Wicked Becomes You(57)

“Oh.” This sounded familiar. In the way that one sometimes recalled dreams, days or weeks later, it stirred some hazy emotional echo in her. As a policy, she never dwelled on such incidents.

“It was an insult,” he said cheerfully. “Undisguised. But your smile never wavered. You thanked her for being so kind as to remember your late father.”

“Did I?” She plucked up a radish from the plate and bit down on it. At first taste, these French radishes were mild and sweet, but they fought back with a spicy aftertaste that took the palate by surprise. She was forming quite an appreciation for them. “I don’t remember that,” she lied.

“No? I’ll never forget it.” The sudden sobriety of his tone drew her eyes. He held her look. “That was no piece of etiquette. It was a very clever strategy that you used to checkmate a hag.” More softly, he said, “You daft girl. Of course I never thought you were stupid.”

Her face went warm. The effect of the radish, maybe. “Perhaps I do remember now,” she said. “It was Lady Fulton, no?”

“Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “You know I take pains to avoid knowing any of that lot.”

Yes. It had been Lady Fulton. With the mention of the woman’s name, the moment returned to Gwen with perfect clarity. She’d been fretting over the humidity, which had melted the curl from the hair she’d frizzled over her forehead and made her feel like a sausage in overtight casing; such long, tight sleeves fashion had required that year! The remark had come out of nowhere, startling her from her more mundane miseries. She had looked around very quickly before replying, to make certain that Lord Trent had not been near enough to have overheard the slight.

How odd to think on it now. She’d been afraid. Rightly she should have looked to her fiancé to defend her. Instead she’d worried that a stray comment might change his opinion of her.

Well, for all she knew, a stray comment had changed his opinion. He’d never given a proper explanation for his defection.

These men.

“I loathe Lady Fulton,” she said. Loathe. What a lovely word. Why had she never used it before? “That woman is a mean-tempered little snob.”

“No doubt. As I said, I was greatly impressed by your restraint. Shriveled witch.”

“Shriveled,” she said. “Yes, that is exactly the word for her. I expect her soul resembles nothing so much as a withered corn husk.”

“I was thinking of her face, but I’ll concede the other, too.”

Together they laughed. It occurred to her that if Alex ever were to marry, his fiancée would not need to conceal such insults from him. He would be glad to step up and parry them for her.

Not that he would ever marry, of course. She turned her thoughts away from this dangerous ground. “But what you’re saying, then, is that you’ve always thought me a very clever hypocrite.”

“No. Well, perhaps,” he said with a grin. “But if hypocrisy is what the game requires, who am I to judge a hypocrite?”

“How flattering,” she said dryly.

“You should be flattered. I adjudged you to be good at the game. Indeed . . .” He gave her a slow smile that seemed to lick down her spine like flame. “I admired your performance enough to invite you to join a game of my own.”

She was no proof against that smile. He’d first shown it to her inside the elephant at the Moulin Rouge, and she had yet to build immunity to it. She inhaled slowly. “Tell me what I must do.”

“Bluntly put, you’re my ticket into the party. That’s more than enough. Barrington will certainly ask you to sing, but there’s no call to oblige him.” He paused, then set aside his wine. “Gwen, you do realize that Barrington is under the impression that we’re lovers?”

She could not control her blush, but she held his blue eyes by sheer dint of will. How casually he spoke that word. “Yes,” she said.

“So you understand that we’ll be sharing rooms, then.”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“And most likely there will be only one bed provided.”

Her fingers dug into the plush velour of the cushion beneath her. “Of course,” she said, attempting nonchalance. But even to her ears, her voice sounded too breathless.

“Good. Simply behave prettily toward me, then, and keep the fictions about the Barbary Queen to a minimum. The fewer lies, the harder to get tripped up.”

She nodded, growing conscious of some rising dissatisfaction. The role he was outlining for her was that of a prop. But she wanted to be of use to him. “What are you looking for, anyway? Do you think he gulled Lord Weston out of the land, somehow?”