Wicked Becomes You(53)
Elma shook her head slowly, her lips forming an O. “Your mother,” she said. “Your mother wanted better for you than that!”
Gwen looked down to her tea. “But she would not have wanted me to marry without love,” she said.
“Nobody is asking you to do so. God above, what happened to you at that altar? Was your brain broken along with your heart?”
“My heart was not broken!” Gwen slammed down her teacup. “I’ve been trying to tell you that for some time now!”
Elma’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, so you have. But this is another order entirely.” Voice growing cold, she said, “Perhaps I should remind you that when I took you into our household, I vouched for your character. I risked my own name to promote you. What you may not know is that my friends warned me against it. They said, Elma, orchids do not grow from common barnyard soil. But I refused to hear a word against you. I told them they did not understand the sweetness, the sterling nature, of your character. Certainly I never dreamed—”
She broke off, her lips compressing; violently, she shook her head and looked away.
Gwen watched her miserably. The only response that suggested itself was supremely unkind. The fruits of common barnyard soil had, of course, paid the Beechams’ household bills for ten years now. It was not admiration for her character that had prompted Elma to take her in.
Elma’s head swiveled back. “No,” she said sharply. “I will not permit you to do this. And I shall hear no further debate on it! Do you understand me?”
The door opened without a knock, giving them both a dreadful start.
Alex leaned against the doorway, buttoning up his glove in a casual gesture. “Did I hear yelling?” he inquired pleasantly. “May I be of some assistance?”
Oh, dear God. Gwen shot him an urgent look of warning. Now was not the time!
“You,” Elma hissed, and came to her feet. “This is all your doing.”
Chapter Nine
“Ta!” Elma called, waving her handkerchief out of the window. “Don’t forget to write!”
Gwen grunted as Alex’s elbow landed in her ribs. “Every day!” he cried in reply, and then, under his breath, muttered, “wave, damn you, or we’ll never make it aboard.”
“Oh.” Numbly, she lifted her hand. The handkerchief flapped an energetic reply, then retreated into the window, which snapped shut decisively.
With a great sigh, Alex slapped his felt hat back onto his head. “All right,” he said. “Quickly, now, before she decides to stick her head back out.” He took Gwen’s arm and turned on his heel, starting down the platform at a rapid clip.
People scattered from their path, either because he was over six feet and dressed all in black, like a thief with midnight plans, or because there was an innate and intimidating elegance to the way he wore his great caped coat. He drew the attention of every female passing by, eighteen to eighty, and this was not simply Gwen’s imagination at work: from the corner of her eye, she spied a silver-haired grandmother on a nearby bench twisting at the waist to ogle him as he passed.
“Here we are,” he said to her. A hiss came from the train; a great roiling mass of steam spilled out from the warming engines. He leapt up the steps into the carriage and turned back for her just as the carriage lurched and began to roll forward.
Gwen, one foot on the stairs, cried out and lost her balance.
He caught her by the waist and hauled her up inside, directly into his chest. She held very still for a moment, in his arms, breathing in the scent of him—wool and soap and the faint, spicy hint of one of those tonics men used to soothe shaving nicks.
And then she began to smile. She pulled away, laughing. “A dramatic beginning!”
He grinned back at her. “No doubt.”
A throat cleared itself very pointedly in their vicinity. They turned. An astonished gray porter stood gawking at them. “Les—les billets, s’il vous plait?” he asked tentatively.
“Ah, yes,” Alex said, and reached into his jacket for the tickets while Gwen sank back against the wall. The train was picking up speed, the floor beginning to shudder beneath her slippers. “I rented the whole damned carriage, so this should work,” Alex said in an aside to her. “Even if she decides to wander, she won’t be able to come back into our section.”
She gazed at him. How . . . cleverly he’d managed all of this.
He glanced briefly toward her, then glanced back again with a frown. “Oh, Christ. And what ails you? Are you about to weep? It’s not too late to jump back down, you know.”
She found a smile. “Yes, it is.” The platform was flying by now. Paris was over.