Still blushing, she met his gaze. “Grace had mentioned you had a cottage outside of Chelmsford. I figured it couldn’t be that hard to find. Everyone in a ten-mile radius was bound to know the direction of a decorated army captain.”
Splendid. To save her reputation, all they had to do was erase the memories of everyone in a ten-mile radius. Or did they?
“That’s how you found my cottage,” he said when she didn’t continue. “How did you slip away? I cannot believe your brother would give you permission to make this journey, much less unaccompanied.”
She worried her lower lip. “Isaac had an important business meeting to attend to, so I was left alone. So I let my lady’s maid have a holiday. Don’t look so stormy! A woman of four-and-twenty is perfectly capable of taking care of herself.”
Xavier coughed. “Obviously.”
“Well, that’s how it happened. My brother wasn’t home, so I left and came here. It doesn’t make him a shite guardian. It just means he trusts me.”
“I stand corrected,” he drawled. “His wisdom knows no bounds.”
Her arms crossed. “Unlike you, Isaac trusts me to do what’s right for me. My brother wouldn’t be happy to learn I snuck off to meet a man, but he wouldn’t make snippy little comments about it like a missish harpy.”
He’d gone from Captain Crotchety to “missish harpy” in less than an hour, and there was only one explanation: She was absolutely mad.
He took a deep breath and let the subject drop. No matter what he thought of her plan, a great deal of courage had been required to make an unplanned pilgrimage to Chelmsford and risk rejection, humiliation, and ruin. He’d already rejected her. There was no call to add to the hurt.
Especially not when he was trying to be friends.
“Very well,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to be judgmental. I’m just used to being alone.”
She leaned forward eagerly. “Is that why you think love is so important?”
“Who said I—?”
“It’s obvious. And it’s my question.” She batted her eyelashes at his clenched jaw, as if trying to tease him out of a foul humor. “Play the game. Why do you feel love is so important?”
He slowly let out his breath. Did he? It sounded so idealistic, and yet… Perhaps it was true.
“I didn’t think much of love at first. Not until I realized I was no longer worthy of it.” He turned his face toward the fire. “Things have a funny way of gaining importance once they’re out of one’s grasp.” He pinned her with his gaze. “Some say love is a gift. It’s also something you earn. Something you deserve or don’t deserve, at times through no fault or merit of your own. It’s something worth fighting for. Perhaps even dying for. It is often the sole difference between heaven and hell.”
Her smile softened. “You’re a romantic.”
“I’m a cynic. Ravenwood’s the one who has always spouted romantic nonsense about marrying for love, ever since the rest of us were old enough to start thinking of young ladies as prizes to win. It was no surprise that he longed for love. He inherited his dukedom when he was eight years old and the estate fell into strange hands. If the coffers weren’t restored by the time he came of age, the best he could have hoped for was an heiress.”
Her eyes widened. “But he didn’t marry for love. He hasn’t married at all.”
“He doesn’t have to. The dukedom is strong again. He can believe love to be as important as he pleases.” Xavier shrugged and arched a brow. “Why don’t you think so?”
She clasped her hands and brought them to her lips in silence.
Not a problem. He was very good at patience. It was his talent, and his curse.
After a moment, she lowered her hands to her lap. “That’s your question?”
“It is.”
“Then I must answer.” But she turned toward the fire and stared at the orange flames leaping behind the grate rather than respond.
He watched in silence. Her discomfort was palpable. Honesty was a very dangerous game indeed.
“I do believe in love,” she said at last, without looking at him. “I find it devastatingly important. I just don’t think it possible for everyone to find it, and certainly not for me.” She lifted her chin. “There’s little sense holding out hope for something that’s not going to happen. I’m no quixotic dreamer. That’s why I’m here. I wanted something more within my grasp.” Her eyes glittered in the firelight. “On our way to the opera, I saw elegant courtesans. Penny whores. Fishwives. They all had lovers. And I thought… Why not me?”
“Miss Downing, you are no fishwife. Your lack of husband has nothing to do with—”
“Why did you become a soldier?” she interrupted.
“What?” A laugh startled out of him at the abrupt change in topic. “Why did you become a bluestocking?”
“It’s not your turn yet,” she snapped.
He blinked and settled back against his chair. They were apparently through discussing love. Or bluestockings. “That’s your question?”
“Yes.” She leaned back against her chair. “Why did you join the army? The real answer. Not just ‘duty’ or ‘honor.’ Why did you truly join?”
His initial reaction was to grind out that duty and honor were reasons as valid as any, but he took a moment to consider the question. Were those his reasons? Were they anyone’s?
He thought back. “Gossip rags would indicate that otherwise sensible women cannot resist a man in regimentals, but the truth is that little boys cannot resist wishing to be that man.”
She lifted a hand to her mouth to hide her smile. “You read gossip rags?”
He flashed a rakish grin. “Can I answer that question instead?”
“No, no.” She fluttered her fingers. “Carry on with your explanation. Regimentals are universally appealing...”
