Alexandra sighed as she approached the breakfast room. She'd thought that the fresh country air would cure her sleeplessness, but the past five nights at Hartleigh Hall had been exactly like those preceding. When finally she did fall asleep, she had very troubling dreams. His gallant knights who rescued her from dragons that looked like the Burnham sisters kept turning out to have deceitful, amber eyes instead of adoring, grey ones.
Because she hadn't slept properly since she'd come to England, she was prey to headaches, one of which was now shooting sharp blasts of pain behind her dark eyebrows. The great racket coming from the breakfast room promised only to exacerbate it. Perhaps she'd better turn back and have breakfast sent up to her room.
Unfortunately, Burgess, Lord Hartleigh's terrifying butler, had already seen her approach. She was astonished to note faint creases, ominously hinting at a smile, at the corners of his mouth. And then—good heavens—he was actually opening the door for her himself.
She winced slightly at the Babel of voices, but in an instant her eyes flew wide open. There at the breakfast table, smiling with complete self-assurance at some sarcasm Lord Hartleigh directed at him, was the inconsiderate creature who haunted her dreams. He'd turned towards the door as it opened, and when his gaze locked with hers it carried all the impact of a physical blow. The other faces were dissolving into haze, the voices into a buzzing in the background, and all she saw was the slow smile that lit his wicked face. Then he spoke, and the familiar, insinuating sound shook her out of her daze.
"Thank heaven you’ve come, Miss Ashmore—and in the very nick of time. They're all lined up against me, and I want an ally badly."
"What's this?" Lord Deverell exclaimed. "Was India so taxing then? Are you so enfeebled that you require a woman's help to speak?"
"Ah, but I always require the ladies' assistance—"
"Oh, he hasn't changed a bit," someone murmured, but Alexandra barely noticed. He was still looking at her and talking.
“Luckily, Miss Ashmore has most kindly made it her business to look out for me."
She hadn't time to blush, being too busy thinking—and that wasn't the most agreeable exercise with her head throbbing so. How dare he say such things in front of these others? Lord Arden had leapt to help her to her chair, and she used the moment that gave her to collect her wits. His lordship placed her conveniently next to himself and inconveniently opposite Mr. Trevelyan. There was nothing for it then but to meet those glittering, feline eyes calmly.
"I'm sorry, sir," she finally answered, "but I don't recollect undertaking any such formidable task. At any rate," she went on more briskly, "you can't expect one to do business of any sort before breakfast."
"Certainly not," Lord Deverell agreed. "Will, don't stand there gawking. Fill Miss Ashmore's plate for her."
It could not have been agreeable for Lord Arden to be ordered about by a mere viscount, as though he were an awkward schoolboy. On the other hand, it may have been the unwelcome addition to the company that made his lordship scowl so horribly as he stood at the sideboard selecting the choicest tidbits for his future wife and listening to the conversation.
"Well then, Miss Ashmore," Basil was saying. "I'll leave you to fortify yourself, though it means fending off this great company single-handed."
Lady Hartleigh laughed. "Don't even think of fending us off, Basil. Not when you've been so mean to tease and say you wouldn't come. But what is this great piece of nonsense you tell of Miss Ashmore?"
"It isn't a bit of nonsense," came the injured reply. "The whole while we travelled, Miss Ashmore was busy saving me from myself—and it was an uphill task, I assure you."
"And a thankless one, I make no doubt," his aunt put in.
The plate was set down before Miss Ashmore with an angry thunk.
"I wonder, Basil," said Lady Jessica, "how you came to need saving from yourself."
There was a deafening chorus of answers to this, most to the effect that Basil had needed to be saved from himself since the day he was born, that no one could do it, and that it must be given up as a bad job.
Alexandra was relieved that she wasn't left to deal with him all by herself, though their good humour surprised her. Hadn't he wronged at least four of these people? Still, his machinations had simply hurried Lady Hartleigh into her husband's arms and Lady Deverell back into those of her beloved Harry. It was rather, as Aunt Clem had claimed, a great joke. Basil's plots had succeeded only in getting him packed off to India.
"As to you, Miss Ashmore," Lady Jessica went on with studied innocence, "whatever possessed you to take on this monumental task?"
Alexandra very nearly choked on the fragment of toast she'd put in her mouth, but she managed to swallow it and answer calmly enough. "I daresay it must seem odd. But then, Albania has few amusements for an Englishwoman, and there's little enough to do on a long sea voyage. Papa and Mr. Burnham had their theories and writing to occupy them. I, on the other hand, had nothing. I suppose," she added, with a little shrug, "since Mr. Trevelyan is the very soul of honesty and he says I took on the job, then I must have—no doubt because I was so unspeakably bored."
Most of the company smiled appreciatively at this. At the other end of the table, Lady Deverell chuckled softly.
