It had been an impressive display.
And not simply because not once, in the whole of his first mischievous and then roguish existence, had a single person—loyal siblings included—come to Rhys’ defense.
The sight of Alice as she’d been, eyes flashing, cheeks burning with both the cold and her tangible fury, produced the look of a warrior woman, who’d bow to no man, and certainly not a pompous pup like Pratt.
The wind howled, knocking the ashes from the tip of his cheroot. He took another draw from his smoke and unabashedly studied her.
Hugging her arms close, she rubbed at the cream white flesh. “I-Is it t-too much to hope you d-didn’t hear all of that?” she asked, in a teasing echo of their earlier exchange that morning.
“Which part?” He blew out a small puff of smoke. “Pup Pratt’s ill-opinion of me?” Rhys flashed a grin. “Or your spectacular defense?”
“I t-take that as ‘all of it’, then,” she muttered, her breath stirring the winter’s air and mingling with the remnants left by his cheroot.
They shared a smile. That wide tilt of her lips transformed her from ordinary to spectacular in her beauty.
The minx eyed the scrap of tobacco in his fingers.
Rhys held it out in silent challenge. Without hesitation, Alice accepted the cheroot and, with the ease of one who’d been smoking them the whole of her life, inhaled deeply, and then breathed out a long, slow stream of white smoke.
His lips twitched as she took another draw. “Given Lettie turned green and cast the contents of her stomach onto my slippers after she’d tried her first cheroot, I trust you’re quite familiar with them.”
A little twinkle sparkled in her gaze, as she took another pull. “I t-told you, I’ve never been accused of being a proper miss.” She said it without apology and absolute pride and, God help him, in that instant, there was an odd shifting in his chest.
Alice passed the cheroot back and their hands brushed. Fingers shaking, Rhys took another deep inhale, letting the smoke fill his lungs, calming.
Alice remained there, rubbing at her arms. “I-I should return.”
“Yes,” he murmured.
They both should. As one who appreciated the material comforts, any other time he would have finished his cheroot, found a bottle of brandy and a roaring fire. He’d have set himself up there, studiously avoiding all his brother’s esteemed guests. Standing outside beside this woman, in the dead of winter, chilled through as he was, Rhys found himself—frozen, wanting this moment to go on with her, determined for it to continue.
Clamping his cheroot between his lips, he shrugged out of his jacket. “Here,” he murmured.
“Wh…?” her question faded off, as he draped the garment over her shoulders.
The double-breasted coat hung on her slender frame, and there was something so very right in seeing his jacket wrapped about her shoulders.
His skin pricked with the heat of her gaze on him. She had clever eyes that probed and likely saw far more than was safe. Taking the small scrap of tobacco away from his lips, he said, “I believe there is a rule that expressly forbids a person from abandoning an unfinished cheroot.”
“Ah,” she demurred with a weighty somberness to that utterance. “No doubt, the same rule was issued about gentlemen honoring the customary brandy after dinner?”
As if on cue, the echo of voices from within the billiards room filtered through the crystal windowpanes.
They swung their gazes as one.
Silently cursing, Rhys dropped his cheroot and stomped on it. Grabbing Alice by the hand, he tugged her unceremoniously down the stone terrace, the heels of their shoes churning up snow. “Years of meeting scandalous ladies and this is the manner of stealth you’re g-given to,” she muttered under her breath as he dragged her along.
He shot her a silencing look and forced them into an even quicker pace.
To the lady’s credit, her eyes glimmered with an impish amusement and not the histrionics most innocent misses would have been given to.
A mournful wind battered at them. The noisy gusts battered her skirts against his legs. With each step, that frigid air robbed the breath from his lungs.
Reaching the end of the stone patio, Rhys and Alice bolted down the steps, not stopping until they’d reached the base.
Dropping her hands atop her knees, Alice bent over, gasping.
Rhys dragged a hand through his hair. “Bloody hell,” he muttered, pacing back and forth. They’d almost been discovered… and by every last male guest invited to his family’s estate. And in this instance, instead of the horror that should bring, he was transfixed by the flyaway curls that had come free during their hasty flight to the gardens. It conjured a tempting image of those same waxen curls cascading over his pillows, in a silken waterfall. His breath came hard and fast, for reasons that had nothing to do with their exertions. And yet… this time, she truly had been mere moments away from ruin at his hands.
