“I’m just going to go for a walk now,” said Charlotte a little too loudly as she scurried towards the door. “A very long walk.”
Penelope was going to kill Charlotte. Slowly. Painfully. Just as soon as she got back from her very long walk. If Charlotte had any sense, it would be a very bloody long walk indeed. Preferably all the way to the Outer Hebrides. On foot.
Alex moved politely to the side to let her pass, somehow managing to nod in greeting without ever moving his eyes from Penelope. That unbroken stare was distinctly unnerving.
“Captain Reid.” Charlotte bobbed a hasty curtsy and whisked herself around the door frame.
A long, drawn-out “Bye-eee” trailed down the hallway after her.
If Charlotte didn’t watch out, that was going to be her very last bye-eee, thought Penelope grimly.
It was calming to concentrate on murdering Charlotte. It removed at least part of her mind from Alex, who might or might not have heard that very unfortunate little conversation about certain emotions that one might or might not be feeling.
“Penelope.” Alex took a slow step into the room.
Something had to be done. A diversion. A preemptive strike. Anything to diffuse the dreadful tension that suffused the room like strong tea.
“Hello,” Penelope croaked.
As a preemptive strike, it lacked a certain amount of force.
Alex continued his slow progress into the room, his face giving nothing away. He wasn’t terribly good at dissembling, but he did a brilliant imitation of a granite boulder.
Squaring her shoulders, Penelope took strength from the reminder that, Charlotte’s romanticism aside, anything that had been between them was long since over. They were sophisticated adults, prepared to deal with each other in a sophisticated way—and why was he staring at her feet?
Oh. There were drops of brown goo plopping slowly onto her slippers.
Penelope hastily set her empty chocolate cup down on a teak table and drew in a deep, bracing breath through her nose.
“Captain Reid,” she said forbiddingly. Had she said that already? She couldn’t remember. But it certainly staved off any discussion of love.
His lips twisted up on one side. “So formal?” he said.
Damn. He had heard, hadn’t he? Damn, damn, damn. “You might as well be a stranger,” she snapped. “I’ve scarcely seen you for days.”
That had been a tactical error. She sounded . . . jealous. Clingy. In short, like a woman in love.
But her former lover didn’t press his advantage. Instead, apropos of nothing, he announced, “I’ve been made District Commissioner for a parcel of the ceded territories.”
“Well, huzzah for you,” said Penelope rudely. And since that might have been a bit too churlish, even for her, she added grudgingly, “I’m sure no one could have deserved it more.”
“Thank you.” He was still watching her—like a worm on a hook, thought Penelope unpleasantly. Couldn’t he just squish her and put her out of her misery already? No, this was Alex. He would shy from squishing. He would try to do it humanely, and in the process hurt her far worse. She didn’t want to be disposed of humanely. She would rather be able to resent him after.
“So you’ll be leaving, then, I take it?” she said tartly. “You must be eager to brush the dust of Hyderabad off your heels.”
“Some dust more than others,” he said.
Here it came, thought Penelope. The thank-you-for-a-lovely-interlude. The you-were-highly-diverting-while-it-lasted. The it-was-wonderful-but-it’s-over. Drop me a letter once every three years, and have a nice life.
“Dust is dust,” said Penelope brusquely. “The same the world over. If you’ve come to say good-bye, say it.”
But he didn’t.
“Your friend seemed to think you have something to tell me,” he said.
So he had heard that. Damn, damn, damn. Damn bloody Charlotte with her irksome habit of blurting out the first thing to come to her lips. Damn her for putting herself in this position in the first place. But she hadn’t entirely. She hadn’t spoken of love. She had never spoken of love. That was all Charlotte.
Even if Charlotte did happen to be right.
“Why should I?” Penelope said shrilly, feeling like a drowning man clutching for a rope.
Or her pride, as the case might be.
She had been far calmer when she had been within inches of drowning in the Krishna. That had been as nothing compared to this, compared to the clutching, clawing panic she felt now.
