Wicked Becomes You(55)
This fascination she felt for him was clearly unidirectional.
I want to touch you, she’d told him last night, brazen as any harlot. How demoralizing—no, how purely horrifying that her desire seemed to have survived his rejection. In all her life to date, she’d never had the bad taste to continue to long for someone who spurned her. The viscount could go spit for all she cared. She’d loathed Trent from the moment she’d opened that note in which he’d begged forgiveness for having to break their engagement. But now, after Alex had replied to her advances with a shrug and some nonsense about his deep regard for her brother, what did she do?
She found herself staring again at his lips!
She found herself envying a silvering matron the privilege of being cozened by him, simply because it entailed the right to curl up against his chest.
She sighed and tipped up her chin. Beyond Alex, in the mirror affixed to the length of teak that formed a privacy screen dividing the sitting nook from the corridor, a redheaded girl in mauve silk gazed back, her brown eyes a bit . . . woeful.
She tried to smile at herself, to put on a saucy expression befitting the Queen of the Barbary Coast. The whole point of this adventure was to seize hold of that glorious, reckless confidence that immunized her to caring for others’ judgments.
Her smile faltered. If her aim was to cast off others’ opinions, then desiring Alex was more than an inconvenience. For she very much wanted him to approve of her. How not? When he smiled at her, when he offered encouragement, she felt as if anything in the world was possible for her.
Which was absurd, really. Had she not learned her lesson, yet, about hitching her prospects to the good opinion of a man? And of all men, Alex was the last whose notions of admirable behavior should appeal to her. “I feel very bad for what you did to Elma,” she said. “She’ll feel so foolish when she comes to her senses.”
He reached out to select a prawn from the platter. “Why so? I only gave her an excuse to do exactly as she wished. She doesn’t enjoy playing the tyrant, Gwen.” He paused. “Or has it escaped your notice that the woman’s desperately unhappy?”
Gwen cast him a startled glance. “Elma is nothing near to unhappy,” she countered. “She adored being in Paris; you should have seen her counting her collection of calling cards. And she was thrilled to think of returning to London—full of talk about the parties, the bachelors, the—”
“Thrilled for you,” he said curtly. He bit the head off the prawn. “Thrilled to live, vicariously, through you. She has no children. Her husband doesn’t give a damn about her. Alas, he has the bad taste to keep kicking, so she can’t search out a replacement. In the meantime, she’s growing older. My hope is that she finds a nice Italian bloke in Lake Como. Kick up her heels for the weekend.”
“An—affair?” All right, this she could object to most vigorously! “Have you forgotten poor Uncle Henry—”
“Poor Uncle Henry ignores her completely, from what I can tell. God knows I’m no advocate of adultery; if you’re idiotic enough to take the vow, you might as well honor it. But he seems to be doing a very poor job of that, so let him pay the piper, for once.”
Gwen fixed him with a glare meant to telegraph outrage.
He laughed. “So righteous, are you? Come now, Gwen, what would you have preferred? That we bundle Elma into a trunk and dispatch her screaming to England? Your approach left something to be desired. What did you say to her, anyway? Oh, cheers, Auntie Elma, thanks for the company these last ten years, but now I’m off to flash my knickers to the lads.”
She flushed. “Of course not! Really, Alex. I always suspected you thought me stupid—”
“Did you?” His brows lifted.
“—but I’m not that thick. I simply said I was ready for a bit of independence.”
He snorted.
“Manipulation made more sense, I suppose,” she said icily.
His smile looked sharp and feline. “Darling, your hypocrisy is a beautiful thing to witness.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that you are not one to moralize when it comes to the gentle art of manipulating affections.”
She went still. “I will ask you to clarify.”
“You didn’t convince London society to adore you by commanding it to do so.”
“No,” she said, “I didn’t. I befriended them.”
“Certainly. Your friends and admirers felt persuaded to adore you because you made it seem like the most natural and advantageous thing to do.” He took a long sip of his wine. “Tell me,” he said, “how many sweaters did you promise to knit the orphans? It’s no wonder you demonstrate a natural talent for bribery; you’ve been practicing in wool.”