Page 36 of The Lady Makes Her Mark

Chapter 12

Alistair watched her fingers tighten around the purse until her knuckles turned white. He’d never excelled on the cricket pitch, but he recognized that grip. Why on earth would she be preparing to throw it at him? Unless—

In his mind he heard the echo of her last words. And his. The peculiar way the exchange had collided. As if he had been suggesting that, to repay his generosity, she should sleep in his bed.

Given how the day had started, it wouldn’t be an outrageous leap for her to have imagined that he intended to share that bed with her.

Quickly, he raised a hand to stay her. “Alone! I meant, of course, that you should stay here”—he gestured again toward the bed, palm upward, the sort of motion a man made to assure an opponent he was unarmed—“alone, while I pass the night elsewhere. In the room that was given to you, perhaps. That way, if anyone does come looking for you, they’ll not find who they expected.”

Color gradually returned to her fingers, though she did not drop the purse. “I . . . suppose . . . that makes some sense. I feared that you meant . . .”

“So I gathered.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I realize, Miss Cooper, that my behavior toward you has not always been that of a saint. Or a monk. I accept full blame for this morning’s . . . unfortunate incident and have most sincerely attempted to make amends.” Her expression might have been carved from granite. “But may I now ask,” he continued with unwonted boldness, “what I have done to give you the impression that I am the sort of gentleman who would—who would take advantage—take advantage of—?” He cleared his throat. “That is to say, such a portrait of my character seems inconsistent with the rather, er, staid pictures you have in fact drawn of me. Repeatedly.”

He would have been willing to swear that a full minute passed before she blinked. “May not a man be judged by the company he keeps?”

“Ah. You’re referring, I suppose, to—”

“Lord Deveraux.” Each word rang with disapproval and called to mind the sketch she’d made of the man, complete with devil’s horns, to accompany the essay on rakes written by the magazine’s advice columnist, “Miss Busy B.” Burke—now, Lady Deveraux.

Alistair narrowly bit back a laugh. It was hardly the first time his friendship with Miles had got him into hot water. Though it might, he mused, be the last, since that devil, Deveraux had reformed and was now hewing to the straight and narrow—or straighter and narrower, at least.

But if the old Miles had ever happened to find himself stuck with a svelte and spirited redhead, he would certainly have found ways to pass the time that did not induce frustration of one sort or another.

Not that Alistair was without ideas. But unlike Miles, who had only ever been responsible for himself, Alistair had always been too aware that his every choice shaped his sisters’ future.

And Alistair’s father had seen to it that he had blessedly few choices to begin with.

Be that as it may, Alistair had made one choice all on his own, one he intended to honor: He had chosen to befriend Miles. “Lord Deveraux is my friend and, I hope, always will be. I have no intention of defending him to you, Miss Cooper,” he said. “Nor of defending myself. You may make of it what you will.” He turned to leave. “I’ll wish you good night.”

“You . . .” For the first time in their journey, he heard genuine worry in her voice. “You’ve not changed your mind?”

“About Miles?”

“About . . . me.”

In the dim room, her pale skin seemed to glow; the bruise on her cheek might have been no more than a shadow. The ruffles on her white cotton nightdress peeked from between the edges of her dark woolen mantle. She looked younger than he knew she must be, and he thought suddenly of her mother. Had she looked thus when she ran away from home, toward a dream that had become a nightmare?

“I think I was wrong,” he said, not really answering her. “You don’t trust me after all, do you? But perhaps it is as well. You clearly do not know me either.”

She looked as if she would speak. Her lips parted—lips he had kissed, for God’s sake—but the only sound that emerged was a shivery sort of sigh.

“Before I go, may I give you a piece of advice?” He paused, waiting for her almost imperceptible nod. “If you’re going to throw something at someone”—he jerked his chin toward the leather purse still clutched in her hand—“strike fast. Don’t let them see what you’re about to do. Don’t give them a chance to mount a defense.”

Her eyes flared. “You—you thought I meant to throw it at you?”

“Seven sisters, remember?” He managed something close to a grin. “As well as seven years in one of our nation’s fine public schools. Sharpens the eye and hones a fellow’s reflexes.”

She didn’t smile. “Your little jokes are rarely amusing, Lord Ryland. And usually poorly timed.”

He shrugged. “I wasn’t joking. At least, not about the advice.”

Then he closed the distance between them, reached for her wrist, and pried the small pouch from her unresisting fingers. Once, twice, he weighed the purse on his palm. Safer, surely, to take it with him. She had deceived him. She was desperate. She would think nothing of stranding him here.

He tossed it onto the bedside table, where it landed with a soft chink.

At the sound, she flinched.

“I think I now understand the real purpose of your spectacles,” he said.