Alexandra (24 page)

A tiny part of him wished he
had
ruined her, so they
would
be forced to marry.

He cleared his throat and swung his legs out of bed. ”I thank you,” he said formally, ”for your forbearance. This won’t happen again. As far as I know, I’ve never sleepwalked twice in a night.” Gaining his feet, he busied himself securing his dressing gown.

She stopped him with a hand on his arm. “Please, stay for a while.” Her eyes were wide, examining what she could see of his bare chest. “I know it’s frightfully improper, but what’s a few more minutes? I want to hear more about the sleepwalking. And you’re leaving tomorrow.”

He’d never spoken candidly to anyone about his affliction. The thought was appealing—but even more alarming. ”I’m not sure it’s a good idea,” he dithered as he finished belting the dressing gown.

She jerked the covers back up to her chin. “I promise I won’t attack you.”

That earned a chuckle, though it didn’t erase his qualms. But the plea in her eyes had him sitting down on the edge of the bed. Blast those warm brandy eyes.

Brandy...he could use a spot of brandy just now.

The fire was dying, and with it the light. He briefly considered rebuilding it, but then thought the darkness might make talking easier. And he wasn’t cold. Being alone with Alexandra in her bedroom—and the both of them in night clothes—made him feel very warm indeed.

“What do you want to know?” he asked.

“Everything. When did you first sleepwalk?”

“As a small child. I used to do it quite often, but as I became older, I seemed to outgrow it. The episodes tapered off. Now it seems to happen only when I’m under stress of some sort. The occurrences have become quite infrequent. In fact, I was hoping they had stopped altogether. Until this week, I hadn’t sleepwalked in more than a year.”

“What is it like?”

“I don’t know. I never remember.” He’d guessed right that the darkness would help. Answering a disembodied voice was so much easier than responding to an expectant face. And yet more intimate in a way. “What did it look like to you?”

“My eyes were closed,” she murmured. “I wasn’t looking.”

Her tone told him that if the room were lighter he’d see her blush. “How about the other night? When you caught me ‘stealing’ the chocolate cakes. What were your impressions then?”

“You were sleepwalking then?” Her voice was suffused with wonder. “Of course,” she answered herself. “That’s why you didn’t remember our kiss. You seemed a bit…distant—well, other than during the kiss—and you didn’t respond well to my questions. I thought you were being deliberately evasive.”

“Others have said the same. A blank look in my eyes, responses that don’t quite make sense.” He sighed. “I never, ever remember. It’s rather frightening, if you want to know the truth.”

“I wasn’t frightened. I’d expect to be, but I wasn’t.”

Bless her for that. “I’ve never kissed anyone in my sleep before, let alone climbed into a girl’s bed. It’s frightening because I don’t know what I might do next.” For some reason he felt compelled to add, “And what else I might already have done.”

Blast
. What could have possessed him to broach that topic?

“Such as?” she breathed.

Whatever it was, it still had hold of him. He dropped his voice to an almost-whisper and continued, “Such as, possibly—though I don’t remember it—poisoning my uncle.”

There. He’d said it out loud. He prepared for her shock and immediate departure, but she didn’t run screaming from the room.

Instead, she reached across the mattress, rooting around until she found one of his hands and took it in hers. “You don’t really believe that.”

His chest suddenly felt tight. Her unquestioning belief in him was…a gift. The most gorgeous surprise. A sort of acceptance he’d never experienced or expected. Though he couldn’t see her in the dark, her hand squeezing his spoke volumes.

She had more faith in him than he had in himself.

“You don’t believe that,” she insisted. “Tell me you don’t.”

He found himself stretching out on the bed, moving closer to her voice. “I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve my life going so dreadfully wrong…”

He’d never told anyone this. Not even himself, he realized.

He wasn’t the sort to brood over life’s inequities, and until recently—very recently—he hadn’t felt particularly deprived. Even taking
circumstances
into consideration, he had so much more than so many others in this world. A beautiful and comfortable home, vast and diverse holdings to engage his talents and excite his ingenuity, and more wealth than he knew how to spend. Considering the hardship most people endured on a day-to-day basis, he would be absurd to complain.

It was only recently that he’d realized he was lonely. But that should be bearable. It
had
been bearable, until…until when?

The answer was obvious: until he’d seen Alexandra again.

“My uncle died in the middle of the night,” he told her, scooting even closer, still holding her hand. “I had recently arrived from Jamaica to find my own father had passed. Uncle Harold hadn’t been himself since the loss of his family—his wife and sons in the shipwreck—and I was staying with him at his request.” He knew he’d told her some of this before, but he needed to put it in context. “As I was now his heir, he wished to instruct me, and I did my best to lift his spirits. Truly, I did. He was only in his early fifties; I expected him to live a long, long time. I had no wish for his death.”

“I know you didn’t,” she said quietly.

“But, you see, I was there. I was residing in his house that morning when he failed to awaken. And I’d been sleepwalking—after peaceful nights in Jamaica, I’d come home to find my father dead and my financial life in a shambles, and I’d begun sleepwalking again. I don’t remember murdering my uncle, and I felt nothing but love for him, I swear it. I didn’t believe myself capable of killing anyone, let alone the man who’d fathered me more than my own father. But the fact remains that I was under great financial strain—strain that my uncle’s demise would certainly have resolved—so a part of me has always wondered…”

“A very small part of you, I’m sure.”

He wasn’t sure it wasn’t a large part. He tried to think about the affair as little as possible.

“That’s what’s kept you from digging too deeply to clear your name,” she said. “You’re afraid you might discover the opposite, that you were responsible for your uncle’s death.”

