Prada and Prejudice (12 page)

Besides, if Emily's right, I can't decline the first guy to ask me, or it will signal that I don't want to dance all night.

I hadn't imagined the first guy would be Alex.

Argh.

We take our places in the middle of the line up. He bows, and so I curtsy, and then follow his lead as we walk forward and back a few times, standing on our toes when we're close, and bowing down a bit as we step away. Everything I do is a half step behind him, but we're managing.

My anger still simmers below the surface. This is preposterous. He'll dance with me because he has to, but he thinks I'm not actually good enough for him
--
or for anyone with a title. I knew my first impression of him would prove correct. I knew he wasn't worth the ground I spit on! Talk about insulting!

He holds his hand up, palms facing me, so I push my hand against his and we sort of walk in a circle, our gloved hands palm to palm. Thank God we're wearing gloves; I don't want to touch this jerk.

We swap and circle the opposite way, our right hands touching this time.

The dance seems to be only a slight variation of the one I'd watched Emily do for the last half hour, and I manage to catch on by the third repetition. I actually feel kind of ridiculous because once we bow and spin and do-si-do, there's this part where we clap our hands together. And I haven't patty-caked for, like, ten years at least. But you know what they say
--
when in Rome.
And I guess I am wearing a corset and all that, so I might as well go all the way. I'm just lucky I haven't tripped on my dress. It brushes the floor all around me, it's so long.

Does he seriously think I'm not good enough for Lord Brimmon? I might not be titled like half these people, but jeez, the guy's not asking me to marry him, he just wants to dance. I can't taint his reputation
that
quickly.

After about ten minutes I actually forget where I am
--
and who I'm dancing with
--
and start having fun. Alex and I manage to make our way to the end of the row of people, which is our cue to do this silly parade back to the end, where his arm is linked in mine and we kind of skip along. I'm actually smiling. I think it might be the first time since I arrived in this crazy world that I'm not worried about getting home or focused on the ridiculous, unbelievable nature of my predicament. I'm actually relaxed and having fun without stressing about what other people think of me. Truthfully, it's hard to remember feeling this unselfconscious in my own, real, twenty-first-century world. It feels nice. And free. I want it to last forever.

The dance is set up to impede conversation, so it's actually pretty easy to forget I'm dancing with Alex.

I'm breathing a little hard. My barely existent boobs are pushed up practically to my chin and my ribcage isn't exactly expanding, thanks to the corset, so it's a little hard to catch my breath.

When he breaks our silence, he's hesitant. "I did not mean to
...
insult you
...
earlier."

"Right,"
I say, in a way that makes it obvious I'm not buying it.

"Truly. I hadn't meant
--
"

"To treat me like I'm second class?" I don't want to have this conversation. I don't want to have
any
conversation.

We spin around and then part, and he has no chance to reply. I loop around another couple and then return to him. "Never mind. I don't need an answer. It's, you know, okay.
Really. I'm, uh, it's fine." I'm rambling again and I sound bitter. Or offended. Which is the last thing I want because then he'll know his words actually
bothered
me, when I so don't care what he thinks of me.

"You think me pretentious," he says, when we come together again. It's spoken as a statement, not a question.

I look up at him, trying to see if he's angry. But no, he's just staring back, waiting for an answer. His face is neutral, but his brows are knotted slightly in concern, which makes it even harder to figure out what I'm supposed to say. Should I be honest?

"Of course. I have no idea why you'd want to dance with me.
You could hardly dance
with a woman of my standing,"
I say, my voice dripping with sarcasm. Too late, I realize I've said too much. I might hate him, but I can't be all-out rude to the guy I have to ride home with. The guy whose house I'm living in. "You know what? Never mind. Let's just dance. In silence," I say.

A moment later, the song is over, and I drop his hand.

He bows to me, and I curtsy, but I'm not looking at him.

He might be hot, but he's an even bigger jerk than I'd imagined.

Chapter 18

The next day, Emily is doing her best to show me one of her finer skills: needlepoint.

I suck at it. It took me ten minutes just to get the needle threaded, and then it promptly fell off.

I'm pretty sure this means I'd make a terrible wife in the 1800s. Needlepoint is like the ABCs of wifery or something. Emily, on the other hand, is taking it quite seriously, sitting regally on a brocade chair, her needle darting in and out of the fabric at a lightning pace.

We're in some kind of sitting room or drawing room or whatever it's called (they have too many rooms, if you ask me) on the first floor, in the west wing. This one is a vibrant sea of blue, from the curtains to the carpet, and the painting over the elaborate hearth is of a ship being tossed around in a storm. It was sort of jarring, to walk into this room and be assaulted by blue.

I'm sucking on the end of the thread, trying to get it to straighten out, when Alex strides in.

He bows to the two of us, and when he speaks, his voice fills the room, far louder and more booming than a voice should be before noon. "I intend to ride the estate today, if you two would like to join me."

I open my mouth to give him a quick,
No thanks, I'd rather pull out my own hair,
but Emily beats me to it.

"How kind of you to offer! We would love to."

