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His lips—those beautiful, perfect lips that had kissed her less than forty-eight hours ago.
Alice forced her gaze back to the game. One of the men rolled a nine, and the whole table cheered as the man scooped up his earnings.
Lord Brooks took another half step toward her, and though Alice wasn’t looking at him directly, she felt him move closer as one feels a windstorm gale.
“I actually was hoping to find you here today,” Lord Brooks said to her. “Might we be able to talk for a moment?”
She probably should tell him no. Alice needed to distance herself from Lord Brooks, and that wasn’t going to happen so long as she entertained a friendship with him as Mr. Allen.
Blast, but she hated Mr. Allen just now.
And now she was thinking obscenities like a man would. This wasn’t so grand a plan as she’d originally believed. The sooner she found a suitable husband and put Mr. Allen behind her, the better.
Something that wouldn’t happen so long as she allowed Lord Brooks to monopolize her time.
And yet, as she glanced over at him, she found she couldn’t tell him no. She didn’t want to stop being his friend; she didn’t want to give up their time talking and thinking aloud together. Of all the various things she’d done this Christmas holiday, other than those cherished moments with Joseph, nothing had cheered her up or come close to being as important to her as those times with Lord Brooks.
“Very well,” she said to him. She’d work on giving him up tomorrow.
Alice bid farewell to Lord Oakley and turned to follow Lord Brooks toward a set of chairs where they might speak more openly.
Lord Oakley, however, called after her. “Is your cousin at home any day this week? I should like to call on her.”
That was a good thing, surely. Alice no doubt ought to feel a thrill of elation at the news. The first man she’d met so far that had a fortune himself and didn’t care to lose it at cards, who wasn’t a womanizer, and didn’t seem bent on ruling over her wanted to call on her.
And yet, she felt no thrill, no excitement. “She will be at home day after tomorrow,” Alice said.
“Tell her she may depend on me.”
Alice inclined her head and then turned and followed Lord Brooks.
Lord Oakley would be calling on her day after tomorrow. That meant she had just over twenty-four hours to get Lord Brooks firmly and completely out of her head.
* * *
Isaac took a seat and then watched as Mr. Allen took the one beside him. He’d been going over what he might say in his mind all of yesterday and all this morning. The only conclusions he’d come to in all that time were firstly, that he truly did need to speak to Mr. Allen about Lady Nightingale, a topic they both usually hedged around and preferred to ignore, and secondly, he had no idea how the man would respond.
Judging by the way Mr. Allen sat but didn’t look at him, his posture stiff, Lady Nightingale had told him already about the kiss and how unwanted it had been on her part.
He’d be hanged, however, if Lady Nightingale was going to come between himself and Mr. Allen. The gentleman had become far too good a friend to lose.
“I wish to say something,” Isaac began, speaking more to Mr. Allen’s shoulder than his face, since the man still refused to look at him. “And I gather by your demeanor that you know the subject already.”
“Is it regarding my cousin?”
“Yes, but more to the point, I am referring to...the Christmas Day ball.”
“She told me of it.”
What Isaac wouldn’t give to have overheard that conversation. Had Lady Nightingale spoken of him like a cad who’d taken unwanted liberties? Or as a fool she’d enjoyed baiting? Either way, he would remember to steer clear of her in the future.
“I only wanted to be sure...” His words died off. Even after all the time he’d spent rehearsing this in his head, he still found his thoughts hard to express. “I’d hate for her to have gotten the wrong impression.” Namely that he was a jackanapes. More than anything, Isaac realized, after stewing over this for hours yesterday, that he wouldn’t be at peace so long as he wondered if she believed he was the same type of man as her father.
He didn’t care to continue a connection with Lady Nightingale, but he hated the idea of knowing she was out there thinking he had only wished to use her.
“She knows you sincerely dislike her,” Mr. Allen said, “and you would never consider a connection with her, if that’s what you mean.”
Well, that was rather putting a fine point on it. He had disliked her, strongly, at one point. And yet, he didn’t feel that way now. No, it wasn’t that he disliked her, more that he didn’t trust her. He didn’t trust that intelligence in her eyes or the way she always looked over a room as though understanding each person therein in an instant and calculating how best to play the room to her advantage.
