Page 24 of An Unlikely Debutante

Alex gave a dismissive wave of his hand. After his initial feelings of dread at seeing his ex-fiancée for the first time since she’d declared her intention to marry his closest friend instead of him, he actually felt wonderfully unmoved by this encounter. He’d half expected their first meeting to be much more painful, much more strained, but he felt...nothing. Maybe time did heal all wounds.

‘You’re looking well, Alex—’

‘Lady Winchester.’ He heard the curtain behind him being pulled back and Georgina step out. The venom in her voice was unmistakable.

‘It is a pleasure to see you again,’ Victoria said, her expression betraying her true feelings, but she quickly sank into a curtsy before the other woman could see.

Victoria and his sister had never got on, and Georgina had spent many hours detailing the punishments she thought Victoria deserved after she’d left. They’d been particularly gruesome and colourful descriptions that had made Alex wonder what sort of books Pentworthy kept in his library to fuel Georgina’s imagination.

‘I trust your husband is well?’ Alex asked.

Lord Phillip Harrow, Duke of Winchester, had been Alex’s closest friend since they’d met at Eton. Their years of friendship made the betrayal even more painful and Alex had to mourn the loss of a friend as well as the loss of his fiancée.

‘He is.’

All the times he had imagined meeting Victoria again over the last few years, never had he pictured this stilted conversation. Initially when she’d left he’d wanted to rant and rave at her, make her understand just how much she’d hurt him. As time passed and his anger and pain turned to disgust at the underhand way she and Winchester had conducted their affair, Alex had imagined brushing her off with nothing more than a perfunctory greeting, slaying her with cold disdain. In reality, the situation was awkward and uncomfortable for the simple reason he had nothing he wished to say to her.

‘Lord Whitemore?’ Lina’s voice came from behind him and Alex spun quickly. For a moment he forgot the awkwardness between him and Victoria, forgot there was anyone else in the shop except him and Lina.

As she stepped forward into the light, moving with the grace of a dancer, he heard himself take in a sharp breath. Although not unrecognisable, Lina had been transformed. Gone was the colourful gypsy girl, replaced with an elegant woman in a demure but flattering dress.

Alex saw Victoria’s eyes widen in surprise momentarily before she regained control of her facial muscles and fixed her expression into one of polite enquiry.

‘It is my pleasure to introduce Miss Lina Lock,’ Alex said, watching cautiously as Lina stepped forward and dipped into a small curtsy. ‘Miss Lock, this is Lady Winchester, Duchess of Winchester.’

To her credit Lina didn’t even flinch at the title.

‘Lovely to meet you, Lady Winchester.’ Alex had to suppress a smile. He’d known Lina had grasped how to correctly address titled ladies and gentleman, she’d just been toying with him when she declared the system to be impossible for a normal person to remember.

For a few seconds he let the two women eye each other warily. Neither knew who the other was, but Alex could sense the tension in the small shop building as the silence dragged out.

‘Are you local to the area?’ Victoria asked eventually, her curiosity finally winning out. ‘I’m not sure I know of any Locks, but my family are originally from Yorkshire so I don’t know many of the families in this area.’

Alex wondered if Lina would panic, if she would blurt out her true identity when so directly questioned. He feared for a moment they might lose the wager at the first real hurdle and, as his stomach tightened, he realised just how important this bet of theirs had become to him. When Pentworthy had first proposed it Alex had been keen, but now he and Lina had invested so much time and effort in the past week preparing for the ball in just over a month’s time, he realised just how much was at stake. Holding his breath, he waited for Lina to answer.

‘My family are scattered around the country,’ Lina said lightly. ‘Although my closest relatives are residing in Pottersdown currently.’

‘So you and Lord Whitemore are neighbours. How lovely.’ Alex saw the strain on Victoria’s face despite her bright tone of voice. In the years since she’d left he had gone through so many emotional stages, but never had he considered how she felt about him after she’d eloped with Winchester. She didn’t have any right to feel jealous or to wonder who he spent his time with, but the twitch just above her eye hinted that she did all the same.

‘Alex,’ Lina said, dropping her voice so it was low and intimate, ‘what do you think of this dress?’

By the twinkling in her eye he knew she was aware of her totally inappropriate use of his first name. The little minx had picked up on the tension between him and Victoria and was ensuring he wasn’t the one left embarrassed or confused by the encounter.

Lina walked slowly forward, turned in a circle gracefully and then took a step towards him, reducing the distance between them until she was standing just a little too close for comfort.

He took a moment to regard her, sweeping his eyes over the dress, the colour of smooth cream and the unusual embroidered rose pattern that snaked up one side.

‘It suits you,’ he said. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone wear anything quite like it before.’ There was nothing scandalous about the dress, nothing inappropriate, but all the same Alex felt the heat begin to rise in his body as he looked at her. She looked mysterious and slightly sultry, even though she had shed her flared gypsy skirt, and Alex wondered if this was why he felt that physical pull. She was so different to any woman he had ever known before—so different to Victoria, that was made especially clear as the two of them stood in front of him.

‘I should be going,’ Victoria said quietly. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Lock.’

The two women inclined their heads to each other before Victoria bid Alex and his sister goodbye, then quickly hurried out of the shop.

‘So that was the dastardly ex-fiancée?’ Lina said as she peered out of the window, watching Victoria’s retreating form.

‘Yes,’ Alex said.

‘Pretty.’