by Baird Wells
He was closing the distance between them before he realized it, eager for every minute in her company. “What do you do for enjoyment?”
She shrugged, backing away a step. “Read.”
He rolled his eyes. “What do you do for enjoyment when Mrs. Paton is absent?”
She laughed. “Read. Walk the pasture. I'm fair enough at the piano.”
After, he could not say why he’d done it. Insanity, perhaps. He’d been a mess of frayed nerves for days. At the prospect of an afternoon with Alexandra, he was lost. Fumbling inside his coat, he grasped the familiar length of satin and held up the glove for her disbelieving eyes. “What else do you enjoy?”
He’d rehearsed this moment a hundred times, and the drawn expression on her face was not what he’d imagined. He had been overeager, lacking finesse ahead of an awkward segue; he appreciated it too late.
She blanched and backed away in earnest, stumbling against the table. “I … I misunderstood your offer.” She swallowed and fumbled a retreat. “And I think you've misunderstood me. That night was --”
“Wait!” He grabbed her wrist and halted her escape. “Just your company today. I did not mean to imply more. Only that I'm certain you amuse yourself with something besides reading.” He held out the glove for her anxious fingers.
She searched him with a tight expression, and Spencer had the sense of being weighed.
Finally, she tucked the glove into her apron without meeting his eyes. “I'm a fair opponent at cards. I play billiards, though I'm not much of a challenge. I ride but not in company. Side saddle on a horse is like hanging under a carriage to get somewhere; no enjoyment. I like good brandy, good chocolate.” She shrugged. Her shoulders were tense, eyes guarded, but she wasn’t leaving and for now that was enough.
He clapped hands together, rubbing eagerly at the progress they were making and then swept an arm toward the door. “Let's begin with cards and follow with brandy.” He held his breath and waited for her protest.
Instead she perked up, and pressed an exaggerated hand to her mouth. “Lord Reed, it's barely noon.”
He nodded, heart thrumming faster. “Already halfway through the day. We have some catching up to do.”
* * *
Alexandra couldn't bring herself to look directly at Spencer, who was setting out their tumblers on a sideboard. All along he had been her masked stranger. And he'd known it. A burn in her cheeks doubled while the realization sank in. She still couldn't reconcile that the broad fingers unstoppering the brandy had also tangled in her hair, brushed her waist. Lips cocked up now in a small smile had kissed her own. More than embarrassment, she suffered another sharp pang of disappointment at John’s poor timing.
Spencer set the glasses between them atop a round card table easily meant for three times as many players. Its nicked, scuffed, tawny wood said it frequently saw such a crowd. She claimed her brandy, swirled it and inhaled. It’s warm, sweet aroma filled her nose, adding to her thrill at being admitted to Spencer's inner sanctum. The room was obviously intended for himself and masculine company; it was bold and tasteful, shadowed by navy velvet drapes. Tan leather and dark wood carried the theme. A billiard table imposing enough that the room might have been built around it occupied the room’s far side. Alix could practically feel heat from a white marble firebox, hear raucous laughter of gathered men, their camaraderie scented with sweet tobacco and citrus gin. Her heart beat a pace faster.
Spencer settled across from her, palmed their deck of cards, and held it out.
“No,” she laughed, splaying her hands. “My fingers are too short. You'll end up with creased cards and a mess.” Grace and dexterity had never figured among her better qualities.
“Fair enough.” He nodded and began to deal. She watched him while he was absorbed in the process, his stern left brow furrowed to mimic the concentrated lift of his mouth.
“Do you know,” he asked, still counting out their hands, “that I am always aware of your watching me?”
She snapped her gaze to the tabletop, winning a lusty chuckle.
Spencer hadn’t shown himself to be anything but a gentleman during their time together, but they were crossing lines now at full sail. His expectations for how their day would conclude might not be as innocent as she’d envisioned. Gathering her cards, she cleared her throat. “Lord Reed, what happened in the garden --”
He stopped arranging his hand and gave her his full attention. “You do not have to explain yourself, make an excuse.”
