Wicked Becomes You(75)

Although he supposed that if anyone could pull off such a Barbary Queen, Gwen could.

The thought was so startling that he proved clumsy in refitting the book into its slot.

The book safely stowed, he stood looking at it. She was a chameleon, wasn’t she? He had always suspected she had potential in her. Had been tempted, even, to tease it out of her, once or twice. Had denied himself the urge because she was Richard’s sister, and her path had been set.

But now her path had changed. And still he hesitated, fickle as a cowardly little debutante, as she’d put it.

No, he thought wryly. She’d never called him cowardly.

He reminded himself of what he’d been thinking so intently last night, as he’d watched her stir so sweetly beneath his touch. Humans were not technologies. They did not prove amenable to radical adjustments. Their essential traits always reclaimed them, and hers would pull her back to the narrow path, no matter how much she might come to genuinely revile its constraints. Better, then—honorable—to act on his understanding; to do nothing to prevent her from reclaiming the life she would inevitably be drawn back to.

The logic was sound, of course.

It was also fueled by fear. Old fear. A very specific one.

And, God damn it—if, after all this time, he was going to let fear dictate his actions, then he might as well trade in his lungs right now, and his legs to boot. He might as well be wheeled back to England to suffocate quietly in some cloistered little village rectory. Had he listened to fear, that would have been his life.

And so, too, if he had accepted others’ visions of him.

He had always known that others were wrong about him, but Gwen had only just discovered that others were wrong about her. That was the only difference between them. And yet he’d dismissed her revelation, forcing her to remain within the mold she wished so much to break. And why? Only because it was easier for him that way. Otherwise, were he to take her at her word and behave accordingly, he would have no choice but to confront certain things he had hidden from himself.

What a bloody, self-righteous, blind coward he’d been, last night.

Well, he knew how to rectify that quick enough.

He walked out and tried the next door. This room looked more promising at first glance—a study of some sort, with framed prints on the walls, more of these bloody naturalist’s diagrams, a dozen of them stacked on the desk. The large picture window had a breathtaking view of the ocean, and the moonlight filtering through the window lit the desktop quite clearly. He flipped through the documents. They meant nothing to him. Next to them were notes on—God above, various sorts of vegetation indigenous to Suffolk.

He recalled again the way that Barrington had drawn her closer when she’d stumbled. A sinking feeling was in his stomach. Wouldn’t it be rich with irony if he had inadvertently driven her into the arms of a man who would actually sit down across from her and nod enthusiastically when she started talking of her goddamned gardens? Instead, of course, of making some mocking, juvenile remark about pressing flowers into a scrapbook—

A noise in the hallway made him freeze. He looked quickly around the room, but there were very few places to hide. A handsome wooden screen seemed the best option, not because it provided real cover—it was too finely filigreed to conceal his body entirely—but because it was positioned in the shadows, away from the window, near the door. Opening the door, walking in, a person would have to turn around and peer hard into the darkness until their eyes adjusted before they could distinguish a man standing in the shadows.

He stepped behind it just as the door opened with a soft click. “—been locked,” said Barrington. “How curious. Ah, no matter. Come in, do.”

“Oh, you were telling the truth,” came Gwen’s low voice. Alex pressed himself farther against the wall to still the impulse to leap around and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, breaking away from the larger group to enter a disused area of the house with this man. Moreover, her consonants had a slight slur to them. Had she drunk more wine at dinner than he’d noticed?

Barrington put his hand at her waist—far too familiar for a host with a young lady, although just about right for a man with a music hall singer—and guided her to stand in front of the window. In the cold light, her profile was as pale and smooth as marble, her expression lit with clarity. “Oh,” she said softly. “The waves breaking—it’s very beautiful.”

Something ugly stirred in Alex’s gut. She did not look as if she was pretending enjoyment. The view truly enraptured her.

Barrington stepped up behind her. He delicately fingered a stray wisp of her hair. “I am surrounded by beauty,” he murmured. “But nothing so compelling as the woman here before me, right now.”