Last Night's Scandal (The Dressmakers 5)

Keep moving, he told himself. One foot ahead of the other. Rathbourne’s stepdaughter. Remember.

“Lisle,” she said.

“Don’t,” he said.

“I know you’re angry, but there we were, and who knew when I should be back again, and I only went a little way—”

“Only,” he said. “Only this. Only that. And if you’d broken your neck, what should I say to your mother, your stepfather? ‘Olivia’s only dead.’ ”

He couldn’t and wouldn’t think about that.

He didn’t need to. She was alive. But he’d touched her, and every touch reminded his body of last night’s long, ferocious kiss and the way her bare leg had slid up his. Her scent was in his nose and her breast was pressing against his arm, and every instinct wanted to prove, in the most primal way—up against the wall of this narrow alley—that she was alive and he was alive.

She’s crippled, you pig.

“Yes, but I didn’t break my neck,” she said. “It’s so unlike you to dwell on what might have happened.”

“Unlike me?” he said. “You don’t know what’s like or unlike me. You only see me here, in a constant state of tension, bracing myself for the next debacle.” And trying not to do something insane and unforgivable and from which there’d be no turning back.

He was a man of reason and principle. He had a conscience. He knew the difference between honorable and dishonorable behavior. But he’d crossed a line, and his carefully ordered world was disintegrating.

“Really, Lisle, you’re making a great fuss over—”

“Every time I come home, it’s the same thing!” he burst out. “Is it any wonder I don’t want to live in England? In Egypt I contend with merely snakes, scorpions, sandstorms, thieves, and cutthroats. Here it’s all scenes, and creating trouble where there wasn’t any. If it isn’t my parents shrieking and sobbing and carrying on, it’s you, starting riots and trying to get yourself killed.”

“I don’t believe this.” She tried to pull away.

“Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “You’ll fall on your face.”

“I can lean on the buildings as I go along,” she said. “I don’t need you.”

He pulled her more firmly against him. “You’re being childish.”

“I!”

“Yes, you! Everything is a drama with you. Emotion first, last, and always.”

“I wasn’t born with a stone scarab where my heart ought to be!”

“Maybe you could use your head once in a while instead of your heart,” he said. “Maybe you could think before you decide to wander about a ruined choir at night. Or maybe—here’s a novel thought—you could have told me what you were about.”

“You would have stopped me.”

“And rightly so.”

“Only listen to yourself,” she said. “You go poking about in tombs and burial shafts.”

He pulled her into Stonegate. He kept rigid the arm holding her, because otherwise he’d shake her. “I know what I’m doing,” he said, and it wanted all his will to keep his voice low and seemingly calm. “I don’t act first and think later. I don’t rush blindly into everything that seizes my imagination for a moment.”

“That isn’t what happened! You’re twisting everything about!”

“And you can’t see yourself!” he said. “You can’t see what you do. It’s the same as you do with men. You’re bored, and use them for entertainment, never mind who gets hurt. You’re bored, and you barge into my life and deceive my family and yours, and disrupt who knows how many households—”

“Indeed, I’m sorry I did,” she said. “I never was so sorry in all my life.”

He should have stopped then. He knew, in a small, sane corner of his mind, that he should not have started in the first place. But that small awareness couldn’t make its way through the furious current of turmoil.

“I’m sorry, too,” he said. “I’m sorry I came home. I’m sorry I came within a mile of you. I should have stayed where I was. Yes, I’d rather go blind deciphering hieroglyphs. I’d rather roast in the desert and take my chances with the sandstorms and scorpions and snakes and cutthroats. I’d rather do anything, be anywhere that keeps me a world away from you and my parents.”

“I wish you’d never come home,” she cried. “I wish you’d go back. I’d gladly pay to send you back and keep you there. I don’t care what becomes of you. Go to Egypt. Go to the devil. Only go!”

“I wish I could go to the devil,” he said. “It would be like paradise, after two days with you.”

She shoved him, hard.

He wasn’t prepared. He lost his balance, falling back against a shop door, and relaxed his grip. It was only for an instant, but it was enough for her. She pulled away.

“I hate you,” she said.

She limped the few steps across the lane and started making her way, slowly, her hand against the buildings.

He stood for a moment watching her, his heart racing.

He didn’t cross the lane. He didn’t trust himself.

He started walking, slowly, he on his side, she on hers. And slowly, silently, and worlds apart, they made their way back to the inn.

Chapter 9

Monday 10 October

Jackass.

Beast.

It was a long, punishing ride, more than a hundred miles from York to Alnwick, Northumberland. Lisle began it still furious with Olivia and ended it furious with himself.

The things he’d said last night.

She was his friend. A demented and dangerous friend, true, but he was far from perfect.

His temper, for one thing. Too quick, he knew—but when before had he ever unleashed it so cruelly on a woman?

And this was the woman who’d loyally and faithfully written to him, week after week. This was the woman who’d always understood what Egypt meant to him.

Jackass. Beast. And that was only the beginning. By the time he reached Alnwick’s White Swan, some hours after sunset, he’d run through every epithet he knew, in half a dozen languages.

Aware that a long day’s ride, no bath, and no dinner, had played a part in last night’s debacle—though none of that excused him—he bathed, dressed, and dined before making his way to Olivia’s room.

He knocked once, twice. Bailey opened the door.

“I must speak to Miss Carsington,” he said.

“I’m not in,” Olivia called. “I’ve gone out. I’ve gone out to sell my wicked soul to Lucifer.”

Lisle waved Bailey away. She looked at her mistress, then at him. Then she stepped

aside.

“Really, Bailey,” Olivia said. “I cannot believe you let him intimidate you.”

“Yes, miss,” said Bailey. “Sorry, miss.” She took herself into the adjoining room. She left the door partly open.

Lisle walked over and shut it.

He turned to Olivia. His first glimpse of the room had told him she was seated at the fire. He now discovered why she hadn’t leapt up to rush at the door and try to push him out, or beat him with a poker, or stick a penknife in his neck.

Clothed in a dressing gown with, apparently, another frothy garment underneath, she sat with her skirts drawn up and her feet in a large basin of water. The hurt ankle. He remembered, and grew hot with shame. It was no good telling himself that she was injured because she’d acted like an idiot. She’d been hurt, in pain, and he had said appalling things to her.

He crossed the room to stand in front of her, the basin between them. “You must not hate me,” he said.

The wrong words. He knew it before she shot him a furious flash of blue. She said nothing, only returned that blazing gaze to her feet.

The silence seemed to beat at his head, his heart.

Don’t hate me don’t hate me don’t hate me.

He looked at her feet, so slim and white and vulnerable. He knew what to say. It was there, in his mind, somewhere.

Sorry.

A single word. But a weight pressed on his chest and he was slow, and she broke the silence first.

“I detest you,” she said, her voice low and throbbing. “You broke my heart. Cruelly.”

He stared at her. “Broke your heart?”

“Yes.”

He’d been beastly, yes, and said cruel things, but . . . her heart?

“Oh, come,” he said. “You know I did nothing of the kind.”

Another murderous flash of blue. “To compare me to your parents of all people—your parents!—when you know how often I’ve fought them on your behalf, when you weren’t there to defend yourself. And to say you’ve kept away all this time b-because of m-me . . .”