For Polite Society wouldn’t care that not so much as a kiss had been shared. They’d only see the appearances of ruin… and amongst the ton, there was no other reality that mattered more. “Forgive me,” he said gruffly. “After, Pratt took himself off, I should have allowed you to return.” Selfishly, he’d wanted the spirited minx to remain for reasons that had nothing to do with a desire to seduce and everything to do with one simple fact—he enjoyed being with her.
Her breath settling into an even cadence, Alice lifted her head. “And gone and broke the rules surrounding a good cheroot?” she whispered, punctuating her question with a saucy wink.
A bark of laughter escaped him.
The minx touched a fingertip to her lips. “Hush, I have it on good authority the last thing you need this damned Season is to be discovered in a compromising position with me.”
Yes, it was any rogue’s greatest fear—the parson’s trap. Something, however, told him that whichever gent found himself wed to Alice Winterbourne, said gent would never be without a smile or laugh. “It is not just you, Alice.”
The lady snorted. “Lah, sir,” she gave an exaggerated flutter of her lashes. “With compliments such as that, it’s no wonder you’ve the reputation you do.”
His heart knocked around his chest at an uneven beat. Had he truly believed her passably pretty? The breathtakingly fierce warrioress who’d so effortlessly dismantled the Pratt fool had the beauty and spirit of Boadicea. Look away… she is an innocent young lady. Your sister’s friend… a proper miss…
He swallowed loudly, that sound lost in another gust. That sharp wind tossed Alice’s locks across her eyes.
“Blast and damn,” she gritted out, wrestling with her hair… all the while wholly immune, wholly unaware the effect her mischievous grin and spirited show had on him still.
“Here,” he murmured.
“Wh-what…?” Her voice trailed off as Rhys pulled free the shell-comb and placing it between his teeth, proceeded to gather the stubborn curls in his fingers.
And despite the frigid cold of the night air, he ached to shed his gloves and test the softness of those strands. Concentrating his gaze on the top of her head, he drew each errant curl back, tucking it into place until all the tresses had been gathered in a loose chignon.
Unbidden, he worked his eyes over her face. Her slightly-parted lips stirred little puffs of white, the scent of mulled cider, peppermint, and cheroot a quixotic pull at him, filled him with a need to taste the allure of that sweetness.
“Is it a-all right?” she whispered.
Lowering his head, Rhys hooded his lashes. “There could be nothing more right,” he breathed, bringing his mouth closer, ever closer.
Alice pressed her gloved hands to the ruby heart hair comb, patting the knot he’d made. “Thank y-you for arranging them.”
Thank you…? He’d received a similar response from well-pleasured ladies after an evening of lovemaking, only this steady, distracted murmur of gratitude hadn’t come from a sated lover.
Rhys’ eyes locked with Alice’s saucer-round brown ones.
And then reality slammed into him—hard, fast, and humbling.
He jerked his head back with such force, the muscles down his neck strained in protest. “Uh—you’re w-welcome,” he finished lamely, hoping she’d credit that slight stammer with the effects of the cold and not the blow done to his ego as Society’s most wicked rogue. “We should return,” he forced himself to say. She was a siren. There could be no other accounting for it. How else to explain braving the cold, without even a jacket for protection, that he’d rather remain here, engaging in their back and forth repartee of moments ago.
Alice angled her head, glancing past his shoulder. He lingered his stare appreciatively on that long, graceful column. “I trust you’ve an idea that includes an alternate entry inside?”
He mustered a smile. “I’ve long excelled in sneaking about these very p-properties,” he assured, holding his elbow out.
The fearless minx immediately tucked her arm in his and allowed him to lead her onward. Unlike the frivolous women he’d largely kept company with through the years, Alice did not jump to fill voids of silence with inane banter. As effortless as she’d been since their first meeting with her cheeky retorts, was as at ease as she presented herself with silence. Perhaps, it was that realization that drew forth Rhys’ question.
“Was it previously arranged?”
She cast him a quizzical glance.
