“Yes, I think you’re right. She’s not a nice person,” Alana agreed, still keeping her gaze directed down at her tightly clasped hands. “But she did explain why she convinced Valentine to bring her here. She said she felt it only fair to warn me that I am heading for heartbreak if I believe anything you say about…about having feelings for me.”
“I do have feelings for you, Alana. Very deep feelings. Feelings I thought we shared.”
She blinked back tears. “Thank…thank you. Miss Wise doesn’t love you, by the way. She made herself very clear on that point. She, um, she said she was just happy you were fairly young, and presentable, and that you had no bad habits such as…oh, dear…such as belching in public.”
“No, she leaves that party trick to her mother,” Bailey said, dropping to one knee in front of the bench, so that at last the two of them were seeing eye to eye, at least physically. “Alana, Sylvia is here to make mischief between us. You have to know that.”
Alana extracted her handkerchief from her pocket and tried her best to blow her nose daintily—sadly, a talent she had never quite mastered. “I know she didn’t wangle her way to Redgrave Manor to give us her blessing, Bailey. Give me some cr
edit.”
Oh, dear. That had sounded more sharp than she’d intended, and not at all like her. But, then, she hadn’t been sleeping at all well, so perhaps she could be excused.
“What else did she say to you? Let’s get this over with, sweetheart, so that we can put it, and Miss Wise, behind us.”
“Very well, I suppose we should. I think you can most probably imagine what else she said. She doesn’t love you, you don’t love her, but you’d discussed the mutual advantages of your…your union. You were even going to send her mother on a lengthy voyage to Greece, I believe it was.”
“In the hope the ship would sink somewhere along the way, yes. Pirates would have been too much to hope for.”
“Oh, Bailey,” Alana said, very nearly smiling. “But the point is, you were all but declared to her, weren’t you?”
He didn’t speak for several nerve-shredding seconds, and then sighed deeply before admitting, “Yes. Yes, Alana, I was fully prepared to declare for her. I didn’t see that I had a choice. But, if there is any credit in the thing for me, and there isn’t much, at least I was honest with Sylvia.”
“Honesty is a virtue, Bailey.” Alana sniffed, or sniffled, she supposed, although sniffled sounded more delicate. “I can almost forgive Miss Wise for coming here. You greatly disappointed her, you know.”
“I believe she’ll survive. I’m not the only penniless peer in the realm.”
“I suppose,” Alana said, rather glad she didn’t have to feel badly that she didn’t feel badly for Miss Wise and her dashed matrimonial hopes.
Perhaps she should stop now, not ask the question that still burned inside her head. It could only lead to trouble.
But then she heard herself asking it anyway:
“And…and if we’d met, and…and if you’d been…attracted to me…and if I was poor as some church mouse…would you still have declared for me?”
He raised his hand to cup her cheek for a moment, and something melted inside of her. “That doesn’t signify, Alana, because it isn’t true.”
“And yet I still would be most interested in your answer.”
“I love you, Alana. With all my heart.”
“That’s not an answer. Because there’s love, Bailey, and there is duty. So, please, tell me, and please give me the courtesy of the honesty with which you approached the subject with Miss Wise. If we’d met that day, and I was, oh, a parson’s daughter, come to borrow a book, would you even now be preparing for your nuptials with Miss Wise? Much as you say you love me.”
Bailey took her hands in his and looked deeply into her eyes. “I can’t answer that, Alana, because I didn’t have to make that choice.”
I shouldn’t have asked…I shouldn’t have asked. Now look what I’ve done.
She disengaged her hands from his grip and got to her feet. “On the contrary, Bailey. I think you did answer my question, simply by refusing to answer it. Thank you for being honest.”
And then she was off, running down the path to the house, her handkerchief clasped hard against her mouth to help stifle her sobs.
CHAPTER THREE
“HONOR’S A REAL BASTARD, isn’t it?” Maximillian Redgrave asked as he handed out glasses of wine to his friend Bailey and his brother Valentine. “As younger sons, Val here and I don’t have to tax our heads about it overmuch, do we, Val? No, don’t answer. We already know you don’t worry your head about anything. Miss Wise’s presence downstairs speaks sufficiently to your brainpower.”
“I told you, Max, I thought I was doing the damned woman a favor. Can I help it that she lied to me?”
“You’ll do one favor too many one day, Val, and end up hanged, or worse,” Max prophesied as he sat down beside Bailey, who had long since given up paying attention to anything the brothers said to each other.