The English Witch (25 page)

"Ah, yes." Basil leaned forward a bit in his chair. "So that you may have your Season."

"Yes." She dropped her gaze to the key she held.

There was silence, and then his hand reached out to cover hers. "Then perhaps," he said softly, "we'll meet up with each other from time to time. Perhaps you'll be kind enough to dance with me now and again."

How easily he held her, his long fingers so lightly folded over her own, and how weak it made her feel. Her voice was brittle as she answered, "Why, yes, of course. I owe it all to you, don't I? And I've sat here all this time and never thanked you. I do thank you—"

He shook his head. "No. None of that. Not when I was only doing the little I know best."

She slipped her hand out from under his and stood up. "Well, I'm grateful all the same. Deeply grateful. I've never been free, not in six years at least. Now I am. I can't forget it. And so," she went on rather nervously, when he didn't respond, "I'll be bound to thank you from time to time, and you must endure it."

When she started to remove the coat, he seemed to collect himself from a daydream. He rose, too, moving to assist her. His hands touched her arms as the coat slipped from her shoulders, and she trembled slightly.

"Alexandra."

The sound was like a sigh, and she turned to look at him. The coat fell to the floor as he folded her in his arms. He kissed her, gently and briefly, and he drew away again before it occurred to her to
make
him do so.

He did not draw away entirely, however. His arms still held her, not so very close, but close enough so that she could feel the softness of his lawn shirt through the fragile barrier of her own flimsy garments. Close enough so that she was acutely conscious of the scent of him: clean and masculine and so comfortingly familiar. So comforting after all this time apart that it was quite impossible to break free. She felt so safe, so sheltered, so...
right
to be there, that any other possibility seemed quite wrong. That thought in itself was wrong, of course. It was only the spell he cast over her, and yet, to remain so...just another moment.

"I suppose," he said, rather sadly, "I'd better let you go."

"Yes, I think so," she answered just as sadly as she stared at the ruffles of his shirt front.

"Otherwise, I couldn't answer for the consequences." He did not release her.

"Yes." She didn't move.

"In another minute it would be too late." He sounded rather short of breath, and this for some reason irritated her.

"You always," she accused, "leave it up to
me.
But only after you make it—" She bit her lip.

He held her a little tighter. "Make it what?"

"So very difficult, Basil." Her green eyes met his.

Perhaps it was because she was breathless now as well, and because her heart beat so furiously, and because these conditions made it very difficult to think clearly. Whatever the reason, her hand strayed to his shirt, played with the ruffles briefly, then came to rest over his heart. It was thumping and that was somehow frustrating. Still, her hand remained where it was, and she went on, confusedly, "It's wicked of you...and—and unfair."

"Is it?" His lips brushed her forehead.

"Yes. And I don't see why I must always be the one to put
a stop to—to everything, to get you out of the—the difficulties you get yourself into.”

"Because I always get you out of yours. Because we've somehow got into the habit of looking out for each other. I wonder why," he murmured, drawing her closer still.

"Well, I'm not getting you out of this one," she answered with admirable severity, considering that she was talking into his neckcloth while he continued to drop light kisses in her hair. "You can just turn around and take yourself away."

"Can't," he whispered. "You have the key."

She was never sure afterward exactly how it happened, but one minute he was kissing
her
—everywhere,
it seemed—and the next they had tumbled onto the great leather sofa. By that time, the notion of escaping was making less and less sense to her. How could one think of getting away from such caresses, when one's body with every passing moment desperately needed more of them? How could one wish to break free of that lean, muscular, beautiful body that claimed one so possessively? She covered his hand with hers. Fear and longing were mingled in the green eyes that searched his.

"I won't hurt you," he whispered.

"No." Reason was fighting, desperately, to reassert itself. "No. I can't do this. No—I didn't mean—oh, Basil, please— have a little pity at least."

He had bent to kiss the hand clasping his, but now raised his head to look at her. His face was flushed, and his eyes, so softly golden before, were now so very bright. "Pity?" he repeated.

"I'm no m-match for you," she stammered. "You know that. It isn't fair."

He continued to gaze at her for the longest time, as though trying to interpret this rather inarticulate explanation. Then, very softly indeed, he said, "Ah, yes. My vast experience." His fingers slipped from her nervous grasp and moved to push a tumbled curl away from her eye. "But about
you,
my love...when it comes to you, it seems I know nothing. I suppose," he added, with a wry smile, "we'll have to
deduce
everything." His head bent again, this time to the base of
her throat, which he kissed very tenderly, sending tremors through her.

"Please."

She felt rather than heard his long, shuddering sigh as he moved away from her.

"Please," he muttered as he rose from the sofa, "to stop on a mere 'please.' How art the mighty fallen. Oh, Alexandra, you kill me with a word. No, don't look at me like that with those great, drowned eyes, or I shall wrestle my conscience down in an instant and we'll both be undone."

Afraid of what he might have seen in her face, she looked away quickly and struggled up to a sitting position. Only her mind had wanted him to stop. Her heart would have followed willingly, eagerly, wherever he'd led. All she'd offered up in defence of her virtue was "a mere please." For once—and to her shame—
he
had saved her from himself. No, not even that. "Both," he'd said. He'd saved himself as well.

"You'd better go," he was saying now. "I can't be a gentleman and help you up because I don't dare touch you again."

She was up and halfway to the door when she remembered it was locked. "The key," she said, turning back to him in embarrassment and dismay. She was even more dismayed when she noticed the expression on his face. A few moments ago he had appeared...well, troubled. Now his eyes gleamed in a too-familiar, wicked way, and his mouth wore that mocking smile. In the next instant, however, he had dropped to his knees to retrieve the key from under the sofa. In another minute the door was unlocked, and she was being propelled through it.

