There was another brief pause, during which Kit’s heart pounded inside her chest, and then the paper lowered and folded in half. “Indeed,” Alexander murmured, leaning forward in his chair. “Have you seen this, then?”
He slid the paper over to her. The headline shouted, “Napoleon Rallies Followers,” and was accompanied by an artist’s rendering of Bonaparte speaking to his council in Paris. She glanced up at Everton.
He studied her, no doubt assessing the reason for the tired lines around her eyes and her wilted cravat. Alex didn’t look as though he had slept much, either, but at least she could guess where he had been. Pride, though, wouldn’t let her mention it. If all she was to him was a debt of honor and a foolish chit, naive about seduction and easy to tease, then so be it. As long as she was aware of that, it wouldn’t happen again.
She slid the paper back to him, but he didn’t look at it. “I’m not surprised,” she stated. “I didn’t think he would be off to Russia again.”
“Nor am I surprised,” he agreed. “I was wondering, though, what further plans your father had.”
Kit started, and attempted to cover it by reaching for the bowl of fruit set halfway between them. “My father?”
“Yes,” Alex answered. “I was to watch you for a fortnight, and then he was to make other plans for your safety. The Duke of Wellington is headed toward the north of France. Paris does not appear to be growing more safe, nor the army less likely to conscript a likely lad such as yourself.”
Kit shrugged. If his concern was still her safety and his debt of honor, perhaps he didn’t know the truth about her reasons for being in London. If that was the case, it was foolish to make him angry at her. She glanced down for a moment, no longer certain whether she was making excuses to help her father, or because she couldn’t get Alex out of her mind for one moment—even when she was almost certain he was working directly against her father, even when she should be hating him. “I’m certain he’ll think of something.”
“Yes, he’s quite resourceful.”
“How do you know that?” she queried, suspicious again.
“The proof stands, or rather sits, before me,” he answered. “Not many fathers would think of dressing their daughters as sons to keep them in safety.” He stood and moved over to the seat next to her. “Now, with that in mind, let me ask you again. Where were you last night?” Slowly he reached out and touched the fingers gripping her teacup. “And if you don’t answer me, in order to ensure your safety until your father comes for you, I will be forced to lock you in your room.”
The voice was soft, the eyes steel. He meant it. She jerked her hand away. “You bully,” she spat. “You could never keep me here.”
“I could.”
She glared at him, and saw that he was as suspicious of her as she was of him. And they had just reached an impasse. “I’ll tell you where I was,” she said slowly, taking a controlling breath to keep her voice from shaking, “if you tell me where you were.”
Everton searched her gaze for another moment, then nodded. “I went to the Worthington ball, then accompanied Barbara Sinclair home.” She opened her mouth, but he shook his head at her. “We played piquet until three in the morning, after which I stopped back here and then went looking for you. So don’t tell me you were at one of my clubs, please.”
“You played piquet?” she repeated, for that seemed far more significant than the fact that her whole tale was slowly beginning to fray.
“We played piquet,” he affirmed. “And I let her win. Which was quite difficult, because she’s a careless player. Unlike yourself.”
“And that’s all,” she pressed skeptically.
“Yes.”
“A rakehell of your reputation?” she asked flippantly, wanting with all her heart to believe him. “Why?”
He looked down for a moment, then caught her gaze again. His sensuous lips pursed ruefully. “Because Barbara Sinclair is a poor substitute.”
Kit narrowed her eyes, her heart beating quite fast. “A poor substitute for what?”
“For you, my dear.”
She swallowed, then took a deep breath. “You are under a debt of—”
“Yes, I’m quite aware of that, thank you very much.” His voice was pained and exasperated, and his fingers sought hers again. “Which has nothing to do with my…feelings toward your person.”
“‘Feelings’?” she repeated, exceedingly curious.
He snorted, his lips quirking in a half smile as he slowly shook his head. “Shall I detail them for you?”