She took a breath, pressing on. “I'm not. I had a wonderful time with you.” It was true. Uncomfortable to admit, but she was not ashamed.
“Help me understand the enigma that is Mrs. Rowan.” Spencer leaned in, squinting, staring into her eyes until his gaze drew her close. Then he leaned back, looking satisfied. “She's in there, my lady from the garden. Where does she hide?”
He was still a stranger, and John's friend. She would tread carefully. Mistaken trust could spell her end, now when she was so close to freedom. “My brother and Lord Hastings are both relying on this partnership,” she offered weakly. “I don’t wish to make a poor impression.”
“Bollocks.” Spencer leaned further back in his chair, feet bumping hers beneath the table, and crossed his arms.
“Really,” she chastised, face aching with a smile at his swear.
Fanning his cards, Spencer shook his head. “I do not believe for a moment that you're a woman who holds her tongue to skirt a little bickering.”
Thanks to a long draw on her brandy, she found her nerve. “Paulina's father, Silas Van der Verre, owns a majority of Paton Shipping. A majority of my brother.” She shrugged, picking up her hand. “And me.” A safe, if oversimplified explanation.
He sat quiet a moment, the look on his face contemplative. “Seems that should be more your brother's complication than yours.”
It should have been. Another woman would have married and moved away, left Chas and Paton Shipping to their fate. Any woman not as invested as she was hunted. “My father built Paton & Son with his blood and sweat, no exaggeration. My mother's pedigree opened a few doors for us, but she came to America with nothing. Silas would shred our family’s business for profit as much as to make a point. He is shredding it. His success would gut me.”
“You could marry. It offers some protection,” he argued.
No dowry, no means, and not a waking moment to herself; hardly a recipe for finding a husband. There was no space to breathe out from under Silas’s bullying, his threats.
It was more tangled than Spencer could possibly comprehend and too shameful for her to explain.
She slapped down a card, knocked to end her turn and sat back. “I'd like to discuss something else.” She braced for more digging, resistance.
Spencer ducked his head. “As the lady wishes. Name your subject, then.”
She slid a card on top of his. “Why are you hiding here?” She had watched the way he arranged his days to avoid company, hustling from one place to another always ahead of or behind the crowd. And, of course, she had gleaned all that she could from Laurel.
“Hiding?” He shifted in his chair, eyes focused on cards he must have memorized by now. “I am not hiding.”
“Laurel says that you are.”
He studied her above his cards, brow arched. “I am a regular topic of conversation between the two of you, then?”
A second mouthful of brandy on an empty stomach made her bold. “As often as possible.”
It was true. Laurel was an encyclopedia where Spencer was concerned, handy with some detail or anecdote in nearly every conversation. Alix was eager for each and every one.
“Spies in my camp,” he grumbled, trumping her play with a smug flick of his ace. “Anyhow, I am not hiding. I go to London when I must and occasionally for some diversion. Generally, I prefer to stay away. A regiment of men for months on end offers no peace and little privacy. I'm inclined to have both, when able.”
She un
derstood perfectly. A single moment off of Paulina's lead was a breath of fresh air. Half an hour alone to write an uncensored letter, a godsend. “Yet here we are,” she finished, studying Spencer.
“Meaning?” He was too busy trouncing her to look up.
“Meaning you're in company now.”
His expression was unreadable save a warmth in his eyes. “And I’ve not a complaint about it.”
It was an invitation, to what she had no idea, but every inch of her ached to accept.
Alix laid her hand out on the table, palm up without comprehending why; liquor, the moment. Spencer did not hesitate, his warmer, larger one pressing her knuckles into the wood. Like her, he stared at their brushing fingers, joined between the cards. A long moment passed.
Spencer cleared his throat and pulled away. “I've bested you.”
“What? Oh.” Alix glanced at his discarded hand. “So you have. We didn't lay a wager.”
