There was a deafening chorus of answers to this, most to the effect that Basil had needed to be saved from himself since the day he was born, that no one could do it, and that it must be given up as a bad job.
Alexandra was relieved that she wasn't left to deal with him all by herself, though their good humour surprised her. Hadn't he wronged at least four of these people? Still, his machinations had simply hurried Lady Hartleigh into her husband's arms and Lady Deverell back into those of her beloved Harry. It was rather, as Aunt Clem had claimed, a great joke. Basil's plots had succeeded only in getting him packed off to India.
"As to you, Miss Ashmore," Lady Jessica went on with studied innocence, "whatever possessed you to take on this monumental task?"
Alexandra very nearly choked on the fragment of toast she'd put in her mouth, but she managed to swallow it and answer calmly enough. "I daresay it must seem odd. But then, Albania has few amusements for an Englishwoman, and there's little enough to do on a long sea voyage. Papa and Mr. Burnham had their theories and writing to occupy them. I, on the other hand, had nothing. I suppose," she added, with a little shrug, "since Mr. Trevelyan is the very soul of honesty and he says I took on the job, then I must have—no doubt because I was so unspeakably bored."
Most of the company smiled appreciatively at this. At the other end of the table, Lady Deverell chuckled softly.
"Poor Basil," said Lord Hartleigh pityingly. "Only a diversion."
Lord Arden found the exchange a deal less amusing than the others and endeavoured to return Miss Ashmore's attention to himself. "Yet who would not delight to be Miss Ashmore's diversion?" he asked, sweetly.
"My lord," she chided, "you play into Mr. Trevelyan's hands."
"I?"
"Yes. You help him draw the fire to me and away from himself."
His disloyal sister joined in. "She's right, Will. We were all scolding him. Then you must say pretty things to Miss Ashmore and make everyone stare at her."
"When of course, dear sister, you'd rather they looked at you."
"Naturally—in good time. Now, however, it's Basil who must bear our stern scrutiny. He's been most unkind to his family." The look she directed at Basil would have been severe indeed, except that her eyes—amazingly like her brother's— twinkled with mischief. "Let's hear his excuse."
"Yes, you young jackanapes," Lady Bertram growled. "What can you have to say for yourself? Nearly a fortnight in London and not once do you call on your aunt."
"Dearest Aunt, if I called on you I might have stumbled upon Miss Ashmore as well, and she told me to keep away."
"Abominable creature!" Lady Hartleigh cried. "You blame Miss Ashmore for everything."
"But isn't that so, Miss Ashmore? Didn't you tell me to keep away until further notice? For my own good?"
Alexandra's green eyes flashed dangerously. He wanted to embarrass her, the beast. Spreading a dab of butter on her toast, she answered coolly, "How, I wonder, could I make it my business to look out for you on the one hand while I drove you off on the other? How could I look out for you when you were not about?"
"Why, I don't know. I really can't understand it. Usually, you're so logical. I'm sure I've mentioned that before—how logical you are."
Alexandra was seriously considering throwing the coffee urn, an ornate, silver monstrosity, at him—how dare he remind her of that conversation in Prevesa?—when Lady Deverell's bored voice was heard. "I cannot make it out at all, and it makes my head ache, Harry. After all, if—as he says—Miss Ashmore told him to keep away, then why is the tiresome boy here?"
Lord Deverell only shrugged and smiled while Lord Hartleigh turned to his cousin and gravely asked what answer he had for that?
"Why, cousin, it must be obvious." Basil stared at him in mock astonishment that he couldn't answer this simple riddle.
Alexandra's mind raced as she imagined a hundred different answers he might make—all of them disconcerting—and her own hundred possible setdowns.
"None of you can guess?" He turned that wondering, childlike look on all of them in turn. "But it's so simple." His gaze rested then on Alexandra, and something in his eyes made her heart skid to a stop. "Amnesia," he said softly.
In the din that greeted this she breathed a small sigh of relief. Though Lord Arden was looking at her tamer strangely, he held his tongue, and she was able to finish her breakfast in relative peace.
There was peace after breakfast as well, for she went riding with Lady Jessica, Lord Arden, and the Deverells. The older couple rode well behind, but with Jess there to contradict and mock him, Lord Arden was forced to keep the conversation general. Alexandra could let her mind wander freely, the intense exchange between brother and sister precluding any real participation.
She'd thought Lord Arden the answer to her prayers. He was handsome and amiable, and he appeared to be intelligent, even if he did look at her in that unnervingly proprietary way. After all, he'd been brought up to believe the universe was basically his for the taking.
The Burnhams wanted a daughter-in-law who could help them claw their way into the ton, but if Papa paid his debt in gold they'd have to be content with that. Lord Arden could easily afford to settle matters with them, and even Papa couldn't object to a future duke as son-in-law. Yes, Lady Bertram had selected well of all the eligible gentl
emen she might have invited to take notice of her goddaughter. Even his sister was delightful. Why then, had he suddenly become so irritating?
"How quiet you are, Miss Ashmore," said Lady Jessica. "But how can you help it? Neither of us lets you get a word in edgeways.”
"Speak for yourself, Jess. It's you who monopolise the conversation."
"Because otherwise you tease her—and that's too unfair when she was teased unceasingly at breakfast."
"As, to your mortification, you were not.”
"I'm sure," Alexandra put in, "it'll be Lady Jessica's turn to be teased next. And as her performance is bound to be superior, I expect to learn a great deal from it."
"Miss Ashmore, you want no tutoring. I daresay you've had enough experience of Basil to know that he's immune to setdowns. Even if he were not, who could bear to stop him from talking so beautifully wickedly?"
"My sister," Lord Arden said with annoyance, "is and has been, since her debut, entirely lost to propriety."
"Well, you would know, my dear brother, so much experience you have of impropriety."
"She has the mind of an infant," he went on doggedly, "and exaggerates silly bits of gossip into great scandals—"
"On the contrary, I must reduce them to mere scandal in order to contemplate them—"
His lordship was growing exasperated. It had been vexing enough to find Trevelyan at the breakfast table this morning and to be forced to sit quietly as the man flirted outrageously with the future Marchioness of Arden. Now, here was one's own sister, holding up one's rather murky private life for Miss Ashmore's examination.
Still, Miss Ashmore did not seem horribly shocked. It occurred to him that he actually knew very little of his Intended—except that she was eminently desirable. She'd kept him at arm's length, and he'd been patient knowing that these genteel virgins did like to be courted forever. Yet, Trevelyan's insinuations had not once elicited any of those cool, reproving looks his own more gentle hints customarily evoked. For all her cool composure, she'd seemed different somehow, as though she'd been lighted up from within, the moment she'd clapped eyes on the wretch.