Sang-froid—that was what she needed now. What she called upon.
Outwardly calm, she followed a member of staff along a wide enfilade stretching along to the right-hand side of the hall, then through into what seemed to be a separate wing. Her low heels tapped the parquet flooring and seemed to echo in the panelled corridor. Deliberately she did not look along the walls, though she was aware there were paintings everywhere, and niches holding statuary, which instinctively wanted to draw her eyes to them. But she steeled herself not to, steeled herself only to keep walking, ignoring the knotting in her stomach, until at length a pair of double doors was reached at the end of the corridor and the servant knocked discreetly at them.
A muffled, terse, ‘Entrez—’ and the doors were opened for her. She walked in.
The room was double aspect, at the far end of the wing, and at first she saw only the huge sash windows in front of her and to her left-hand side. Then she saw a desk—huge, ornate.
Behind it sat Guy.
For a moment, just a moment, she saw his expression as it had been before her entry. Something like a blow struck her. There was such a bleakness in his face, such wintriness in his eyes! It was sudden pain, hurting her. Then, as he took in her presence in the doorway, his expression changed.
His face was transfixed. Completely immobile. As if a mask had dropped down over his features, shielding them from her. Then slowly, very slowly, he got to his feet. Distantly, Alexa heard the double doors behind her click shut.
‘Alexa.’
Her name, nothing more. She had heard him say it in that bare, stark way before. But that time, at the cottage in Devon, it had been said differently. Emotion, dark and turbid, had been heavy in it. Now it was blank—completely blank.
She turned to face him fully. Face him, but not see him. She refused to see him. Refused to see his tall, lean figure, sheathed in a hand-made suit that fitted him as if it were moulded to his broad shoulders, his svelte hips. Refused to see the perfect planes of his face, the fall of his sable hair, the shape of his mouth, his jaw. The emerald, long-lashed eyes…
She refused to drown in them.
Her face was stony, as blank as his. Beneath the surface she could feel her stomach knot itself again, her lungs tighten. But she ignored it. It was imperative to ignore it.
‘I was told you wanted to talk to me.’
Her voice was brusque.
His eyebrows drew across sharply. ‘By whom?’ he demanded. His voice seemed rough. She didn’t care. Didn’t care about its roughness. Didn’t care about him. He was lost to her. For ever. And she did not care about that either. Must not care…
‘By your mother,’ she answered.
The mask vanished. Astonishment whipped across his face. ‘My mother?’
‘Yes, this afternoon. She invited me to visit her and told me you wanted to talk to me. She said it was important.’ A heavy breath escaped her. ‘So I have come.’
He seemed to be gathering his control.
‘I find it…hard…to believe that,’ he said slowly. His voice was harsh, grating at her. His eyes bored into hers, and she felt their force making her stance unsteady. ‘When last I saw you, you made it very…clear…that you wanted nothing more to do with me.’ He stood looking at her, his gaze like a knife to her flesh. ‘I know what you think of me, Alexa. You made that unmistakable. Convincing.’ His face tightened. ‘Every line in that portrait on your easel told me that. Told me of your hatred for me.’ His eyes darkened like a sunless forest. ‘I should have told my mother about it. Then she would not have wasted her efforts getting you here.’
Alexa took a breath. Hard and heavy. Ignoring what she saw in him. Ignoring what it did to her.
‘She said—’ she took another breath ‘—it was important to your marriage. That’s why I came—only for that reason.’
Guy stilled. ‘My marriage…’ He echoed the words. His brows snapped together disbelievingly. ‘My mother talked to you about my marriage?’
She gave a rasp in her throat. ‘It wasn’t my idea—don’t worry,’ she said scathingly. ‘She raised the subject. She said it was important I come here. Talk to you.’ A heavy breath escaped her. ‘So I have. I can only assume—’ Her lips pressed tightly as she made herself say what she had to say. ‘I can only assume that she means it’s essential that your bride—’ she said the word without the slightest trace of emotion, despite the knot in her stomach tightening like a ligature around a bleeding vein, oozing her lifeblood out of her body ‘—hears from me that I am no threat to her—that I never succumbed to your adulterous offer.’
‘My bride.’ His voice was flat. Stark. His eyes were veiled again, all emotion gone.
‘Yes.’ Alexa took another effortful breath. ‘I don’t know what chance of happiness she has, but what little I can give her I do. I wish her happiness—all that she can find.’
His eyes were on her. She could not read them. They were masked, opaque.
‘That is…generous…of you,’ he said slowly.
There was something different about him, but she could not tell what. She dared not look at him, dared not meet his gaze. But there was something different in his stance somehow, though he had not moved. He was immobile behind his desk, one manicured hand resting on its mahoghany surface. He was speaking again, and she made herself listen. Made her eyes meet his.
‘Well, I can tell you,’ he was saying, his eyes on hers, unreadable and veiled, but seeming all the same to be boring deep, deep into her, ‘what I hope will reassure you, Alexa.’ He paused, his eyes resting on hers like lead. ‘Louisa is very happy in her marriage. Blissfully happy.’