He inclined his head. “As is the idea of honor and duty. Who doesn’t wish to be honorable, or at least to be perceived as such? Who doesn’t long for the respect of his peers and the adulation of female hearts? When my closest friends purchased their commissions in the King’s Army, there was absolutely no question about whether I’d join them. We were invincible, and we were off to become heroes.”
“And you did,” she said with a smile.
“Did we?” he asked, his voice dry. “Perhaps Carlisle did. I didn’t. The rest of us…” His voice trailed off. None of it had worked out as any of them had hoped. “Ravenwood’s dukedom kept him from going, and the bullet in Edmund Blackpool’s chest kept him from coming back. Go ask Bart how much adulation he’s received since returning home without a leg. Even the magic of an officer’s regimentals has its limits.”
She lifted her chin. “That doesn’t mean he’s not a hero.”
“A hero who can’t stand his own reflection.” Xavier lifted a shoulder. “Not that I’m overly fond of mine. Is it my turn yet?”
Pensive, she nodded slowly. “Yes. Ask anything you like.”
He rubbed his temples. The ability to be clever escaped him at the moment. His head was still brimming with memories of war and the loss and disappointments all his friends had faced. But she’d inadvertently given him a topic to explore.
“What made you become a bluestocking?” he asked. “The real answer. Not just ‘I like books.’”
She laughed. “Nobody chooses to become a bluestocking, any more than they choose to become a wallflower.”
“Nobody?”
She stared at him as if she’d never considered the idea before. Perhaps she hadn’t. She chewed her lower lip. “I suppose I did. Choose to be a bluestocking, I mean. Not a wallflower. I have tried so hard to make an—but that wasn’t the question. Bluestockings. My mother was one. And I wanted to be just like her. She and Aunt Montagu were my heroes.”
His elbow slipped off its armrest. “Elizabeth Montagu was your aunt? How could you not have become a bluestocking? She fairly invented the practice!”
Miss Downing gazed at the fire. “I think she
was perhaps a second or third cousin, several times removed. A fair percentage of the volumes in my private library came from her. I was far too young to attend the literary assemblies, but my mother had done, and she could quote to me from memory.”
He couldn’t even imagine. “How did your father feel about that?”
“Papa? He was a respected scholar and had once held an advisory position of some renown with the war office. Neither Isaac nor I can recall a time when we weren’t surrounded by books and actively reading. In fact, I memorized the Odyssey to compete with my brother.” She smiled at the memory. “In my family, knowledge was the highest goal one could pursue. ‘Bluestocking’ wasn’t a slur, but rather a term of pride.”
In her family. An empty feeling gathered in the pit of his stomach. “When did you realize that wasn’t true in all families?”
Her mouth tightened. “The day I made my curtsey. Novels weren’t shunned in my home any more than periodicals, so between scandal sheets and gothic serials, I was convinced that no matter what happened on the night of my come-out, for better or for worse, it would be absolutely memorable.”
“And what happened?”
Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing.”
He frowned. “How could nothing happen? If you had a come-out, then certainly something—”
“I believe we’re overdue for my turn at question-asking.” Her voice trembled, then pushed on. “When you first came home from war, you were a hairsbreadth away from vegetative. It took months for you to show any awareness or interest in the world around you.”
His spine stiffened. “Is that a question?”
“I’ll rephrase.” Her stare turned piercing. “Why did you retreat into your own mind?”
He glared at her. “It was safer.”
She didn’t look away.
Neither did he.
She sighed and held up her palms. “Care to elaborate?”
Not particularly. But nor did he wish to owe her a boon. “No one returns from war the same man he was when he started.” He, more than anyone. “I didn’t like who I had become. And I couldn’t make myself forget.”
“Who did you become?”
He shook his head. “That’s a different question.”
“You lost your innocence,” she guessed.
His lips twisted. “I lost that years before.”
“I don’t mean your virginity. I mean your innocence. You thought the world was one way, and it turned out to be another.”
“That’s… an understatement.” It had turned out to be a living hell.
“Earlier, you mentioned that once one loses one’s innocence, it cannot be regained.” She tilted her head. “That’s true. But it’s not the whole story.”
He stared down at his boots. “Nothing is ever the whole story.”
“I mean, as people, we’re always losing our innocence about something, aren’t we? That doesn’t negate or even minimize it, but it does mean we have to keep moving forward.” Her lips pursed as she considered him. “You didn’t like who you had become. That’s fair. But you’re no longer that person. That was the old you. This is the new you.”
He snorted. “How do you know who or how I am?”
“Because you’re not on the battlefield anymore.” Her words sped faster. “You say war changes a man. I believe you. But it’s not the only thing that changes a person. Who we are at any given moment is a combination of our past experiences, present situation, and potential future. It’s not stagnant. The person you no longer liked wasn’t the same bright-eyed recruit who joined, or the man you became when you came home.”
“A vegetable,” he said wryly.
She shook her head. “Not a vegetable. A man searching for answers. I don’t know if you found any. Perhaps there are none to find. But whatever you had become, you no longer are. No one is ever the person they were even six months prior. The mere fact of disliking what you’d become inherently changed you for the better.”
He ran a hand over his face, then let his head fall back against the chair. “I don’t feel better.”