Penelope abruptly turned her back on him, feigning interest in the window, although she couldn’t have said with any assurance what lay beyond the glass.
“I have nothing to say,” she said in a tight little voice. “If you have, I wish you would just say it and get it over with. I’m sure we both have other things to do this afternoon.”
Alex’s hands grasped her by the shoulders and turned her bodily around to face him. Up close, his face wasn’t expressionless at all. The expression on display appeared to be intense irritation.
“Damn it, Penelope,” he said harshly. “Don’t play games. Do you?”
“Do I what?”
Alex just looked at her. He didn’t need to say anything. Just the look was enough.
Penelope jerked her head back defiantly. “What is it to you?”
Alex choked on an incredulous laugh. “Don’t you know by now?” he demanded. “If you don’t, you’re the only one who doesn’t.”
“Now who’s playing games?” shot back Penelope, but it came out decidedly less vigorous than she had intended it.
Alex met her gaze without hesitation. “No games,” he said. “No evasions. If you don’t know by now that I have a severe case of being-in-love with you, you’re the only damn one in the compound.”
“‘A severe case,’ ” Penelope mocked, a rash surge of hope lending venom to her tongue. “Like the measles?”
“An apt comparison,” he agreed, but Penelope could see the little twitch at the corners of his lips, and felt her heart lift absurdly at the sight of it. “The symptoms are roughly the same. Distraction, irritability, rash . . .”
Penelope pushed at his chest with both hands. But she didn’t push very hard. “I suppose I should be grateful that you’re not comparing me to bubonic plague!”
“Are you planning to prove fatal?”
Penelope looked at him levelly. “I have done. I did do. For Freddy.”
“I’m not Freddy,” he said.
“No,” agreed Penelope. “You’re not.”
She meant it as a compliment. Or, at least, as much of a compliment as she was capable of paying.
Alex’s eyelids flickered, and his gaze shifted away from her. Grimly, he said, “I know I have less to offer you than he did. I have no title. I have no prospects other than those I earn for myself.”
Penelope looked at him in surprise. “Did you think I would scorn you for that?”
“Not scorn. No.” For once, the oh-so-competent Captain Reid appeared to be at a loss. He looked at her wordlessly for a moment, weighing his words. Haltingly, he said, “But it’s not what you’re used to.”
“I didn’t like what I was used to,” said Penelope bluntly. “I was hopeless in London. Etiquette irritates me, cards bore me, and being told what to do makes me want to go out and do exactly the opposite.”
“I had rather noticed that,” Alex said, with such tenderness that Penelope found it necessary to look away. “I seem to have made that mistake myself once or twice.”
“At least you learned,” said Penelope huskily. “Some people never do.”
“Not enough,” he said, watching her in a way that made her stomach do a curious little flip. “A lifetime would hardly be long enough to learn everything I want to know about you.”
“A lifetime,” managed Penelope, wondering if she had just heard correctly, “is an awfully long time.”
Alex’s eyes were very warm. “I don’t think I would be bo
red. Do you?”
Penelope tried to swallow, and found that her throat didn’t seem to want to cooperate.
That had sounded remarkably like a proposal. Not that she had terribly much to measure it against. Wryly, Penelope recalled the circumstances of her last proposal. After an hour closeted with the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale, Freddy had staggered out of the Duchess’s lair, looking rather more ruffled than when he had entered, shrugged, and said, “Looks like we’re to make a match of it.”
To which Penelope had replied, in tones of deepest sarcasm, “Oh, goody.”
Then Freddy had taken a long, restorative swig from the flask in his waistcoat pocket.
Penelope remembered resenting that he hadn’t offered to share.
There was no need for any extraneous inebriate in this circumstance; the way Alex was looking at her was dizzying enough. It was dizzying to think that someone—not just someone, but Alex—could want her for real, for always, even knowing all the things he knew. He had seen her hasty, judgmental, imperious, and even dripping with river water. There wasn’t much of each other they hadn’t seen. A month-long journey tended to create interesting conditions of proximity. It might be possible to hide one’s true nature in a drawing room courtship, but never in a roadside camp’s, riding together day in and day out, through rain and mud and ludicrous heat. He had seen everything that Freddy deplored in her, and he wanted her anyway.
