“What I do object to, however, is the fact that if I were still a housemaid I doubt you would even look at me, whereas now I am an heiress you think to
“Oh, you need be in no doubt that I would have looked at you,” Miles drawled, infuriating her further. “I would probably have touched you, as well.”
“Not with marriage in mind,” Alice flashed. “You disgust me.”
“No, I do not,” Miles said. “That is your difficulty, is it not, Miss Lister?” He took her hand. Even through gloves, his touch scalded her. “You know that I desire you,” he said. His voice had softened, and his tone raised shivers along her skin. “Why not be honest and admit that you want me, too, and that there would have been lust between us whether you were a maidservant or an heiress.” He moved a little closer to her so that his thigh brushed the silk of her gown. “I may have forced your hand with this marriage, Alice, but you know you will surrender to me in the end because, deep down, you want to.”
His words and the slippery glide of his leg against her skirts sent a shiver of awareness sliding along Alice’s veins. He was right, of course. Through all her disillusionment and betrayal the one stark fact that she could not deny was that she was deeply, helplessly,
A second later she realized that he had read her thoughts with disconcerting accuracy, for his eyebrows lifted and a smile that was as sensual as it was teasing lifted the corners of his firm mouth.
“Alice,” he said again. There was a rough edge to his voice now, like the rub of steel against silk. Alice shivered again. She was so close to him that in the lamplight she could see that his eyelashes were golden at the roots fading to dark at the tips, and that his eyes had the same gold color sprinkled deep in the hazel. She stared at him as though she was trying to commit his face to heart, captured in the moment and by the desire in his eyes, knowing that in a minute he was going to kiss her.
Miles had kissed her before, the previous autumn, and she had been dazzled and overwhelmed. Looking back, she could see that that had been the moment when Miles had undermined her defenses and she had started to surrender her guarded heart to him. Now she felt afraid, as though there was so much more at stake. She did not want to be hurt again. She had been foolish and trusting before, but that had not made the pain any the less. She had no illusions now that Miles would ever love her, so in that respect she was armored against him, but she also knew that her perfidious body responded to him with a need and a desire that was as insatiable and seductive as his own.
She freed herself from his grip and stepped back, escaping before it was too late. “I do not want to talk about this,” she said. She sounded breathless even to her own ears. “Don’t seek to dictate to me, my lord. I will accept your attentions with as much enthusiasm as I can summon up-until you break the terms of the will and I am free of you.”
She walked quickly away, slipping open the catch on the long windows and stepping back inside the ballroom. Miles did not follow her and she felt an immense relief. She wanted to retire from the ball, to go home to the privacy of her room where she could vent her frustration and her anger. She hated being in Miles’s power. She could not bear to be coerced, and the insidious attraction Miles held for her confused as well as mocked. And yet what alternative did she have? She was bound to this hollow travesty of a betrothal for as long as Miles was able to fulfill Lady Membury’s terms and conditions. God forbid that he should succeed completely and that she should be obliged to wed him.
Her heart bled for the naive young girl she had been the previous year. She had built Miles up into such a hero and all her hopes and beliefs had been blighted. Not only was he like every other last scoundrel who had ever seduced and betrayed an innocent young girl, he was without heart and without feeling. She thought of the Dowager Lady Vickery and of Celia and Philip. Miles was blessed to have a family who cared for him and yet he pushed them away, scorning their affection. There had been a moment when he had been telling her of his feelings for his family, when instinct had made her think that there was some terrible secret there, some hidden truth that had wounded him so badly in the past that he could never recover. Yet when she had pressed him on it he had shown no weakness. He had scorned her sentimentality as much as he seemed to reject his family’s love for him. So the truth was that he had no capacity to love and she had better remember that for her own good. She would never make the same mistakes again, thinking that she loved him, risking disillusion. Miles Vickery was not worth it and he never had been.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE HAD GOT TOO CLOSE with her artless questions and her damnable persistence. Miles stood by the conservatory window and stared out into the darkened gardens, ignoring the cold that was starting to eat into his bones. Alice Lister was too perceptive, and worse, she was too stubborn to back down. There had been a moment when she had challenged him about his feelings for his little brother when he had felt the same uncontrollable bite of anger that had driven him from his family all those years ago. Anger was as unproductive an emotion as guilt or resentment or love, as far as Miles was concerned. It led to poor judgment and rash decisions. It led to a loss of control. It could hurt too much. And he, renowned for his cool head and lack of sentiment, was the last person on earth who wanted to feel that intensity of emotion for anything or anyone.
He knew that Alice had been shocked by his heartlessness. He had heard it in her voice. She had tried to make him admit that he cared. He felt cynically amused that she was trying to persuade herself that he had some softer feelings when he did not. She had sought the truth from him and then she had not liked what she had found.
Little Miss Lister had to learn that honesty could sometimes be diabolically uncomfortable to confront.
Total honesty. To his surprise he had not lied once that evening, neither to Alice nor to anyone else. He had thought that he might bend the truth sufficiently to allow him to feel comfortable but not enough that Alice would guess he was compromising. Instead he had been blisteringly candid. At times it had been a painful experience but he thought that he might actually be getting a taste for it.
It was a disconcerting discovery. Unwelcome, too.
The winter wind skittered across the dark gardens, bringing on its edge a stinging sleet that it threw against the glass, and Miles shivered, seeking out the warmth of the lighted ballroom. He deliberately did not look for Alice even though he felt an almost irresistible urge to rejoin her. The impulse troubled him and he found it inordinately difficult to dismiss it.
He propped himself against a conveniently placed statue of Apollo, which he assumed was intended to add an air of classical culture to the Granby’s provincial ballroom. He was amused to see that from the waist down Apollo was swathed in a robe, presumably to preserve his modesty and the sensibilities of the Fortune’s Folly matrons.
Across the polished expanse of the ballroom floor Miles could see his sister dancing for a fourth, scandalous time with Frank Gaines whilst the Dowager Lady Vickery watched from the chaperones’ corner, her face expressing disapproval tinged with resignation. Miles smothered a grin. He wondered which his mother would consider the lesser of two evils: having a spinster daughter so firmly on the shelf she had taken root, or accepting a lawyer as a potential son-in-law. She had already demonstrated her social prejudices once that evening when she had been introduced to Alice. Not, Miles suspected, that her mother’s opinion-or indeed anyone else’s-would count for a fig with Celia if she decided she wanted Frank Gaines. And the dowager herself was not without admirers further down the social order. Mr. Pullen, the magistrate, had come over to ask her to join him in an old-fashioned country dance, and after a rather startled response the dowager had agreed.
Lizzie Scarlet caught Miles’s eye as she twirled ostentatiously down the set on Lowell Lister’s arm. She was flaunting herself under Nat Waterhouse’s nose, laughing and chattering animatedly, and Miles knew that Nat was noticing, even as he bent in ever more assiduous attendance on Miss Minchin and her parents. The Waterhouse and Minchin match had been formally announced that morning in both the