His lips twitched. “I'll name my prize.”
Heart pounding clear into her throat, Alix held her breath, both dreading and anticipating his request.
“Come with me into the study.”
“And?” There must be more to it.
Firm lips twitched, smile escaping at one corner. “Into the study,” he repeated. “I have some letters to attend, and I would appreciate the company.”
“Yes.” The word drifted from her lips with the resistance of smoke. Under his spell, she rose from her chair and followed him out, not pausing to question the wisdom or the danger of it.
* * *
No other woman of his acquaintance, not even Laurel, would take off her slippers and stretch out along the sofa as Alix was now. On her back, she held a book above her face, reading and blocking the afternoon sun from her eyes. Spencer offered a moment of thanks for the sofa's placement under a small bank of high windows across the study. There was a sturdy burgundy arm chair against the wall to his left, by a book case, and another planted before his desk. He’d hoped she would choose that one, sitting close enough to make conversation. Now, reclining against the sofa's red velvet, her blue train sweeping the floor and one arm behind her head, he was glad she hadn't. He stole a glance in between sentences, indulging himself the soft planes of her face and the long lines and curves of her body.
Quill forgotten in-hand, he puzzled over her. Without more than rough exploration, he admitted she had snared him that first night, disarmed him with the same unnamable quality which had first caught his eye. He dared hope, as her soft lines draped with ease along his sofa, that she felt it too.
Her nose wrinkled up and dashed his sentimental moment.
“What are you puzzling at over there?” he demanded, eager for any opportunity to talk with her.
Alix sighed and rested the book across her belly. “I want to like this book. I do like it, but I cannot grasp the moral. Is sense superior to sensibility, or is she saying both are necessary?”
He was out of his depth. “Does it matter either way?”
“I feel it does. Redemption and growth of the characters are both affected.”
Wanting to prolong their conversation, Spencer waved his quill at her thick, leather-bound book. “Perhaps she has purposely concealed her motives, leaving it to you, the reader, to conclude her lesson. Shall we ask her?”
“You know her?” Alix half sat up, propped on one elbow in a pose agreeable to her neckline.
“That edition was a gift of her brother.”
“How exciting.” She fell back and folded both arms behind her head, unkindly making him more aware of her figure. “You know a great many interesting people. Laurel says that you've been to dinner with the Prince Regent.”
They were a step into territory he preferred to avoid, but with Alix it felt different. She didn’t pry for details with a look of empty adoration. “Four times, in fact. Any occasion when the Duke of Wellington is made to go, I am mandated to sit between them.”
She draped an arm across her eyes against the sunlight. “They don't get along?”
Spencer dipped his quill, at last scrawling a name across his forgotten letter. “A little too well, on the prince's side. Hero worship in the extreme.”
Alexandra's body vibrated with laughter. “You have some keen ability to mitigate it?”
“Diplomacy. An ability to tactfully remind one that he is not a king, and the other that he's not a general.”
“Perilous,” she murmured.
Spencer sat back, resting palms on his desktop. Ordinarily this was where he'd get up, happy to be done with business, off for a ride or more diverting activities. Today there was no hurry leave. The usual tension between his shoulders conspicuously absent, he was relaxed head to toe. Alexandra should have had the opposite effect. She was practically a stranger, after all, and what they had shared in the garden might have made things awkward. Her easiness in his company kindled a feeling inside which he’d struggled to name.
He spared a glimpse at his watch, crushed by how little time they had left. “I could do with something to eat. Care to join me?”
Silence.
“Mrs. Rowan?”
Gentle breathing reached his ears, and nothing else.
Spencer got up, creeping around the desk as though she were a wild animal waiting to pounce. He pressed her wrist and raised her arm, heat radiating through the silk of her sleeve. “Alexandra?”
Fast asleep.
Laying her hand over her chest, he watched her a moment. Lust should come easily; how close had they been that night? It was there, deep in his gut, second to a confused pressure in his chest. He could stroke her cheek, chase stray wisps from her brow. Lean in, a voice whispered. Brush a kiss to her temple. It sounded reasonable. Spencer braced his hand against the sofa, bending to her mouth.
