‘I’m glad you remembered it,’ she remarked. ‘I was wondering who I ought to alert that it was here. It’s not the sort of ring one would want to lose.’
The girl made a face. ‘I would have got into such trouble,’ she said. ‘It’s some kind of heirloom. Every bride for a million years has had it!’ She didn’t sound very impressed by the fact, and as she examined it on her finger she didn’t look very impressed by the ring either, despite the vast size of the diamonds in the opulent setting.
‘It’s a magnificent ring,’ said Alexa politely.
The girl grimaced. She was pretty, a dusky brunette, but the gown she was wearing was too overpowering for her, Alexa thought critically. It was in a very stiff lemon silk, with a sweeping panelled skirt and a tight bodice that seemed to crush the girl’s breasts.
‘It doesn’t suit me,’ the girl said flatly, still eyeing the ring.
‘Well, perhaps you need only wear it for formal occasions,’ Alexa answered tactfully. ‘Maybe you could ask your fiancé for something simpler, more to your taste, for everyday wear.’ Judging by the vastness of the gems, providing a second engagement ring for casual wear would not be a problem for what was evidently a very wealthy fiancé.
The girl’s expression changed. ‘No, he wouldn’t do that. I have to be formal all the time.’ She looked down at her dress. ‘Like this dress. It doesn’t suit me either.’
Alexa frowned slightly. It seemed a shame that the girl couldn’t choose a gown she liked. Something in a more youthful style, in a softer material. ‘Your gown’s beautiful!’ the girl said impulsively. Then she grimaced again. ‘But that wouldn’t suit me either—I’m not tall enough for it. Anyway,’ she went on, her expression downcast once more, ‘I don’t like evening clothes. I’m too clumsy for them.’
‘Oh, you don’t seem clumsy at all!’ Alexa said immediately. The girl seemed to do nothing but deprecate herself, which was completely unfair—just because she was wearing a dress that no one with any sense should have put her in.
‘I am,’ responded the girl. ‘My mother always says so! And my fiancé thinks it—I can tell.’
Alexa frowned again. ‘Surely not?’
‘He does. I know,’ the girl averred. ‘And if he doesn’t think me clumsy, he thinks me very gauche and boring, even though he tries to hide it. He’s used to beautiful, elegant women. Women like you,’ she said artlessly. ‘But it doesn’t matter.’ She gave a heavy, resigned sigh. ‘Because he’s marrying me all the same—it’s all arranged.’
Alexa felt her unease mount. Part of her knew she should not really be allowing this conversation, but part of her—the greater part—could not help but feel disquieted by this artless but clearly self-deprecating girl and what she was depicting about her engagement.
‘You know, these days,’ she ventured carefully, busying herself wiping her fingers on the handtowel, ‘women don’t have to marry men they’ve been “arranged” to marry…’
The girl only shrugged. ‘Well, it’s better than the alternative. Being nagged to death by my parents! They’re actually pleased with me for the first time in my life—even though my mother keeps going on at me about how to behave, and so on and so on. My fiancé won’t take any more notice of me when we’re married than he does now—he’ll keep a mistress, one of those beautiful, elegant women that he prefers. I won’t mind, really.’ She lifted her chin, as if to confirm her assertion, but Alexa saw a bleakness in her eyes and felt her disquiet increase.
She opened her mouth to say something, but what she didn’t know—because what could she say? Before she could speak, someone came into the area.
‘Louisa! There you are! We were about to send out a search party!’
It was a middle-aged woman with the cut-glass voice of the English upper-class. The girl Alexa had been speaking to started, as if caught out doing something she shouldn’t have been.
‘I’m just coming,’ she said hastily, immediately looking flustered. She threw a glance at Alexa, the bleakness in her face replaced by a fleeting awkward smile, then she was gone, ushered out by the older woman, who hadn’t wasted a glance at Alexa.
Slowly, Alexa dropped the used handtowel into the basket provided. She felt a pang of pity for the girl, stranger though she was. It was none of her business, obviously, but no girl who was betrothed should be that downcast. She should be brimming with happiness, radiant with joy. The last thing that poor girl looked was radiant…
She sighed. Life was seldom as happy as people wanted it to be. Hers included. The exchange with the girl, disturbing as it had been, had served to distract her from her own situation, but now, as she forced herself to return to the ballroom, she felt the weight of it tear at her. Misery enveloped her. Why, oh, why had she had to see Guy again? How was she to do what she knew with every fibre of her being she must do? Free herself from the hopeless mire she’d fallen into and get her life together again, put Guy de Rochemont behind her, into the past, where he had to be.
I thought I was making a start! Thought that I was finally making myself move on, leave him behind me.
But it had been fool’s gold, that hope. All it had taken to rip every frail tatter of that hope had been a bare few moments…
An ache scoured inside her, physical in its impact.
Hopeless in its longing for something that could never be.
One of his party had said something to him, but Guy hadn’t the faintest idea what it was. He had hardly noticed when Louisa had returned to his side. There was only one thing that he was aware of—burningly, corruscatingly aware.
He was angry.
It was inside him, lashing like the tail of a tiger. His replies to conversation grew more abstract, his mood more impatient. He needed to get out of here. He needed to get rid of these people—Louisa included. In a remote corner of his mind he knew he was being brutishly unjust, because none of this was her doing. It was not her fault she was standing beside him, gauche and awkward, saying so little her lack of conversational ability was almost painful. It was not her fault that her father had got his damn bank into deep water, and it was not her fault that she just happened to be Heinrich’s daughter. It was not her fault that she was going to marry Guy.
Above all—and he could feel the lash of his anger catching him on the raw, castigating him—it was not her fault she was not Alexa…
Into the mesh of anger another emotion speared—an emotion he did not want to feel, as he did not want to feel this lashing within him. An emotion that he wanted to push away, deny, ignore, disregard—any word would do, so long as he got rid of it. Disposed of it. Just the way he had disposed of his affair with Alexa Harcourt with a stark, effective severing. He had moved her out of his life because she could no longer be part of it—because his life had moved on.