“Another sign that you’re human. Soldiers protect the greater good. The acts they’re called to perform are unpleasant, but their hearts are in the right place.”
“Don’t both sides think so?” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. How he wished the experience had merely been unpleasant.
Her brow wrinkled in concern. “Are you… sympathizing with Napoleon?”
“I’m condemning war in general.” He massaged the back of his neck. “And now it’s my turn to ask a question.”
Her lips scrunched as if she were physically holding herself back from pressing further, but she nodded and lifted a hand for him to continue.
Splendid. Now if only he had a question. Mostly he hadn’t wanted to discuss the war, much less his feelings about it. Curse this game. The good news was that she only had one question left. The bad news was that he still had two to go.
At least… it should’ve felt like bad news. When they’d sat down to play what he’d assumed was frivolous nonsense, there weren’t many things he’d wished to do less. But somehow, the fire had dwindled without him noticing.
What had begun as a silly challenge was now a very real, very personal conversation. He found himself not wishing to “waste” questions on trivial topics. Miss Downing was clever and insightful and utterly impossible, and he wanted to know everything about her.
He leaned forward. “My circle of friends is infamous, but I know nothing about yours. Who are your closest friends?”
“Books.” She tapped herself on the chest. “Bluestocking, remember?”
Her flippancy surprised him. “I asked a real question.”
“I gave a real answer.”
“A one-word answer.” What had she said to him earlier? He held his palms wide. “Care to elaborate?”
No, she didn’t look as though she did. Her arms were folded beneath her chest and her gaze was on the ebbing fire. But then she raised her eyes to his.
“My brother has his own responsibilities to deal with. Grace is married. I’ll see her at the Theatre Royal in less than a fortnight for Cymon, but we’ll be paying attention to the stage, not each other. I have no other family or friends. Which leaves... books.” She paused.
He watched her in silence.
“I love books.” She smiled in the direction of their feet. “I truly do. They may not love me back, but it feels like they do while I’m reading them. Spending the afternoon with a favorite character gives me more time with someone than I usually get in a month. Before I met Grace, books were the best and only friends I’d had for years. So I spend all the time with them that I can.”
“Until now,” he said softly.
Her laugh was humorless. “Until I turned up on your doorstep without my library in tow?”
“No.” He kept his voice was low and warm. “Apart from Lady Carlisle, the characters you read about were your only friends… until now. Now you have me, too.”
Firelight splashed across her startled face.
The back of his neck heated. Embarrassed, he waved a hand. “Your turn. Last question.”
Contemplative, she returned her gaze to the fire. When she spoke, her words were so soft he could barely hear them. But he couldn’t escape them.
“What precisely occurred to disillusion you and make you believe you had crossed from good to evil?”
His spine went rigid. “I didn’t ‘believe’ it. It’s a fact. And I do not deserve forgiveness.”
She shook her head. “That’s not an answer.”
“You won’t get an answer.”
“Then you owe me a boon.”
His muscles tightened. Famous. He could either divulge his darkest regret or open himself up to making new ones. “The boon can’t be lovemaking, or forcing me to answer a question I already refused to answer.”
She leaned back in her chair. “You don’t get to decide the boon or the question. You
simply answer, or not.”
His heartbeat sped in frustration. He rubbed his temples. “What’s your boon, Miss Downing?”
She met his eyes. “Jane.”
He blinked. “What?”
“My name is Jane. Now that we’re friends, I ask for leave to call you Xavier.”
His stomach fluttered. “First-naming each other is your boon?”
She smiled back at him sweetly. “If that’s too intimate, we can always try the lovemaking instead.”
“My turn to ask a question,” he said quickly. She was incorrigible. He couldn’t help but grin back at her. “Jane.”
Her cheeks flushed becomingly.
He angled toward her. “You explained how you got here. Why did you do it? You’re intelligent enough to realize illicit affairs aren’t romantic. They’re illicit, and then they’re over.”
She exhaled slowly. “Perhaps for you, liaisons are illicit and then they’re over. I don’t have affairs at all.”
Xavier doubted that was for lack of interest. Jane was exquisite to look at and only became more beautiful whenever she opened her mouth and spoke.
Her thumb teased her lower lip. “I’m not a wallflower because it’s diverting. I’m a wallflower because nobody notices me. I slip through their minds before I can finish reminding them of my name.” She wrapped her arms about her chest. “I try to make it a game, to say or do things impossible to ignore. But even at my most outrageous, I never earn a second glance.”
Impossible. He would never be able to put her out of his mind.
She looked away. “In truth, I hate society events. I’m invisible in every crowd. It’s torture. I can barely sit through an orchestra performance despite my love of violins above all instruments, because every such outing is wrapped inside an hour or three of ignominy. And no one will notice but me. Almack’s is even worse.”
He pushed to his feet. “Get up.”
“What?” She blinked up at him in confusion.
He held out his hand. “Come here.”
She placed her hand tentatively in his. “Why?”
“We’re dancing.” He coaxed her up from her chair.
She glanced over her shoulder at the dimly lit parlor. “Right here?”
My Favorite Rogue: 8 Wicked, Witty, and Swoon-worthy Heroes Page 136