He was still undecided when they left the café shortly before dawn. Barrington had offered a ride, which they declined. Gwen floated out ahead of him. She was in the grip of some dreamy silence, but as he helped her into the cab, she leaned back out and spoke abruptly. “You haven’t told me what you thought of my performance.”
“Perhaps you can guess.”
“No,” she said. “You must tell me.”
He smiled a little. “Or what? You won’t let me inside?”
She stared at him, unspeaking, and some quality in her silence lent the moment an uncanny flavor. While the darkness of the interior concealed her body, the streetlight behind them illuminated the pale oval of her face, gilding her cheeks in shades of amber and ghostly blue. The effect was . . . arresting. Vermeer had used natural light to paint women in this way, faces emerging from the shadows, forcing the viewer’s eye to focus on what was most important: the look of grace. The mouth firmed in determination. The eyes poised to behold a revelation.
But God knew Gwen was waiting in vain if she looked to him for it. And surely she knew that, too. He rubbed his hand over his chest, which felt strangely tight, no doubt from the smoky air inside. “Didn’t get your fill of praise inside, then?”
Her unabashed laugh broke apart the weird mood. “Never,” she said.
“Well, at least you’ve mastered immodesty.” He smiled and unbent. “I would say the Barbary Coast chose well.”
In response, she flushed and sat back into the vehicle.
A few blocks from her hotel, Alex stopped the driver so they could walk the rest of the way. He wanted to make sure Barrington was not following them; it would not do to have the man discover her identity. “Fresh air,” he said as he helped her down to the quay. “Even in this stench, there’s a bit of it.”
As they strolled beneath the elms that lined the embankment of the river, she drew a long, testing breath. “I rather like the smell,” she said as she took his arm. “Somebody’s burning . . . dung, I believe? It reminds me of the countryside.”
“And that’s a good thing?”
She gave him a peering, incredulous look. “You dislike the country?”
“I’m not particularly fond of it.”
“But whyever not? You spend the holidays there—and I know you grew up at Weston Hall. That’s a beautiful estate.”
He paused. “No doubt it is. But the countryside tends to make me feel . . .” As if I’m suffocating, he thought. “Bored,” he said instead. “Cities are full of life. Ambition.” It was to the city men went when inspired by the possibility for change. Conversely, the very appeal of the country, so far as he could gather, rested on ideas of staidness, stability, stagnancy. It came close to his idea of a prison, did English country life—rotting quietly in the middle of nowhere, dining every evening before the same view that he would see from his deathbed, amidst company that had known him from the day he was born.
As a boy, of course, he’d been told that he would be lucky to enjoy such a fate.
“I find the country a very lazy cousin to the city,” he continued. “Can you disagree? Had the viscount not come to Paris—had he gone instead to . . . Suffolk, say—would you have managed to have such an adventure tonight?”
“Of course not.” She made a thoughtful pause. “I suppose you’re right. My home is in the country, you know. But I never thought to go there.”
“Your home? Do you mean Heaton Dale?”
“Of course,” she said in surprise. “Where else?”
He hadn’t realized that she thought of that place as home. It was a monstrous, Palladian palace, the construction of which had become the subject of great mockery amongst his mother’s friends fifteen years ago. Some arriviste’s attempt at a bourgeois Buckingham, his mother had called it. I wonder if Mr. Maudsley plans to cast his own crown?
“Do you spend much time there?” The place, as far as he knew, had stood empty since her parents’ death. Certainly Richard hadn’t lived there. He’d mocked its pretensions more viciously than anyone else had.
“Oh, occasionally I spend a day or two. Never long, but I had hoped—well.” Gwen pulled a face. “I’ve just redesigned the gardens. Trent adored Tudor mazes, but Thomas preferred the Chinese style. Heavens, I pulled up the entire back lawn for that boor!”
Ah. “You’d planned to live there, after marriage.”
“Where else?” She gave a light laugh. “It wasn’t as if my fiancés—either of them—had a better option to offer. Odd, isn’t it? Both gentlemen had a dozen houses to their names, but not a single one fit to inhabit.”