lot. Alex was probably one of ten people on the entire island who gave the nation credit for anything besides its wine. At any rate, she did not recall encountering other similarly shaped gentlemen among English society.

The rarity suddenly struck her as regrettable.

He was speaking. “—stay right here and stand your ground. Although the decision is yours, of course.”

She opened her mouth, but her reply fell away as she noticed something: he’d unbuttoned his jacket at some point between lobby and library, and it had fallen open. His belly beneath his dark waistcoat was perfectly flat. How had she never noticed that before? Katherine Percy, her horse-mad bridesmaid, would have likened him to a good racehorse, all height and lean muscle.

He was certainly a
serviceable
specimen.

“Gwen,” he said. “Are you all right?”

She blinked. He lifted a brow in question. A hot feeling prickled over her, alarm and excitement at once. She’d been ogling him like a trollop. Alex Ramsey, London’s most dedicated bachelor. Astonishing to behold how one was blinded by his lack of eligibility. Bohemian ladies must be positively gleeful that no respectable lady got a crack at him!

“I’m perfectly well,” she replied. She
felt
very well, as if an electrical charge had gripped her. What other new things would she see, now that she no longer cared to be virtuous? “May I have the letter back?”

“I’m afraid not.” He put a hand on his hip, knocking his jacket back farther. “You can’t post this, you know.”

The temptation was too much to resist. She took another quick glance downward. “Why not?” Good heavens, ogling was addictive. How did one ever stop once one formed the habit? One might go on ogling for days, there were so many points of interest. His lips, for instance! What a long, well-formed mouth he had. She had noted that before, of course. Thomas’s lips were quite thin.

His lips spoke. “Several reasons,” they said. “Surely you can deduce them. First and foremost, you have no idea what he’d do with this note.”

Alex would know how to kiss properly. Bohemian women would not endure slobbering. Only ladies determined to marry would tolerate such indignities.

Not that she would kiss him, of course. The very idea made her feel itchy. He seemed so old, although in fact he was only four years her senior, and—why, two years younger than Thomas! Thomas seemed so young, in comparison. He had not traveled so widely, though. He’d never done nothing awful or extraordinary (until today, of course). He had not made piles of money (although his family required it more than the Ramseys did), or visited Argentina, or courted suffragettes who had no intention of marrying. Such wide and varied experiences probably made the prospect of kissing a respectable girl only a fraction more interesting than staring at a wall.

Besides, what of
her
view on kissing
Alex
? He’d been so close with her brother that it would be like kissing her brother!

Well, not really. But probably Alex would think kissing her was like kissing one of his sisters.

She felt nervous, suddenly. Which was silly. It was only Alex—rude, amused, and condescending as usual.

“Gwen,” he drawled. “Do try to attend. Shall I speak more slowly?”

“I heard you,” she said. “You asked what he would do with the note. I expect he’d read it.”

“And share it with friends,” he said dryly, “and then sell it to the papers, no doubt. God knows he needs the money, and the sale of private correspondence is nothing so shocking as dirtying one’s hands through actual work.” He paused to smirk. “Indeed, I expect it would fetch a pretty penny. Certain of the details you included, such as the—” He cleared his throat. “The—” His smirk now twisted into a grimace. He averted his face, and his shoulders jerked.

She had the panicked thought that he was having some sort of attack—his lungs, the old boyhood ailment—and she leapt forward to take his arm. “Are you all—”

“Oh, good God,” he said rapidly, and burst into laughter.

Her hand fell away. A fit might have astonished her less. He had laughed at her before, certainly, but this was true laughter, low and husky and unrestrained. She backed up a pace, beginning to smile, too; his hilarity was somehow infectious.

He put a fist to his mouth, and after evident struggle, seemed to grow calmer. “The—” He cleared his throat. “The terrier,” he managed, but when she nodded, this prompted him to snort, which turned into another peal.

She surrendered to laughter as well. Gratification spread in a warm, heady rush. Finally, he acknowledged it: the terrier bit had been brilliant!

After a ragged breath, and another, he finally calmed. Clearing his throat, he met her eyes. “Forgive me,” he said hoarsely, and wiped the corner of his eye with a knuckle. “You really do have quite a way with—” The corner of his mouth kicked up; he pressed his lips together and drew an audible breath through his nose. “Quite a way with words. I confess, I didn’t suspect it.”

“Thank you! But you see, for that very reason, Thomas would never let the letter become public. It’s clever
and
rude. And he’s very vain.” She paused, eyeing him. “Although I can’t understand why.”

He grinned. “Ah, from the mouths of babes,” he said. As if he were so much older! “And perhaps you’re right, but it’s a calculation, you see. And in this case, the risk wouldn’t be worth the possible profit.”

She frowned. “What risk?”

He pushed a hand through his hair. All the Ramseys had such wonderfully thick hair. Lord Weston’s was graying, but Alex’s was a pure, glossy chestnut. “Don’t mistake me; I’m hardly of the mind that you need to go begging for good opinion. This morning was unfortunate, but it won’t do any lasting harm to your marital prospects.”

“I beg your pardon?” Her chest felt tight of a sudden. “Of course my prospects are damaged!”

He dropped his hand and studied her. “I’ll be blunt, shall I?” The corner of his mouth lifted. “Indeed, the novelty might impress you. Half these nobs are broke, so your wealth makes you a very attractive candidate for marriage. Above and beyond that, you’ve the usual retinue of feminine charms.” He looked her over, as though suddenly doubtful, and then gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Yes, I think most men will overlook this scandal.”

Good heavens. He might be right. She was London’s bosom friend, after all, the nicest girl in town. Her reputation was brilliant. Combined with three million pounds, it might survive this, the tarnish of her first official jilting. Eligible suitors would continue to hound her.

She sank into a chair. She had the distinct sense of sinking, of growing more leaden. A sour feeling stirred in her gut—her exhilaration, finally curdling. What a fool she was! She should have known it could not last. But it hurt, in her stomach, to surrender all the possibilities that ruin had made visible. For a brief time, she had felt so . . . exhilarated.