Page 40 of A Stolen Heart

Thorpe’s eyes narrowed. “If you think that this is the way to convince me of what you say, you are dead wrong. Miss Ward has done nothing except deny that she was the Countess’s granddaughter. She has made no claims and has tried to get nothing from the Countess.”

“You intend to wait until she has cheated Mother, then? Worse than that, she will have broken her heart, as well!” Ursula surged to her feet. “Well, I can see that it is useless talking to you. I only hope that you don’t live to regret refusing to help Mother.”

“I am not refusing to help the Countess,” Thorpe told her grimly, rising also. “However, I have no intention of accusing Miss Ward without any evidence that what you say is true.” He hesitated, then went on, “I will, however, set someone to investigate the matter.”

He had already charged his valet with finding out all he could about the attack upon Alexandra last night, as well as the rat incident this afternoon. He could easily expand that search to learn whatever he could about Alexandra.

“You will?”

“Don’t look so astonished, my lady. I am sure my agent has already checked out her business credentials. If she is, indeed, the owner of a shipping business in the United States, will that satisfy you that she is innocent of any wrongdoing in the matter?”

Ursula’s eyes turned shrewd. “So you’re hoping to persuade me that I am wrong.”

“It seems the easiest way to get to the truth of the matter. Then we can cease to argue over it.”

“As long as you make a complete investigation, I suppose that will have to do.”

“I promise you, my agent is a very thorough man.”

Lady Ursula left, still looking a trifle uncertain, and Thorpe turned to his study with a sigh. Trust Lady Ursula to stir up a controversy—as if the thing weren’t enough of a mess. She had a way of making everyone’s actions seem suspicious.

He sat behind his desk but found himself unable to work or read or do much of anything. Lady Ursula’s accusations nagged at him. He could not stop remembering the way Alexandra had managed to meet him. She had written to him, and when he had turned down her proposal, she had found another way to meet him. Her eagerness to look at his Indian treasures was unusual.

But then, he reminded himself, Alexandra was unusual. The fact that she had been as bold and decisive as she had been was proof of nothing except that that was the sort of nature she had. And that nature intrigued him, even while it irritated him. Could she possibly have known that he would react that way to such a woman?

Grinding his teeth, he jumped from his chair and started to pace. It was absurd to think that Alexandra was anything other than exactly what she appeared to be. He had never met a woman of less artifice.

On the other hand, he remembered bitterly, he had been easily taken in before. His heart had played him false with Barbara, blinding him to her faults, deceiving him into thinking that she loved him as he loved her, when all the time she had merely been bored. Still, he argued, he was not the boy he had been then. He was far wiser—more cynical, the Countess would have it. No woman since Barbara had been able to play him for a fool. If there had been any falsity to Alexandra, he would have realized it. Yet he had to admit that no other woman had stirred such passion within him since Barbara. Perhaps it had not been that he was so wise, but that there had not been a woman desirable enough.

He cursed Lady Ursula for coming here and sowing doubt within him. It occurred to him that if he went to see Alexandra, it would resolve his doubts. A few minutes with her, he was sure, and he would once again be certain of her. He would see her bluntness, her honesty, and Ursula’s accusations would crumble.

He glanced at the clock. It was growing a trifle late to call, perhaps. However, he could not convince himself to wait until the next day. He rang for his carriage and ran up to dress in proper evening attire. Thirty minutes later he was in his carriage, rumbling toward the Wards’ house, anticipation rising in him.

As they neared the house, he caught sight of a figure of a woman walking briskly toward it. To his astonishment, he realized that it was Alexandra. Irritation flooded him. Hadn’t the woman learned her lesson the other night? What was she doing out walking along the street alone in the dark? He tapped his cane once on the ceiling of the carriage, his command to stop, and started to open the door and climb out so that he could give this stubborn woman a piece of his mind.

But then he noticed a man in livery hurrying toward her. The two of them conferred for a moment, then the man scurried off, and Alexandra followed him at a rapid pace. Thorpe frowned, watching her stride away down the street. She was hatless and cloakless and still dressed in the gown she had worn earlier, not at all the sort of way a woman went abroad in London at night. His curiosity aroused, he leaned out of the window and instructed his driver to follow her—at a discreet pace.

He saw that the footman had hailed her a hackney. She climbed into it, and the conveyance pulled away, Thorpe’s carriage following. After only a few moments, his carriage came to a halt, and Thorpe flipped aside the curtain to look out. The hackney had stopped halfway down the block in front of them, and Alexandra was climbing out. She glanced up and down the street, focusing on the large house across the way. Thorpe followed her gaze.

They had stopped in front of Exmoor House.

Something cold and hard formed in Thorpe’s stomach. Why had Alexandra come to the house of the Earl of Exmoor—she who had seemed not to know either the Countess or Richard, the present Earl? He waited, his fingers clenched around the carriage curtain, watching as she started across the street toward the house, her steps quick and determined.

He saw then that she was headed toward the figure of a woman, darkly dressed and head shrouded with a shawl. The two of them talked, and Alexandra turned, taking the other woman by the elbow and leading her toward the waiting hackney.

Something fierce and hot stabbed Thorpe through the chest. It was suddenly difficult to breathe. He could think of no reason this American, this girl who seemed so unknowledgeable about the Countess, would be meeting anyone secretively outside the home of the Earl of Exmoor. No reason—except, of course, that she was gathering information from some maid or other who worked at Exmoor House, someone who could tell her all about the family and its history.

Dear God! Could Ursula be right? Had Alexandra deceived him? Had he played the fool again, stumbling like a naïve boy into Alexandra’s web—and pulling the Countess into it, too?

CHAPTER EIGHT

ALEXANDRA HELPED HER MOTHER FROM the hackney and into the house. She felt bone weary. All the way home she had tried to get her mother to tell her why she had called her Simone, but Rhea had refused to say anything, just shaking her head and looking pitiful, until Alexandra had ground her teeth in frustration, wanting to shake her. Finally her mother had ended the interrogation by bursting into tears, crying, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Why are you badgering me?”

When they stepped in the front door, they found Aunt Hortense waiting for them anxiously. “Oh, thank God!” She gave Alexandra a significant look. “I sent the servants to bed.”

“Good.” She knew that Aunt Hortense had wanted to avoid the servants seeing Rhea return, not knowing what she might do or say or what condition she would be in. It was better not to give them any extra fuel for gossip. As it was, their servants were probably the most popular guests in the servants’ quarters for blocks around for the stories they could tell about the crazy Americans.

“Hortense!” Rhea threw herself into the other woman’s arms. “I’m so glad to see you! She’s been asking me all these questions, and I don’t know what she’s talking about.”