It was too good to be true. Therefore, it couldn’t be true.
Could it?
“If you feel that way,” Penelope said carefully, “why have you been hiding all week? I may not be an expert on the topic, but avoidance and undying devotion seldom go hand in hand.”
A slight tinge of color rose under Alex’s tan. “How could I possibly say anything to you as matters stood then? Between Fiske and Jack, I was skirting the edge of outlawry. Even once the charges were dropped, what did I have to offer? But then, when the word about the District Commission came through this morning . . .”
He trailed off as Penelope lifted a hand to gently touch his cheek.
“Idiot,” said Penelope lovingly. “I would have gone with you without. I rather fancied life as an outlaw.”
“Not if you’d tried it you wouldn’t,” said Alex, but there was a smile fighting to push its way through. “Two weeks and you’d be longing for a proper bed.”
“As I recall,” said Penelope, letting her eyes drop languidly to his lips, “we did very well without a proper bed once before. I didn’t feel the lack of it. Did you?”
Memory sizzled between them, as tangible as touch. It didn’t take terribly much to remember just what that touch had felt like, nearly a week’s worth of touches, without a single bed in sight. The way he looked at her made her clothes feel several sizes too tight.
There might not be a bed in the room, but there was a very roomy settee. . . .
Blinking, Penelope looked away first.
“I’m not as good a liar as that,” said Alex, with a wry grin that encompassed a whole host of very memorable memories. “But this wouldn’t be a week. This would be—”
“A lifetime?”
Alex tilted his head in acknowledgment of the point. “At least a few years.”
Penelope trailed her fingers along his shirtfront. Now that she knew where they stood, she felt considerably more like herself. Enough like herself to take great pleasure in tormenting him. “So much for forever,” she said sadly.
“A few years in that particular district,” Alex clarified, catching her hand. He ruined it entirely, however, by twining his fingers through hers, a gesture that entirely belied the substance of what he was trying to say. “Those few years could start to feel like a very long time. The station will be out in the middle of nowhere. There won’t be any other ladies there—”
“Good!” said Penelope heartily, startling a laugh out of Alex.
Sobering, he cautioned, “It will be difficult.”
Penelope looked him in the eye. “So am I.”
With a lopsided grin, Alex lifted his free hand to smooth back the hair from her brow. “Not to me,” he said. But then he spoiled it by adding, “But I can’t lie to you. It will be isolated. And lonely.”
Penelope raised both eyebrows. “Keep this up and I’ll begin to doubt that you really want me there.”
“I do,” said Alex. “More than I can say. I would go down on one knee if I thought it would make any difference. But I wouldn’t want to lure you away with me under false pretenses.”
“Isolation, outlawry, and lack of prospects.” Penelope ticked each off on her fingers. “If this is your version of luring, you’re sadly out of practice.”
“I haven’t much experience at it,” he admitted.
Penelope grinned a rogue’s grin. “Fortunately,” she said dulcetly, “I have.”
Linking her arms around his neck, she proceeded to provide a stunning sample of her usual luring technique, although after the first few minutes, it became entirely unclear who was luring whom.
“Does that mean you’re coming with me?” he asked breathlessly.
Penelope considered it. “Lure me again,” she demanded.
And he did.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Reading through Mrs. Selwick-Alderly’s notebooks, I had shaken my head over the complexities of Alex Reid’s family relationships. They were nothing compared to Colin’s. A cousin turned stepfather trumped a rogue half brother any day.
It couldn’t be true. That man couldn’t be Mrs. Selwick-Alderly’s grandson, Colin’s . . . second cousin? First cousin once removed? Second cousin once removed? Whatever it was, to have your cousin run off with your mother on your father’s deathbed represented a pretty major betrayal.
