“And though it is not remotely ladylike of me to confess it, you know I desire you.”
“You refine too much upon being a lady,” Miles said. “Women are made of flesh and blood, too.”
He caught her suddenly in his arms and his lips came down on hers, cold from the March air but conjuring all the sensual passion that he could always evoke in her. Alice’s head spun at the contrast of heat and chill. She closed her eyes. The pressure of his lips forced hers apart ruthlessly and then his tongue tangled with hers and suddenly she wanted him so badly that she felt as though she was falling. He let her go and the bright spring light stung her eyes and she stared in shock at the retreating figures of Lizzie and Mrs. Lister. They had not turned around. They had seen nothing.
“You take too many risks,” she stammered.
“Perhaps.” Miles smiled sardonically and offered her his arm again. “The worst thing that would have happened was that your mama would have turned around and seen us kissing and sent immediately for the vicar.” He brushed his lips against her ear and she shivered.
“Don’t keep me waiting too long,” he murmured.
“To wed me?” Alice said.
Miles laughed. “Preferably. But to have you with or without the blessing of the church.”
Alice’s cheeks were burning as she quickened her pace after the others. “You could have had me this morning without it,” she said, “and we both know it. So why did you stop?”
She sensed the change in Miles like a door slamming shut, abrupt and painful. “It seems,” he said shortly, “that I could not go through with what I had planned.”
The sting of his words came as a shock to Alice. Although she had suspected that Miles had had a calculated plan to seduce her, to hear him admit it hurt her. She supposed it was because her response to him had been so open and honest and yet his making love to her had been the reverse, calculated and premeditated. Once again he had shown the depths of his cynicism.
“So it is true,” she whispered. “You had planned from the first to seduce me.”
“I told you I would do anything to win you,” Miles said. Then, as he met the look in her eyes, “Damn it, Alice, don’t look so distressed! You have known all along that I am a scoundrel.”
Alice bit her lip hard. She
She thought about his tenderness when he had saved her on Fortune Row.
How many times, she thought bitterly, was she going to be so foolish and be disillusioned?
She hurried after the others and Miles lengthened his stride to keep up with her and for a while there was a rather strained silence between them.
“Lord Vickery?” Alice said, after a little.
“Miss Lister?” Miles raised a brow at her formal tone.
“I wondered,” Alice said, “why you felt it necessary to sleep outside my bedroom door in the first place. I assured you that there was absolutely no reason why you should.”
“I was there in case you needed me,” Miles said. He smiled suddenly, that flashing smile that always made her heart turn over. “My preference, as you know, would have been for sleeping
Alice tried to banish the strange warm feeling that his words evoked. He was protecting his interests, she reminded herself. Nothing more.
“It must have been unconscionably uncomfortable sleeping on that pallet,” she said.
Miles shrugged. “Not as uncomfortable as some of the places I have been obliged to sleep on campaign, I assure you.”
Alice looked at him. “You never talk about your time in the Peninsular.”
“War is not generally considered a topic for polite conversation.”
“I suppose not,” Alice said. “I would like to hear about it, though.”
She realized that she genuinely wanted to know. Anything that cast light on the formation of Miles’s character, on his history, fascinated her. She realized that she had absolutely no idea of the role he had had in the army, whether he had been injured and invalided out, or had resigned his commission. She tried to imagine the places he must have been and the things he must have seen. She found it impossible. In all her life she had traveled no farther than the seaside at Scarborough. Her life had been bounded first by the need to work simply to live and then by the behavior her mother had considered appropriate to a lady.
She also sensed the reluctance in Miles to talk. Once again, he was not anxious to reveal anything of himself. His mouth had set in a hard line. “I doubt that you would approve of my experiences, Miss Lister,” he said. “I lived by the very things that you condemn-chicanery, compromise, negotiation. That was my job.”
Alice frowned. “Whatever can you mean?”
“I was a diplomat, Miss Lister,” Miles said. “Oh, not the sort of diplomat who takes tea in the palaces in the capital cities of the world, but a backstairs negotiator who makes the dirty deals that keep the peace and keep the world turning, but whom every government would deny and disown if ever they came out.” There was a wealth of bitterness in his voice that Alice could not understand. “Every government connives secretly at such agreements, of course. They are all pragmatists at heart. They simply do not want to do the dirty work themselves. So that was my job and on the way I sacrificed plenty of people and my own principles along with them.” He looked down into Alice’s face. “If you knew even one of the deals that I had made,” he said, “you would be forced to condemn me utterly.”
“Tell me,” Alice said. She heard the pain in his voice and reached out instinctively to him. “Tell me,” she repeated, as the frown in his eyes deepened. “I cannot begin to understand if you do not explain.”
Miles dropped her arm and moved a little away from her. He drove his hands into the pockets of his coat.
“Very well. I was with Wellesley at Rolica a couple of years ago,” he said. “We took prisoner some local men who had been acting as guides for the French. The wife of one of them came to see me one night.” He closed his eyes. “I can see her now. She was pregnant, barefoot, in rags, with a child clutching at her skirts. She told me her man had only taken the French money because the family was starving. She begged me to save him or they would all die. I promised to help her. Even as I said it I knew I lied.”
Alice shook her head. “What happened?” she whispered.
“Wellesley wanted to make a bargain with the local resistance fighters,” Miles said. “It was early on in our campaign and we desperately needed allies. The leader of the partisans demanded we hand over the prisoners in return for the information we needed. I knew that if we did that, the men would all be killed for collaborating with the French. Very likely they would be tortured and die horribly. But still I negotiated an agreement with the guerrillas.”
Alice felt cold and sick and shocked. “You handed the men over?” she said. Her lips felt stiff as though she could not quite form the words.
“I did,” Miles said grimly. “Treaties are made in such ways, Miss Lister, for the greater good. I did it so that Wellesley had the information he needed to attack. He won the day. Those men were sacrificed so that every man, woman and child in
Alice made a little repudiating gesture with her hands. “I had no notion,” she said.
“Few people do.” Miles’s expression was dark. “They do not want to think about the price paid for their security.”
“But does it not appall you?” Alice burst out. “It’s loathsome, vile, that men will do that to their fellow men. It’s hateful-I feel contaminated even knowing about it!”
Miles’s expression was closed. “I have told you before, Miss Lister, that I am the most cynical of men, so no, it does not trouble me unduly. There is a price for everything and this is the price for peace. War is ugly business, which brings us rather neatly back to where we started and why this is not a fit topic of social discourse.”
“I do not understand what it was that drove you to such work in the first place,” Alice said. She felt frighteningly adrift, grasping after anything that might explain this terrifying coldness in Miles.
“You do not need to understand,” Miles said. His tone utterly forbade any continuance of the conversation. Alice heard it, ignored it and plowed on.