“Reed!” Heavy boots out in the hall snapped him up.
Bennet.
Limbs shaking with guilty nerves, he rushed the study door, determined to intercept his brother. The door flew open between them and Spencer braced arms against the frame to block Bennet's view.
Bennet stepped back and furrowed his brow. “What are you doing?”
“Finishing up. Something to eat?” He tried for and failed at nonchalance.
“Why so hasty?” Bennet raised up on tiptoes and ducked his head left to right, angling for a glimpse into the study. “Who is that?”
“Nothing.” Spencer shook his head while the hole swallowed him deeper.
Bennet raked him with a narrowed gaze. “Nothing looks suspiciously like Mrs. Rowan.”
He bumped Bennet out of the way with his chest, shutting the door in his wake. “So it is. And it isn't like that.”
Bennet's grin held a trace of irreverence, his hand coming up to grasp Spencer’s shoulder. “I wouldn't have thought otherwise.”
“Hm.” Spencer swept a hand down the hall, eager for a change of topic, and they started for the dining room. “Where have you been, today?”
“Serving Isabel her walking papers,” Bennet grumbled, boots striking harder at the marble.
“That didn't last long.”
“Approximately the amount of time it took Ponsonby to come up from London. How many nights have I been turned away for him?” His jaw stiffened. “Like buying a horse for another man to ride.”
“Bennet.”
Hands flew up. “Poor choice of metaphor, but you take my meaning. Isabel and I have a business arrangement. I've kept up my end.”
They settled at the table, already set with cold meats, thick brown bread and village cheese. Spencer had underestimated how hungry he was until presented with the meal. Matching wits with Alexandra was hard work. He snatched an apple, wagging a finger at his brother. “She was never going to please you.”
“Why the hell not?” Bennet managed through a mouthful of chicken.
“You've had a taste of that wild lady-captain. The first woman in your life who hasn't fallen at your feet. No hothouse flower is going to satisfy your appetit
e now.”
“Ridiculous.” Bennet shoved a handful of meat and cheese onto his bread with enough force to do it harm. “Miranda. I can’t be trusted on the subject. I'd wring her neck just as she tried to wring mine, were I not relieved at never having to speak to her again.”
Spencer tried to mute his chuckle by stuffing his mouth. Not that Bennet would think, even for a moment, that he believed a single word of the protest.
“Oh!” Bennet’s hand smacked the cloth, signaling a change of tune. “I saw old Tremont keeping Mrs. Siddons company. We changed horses at the same stop.”
“Oh?”
“Oh. And she was pleased to see me.”
He looked Bennet over, artfully tousled hair and smart blue coat, and admitted a jealousy accrued over the last two decades. “I’ll wager she was.”
“Hush.” Bennet paused and stuffed in more food, manners abandoned. “I know you'd rather gut yourself than take her invitation, but if Paton's aim is scaling the social ladder, she'd do him some good.”
Bennet was correct. Mrs. Siddons was kind enough and theatrical, naturally, as an actress. But her salon had a queue to the street, packed with the sort of prattling dilettantes he was set on avoiding. Exactly the sort Chas Paton needed. “Not certain she’ll do him good when she meets Mrs. Paton. Sarah has no patience for that woman’s brand of snobbery.”
“And she'll say as much, if it comes to it. Bring Mrs. Paton down a stair and give her husband a kick in the arse.” Bennet rubbed his hands together. “I hope to witness it.”
“That sounds appealing,” Spencer admitted. “It also sounds exhausting.”
Bennet pushed away his plate and slouched into the chair at a limp angle. “No one says you have to be there to see it, old man.”
He aimed a retort, then shut his mouth. An idea had struck like lightning; a devious, tactical idea. Bennet was correct; he did not have to go.
And if Alexandra were sick enough, she would not have to either.