"Poor Basil," said Lord Hartleigh pityingly. "Only a diversion."
Lord Arden found the exchange a deal less amusing than the others and endeavoured to return Miss Ashmore's attention to himself. "Yet who would not delight to be Miss Ashmore's diversion?" he asked, sweetly.
"My lord," she chided, "you play into Mr. Trevelyan's hands."
"I?"
"Yes. You help him draw the fire to me and away from himself."
His disloyal sister joined in. "She's right, Will. We were all scolding him. Then you must say pretty things to Miss Ashmore and make everyone stare at her."
"When of course, dear sister, you'd rather they looked at you."
"Naturally—in good time. Now, however, it's Basil who must bear our stern scrutiny. He's been most unkind to his family." The look she directed at Basil would have been severe indeed, except that her eyes—amazingly like her brother's— twinkled with mischief. "Let's hear his excuse."
"Yes, you young jackanapes," Lady Bertram growled. "What can you have to say for yourself? Nearly a fortnight in London and not once do you call on your aunt."
"Dearest Aunt, if I called on you I might have stumbled upon Miss Ashmore as well, and she told me to keep away."
"Abominable creature!" Lady Hartleigh cried. "You blame Miss Ashmore for everything."
"But isn't that so, Miss Ashmore? Didn't you tell me to keep away until further notice? For my own good?"
Alexandra's green eyes flashed dangerously. He wanted to embarrass her, the beast. Spreading a dab of butter on her toast, she answered coolly, "How, I wonder, could I make it my business to look out for you on the one hand while I drove you off on the other? How could I look out for you when you were not about?"
"Why, I don't know. I really can't understand it. Usually, you're so logical. I'm sure I've mentioned that before—how logical you are."
Alexandra was seriously considering throwing the coffee urn, an ornate, silver monstrosity, at him—how dare he remind her of that conversation in Prevesa?—when Lady Deverell's bored voice was heard. "I cannot make it out at all, and it makes my head ache, Harry. After all, if—as he says—Miss Ashmore told him to keep away, then why is the tiresome boy here?"
Lord Deverell only shrugged and smiled while Lord Hartleigh turned to his cousin and gravely asked what answer he had for that?
"Why, cousin, it must be obvious." Basil stared at him in mock astonishment that he couldn't answer this simple riddle.
Alexandra's mind raced as she imagined a hundred different answers he might make—all of them disconcerting—and her own hundred possible setdowns.
"None of you can guess?" He turned that wondering, childlike look on all of them in turn. "But it's so simple." His gaze rested then on Alexandra, and something in his eyes made her heart skid to a stop. "Amnesia," he said softly.
In the din that greeted this she breathed a small sigh of relief. Though Lord Arden was looking at her tamer strangely, he held his tongue, and she was able to finish her breakfast in relative peace.
There was peace after breakfast as well, for she went riding with Lady Jessica, Lord Arden, and the Deverells. The older couple rode well behind, but with Jess there to contradict and mock him, Lord Arden was forced to keep the conversation general. Alexandra could let her mind wander freely, the intense exchange between brother and sister precluding any real participation.
She'd thought Lord Arden the answer to her prayers. He was handsome and amiable, and he appeared to be intelligent, even if he did look at her in that unnervingly proprietary way. After all, he'd been brought up to believe the universe was basically his for the taking.
The Burnhams wanted a daughter-in-law who could help them claw their way into the ton, but if Papa paid his debt in gold they'd have to be content with that. Lord Arden could easily afford to settle matters with them, and even Papa couldn't object to a future duke as son-in-law. Yes, Lady Bertram had selected well of all the eligible gentlemen she might have invited to take notice of her goddaughter. Even his sister was delightful. Why then, had he suddenly become so irritating?
"How quiet you are, Miss Ashmore," said Lady Jessica. "But how can you help it? Neither of us lets you get a word in edgeways.”
"Speak for yourself, Jess. It's you who monopolise the conversation."
"Because otherwise you tease her—and that's too unfair when she was teased unceasingly at breakfast."
"As, to your mortification, you were not.”
"I'm sure," Alexandra put in, "it'll be Lady Jessica's turn to be teased next. And as her performance is bound to be superior, I expect to learn a great deal from it."
"Miss Ashmore, you want no tutoring. I daresay you've had enough experience of Basil to know that he's immune to setdowns. Even if he were not, who could bear to stop him from talking so beautifully wickedly?"
"My sister," Lord Arden said with annoyance, "is and has been, since her debut, entirely lost to propriety."
"Well, you would know, my dear brother, so much experience you have of impropriety."