His first reaction was knee-jerk denial, but she sounded so reasonable he felt obligated to mull it over a moment. “Perhaps,” he finally conceded. He’d always thought of it as putting the past behind him and getting on with his life. But he had to admit that what she said might be true.

And that she must understand him very well to have guessed it.

“That’s ridiculous.” She pulled her hand from his, leaving him alone in the dark. “Tris, you did not murder your uncle.”

He recoiled from the temper she so rarely displayed. “It’s a possibility,” he disagreed. “Only a possibility, but—”

“It’s
not
.” He felt her fingers brush his face, and her voice gentled, but not much. “You’re a good person. And I’m positively certain that, as such, you would never do anything while asleep that you didn’t wish to do while awake.”

It was an interesting theory, but he couldn’t quite buy it. “How about
this
?” he retorted. “Coming to your bed in the middle of the night and nearly ruining you?”

She released a sigh, then probed until she found his hand again. He slid his other hand up her arm until he found her shoulder, then rested his fingers lightly on the skin just above her collar.

“Are you claiming you didn’t want this?” she whispered.

He could hardly deny it. She felt more than good in his arms—she felt
right
. As though she belonged there.

But she didn’t. No one belonged in his arms.

If he’d been resolved against marriage before, this evening’s events had only served to reinforce his conviction. Quite apart from the woes of public disgrace, how could he subject a lady to the menace of his unpredictable disorder?

And Alexandra’s faith in him, though touching, was hardly convincing. How was she to know what he was capable of?

“I must go,” he said, trying to pull away.

She gripped his hand tighter. “Stay. Please. A few minutes longer.”

She didn’t have to say why—they both knew that they would never be together like this again.

So he stayed. Her skin was so silky beneath his fingertips, her loose, long hair so fragrant. He closed the gap between their bodies and buried his face against her neck. He could feel her pulse, rapid and unsteady like his.

And when she fell asleep in his arms, he couldn’t imagine a more tender moment.

He wouldn’t succumb to sleep himself. He’d just lay with her a little longer. Soon, he would be gone.

He wouldn’t sleep.

THERE WAS AN
empty space at the breakfast table.

True, it had taken a good half hour for the family and all their guests to make their bleary-eyed way to the dining room. But now it was nearly noon. And Alexandra—normally the earliest riser of them all—had yet to appear.

“Do you expect she’s had a relapse?” Lord Shelton asked, his pale brow wrinkled in concern. “Could the evening have been too much for her in her current, fragile state?”

Griffin shrugged, secretly pleased. “Perhaps.” With any luck, this would provide an excuse to put the poor gentleman off another month or so.

“Alexandra is the veriest picture of health,” Juliana declared, to his annoyance. “I shall go fetch her.” She began to rise.

“I expect Lady Alexandra is still sleeping,” Lady St. Quentin said in her superior, all-knowing way. “I do believe she had a late night.”

The low buzz of conversation ceased as all eyes in the room looked to her.

“We
all
had a late night,” Griffin said into the sudden silence.

Lady St. Quentin blithely buttered a slice of toast. “Do you know,” she continued conversationally, “I was rather restless during the night. All the excitement, I expect.”

Juliana reseated herself. Griffin narrowed his gaze. “Go on,” he said.

She would in any case, the old gossip.

“Well, I took a little stroll down the corridor, and what do you suppose I saw?” Enjoying her rapt audience, she paused to take a delicate bite, chew it leisurely, and swallow. “None other than the Marquess of Hawkridge, coming out of one of the bedrooms.”

“Mother,” her son interjected halfheartedly.

She waved him off, turning to Griffin. “I thought the marquess had departed after learning he wasn’t welcome.”

“You were mistaken,” Griffin said with a forced smile.

“I’ll go fetch Alexandra.” Juliana rose again.

Lady St. Quentin raised her cup of chocolate to her lips, watching Griffin over the rim. “You’ll want to go with your sister,” she said pointedly.

He barely resisted huffing out a sigh. “And why is that?”

“Because when the marquess left his room,
he went upstairs
.” She paused to let the significance of that sink in. “And he left his door open, and it still isn’t closed,
and
he isn’t inside. So I suspect he has yet to come back down.”

“Why in blazes would you surmise that?” Rachael snapped.

Lady St. Quentin raised one of her overly arched brows. “My dear, you must learn to watch your language.”

“Mother,” her son repeated hopelessly.

She didn’t even bother waving him off this time, ignoring him as she focused on Rachael. “I do believe Hawkridge is the man I saw in the minstrel’s gallery with your cousin last night.”

Several gasps were heard around the table.

“I’m going to fetch Alexandra,” Juliana stated and headed from the room.

“I’m going with you.” Corinna pushed back her chair and ran after her.

“So am I,” Griffin added through clenched teeth.

Several more chairs rasped along the carpet as various guests rose to trail them. Griffin hurried after his sisters, refusing to look back. Gobble-grinders, all of them. Let the whole world follow, he thought as he took the stairs three at a time, passing Corinna and then Juliana handily. The St. Quentin woman would be red-faced before this was over. Alexandra was the most proper girl he knew, and after last night’s close call, she wouldn’t risk another blow to her reputation for anything.

Long-legged strides carried him rapidly through the upper gallery and down the corridor past Corinna’s and Juliana’s rooms. The two of them had to run—decorously, of course—to keep up. Reaching Alexandra’s door before them, he twisted the knob and pushed it open.

Then slammed it closed.

He turned to his sisters. “Get rid of them,” he gritted out, referring to the nosy guests making their leisurely way up the stairs and through the upper gallery. “Now.”

“Why?” Corinna asked.

“Just do as I say for once, will you?”

Juliana’s hazel eyes were as round as saucers. “They’re both in there, aren’t they?”

“Brilliant deduction. I’ll give you your prize later. Now, go—”