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"No, no. None of that."
"What then?"
"He did not truly want to marry me, Hart. He only proposed after. . . after. . ."
"After what?"
Alex shrugged and looked down to her hands, so that the two tears that fell wouldn't leave tracks in her powder.
"What he said was true? You were a virgin?"
She let her silence answer. What could she say? She had never dreamed she would be discussing her deflowering with her brother.
Hart took her hand and cradled it in the warmth of his long fingers. "Why did you let him think the worst of you, Alexandra? Why did you let me?"
She blinked the last of the wetness from her eyes, a familiar anger burning them dry. "No one even asked me. No one ever asked if I was a strumpet or just playing at being one. Well, I was only playing at it, but once I was caught, I. . . I was almost relieved."
"Alex, how—"
"Can you imagine being set loose in London for the first time—to dance and drink and flirt and laugh—set free to have the best time of your life and knowing all the while that you must find a mate and put it to an end? I daresay you've never been tempted to marry; why should you have been? I wanted to have everything. Everything that you take for granted."
His mouth fell open and stayed there, as if he had lost whatever word was set to emerge. He blinked and closed it. "I had no idea you were unhappy."
"I wasn't unhappy, really. Or I didn't know I was. I just wanted something that I couldn't put a name to."
"Sex?"
A nervous cough choked her. "No, not that exactly. A reprieve, I suppose."
"Alex, you were free to take your time. Two Seasons, three or four. I wouldn't have cared."
"Oh, I had planned on two at least. But I ended up with only a half. A reprieve indeed. A full commutation from the sentence of marriage."
"And is that what you wanted?"
Alex smoothed her hands over the pale blue of her bed, trying to find her words, her thoughts. "I've been happy since then, I think. Useful. But now. . . Now I find myself wanting more than just usefulness."
"Blackburn seems a good sort, or he did before he turned up on the doorstep with my little sister in his arms."
"Is that how it happened?" She blushed at the tight set of his mouth.
"You remember nothing, I suppose?"
Her blush heated and spread down her neck. "Not after a certain point."
Hart's scowl seemed to warm the air. "Well, luckily, I do not know those details,
but Blackburn says you took feverish in the middle of the night. He carried you here on horseback, afraid to trust your health to a midwife or herbalist. He brought you here and refused to leave."
"You let him stay?"
"Not under my roof."
"No, I wouldn't think so. And how long was I ill?" "Five days. Five nights."
A shock of horror jolted through her. "Five nights? What day is it?"
"Sunday."