"She has the mind of an infant," he went on doggedly, "and exaggerates silly bits of gossip into great scandals—"
"On the contrary, I must reduce them to mere scandal in order to contemplate them—"
His lordship was growing exasperated. It had been vexing enough to find Trevelyan at the breakfast table this morning and to be forced to sit quietly as the man flirted outrageously with the future Marchioness of Arden. Now, here was one's own sister, holding up one's rather murky private life for Miss Ashmore's examination.
Still, Miss Ashmore did not seem horribly shocked. It occurred to him that he actually knew very little of his Intended—except that she was eminently desirable. She'd kept him at arm's length, and he'd been patient knowing that these genteel virgins did like to be courted forever. Yet, Trevelyan's insinuations had not once elicited any of those cool, reproving looks his own more gentle hints customarily evoked. For all her cool composure, she'd seemed different somehow, as though she'd been lighted up from within, the moment she'd clapped eyes on the wretch.
As to the expression on Trevelyan's face—that predatory look so appropriate to those feline eyes—one knew that look all too well. It promised, at the very least, complications. Lord Arden wanted no complications. This courtship business was time-consuming enough as it was. And where the devil was her blasted father?
"Well, Maria," said Lord Deverell, "he's exactly as you described. I’ve never met a more ingratiating villain, though I can't understand what makes me like him in spite of my better judgment.''
"Really, my dear? Then why, I wonder, did you look at him so thunderously?"
Her husband smiled. "It was too much temptation. When I saw him try to draw her aside after breakfast, I couldn't resist stepping in his way. After all, I was unable to do so three years ago."
"Well, you glowered at him sufficiently to make up for that oversight. How naughty of you, Harry."
Lord Deverell laughed. "He didn't seem in the least intimidated. What, I ask, is this scheming devil about?"
"The poor boy is starved for attention. And no wonder, after three years among foreigners in climates you yourself have pronounced fit only for vermin."
"Attention is it? I rather think it's something else he's starved for. Or someone else. He looked exactly as though—"
"Please, my love. No vivid analogies. It is too early in the day to tax my mind so."
"You needn't waste your die-away airs on me, my lady. I know better. And I wish you did as well, for I can see there's bound to be trouble."
Maria sighed. "There always is, I'm afraid. You and Clementina between you have put the cat among the pigeons."
"Yes, love. And who are the poor pigeons, I wonder?"
He'd come, Basil told himself, only because London was so stupefyingly dull at the moment. The blond barque of frailty he'd managed to entice away from her protector had proved to be, upon closer examination, both vulgar and witless, and he'd been obliged to entice her back into protection again. Anyhow, there was bound to be better sport watching Arden, who'd never had to woo anyone in his whole life, woo Miss Ashmore. It had been great fun to annoy him at breakfast and to see the difficulty with which he controlled his rage when he saw how easily Miss Ashmore's attention could be diverted.
And Miss Ashmore? For all her cool self-possession, there was murder in her eyes. Basil had hoped she'd rip up at him afterwards, but Harry Deverell had come in the way. Then Isabella was ordering him up to the nursery to admire little Gerald, and after that Basil had to visit the schoolroom because, her ladyship insisted, Lucy would never settle down to her studies otherwise.
Well, he went, and the Hartleighs' adopted daughter was nearly as excited about seeing him as she was about the lovely dark-haired doll he'd brought her. Unfortunately, he must then debate with the child whether it most closely resembled Lady Jessica or Miss Ashmore. Lucy pointed out that Miss Ashmore was even prettier than Lady Jess and that her stories were every bit as wonderful as Mama's. It was, therefore, Lucy's considered opinion that this paragon should marry Lord Arden since she was as beautiful as a princess and he was very nearly a prince.
"A duke, you know," she explained patiently, "is almost a prince, and Miss Ames says he will be a duke one day."
Miss Ames stepped in at this point to remind Lucy that she was gossiping, and gossip was better left to one's elders. Leaving the governess to explain why this was so, Basil exited the school room feeling inexplicably put-upon.
Nor did his mood lighten when he responded to a summons from Aunt Clem. No doubt his aunt meant her lecture to be uplifting, but as he stood there, enduring what appeared to be an interminable scold on virtually every subject under the sun, he only felt more illused.
What she lectured about, Basil hardly knew. He'd never attended before and saw no reason to start now. There was something about the Burnham business and some cryptic comments concerning one of those Latham chits and any number of blistering references to her nephew's incompetence. All that did matter was that she made it impossible for said nephew to catch up with Will and his riding companions. When he'd finally escaped his aunt, Basil found that everyone else, including the traitorous Freddie, had left the house as well.
He'd been completely abandoned. The only ones to show any interest in his reappearance were the children; and the baby had fallen asleep three minutes after meeting his cousin, while ten-year-old Lucy found him a deal less fascinating than household gossip.
A fine welcome, he thought, as he stomped into the library and threw himself upon a great leather sofa. Gone three years, and they couldn't keep their minds on him past breakfast. And she needn't have dashed off in such a hurry to ride with Will. Basil had risked his life to rescue her, and she couldn't even take the time to scold him for teasing her.
