Alas for her parents, Richard had fixed on the one aristocrat’s son who’d learned his lessons outside the canon.
She cleared her throat. “You cared for Richard deeply—that I never doubted. And he knew you far better than I. Certainly he knew you well enough to understand the difference between style and substance, and also the relation between the two.” She folded her hand over the ring. “He must have known your mettle. He knew what he was trying to emulate. And if he didn’t . . . then that was his failing, not yours.”
“Perhaps,” he said.
“No,” she replied instantly. “Since you have asked me the question, you will do me the favor of believing my reply. As his sister, I am best equipped to judge this question. And had you escorted him directly to that casino, it still would have had no bearing on the fact that some drunken barbarian shoved a knife into his chest. Yes?”
Her voice had grown very firm. He sat up a little, doing her the favor of showing her that he was looking directly into her eyes. “Yes, Gwen,” he said. “I heard you.”
“But do you believe me?” When he did not immediately reply, she let go of the ring and reached out for his hand, grabbing it harder than ever would have come to her by habit or whim. “Do not offend me,” she said, “by implying that I would long to touch a man who bore any blame in my brother’s murder.”
She felt his fingers move at that pronouncement, a small, indecipherable ripple. But his regard remained as neutral, as coolly speculative as his voice. “Perhaps you do see me clearly,” he said. “And from what you’ve said about my effect, wanting to touch me seems very unwise. Better, I think, to stay away.”
“Yes,” she said. “For most. But not for me. And by your own admission, if you believed me incapable, you would not have invited me to come with you on this journey.”
He gave her a lingering look, from eyes to lips to shoulders and breasts. “I begin to regret it,” he said, almost beneath his breath.
Her hand moved of its own accord to her stomach. Such pain those words lashed into her. Only a quarter hour ago, he’d made her feel so replete. But now, all at once, she felt battered by him. Drained.
On a sigh, he turned back to the bottle. “Go to bed, Gwen,” he said over his shoulder. “I’m done with company for the night.”
Chapter Eleven
Alex woke slowly and with difficulty, fighting with an undertow of sleep that wanted to drag him back under and keep him there. His eyes opened briefly and the light fell like a weight upon his lids, pushing them closed again. He lay still for a long moment, listening to the roughness of his breathing, as though he indeed had just been through a fight. His mind wanted to remind him of something. Ah, yes. Last night, he’d shown Richard’s sister far more about pleasure than was his right. Somewhere in the afterlife, a dead man was cursing his name.
Even this small amount of thinking felt difficult. Exercise, he thought groggily. He would feel more alert once he’d done his calisthenics. The burn in his muscles would force him awake. He could pay his penance to Richard in sweat.
He sat up slowly, a groan escaping him. Every bone in his body creaked, unhappy to rediscover the way of it. His head did not hurt, though.
He swung his legs off the bed, then paused. Why should his head hurt? This misery could not be the effect of the liquor. He’d had only a few glasses of cognac, over the course of seven hours.
It struck that something else was amiss: the train was not moving.
He leaned over and pulled back the curtain. The station placard outside bore a single word: Nice.
His hand dropped like a stone.
Jesus Christ. No wonder he felt as though someone had bashed his skull with a mallet. He’d slept for—he quickly calculated it—nine hours straight.
He stared in disbelief at the platform. It was Nice, wasn’t it? The sign wasn’t a sham?
Yes. He recognized the station, the distinctive scrolling archways that led toward the concourse proper.
He sat slowly on the foot of the bed, staring out. On the platform, a handful of men were shifting luggage. A woman stalked past, elbows pumping angrily, a parasol swinging from the ribbon at her wrist. The man at her heels made a quick sidestep to save his thigh, then uttered some protest that made the woman look back, her mouth a perfect O.
She came to a stop. So did he. He clasped his hands to his heart. Quite suddenly she laughed. The anger melted from her spine. He held out his elbow, and she took it, proceeding onward at his side.
It looked warm out there. The woman’s blue silk skirts gleamed. Lemony light bounced down on the green iron benches, called into blazing richness the crimson petals of the rosebushes beside the track. A bright day, sunny and alive.