her the truth with the brutal honesty that the terms of her inheritance had demanded. He had wanted her for her money. She was the one to save him from the debtor’s prison not the one to win his heart.
Damn Sir Montague and his thoughtless masculine bonhomie! Damn him and the beautiful painted creature at his side whom Miles was even now putting away from him as he turned toward her…
“Alice,” Miles said.
Alice ignored him. She started to walk, very slowly and carefully, toward the door. She could see that people were staring at her. It felt dreadful. Her confidence was suddenly wafer thin. Every last one of her insecurities rose to mock her, the scorned little housemaid turned heiress, courted for her fortune, humiliated by her fiance and his mistress in full public view.
“Of course he has to go after her,” she heard Miss Caton say with languid lack of interest. “She is very rich, after all, so I hear, and he is very poor and
Alice’s face flamed with absolute fury to think that her money would be paying for Miles’s pleasure in some harlot’s bed. Perhaps, she thought, through the haze of anger, the aristocracy were so sophisticated, so debauched, that a wife would not even blanch at subsidizing her husband’s amorous activities. It was only another entertainment, after all, like gambling or drinking. But such aristocratic cold-bloodedness was foreign to her nature. She could not be so complacent.
Every thought, every feeling, seemed to hurt. She recognized the sensation with some shock. She had not expected to feel such pain. She might have expected anger at so public a humiliation, or embarrassment to be shown to be so painfully naive in contrast to Miss Caton’s brazen worldliness. But this naked, piercing grief that seemed to skewer her heart-that was something both unexpected and deeply painful, and it could only mean that she had compounded all her other follies by falling in love with Miles all over again, far more deeply and hopelessly than she had realized.
“Alice, wait!”
She heard Miles’s step behind her and then he had caught her arm and was bundling her through a doorway and into a room beyond. It was the spa baths. At this time of night they were deserted but for a servant stolidly folding towels and tidying up in preparation for the morning. A lamp glowed on a low table, its red heart a match for the embers that glowed in the wide fireplace. The steam rose from the water in the square stone bath like eerie fingers of mist. During the day the communal baths were packed with Fortune’s Folly visitors. Now the cushioned benches with their pretty carvings designed to resemble Roman baths were empty and the room echoed to the soft bubble of the waters. Alice saw the warmth around her but she could not feel it in her bones. She felt chilled through and through.
Miles looked at the maid and jerked his head toward the door. “If you would be so good…” The courtesy of his tone was belied by the look in his eyes. The girl dropped a frightened curtsy and fled.
Alice heard Miles turn the key in the lock.
“You can’t do that,” she said, rousing herself from her cold stupor. “It isn’t proper.” Then she laughed, a bitter sound to think of herself pleading for propriety when Miles’s mistress had just accosted him in the concert hall in front of everyone in Fortune’s Folly.
“Alice, listen.” Miles ran a hand over his hair, disordering it. Alice noted with detachment that it was the first time she had seen him looking anything less than immaculate. There was strain in his face and deep lines about his eyes. His expression was pale and set.
“I suppose she is your mistress,” Alice cut in, wondering even as she spoke why on earth she had to prolong this agony. She sighed. “Actually, I don’t think you need to answer that, Miles. Of course she is.”
“She
Alice looked sharply at him. “Sir Montague said he had brought her as a present for you.” Her face twisted. “Did you…did you send for her like he said?”
“No,” Miles said. “No,” he repeated more forcefully. “I had no notion Monty was bringing her. I think he probably did it on purpose to try to wreck my betrothal to you. You know he has always wanted to wed you himself or failing that to claim half of your money under the Dames’ Tax.”
Alice’s gaze searched his face. Her heart felt sore, torn. “So you swear you did not know?” she whispered.
A rueful, boyish smile touched Miles’s lips. “You have never doubted that I was telling you the truth before, Alice,” he said. “Why now?”
“Because you are a rake,” Alice said, “and I-” She stopped. “I am jealous,” she said with some surprise. The feelings scored her again with the painful intensity of cats’ claws. “Very jealous,” she added. “I hate it. It feels horrible.”
Miles was watching her intently. “You always knew I was a rake,” he said. “I never concealed my past from you.”
“No,” Alice agreed, “but I had not thought it would ever matter to me. I had not thought I would care.”
Miles’s eyes darkened. He took a step toward her, put out a hand. “You care?” he said.
“About some lightskirt from London coming in and kissing you in front of half of Fortune’s Folly?” Alice retorted. “Yes, I care about that! It hurts my pride.”
“Pride,” Miles said. “I see.” His hand fell to his side. “There is nothing between Miss Caton and me,” he said. “I care nothing for her. I never did. It was over before I came back to Yorkshire.”
“Then why is she here?” Alice demanded. The pain twisted inside her, tighter than a knot. The room was hot and steamy, and her gown was sticking to her skin. No lady should perspire, of course, but Alice felt her shift and petticoats absorb the moist heat of the steam, felt her body start to heat and the sweat run. The tiny curls of hair that nestled in her neck were clinging to its nape. Her physical discomfort seemed only to mock her mental misery.
“I don’t trust you,” she said, and the words fell quietly into the silence of the room.
“I can see that,” Miles said. She sensed the anger in him as she had done that day on Fortune Row when last she had shown how little trust she had in him. This time it felt different though. She sensed an edge of something else to Miles’s fury, something that felt oddly like unhappiness.
“Why should I?” Alice demanded. “You have never done anything to earn my trust! You have tried to blackmail me into marriage-”
“Well, that is all at an end now,” Miles said. “Now that my ex-mistress has kissed me in front of your trustees, thereby proving irrevocably that I am not worthy of you.” He shrugged. “You are free, Alice. They will never let you wed me now.” He drove his hands into his pockets. His gaze was hot and dark and angry as it rested on her. “Why don’t you go?”
Alice did not know. His words-and the realization that Louisa Caton had shattered the conditions of their betrothal-broke over her with the force of a tidal wave. She felt light-headed and free and yet so dreadfully unhappy.
She could not pull away from the expression in his eyes. “It was not your fault,” she whispered. “
Miles’s expression was contemptuous. “Do you think that will have any influence with the lawyers? Gaines has been ceaselessly searching to find a reason to reject my suit. This is a gift to him. And to you.” He clenched his fists. “Go, Alice!” He sounded murderous. “Go and tell him the betrothal is at an end.”
“But you will be imprisoned for debt,” Alice whispered.
“So why would you care? I tried to blackmail you.” Miles turned away as though he could not even bear to look at her.
Alice put her hand on his arm. He felt as tense as a strung bow. She could sense despair and violence in him and she wondered why she did not run as fast as she could, but still she did not go.
“Have you taken a mistress since our betrothal?” she whispered.
A muscle moved in Miles’s jaw. “I have not.”
She could read him too well by now and almost hated herself for it. “But you have thought about it?” she persisted, wondering even as she did so why she needed to know and to give herself more pain. Why could she not just run, back to the light, back to the lawyers, and tell them it was all over…
“I never sent for Louisa Caton but I did think about slaking my lust with a willing maidservant,” Miles said, with a brutality that shook her. His deliberate use of the word