“Your meeting with Pup Pratt,” he clarified. “Or was it an unexpected meeting?”
Her answer shouldn’t matter. Nonetheless, it did. Just as he’d been consumed by an inexplicable urge to throttle her dinner partner, the bloody fool who’d let her go and then proceeded to ogle her through the course of the entire damned meal. For a long moment, he believed she intended to ignore him. As she should. He was nothing more than her friend’s brother… Rhys and Alice, strangers until now.
Rhys forced himself to look at her.
Alice chewed at her lower lip, her gaze trained contemplatively forward. “He courted me. I was betrothed to him. When he first began courting me, he would arrive at the same exact time, each day. Not one moment earlier, not one moment later. At first, I…” She paused. Her brow furrowed deep with the lines of her contemplation. “I admired that dependability. My brother and the rakes he kept company with couldn’t be bothered to show up on time to a single event.” Alice grimaced. “My brother didn’t even remember to come fetch me from finishing school when my term there had ended.”
Her brother, the man Rhys had recently entered into a business partnership with, had forgotten her. Rage held Rhys in its grip.
Alice’s wistful smile pulled him back from his spiraling fury.
“And yet, there was Henry,” she murmured. “Punctual. A gentleman. And he was so very unlike those scoundrels a lady is warned away from, but are drawn to because they represent the forbidden. Men such as…” Her gaze went to Rhys.
Men such as him…
The word hung there as though she’d spoken it aloud. Odd, he’d relished that role until now. Being so casually lumped in beside a sea of amorphous, like fellows, deemed worthless and indolent, stung.
Alice cleared her throat. “Yes, well, each time he visited,” she went on, not breaking in her story, “we would read together.”
“Your romantic novels?” he ventured.
She nodded.
Of course, because, then, she’d not suffered a heartbreak that left her jaded.
“And your Pratt?” He cupped his hands and blew into them, the warm sough of his breath fleeting. “Do not tell me. He’d likely be an ardent admirer of Sir Edward Coke’s, The Lion and the Throne.”
“An enlightened work on how man might help procure liberties and freedoms for the people?” Alice snorted. “Henry would hardly read anything even half so interesting.” She was surely the only woman in the whole of England who’d not only heard of the preeminent jurist but who’d also read that two centuries’ old works on the late Tudor and early Stuart era. “He could never be found without his copy of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.”
He winced.
Alice laughed. “That w-was precisely my th-thoughts after I myself read it.”
A sharp gust ripped down the graveled path with such ferocity, Rhys gritted his teeth to keep them from chattering. “Y-You read it?” he asked, shock creeping into his question. Who was Lady Alice? Bluestocking? Minx? Siren? Or rather, mayhap, she’s simply an extraordinary blend of the three.
Hugging her arms close, Alice sent an elegant, golden eyebrow arcing up. “Have you, Lord Rhys?” she shot back.
Flummoxed, he opened and closed his mouth several times.
“Just because I’m a woman, doesn’t mean I can’t or don’t have diverse literary tastes,” she said with a frankness he appreciated.
“Touché,” he conceded, lowering his head in apology. He felt the sharp sting of remorse. How many times had he himself been so judged? His parents and siblings had never seen past the spirited boy who’d ridden his mounts too fast and reveled in outdoors pursuits. “As a boy, I read any book within my reach.” The admission came slowly and he braced for her mockery. The world, after all, had been content to see an idle gentleman who didn’t take anything, outside of his pleasures, seriously. Curiosity seeped from Alice’s eyes, encouraging him on. “One day I came upon Bentham’s title in my tutor’s possession. I filched the book and didn’t return it until I’d read the whole volume through. Now, fair turnabout,” he murmured, steering her back to her own interests. “How did you find yourself with that tedious work?” His own former betrothed couldn’t have been bothered with even feigned interest whenever he’d attempted to speak of authors and books he’d been reading.
They reached the end of the graveled path and stopped before the rear entrance to the conservatory. His fingers numb from the cold, he struggled a moment with the handle. The latch gave with a satisfying click. As he let them in, she explained the relevance of that text. “We’d sit there, on opposite sofas, across from one another, never beside each other.”