“Please do.” She very much wished to hear what he would say, and besides, he seemed to have quite forgotten his demand to know how she had spent the night.
Alex looked sideways at her. “Let me put it this way, so as not to shock your delicate sensibilities, chit. I believe it to be your choice of attire.”
“You like my clothes?” She raised an eyebrow.
“I hate them.”
“Well, excuse me, Everton, but you’re the one who—”
“Now, now,” he interrupted, raising a hand to fend her off. “Let me finish. Even the most modest of women’s clothing is designed to…reveal the form beneath,” he explained in a bemused tone. “This, I believe, is done for purposes of sale and marketing. You, however, have seen fit to remain determinedly concealed beneath lawn shirts and waistcoats and cravats and evening coats and breeches. The only flesh I’ve seen of you is above your neck and below your wrists.” He looked at her, his eyes amused again. “And it’s deuced frustrating, chit.”
He desired her. Alexander Cale, the Earl of Everton, desired her, a smuggler’s daughter. Making a mighty effort to gather her puddling wits up from the floor, Kit returned his gaze. “Scoundrel,” she muttered.
What he had said, unsettling though it had been, provided her with a possible answer to a very sticky question. It had occurred to her sometime last night. She had been so concerned with finding proof that he was the quarry her father was after that she hadn’t considered what was to be done with him once she did know for certain. Alex, she recognized, could not and would not be bribed to leave them be. Short of killing him—and the mere thought of that had left her frantic with distress—she had been unable to come up with another solution. Until now.
If he wouldn’t be bribed, and she wouldn’t allow him to be hurt, then perhaps she could distract him. Immediately the idea was distasteful to her, for she’d lost enough of her heart to Alexander Cale to wish not to hurt him. But it was infinitely better than seeing him dead. She wasn’t certain, though, that she could pretend to be as captivated with him as he seemed to be with her, and not forget what her true purpose was.
“Kit,” Alex said, and she started. His chin was resting in one palm, his elbow on the table, his intrigued and speculative gaze on her face.
“Hm?” she returned, blinking back to the present.
“Twopence for your thoughts,” he murmured.
“I, ah, I was just thinking that I doubt Father had your particular…reaction in mind when he dressed me in breeches,” she offered.
“So cool, you are,” he muttered. “I’d hoped for a slightly more flattering response.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Kit replied stiffly.
“An honest answer would be refreshing,” Everton commented, unmoving.
“Does it matter whether I tell you how I feel about you?” she countered, unable to keep the slight, desperate edge from her voice. “It wouldn’t change anything.”
“It would matter,” he said quietly.
She couldn’t meet his searching gaze. “I find you very annoying, then,” she shot, and stood.
Moving with startling swiftness for a man of his height and strength, Alex beat her to the door and leaned back against it, blocking her escape. His hand strayed down to his coat pocket, and her eyes followed it. Slowly, he lifted a key and dangled it before her face. “Forgetting something, aren’t you?”
“You weren’t
serious!” she protested, alarmed and angry, and oddly exhilarated.
“Deadly serious,” he murmured.
“Lourdaud! ne! Bravache!”
“I believe you’ve used at least one of those on me before,” he commented mildly, though his eyes bespoke a different emotion entirely. “Best for you if you keep in mind that I have a fairly good memory.”
“As do I.”
“Good. Then I don’t need to repeat the question.”
“I hate you.”
“Not quite what I was looking for, but at least it’s honest.”
She wasn’t so certain it was, even under these circumstances, but it gave her a moment to think up a lie for her whereabouts of the evening, as he knew she hadn’t been at White’s. “I went to Covent Garden, hired a hack to take me to Dover and thought about purchasing a place on a ship to Calais, changed my mind, stomped about Dover for a time, and took a hack back to London again.” She folded her arms and prayed she had sounded angry enough that he believed her.
He lowered the key, something swift and almost vulnerable running across his lean features. “Why did you change your mind?”
