Wicked Becomes You(56)

“That is not at all the same!”

He tapped his shrimp fork against the rim of the plate, a delicate, considering sound. “You think your success was accidental, then? That your popularity was simply the product of the smiles you give so freely?”

“Of course not.” She was hardly so naïve. “As you always point out, there is also the matter of my three million pounds.”

The fork went still. “I pointed that out to you once,” he said slowly. “In service of a very specific argument. It’s you who continue to mention it now. One would almost think you really do tally your worth in terms of pounds and pence.”

The question stirred some obscure, wounded anger. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it? If I weren’t rich—”

He sighed. “Spare me. If you weren’t rich you wouldn’t have had a chance of entering high circles—of course that’s true. But money is not what won your popularity.”

The floor shuddered and set the dishes to rattling as the train slowed for a station. “Oh, please let’s not talk about how nice I am.”

“Wasn’t going to,” he said. “You’re shrewd. And disciplined as hell.”

Shrewd and disciplined? This idea startled her into a pause. Soldiers were disciplined; so, too, were religious widows who spent entire nights on their knees in prayer. But she? And as for shrewd—ha! “You were right about that Aubusson in the Beechams’ library,” she said. “I had it checked before leaving London.”

“And?”

“And, you said I was shrewd.”

“Not in buying carpets,” he said. “But in your social success, yes. Far too complete to be the product of luck and charm and smiles alone.”

“Then what?” she asked. “I did not purchase my friends, if that’s what you mean.”

“No,” he said. The train had come to a full stop, now, and his voice sounded painfully precise in the new silence. “You gamed them.”

“Gamed them?” She speared up a prawn. Curious things, prawns. They seemed so peculiarly naked, curled around themselves, their delicate veins exposed so plainly. “You make it sound like my life was all a sham.”

“Wasn’t it?” He made a sound in his throat that managed to convey amusement and skepticism at once. “Don’t tell me you believed in it for a moment. You cracked that little world by mastering the rules and using them to suit yourself.”

He paused, and she kept her eyes on the prawn, hoping he was finished. Her skin seemed to be crawling. There was something curiously . . . humiliating . . .in hearing him analyze her so cold-bloodedly. She was not so calculating as he painted her, but she could see how a stranger might be persuaded by his view.

Was this really how he saw her?

He spoke more gently as he continued. “Gwen . . . had you taken that world so seriously—had you placed faith in any of the people in it—you’d never have played them so cleverly. You do know that, don’t you?”

The flaw in his argument emboldened her to look up. “Everyone knows there are rules,” she said. “Everyone, Alex. Otherwise etiquette guides wouldn’t be so popular.”

His blue eyes held hers steadily. “I’m not speaking of etiquette. I’m speaking of subtler arts. Flattery, for one. And the talent for well-timed obliviousness. You recall the soiree Caroline threw, three years ago? In June, I think it was.”

She shrugged and returned her attention to the prawn on her fork, twirling it around once. “There were so many—”

“Vomit in the lobby,” he said.

“Oh. Yes,” she said reluctantly. Vaguely she remembered it now. An unseasonably muggy day. Caroline had pitched a pretty striped tent in case of rain. For herself, she’d been abuzz with her impending wedding to Lord Trent. But half the guests had gotten sick, her fiancé included, because the shellfish—

She looked askance at prawn, then returned it to her plate. “The shellfish was off,” she said. “Thank you for reminding me.”

He laughed. “Yes, that was the single time I ever mistook Caro for Belinda. Her rage was extraordinary to behold.”

“I didn’t realize you were there.”

“I had no intention of coming. I was at the docks, overseeing the unloading of some shipment. When the guests started falling ill, Caro fetched me over to help load portly MPs into their carriages.” He smiled at some private memory. “Sweet God. Some of those men must eat. At any rate, I was there long enough to overhear you speaking to some grande dame or other. She introduced you to her friend as the daughter of a corner-shop apothecary who’d discovered a remarkable talent for capitalism.”