If Alice had been Rhys’ betrothed, he’d have kissed her often and deeply, so that when their wedding night had come, there would be few secrets and only anticipation simmering between them. “Pratt was a demmed fool,” he murmured.
“Oh,” she whispered, touching a hand to her chest.
It was hard to say who’d been more stunned by that admission. Alice’s eyes went soft, those deep, brown pools a window into a mind that suggested Rhys was something more than he was.
And then she spoke, Pratt’s name falling too easily from her lips and shattering that connection. “At first, I wished to know what held Henry so riveted.” She lifted her shoulders in a little shrug, hopelessly endearing in Rhys jacket. “But then,” she strolled about the indoor garden sanctuary kept by Rhys’ sister-in-law, “after I’d begun reading it, I desperately wished to know how anyone could rationalize sacrificing other people, regardless of number, for the happiness of most.” Alice stopped, standing beside a stone table littered with fir branches. “And that is when I truly knew…”
He placed his palms on the edge of the table and leaned forward, hating the space she’d placed between them. “What?”
Relinquishing that branch, she clasped her hands as if in prayer. “I learned, just what manner of person I was betrothed to. Oh, at the time, I fought the realization, calling myself faithless for my ill thoughts. But he proved himself one who could unflinchingly set aside…” Alice studied her interlocked fingers.
Rhys stretched a hand out, covering hers. “Your happiness,” he finished for her, in somber tones.
She remained with her gaze locked on their joined hands. “My happiness,” she murmured, as two competing emotions vied for supremacy within him: the desire to bloody Pup Pratt senseless for having hurt her and the need to drive back her sorrow. At last, she lifted her eyes to his and anguish spilled from their depths. “And do you know why he threw me over?”
Because he was a damned bloody fool. There was no other reason for it. “The Pratts are impoverished,” he ventured, reluctantly forcing his arm back to his side. All of Society knew the financial woes of the former roguish, now wedded, Lord Nolan Pratt. The gent had wedded Lord and Lady Lovell’s eldest daughter, Sybil Cunning. But the Cunning fortune was not great enough to have sufficiently eased that family’s debts.
“My dowry is sizeable,” Alice explained. “Henry would have had a fortune upon our marriage.” With the tip of her index finger, Alice trailed some invisible, nebulous outline on the corner of the stone table. She gave all her attentions to that distracted movement and then stopped. “Henry aspired to the role of partner within his firm,” she lifted that same long digit and spoke in a remarkably like impersonation of Pratt’s stiff, concise tones. “Monies are fleeting but his reputation as a barrister is forever. He couldn’t rely upon anyone but himself to restore the Pratt name to its onetime greatness.”
All Rhys’ muscles went taut. “Good God, surely he wasn’t so sanctimonious that he’d said all that?”
Alice shook her head.
The tension left him.
“He wrote it.”
Wrote it?
She expounded, moving an imagined quill through the air. “In a note.”
Rhys fought the growl working its way up his chest. “My God, he called it off in a bloody letter?” The desire to thrash the pup senseless filled him once more. Not only had young Pratt proven himself faithless, but he’d shown he was a coward, as well.
“Indeed,” she murmured, lifting a fir branch. That delicate movement wafted the fragrant evergreen scents.
He searched his mind for a suitable reply. And yet, to tell her she was better without that cad in her life, to remind her Pratt had never been deserving of her, was the same rubbish Rhys had been fed by his mother after Lillian’s treachery. In the aftermath of a broken heart, all one knew was the agony of regret, of what had been, of what almost was, and all that would never be.
In time, Alice would come to appreciate that she’d been spared. Just as Rhys had eventually reconciled Lillian and Anthony’s betrayal in his heart and mind. But no person could force that acceptance upon another. His former best friend served as life’s testament to that.
Alice cleared her throat. “I should leave.”
“Yes,” he acknowledged. The guests would be rejoining soon for the evening’s parlor games and their absence would be noted.
Did he imagine the lady’s reluctance? Did he simply see that which he wished?
Alice turned to go.
“Alice?” he called out, staying her.
She cast a questioning glance back.
“Stretching his hand up to reach the stars, too often man forgets the flowers at his feet.”
Her lips parted, the softness there filled her eyes. “Thank you,” she whispered.
And then she was gone.