“I don’t know. I wish I hadn’t, now.”
For a long moment Everton looked down at her. “Well, this leaves me with something of a dilemma,” he finally said.
“And what might that be, pray tell?”
“You’ve told me what I wished to know, but I can’t very well have you running back to Paris in the middle of a war and nearly a week short of the fortnight. Your father would be rather annoyed, and I would have failed in honoring my own patriarch’s debt.”
Damnation. She’d meant only to rattle him, not to box herself into a corner. Or rather, into her room for the next week. “I wouldn’t consider locking me away to be the least bit honorable, either,” she told him.
“Yes, well, we’ll decide that later,” he said, and pocketed the key. “For now, why don’t you finish eating, and we’ll go to Gerald and Ivy’s?”
“I don’t want to go to—”
“Don’t make me repeat myself, Kit,” he said darkly, and she realized she had hurt him. “I need to go, and therefore so do you. If you’d been a female out all night, you’d be ruined.”
With that he stepped out into the hallway and shut the door behind him.
“I am a female,” she muttered.
Chapter 10
“Who are you disemboweling?”
Alex finished his shot and stood the billiards cue on end, before he looked across the table at his cousin. “Beg pardon?” he returned, though he had heard the comment quite clearly.
Gerald Downing gestured at the number three ball, still rolling about the table in a rather haphazard fashion. “As I recall from your gloating victory speeches on innumerable past occasions, the secret to winning at billiards is a cool head and a snifter of—”
“Brandy,” Alex finished with a half-amused scowl. “You’re full of pale platitudes this morning, aren’t you?”
“You’ve provided me with most of them. I do hang on your every word, you know.”
“Oh, stuff it and get me a brandy, Gerald.”
He shrugged and strolled over to the liquor tray to do as he was bid, while Alex studied the disaster he’d made of the table. At the sound of female laughter emanating from the morning room across the hallway, he scowled again and looked in that direction. The damned chit was making a wreck of him, and she likely knew it perfectly well. A door shut, and the attractive music vanished behind it.
“It’s our lot in life, you know.” Gerald sighed, approaching to hand over the brandy.
“What’s our lot?” Alex lifted the snifter and took a healthy swallow. It didn’t help.
“Being laughed at and never having a clue about what we’ve done that’s so damned amusing,” his cousin replied, stepping around to plan his shot.
Alex’s frown returned. He had a very good idea what Kit Brantley found so amusing. On the ride over to the Downings she’d scarcely looked in his direction, the stiff line of her spine letting him know precisely how angry she was at being ordered about. He had been angry as well, mostly at himself for letting her get to him again. It had shaken him, when she’d said she’d gone all the way to Dover, and had nearly taken herself back to France. Her response was not the one he was used to receiving when he expressed interest in a woman. Until she’d said she hated him, he would have been much more amenable to throwing her onto the breakfast table, ripping her clothes off, and licking every inch of the body she’d been keeping concealed from him for the past eleven days. And he was still thinking about it, thinking about her.
Gerald sank two balls before he missed, and Alex stepped up to the table again. His cousin had actually left him a fair shot, and a chance to take back the entire game. He raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps you should have poured yourself a brandy while you were at it,” he commented, leaning his stick across the table.
“How much longer will dear Kit be staying with you?”
“Six days,” Alex muttered, choosing his angle of attack.
“And how are you holding up?”
Alex glanced up at his cousin and shifted his stance a little. “Splendidly.”
“No tangled bedsheets yet?”
“Shut up, Gerald.”
Gerald chuckled. “Given the appalling lack of restraint and manners you have heretofore exhibited, I am quite proud of you, m’boy.”
Alex made his shot, and watched, unsurprised, as the nine ball dropped into the corner pocket, the cue ball following close behind. “Gerald,” he said succinctly as he straightened, “I possess an exceptional degree of restraint, for which you should be exceedingly grateful.”