It was odd that a gentleman who'd wished his aunt at the devil for wasting time scolding him should now be equally irate that another lady declined to do the same. But then, journeying some fifty miles in the dead of night can render the most even-tempered of men out of sorts and, consequently, illogical. At any rate, after spending another hour or so alone in the library, unable to concentrate on a book and quite disinclined to betake himself elsewhere, his temper began to fray. Small wonder he sought to take his frustrations out on the very next person he saw.
His sense of ill usage had reached a perfect fever pitch when, some hours later, the door to the library opened and Miss Ashmore wandered in, looking for the book she'd left there the evening before. She didn't see him at first because the sofa was nestled close to the bookshelves at the other side of the room, and her glance went immediately to a small table not far from the door. When he greeted her, therefore, she started, and one mischievous chestnut curl bounced playfully against her eyebrow. This enraged him past endurance. Abruptly he sat up and asked, in a voice dripping with sarcasm, whether she'd enjoyed her little jaunt with the mar—
"Well, yes, I did, rather," she answered stiffly. "He and his sister were very amusing."
"Yes, you couldn't ask for a better sister-in-law than Jess."
"I don't recall having asked for one, Mr. Trevelyan," came the cold retort.
"Hadn't you? Well, my mistake. But I was certain that was what you'd asked Aunt Clem for. Sister-in-law. Brother-in-law. Any sort of in-law. So long as the last name wasn't Burnham."
She'd picked up her book and was half a mind to throw it at him but made herself reply evenly, "That was uncalled for, Mr. Trevelyan. As it is, however, entirely in keeping with your inconsiderate behaviour at breakfast, I must at least compliment you on your consistency."
"And I must compliment you on your alternative fiancé. Dear me, Will is a better catch than Randolph by a mile."
"Really?" she asked sweetly. "And even better than my other fiancé? Well, what a clever girl I am, to be sure." And she turned on her heel and left him.
He did not mean to let her have the last word, but the Fates conspired against him. After a light noonday meal, Edward insisted upon showing his cousin the divers improvements made to the estate. This occupied them until teatime. During that meal, Miss Ashmore was engrossed in conversation with Will. Immediately thereafter, Basil was again commandeered by his cousin, along with Freddie and Lord Deverell, who demanded a complete account of his adventures abroad. Nor was there a suitable opportunity to get the last word that evening, for he could hardly quarrel with her across the whole length of the dinner table. Shortly after, Miss Ashmore took to her room, pleading a headache.
"I daresay Will gave it to her," Jess confided, as she plunked herself down upon the settee next to Basil. "He's such a bore playing the decorous suitor. Hasn't the first idea of what he's doing. No wonder he made her head ache."
"What a disloyal sister you are, Jess."
"Well, he's such a pest. He wants her attention every minute. Though it is diverting to see him so monstrous well behaved, especially when I know for a fact he's keeping not one, but two high flyers—twins, Basil, if you'll credit it—in London. And he's hardly dared kiss Miss Ashmore's hand."
The thought of those polluted lips upon Miss Ashmore's slender, virginal fingers was more than Basil could stomach. Because that particular image promptly conjured up any number of far more ghastly ones, he soon found that his dinner did not agree with him and made a rather early bedtime himself.
Lord Hartleigh sat propped against the pillows, watching his wife brush her fair, silky hair. She was even lovelier now than when he first knew her. Actually, the first time he saw her she hadn't been lovely at all, with her hair so primly pulled back and her dress so dowdy. But later, the night he'd first danced with her, she'd been lovely indeed. Another thought came to him and he frowned. "I don't like it, Isabella," he said. "Basil and Will under the same roof with that dazzling creature. Whatever was your mother thinking of?"
Lady Hartleigh moved from the dressing table to his side of the bed where she stood, gazing fondly at him. "It would appear," she answered with a wry smile, "that Mama has matchmaking in mind."
Her husband retorted that Lord Arden didn't appear to require any encouragement. "Those killing looks he drops on her make me want to howl.''
"Still, I’ve seen him look that way at a hundred other women. Probably Mama thinks a little healthy competition will hurry him to the point."
"My cousin, I need not remind you, is hardly healthy competition. Did you see the way he looked at her?"
"Oh, it's just as he always does. She handled it with aplomb, I must say. Gave as good as she got—and among so many strangers, too. In her place I should have been covered in confusion."
"I think," Lord Hartleigh remarked, "I'd rather see you covered with kisses." He pulled her towards him, causing her to topple onto the bed, and immediately set to making action suit word.
"After all" he murmured sometime later, "it's not our problem, is it?"
"No, dear," came the faintly amused reply. "Not this time, thank heavens."