Alexandra winced as Emmy pulled the drapes open, and bright sunlight flooded the room. Morning already? But this was her assigned bed, and there was Emmy, pattering about the room, and a cup of steaming coffee on a tray on the bedstand. It all seemed perfectly normal… until, in a great, tumultuous flood, all that had happened—was it only a few hours ago?—came rushing into her consciousness vividly enough to set her face aflame. Quickly she turned to take the tray in her lap, but Emmy beat her to it.

"There, Miss," said the abigail, briskly. "Only do drink it up quicklike. Your Papa's waiting in his lordship's study to talk to you. And oh, Miss—he's dreadful cross."

Cross? She flushed again with guilt this time. But he could know nothing of
that.
It must be about Randolph. Perhaps he'd found out the truth somehow…

Hastily, Alexandra swallowed the coffee. She was no sooner out of bed than Emmy had hauled her to the wash-stand. In another minute the abigail was upon her again, pulling shift and dress over her head and fastening buttons and hooks with lightning speed.

The whole business of washing and dressing was accomplished so rapidly that Alexandra had barely, it seemed, opened her eyes before she was downstairs tapping on the study door. When she entered, she woke up quickly enough, for it was not just Papa standing there but Basil as well.

Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at him. He'd seemed so different last evening, for a time at least. She remembered him, dishevelled and flushed, covering her with
kisses and even laughing happily as he'd fallen onto the sofa with her. He'd seemed rather like an eager boy then.

Now, even casually dressed in his buckskins, he was so smart and elegant, his cat eyes cool and mocking, his lips pressed into a faint, amused smile. He looked what he was: a sophisticated man of the world who might have any woman he liked. Could any woman, regardless how sensible or intelligent, resist him for long? His gaze met hers then, and the intimate, knowing expression in those glowing amber eyes made her face burn. She looked away, moving towards the fireplace.

"Deuce take it," the baronet muttered, eyeing his daughter with vexation. "So that's how it is, is it?"

"How what is, Papa?" the daughter asked innocently. She had, however, to fold her hands very tightly to keep them from shaking.

"You. Him. Oh, damnation. Why can't a man ever get a little warning?"

Scrupulously avoiding Mr. Trevelyan's face, Alexandra asked her father what he meant.

"As if you didn't know. But
I
didn't, I admit. And when this—this—"

"Villain?" Basil offered, helpfully.

"When this villain saunters in and tells me he wants to marry you—"

Marry?

Considering the events of recent weeks, Miss Ashore believed herself entirely immune to shock. She was not. She could not have been more stunned if Papa had hit her over the head with the poker she was now studying in numb fascination. Offered. He'd even gone right to Papa. Her mind was just beguiling to resume operation as her father launched into a tirade.

"Of course, as you confide nothing to your poor Papa, how am I to know? So, once again I'm made a fool of. I say, to, of course you won't have him. He insists that you will, and I tell him you won't. Not
my
daughter," the baronet went on sarcastically. "Not
my
Alexandra. She's much too clever to give herself over to the likes of him. And what happens but my brilliant offspring—too clever by half for her ignorant Papa—walks in and blushes like a green schoolgirl at the sight of him. Great Zeus, woman, haven't you any sense at all?"

In the rush of relief—of exaltation, even—sense had been on the point of deserting her. But her father's words, for once in her life, made an impression. Give herself over to him. Oh, yes...easily, because she loved him so. To be his wife...
No,
she rebuked herself. Look how jealous and miserable she'd been yesterday, only imagining him flirting with other women. What she could imagine now was excruciating.

"Yes, of course I have sense, Papa," she answered steadily. "And I was not blushing like a schoolgirl—only flushed from running down to you in such a hurry. Of course the answer, as you said, is no." She turned briefly from the grate to throw Mr. Trevelyan a defiant look, but his expression made her turn away hastily.

The baronet's features relaxed. "No?"

"No."

"Well, then." Sir Charles turned to Basil. "There it is."

"No, it isn't." Mr. Trevelyan had moved nearer the door as this exchange was taking place. He now leaned back against it, his arms folded across his chest. "No is the wrong answer."

"I daresay you think it is," Sir Charles retorted with some impatience. "But she won't have you, and I certainly wouldn't consent unless she insisted—and that only to spare myself any more of her infernal wheedling. And so—"

"And so I'm afraid I shall have to tell you the truth," said Basil, quite calmly.

Panic swept through her. "Papa," she pleaded, "he's going to tell some lie. Make him go away."

"What truth? What lie?" the baronet demanded, glaring from one to the other.

"Nothing!" Alexandra shrieked.

"She's ruined," the calm voice went on. "I ruined her. Last night. In the li—"

"No!"

"Ruined her!" the baronet roared. His face contorted, turning nearly purple, as he launched himself at Mr. Trevelyan. "I'll kill you!" he screamed. But he found he couldn't kill the wretch because his exasperating daughter had thrown herself in the way.

"No, Papa. Stop please!" She stood in front of Basil, shielding him. "The servants will hear you. Of course it's not true. You mustn't let him provoke you. He's only made this up to blackmail me, Papa." She went on babbling protestations, which was monstrous difficult when Mr. Trevelyan's finger was tracing a lazy path down her back. She sprang away when she felt a slight pressure at the base of her spine. "Stop it!" she hissed.

Luckily, Sir Charles was no longer looking at them. He was glowering at the carpet, shaking his head. "If it is a lie," he growled, "I shall call him out."

"I see your point, sir. Perhaps, then, I was exaggerating. Perhaps she isn't ruined. Still, the circumstances were exceedingly compromising—"

"Basil!"