I must have been mistaken. The resemblance was probably only an illusory one, a matter of chance. I was awful at remembering faces at the best of times. It was another classic case of my imagination getting the better of me.
At least, I hoped it was. The alternative was too mind-boggling.
I tugged on Colin’s sleeve. “That man—that man talking with Serena—is your stepfather?” I asked, very slowly and very carefully.
“My mother’s husband, yes.”
I didn’t miss the subtle distinction there.
“But—” How could I put this delicately? I couldn’t. “Isn’t that your cousin?” I blurted out.
“That, too,” said Colin, with determined lightness. “Very economical, isn’t it? Saves on the Christmas presents.”
“Sensible, that,” agreed Budgy, his mouth full of tuna tartare. “Bloody pain in the arse, Christmas shopping.”
I smiled brightly at Budgy. I had to get rid of him. I had to get rid of him so I could grill Colin.
This all just got weirder and weirder. Colin’s stepfather was his cousin? This wasn’t even P. G. Wodehouse anymore; I had stumbled across the line into Evelyn Waugh. Brideshead Regurgitated didn’t even begin to describe it.
What did Colin mean not telling me that his mother was married to Mrs. Selwick-Alderly’s grandson?
To be fair, I could see that it was the sort of thing one might not want to trot out on the first date or two, but we had been dating for more than two months now. He had spare socks and a razor in my flat. Enough said.
“Should we—do you want to—” I scrambled for words, entirely at a loss. I would be willing to wager that Emily Post never came up with a formula for dealing with this. “Do you want to, er, go over and say hi?”
I had never felt more gauchely American.
“Not particularly,” said Colin, with a tight smile. “But I suppose we’re going to have to.”
“Bloody relatives,” agreed Budgy amiably, around a mouthful of tuna tartare. If one were to consider one’s silver linings, Budgy was pure sterling. He seemed to be an extremely restful sort of person to have around in a crisis.
Across the room, Serena’s face was hidden by the long curve of her salon-shiny hair, but her postur
e had tensed into a question mark, shoulders curved forward, head bowed. Her body language screamed discomfort.
I wasn’t the only one who had noticed.
“Will you excuse us?” said Colin wearily to Budgy, and I felt all my indignation abruptly evaporate.
As my mother has pointed out to me in the past, men are people, too. When you prick them, they bleed. If we’re insecure, they’re insecure. If I thought this was awkward, it had to be about ten times worse for Colin.
As we crossed the room, I slid my arm through his in a gesture of girlfriendly solidarity. I don’t know if Colin noticed, but it made me feel better.
“What is your, er, mother’s husband doing here?” I whispered.
“He’s a dealer—an art dealer,” Colin specified. “Pretty ridiculous, isn’t it?”
I wasn’t quite sure where the ridiculous came into it, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you could very well ask.
“He got Serena her first job,” Colin added.
“Before . . . ?”
A shadow of a smile appeared around Colin’s lips at my deliberate obliqueness. “Yes. Before.”
A few yards ahead, Serena and her cousin/stepfather were unconsciously mimicking the poses of the couple in the art poster hanging behind them. In the poster, a young lady turned her face away as the beribboned gallant beside her leaned forward, seeking her attention. Like Serena’s, the face of the girl in the painting was unreadable, shadowed by her towering hair.
A horrible suspicion blossomed. Forget Brideshead, we were talking 90210, the English edition. Or that Andrew Lloyd Webber musical where everyone sleeps with everyone.
“Your cousin and Serena,” I said. “They weren’t—”
“No!” The honest horror on Colin’s face put that suspicion to rest, at least. “They were rather close at one point, but not like that. Jeremy was—is”—he amended wryly—“considerably older.”
I wish I had paid more attention to the dates on those photos. Mentally, I translated “considerably” to “about a decade.” He looked to be in his mid or late thirties, which would make him roughly ten or more years older than Serena and I, a little closer in age than that to Colin. Not too old for a teenage girl, or even a girl just out of college, to have a massive crush, especially if he was someone already established in the field she was looking to join.