Gerald eyed him. “Why don’t you simply go to Barbara or one of the other half a hundred women who would be more than willing to service the Earl of Everton?”
Because I want Christine Brantley. “What makes you think I haven’t been?”
“You’re drawn tighter than a bowstring, Alex.”
“I do have other—”
His cousin raised his cue and pointed it at Alex’s chest. “Don’t even attempt to blame it on Bonny Bonaparte,” he stated, then sighed, leaning over the table. “At least you’ve only six more days to worry over her virtue.”
Alex turned to look at his cousin, for the first time realizing what six days meant. She would be gone. She would leave for Dover, and not change her mind and return. He’d never see her again. “Yes, thank goodness,” he muttered, looking toward the doorway again.
“No, I’m glad you told me”—Ivy smiled—“and I truly don’t think there’s anything wrong with you.”
“But I was standing there, gawking, gawking, at a dress. Hanshaw must have thought I was demented.”
“However you were raised, Kit, you’re still a female,” Alex’s cousin said patiently, as though the whole twisted mess was perfectly clear to her. “And one who has perhaps begun to think of herself as a female for the first time?”
“Oh, I suppose so,” Kit said irritably. She’d spent the morning spinning lies for Alex, and then found herself telling more to explain her dour mood, when Ivy trapped her into having a coze. Everything was becoming so complicated. And the easiest thing to do was blame everything on Alex Cale. If he hadn’t been so handsome and witty and interesting, she wouldn’t have minded all the terrible things she was doing. She’d never even thought of them as terrible until she met him.
“Are you and Alex…getting along?” Ivy asked, looking at her from over the rim of her teacup.
“What do you mean by that?” Kit asked sharply.
“Just that you were having quite an argument the night we met you. Gerald tried to wager me that the two of you would have Cale House burned to the ground within the week.”
“Well, Everton’s a very irritating man,” she pointed out.
“Yes, he can be.” Ivy sat back and looked at her for a moment. “You know, I have an idea.” She sipped at her tea. “You�
��re not quite my size, but if you’d like to try a gown on, I think we can manage to find one for you.”
That stopped Kit. “I…no, I don’t have time for that,” she stammered. “Really, I…I mean thank you, but…” She paused. Once she returned to Paris with her father, she would never be able to do such a thing. The risk was far too great. “Do you think I might?”
Mrs. Downing laughed. “If you have time, yes, I don’t see why not.” The bell rang for luncheon, and she stood. “Tomorrow, perhaps?”
“Tomorrow?” She truly had no time for this. She needed to make certain that delaying or distracting Alex would enable her father to transport the goods he’d acquired across the Channel. If Reg or Augustus was actively involved, and not just supporting Everton, she would have to find a different way to slow them down. “All right.”
Gerald and Everton were already in the dining room when they arrived, and with a quick look between Kit and Alex, Ivy dismissed the servants. The earl’s expression was still cool as the two men stood at their entrance, but Kit decided it was his own fault. He was the one ordering her about as if she were one of his footmen.
Ivy seated herself, and Alex immediately followed suit. After a moment he looked up at Gerald, still standing and glaring at him, and then over at Kit. She clutched the back of her chair and clenched her jaw. She’d hurt his feelings, and now he was pretending he didn’t remember that he’d kissed her, that he’d told her he desired her, that she was even a woman.
He sighed and pushed to his feet again. “Pardon me, my lady. I hadn’t realized you were being a female today, after all.”
Kit’s first instinct was to curse him in French, her second was to ask him when he’d acquired the ability to read minds, and her third was to burst into tears and flee the room rather than continue lying and fighting with him. Instead, she gave a forced smile and dropped into her chair. “One can never tell, I suppose.”
His gaze lingered on her face for a moment, but she refused to look at him as she passed the platter of roast chicken to Ivy.
“Alex,” Ivy said with a smile, “I was wondering if I might borrow Kit tomorrow, if you’ve no objection.”
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