Rosalie sighed uncomfortably. "I don't like the way he treats people… especially women. One of my friends was in love with him once—she is married now but was unattached at the time—and he did not return her affection. He could have tolerated her attentions until she tired of pursuing him—as a gentleman would have—but no, he was cruel and cold to her, breaking her heart and severely injuring her self-confidence. So he can be as sweet as treacle to me, but I'll never forget how unkind he was to my friend. He treats women as if they are disposable objects. Everyone knows it. He has never kept a mistress for more than a week—and do you know why? Because women are as convenient and meaningless to him as cotton handker-chiefs."
"I see." Mira could think of no defense to offer on Alec's behalf. The story sounded too much like him He was capable of being kind and gentle, but also of being brutal, and he did not often tolerate the com pany of those he disliked.
"I just hope he doesn't say anything about what he saw tonight," Rosalie said. "I wonder if he was herr when we were speaking with Brummell and Alvanley He did not mention their names, but I wonder…"
"I don't really know what he saw."
"Oh," Rosalie wailed softly, "I just hate the though^ that a secret of mine depends on his sense of honor!""So do I."
As the days and weeks passed, Mira's fears about
Alec were completely undone by the simple and dis-concerting fact that she never heard from him, not even a short note. Apparently he had forgotten about her. Strange, that the relief she would have expected to feel was absent from her heart. In a moment of honesty, she admitted inwardly that she was far from relieved. She was frustrated, despondent, and terribly disappointed. She had thought during those weeks at the Sackville hunt that she had meant something to him—he had seemed to need her; it had even seemed as if he had cared for her a little… or had she merely been a fool, easily taken in by words and empty promises?
Taking out the Falkner medallion one afternoon, Mira wound the gold chain around her wrist and held the round disk in her palm. The design of the falcon in flight was familiar to her by now: she had held the medallion often and had thought of Alec as she stared at it; she had even worn it underneath her clothes a few times for ridiculously sentimental reasons. She still did not know why Alec had given it to her, especially since it was a family heirloom. Had he wanted to give her payment for what he might have considered to be "services rendered," he could have offered her money or a gaudy piece of jewelry, but the medallion—that had been a puzzling gift indeed.
Mira had been further puzzled when, the day before
Christmas, a package was delivered to Berkeley Hall by a boy who had not revealed the identity of the sender. The package had been addressed to Miss
Mireille Germain, in handwriting that no one recog-.
nized. From an admirer. The words were written with clean, neat strokes of ink on a simple white card with no other identification. The card had accompanied the most beautiful set of books Mira had ever seen, withred morocco covers and gilded pages. All during the holidays, the Berkeley relatives and guests had made a game of guessing the identity of Mira's admirer.
The Berkeleys, all thirty-plus that had decided to stay at Berkeley Hall during the worst months of winter, were a nosy, comical, pretentious lot. One always knew what to expect of a Berkeley; they respected only those with wealth or political influence, they were fiercely protective of their own but were not above gossiping about them, loved off-color jokes but felt that it was bad taste to laugh at them. Although their veneer was genteel, the men of the family—with the exception of Rand—had earned reputations as philanderers and adulterers, while the women were "fast" and led very active social lives. The Berkeleys were an attractive lot, most of them tall, fair-skinned, and golden-haired. In reference to the proliferation of blonds around the household, Rand had informed Mira sardonically that it had been necessary to marry a brunette in order to distinguish his wife from the other women in the family.
The family gatherings were often accompanied by petty squabbles that involved everyone but Rosalie, who was the only Berkeley considered by the rest as being generally tolerable. Perhaps their affection for her was regulated by the fact that pleasing her was the only way to gain Rand's approval… and Rand, after all, was the head of the family… or perhaps it was because Rosalie was the only one who was more willing to listen to other people's troubles than to complain about her own. Whatever the reason, there was a large measure of goodwill for her, and luckily this good feeling had been extended in some part to Mira.