“Good, good.” Then Mr. Atkinson tilted his head. “It doesn’t need to be anything elaborate, mind you. Just something where you are both seen enjoying each other’s company.”
Lucien couldn’t help glancing at Alex, but she was too busy staring at the desktop.
“A walk around Hyde Park, perhaps?” Mr. Atkinson continued. “I’ll send over a note to see that Aunt Winifred is available to chaperone.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alex huffed. “It’s only a walk.”
But her father shot her a chiding look. “Yes. And she’ll need to be there, Alexandra, if people are to think this is real. Is that going to be a problem for you? Because if it is, we should just call the whole blasted thing off now.”
Alex’s dark gaze met Lucien’s and he saw the flash of panic in her eyes.
“It won’t be a problem,” he said. Then before Lucien could think it through, he came around the desk and stood before her with his arm outstretched. She stared at his open palm for a moment before taking it. Lucien helped her to her feet and smoothly tucked her arm beside his. He gave her an encouraging smile that she hesitantly returned and together they turned to Mr. Atkinson.
Unfortunately, his frown only deepened. “Heaven help us,” he muttered. “It will be a miracle if this works.”
Twelve
Not long after luncheon and after her father practically shooed her out of the building, Alex reluctantly left the office—though she had every intention of returning later in the day. Her presence at the meeting with Mr. Finch might be considered de trop by the attending parties, but she had a great deal of work to catch up on if she was going to be larking about the park all afternoon.
But first she needed to collect Aunt Winifred from Park House, her family’s Belgravia mansion. It had once been two connected townhouses occupying the top of a crescent, but her parents combined them to create one larger home. At the time, it had been considered rather gauche of them to do this, which Alex couldn’t understand given that many of their neighbors occupied far larger and often far more gauche mansions themselves. But apparently it was perfectly acceptable if one merely inherited an obscenely ugly mansion.
The carriage pulled up outside the house and Alex sent Markham the coachman inside for Aunt Winifred. Then she pulled out Lucien’s contract from her satchel and began to make the necessary revisions, grumbling to herself all the while.
She still didn’t understand why he had looked so offended. After all, he was a young man in London and she knew very well whatyoung men in London got up to. When her colleagues weren’t actively avoiding her, she could usually pass by unnoticed. And so she learned an awful lot about what happened outside the office. Married, engaged, unattached—it didn’t seem to matter. They all reveled in the same frivolities. Alex didn’t much care as long as it didn’t affect their work, but she wasn’t some moon-eyed clodpoll, either. Why Lucien insisted thatshebe included in the decorum clause was another matter entirely.
Alex rarely mingled in society of any kind, and then usually only under duress. She preferred her own company most of all, but enjoyed Will, Phoebe, and her parents in measured doses. Freddie was only tolerable under very specific circumstances, usually when the rest of her family was present. Alex had lived her life that way for years now. Happily. Productively.
And, on occasion, just a little bit lonely.
She grimaced at the thought. Perhaps that was true, but it was a small price to pay for the luxury of predictability.
Alex had let her emotions rule her once and the tumult that followed had been at far too high a cost for her.
“Good afternoon, Alexandra,” a voice cut through, startling her from her thoughts. “A fine day for a walk, I think.”
Alex lifted her gaze as her aunt climbed into the carriage and sat down across from her.
Blast.
She had let her mind wander and had barely gotten through the first sentence of the contract. That wasn’t at all like her.
“Hello, Aunt Winifred. Thank you for accompanying me today on such short notice.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” she replied. “Happy to help. Though yourmother is rather frazzled. The responses for Phoebe’s wedding have begun to arrive and she may need our help going through the rest of them this evening.”
Alex held back a sigh. The wedding wasn’t for another three months and she was already sick to death of hearing about it. “Of course,” she said dutifully.
So much for returning to the office, then. Perhaps she could send Phoebe and Margrave an invoice for all the working hours she had missed as a wedding present. Only as a joke, of course.
“What is that?” Aunt Winifred asked, pointing to the contract in Alex’s hand.
“Nothing. Work,” she said, hurriedly stuffing it back into her satchel.
“My goodness. Do you take it everywhere with you?”
Alex stiffened a little at the disapproval in her aunt’s tone. “My work doesn’t end when I leave the office, Aunt.”
“I’m not sure your father even lives by that dictate,” she said with a laugh.