Huh? I can't figure out why Emily doesn't hate Alex. He's a jerk and he's done nothing to help her out of her engagement. And now she's volunteering to hang out with him?

An excuse
...
I need some kind of excuse to get out of this.

Alex walks to the window and looks out, offering a rather flattering view of the back of his riding pants. "Did you enjoy the dance last evening?"

Is he making small talk? That's a first. "Yes, very much so," Emily says. "It was delightful."

I nod. "Yeah. I guess so." I won't say I had fun because I don't want him to get the wrong idea. I don't want him to know dancing with him was the most exciting part of my evening
and
the most agonizingly long half hour of my life.

Alex looks at me for a long silent moment. You'd think he'd bring up the big "lady" versus "miss" debacle. Or just that we'd danced. But he doesn't.

"Yes, I rather enjoyed myself as well," he says.

Seriously, what does that mean? I was the only girl he danced with. The entire night. Is he trying to tell me something? Ha.

Right. He probably means that it was all sorts of fun to insult me.

And that's when Emily starts rubbing her temple. She sets her needlepoint down and frowns, massaging in circular motions on the side of her face.

Oh, no, she's not
--

"Dear cousin, I am coming down with a headache. Perhaps you and Rebecca ought to ride without me."

I get a twinge when I hear
Rebecca.
Every day it feels more like we're friends
--
and more like I'm betraying her.

And then she turns to me, knowing Alex can't see her, and
winks.

"Oh, no, I
--
" I start to say, because I suddenly realize what she's trying to do. This
cannot
happen. A horseback ride alone with Alex? No thank you!

But Alex cuts in before I can stop her. "Yes, I would not have you overexerting yourself. We shall check on you when we return."

Okay, this is not how I want to spend my afternoon. Alone with Alex? I'd rather get a root canal.

But
...
maybe it's my chance to talk to him about Emily. Maybe he doesn't know about Trent. Emily said Trent was wealthy, right? He's not titled, but he has money. If Alex knew about him
...
maybe he would get Emily off the hook with Denworth.

Maybe
that's
why Emily is trying to arrange for me to spend time with Alex. She so owes me after this.

I can do this. I can hang out with him for a couple hours
--
long enough to talk him into helping us.

Emily jumps up from her chair far too quickly for someone with a headach and leaves the room before I can do anything.

I rub my eyes. It's going to be a long afternoon.

Chapter 19

"Okay, so I take my foot," I say, pointing to the toe of my Prada heel, "and stick it in that...
thing?"

This whole trip is turning into a nightmare. First I had to change into a
riding habit,
as if I have any idea what that is. And now I'm supposed to ride
sidesaddle.
Seriously. Isn't riding with one foot on each side of the horse hard enough already? I can't even drive a car yet!

Alex nods. "The stirrup." He has one hand on the horse's reins and the other holding the stirrup out for me. Two grooms are hovering in the background, looking a little put out. I think they had planned to help me up. Alex is standing so close I can smell him, this masculine musky scent that makes me want to rest my head on his chest and breathe in.

Which is absurd, and I need to stop thinking about it.

Wretched human being. Remember that.

I jam my foot in the stirrup and have to sort of hip-hop around a few times to keep from falling down, and then my foot slips out and I'm just standing there again. The horse swings its head around and looks at me as if to say
you're
still
standing there?

Alex doesn't say anything, just stands stock-still, holding the horse and waiting for me to get my act together. He's probably groaning inwardly at my incompetence.

I try again. This time manage to get my foot into the stirrup and my hands toward the seat of the saddle, and, after taking a few hops, stand up and put my weight into the stirrup.

Alex has to grab my waist and boost me up in order to get me all the way to the seat, and then I almost fall off the other side as I figure out how to hook my knee onto the saddle. It takes almost five minutes for me to get situated as he continues to stand there, holding the reins so the horse won't move until I'm ready. "Thanks," I say.

I can feel the spot where his fingers touched my hips like they're still there, holding me. Not cool.

"Certainly," he says as he releases the reins. "Are you ready?"

I nod and the reins are suddenly out of his grasp and I tighten them so hard the horse starts to back up. "Oh, uh
...
What do I do?!" I panic because the horse is, well,
moving.
In the wrong direction.

Alex comes back over to me. "Release your hold. I promise you this horse will not run away with you. Keep some slack in the reins. Too tight and she'll think you want her to back up. She's only trying to please you." His voice is calm and cool.

I nod and relax my hand just a bit, until the reins have a bit of a droop in them. I resist the urge to immediately snatch them back up. "Trust me," he says, looking straight at me.

And as I stare back at him, I just nod dumbly, suddenly believing I trust him. Which is the
wrong
thing to feel. I'm willing to bet Mystery Mistress trusted him too, and look how well that turned out!

I mean, come on. This is a guy who is screwing over his own cousin, who insulted me at the dance and abandoned his own kid. I can
not
trust him.

He walks back over to his gray stallion and swings up easily, even though it's probably a foot taller than the one I'm on. He looks perfect in his boots and jacket, like something out of a catalog. Even though I've never seen clothes like that in a catalog. God, what am I thinking?

We pick up a walk. I'm gripping onto the little copper horse's reins like my life depends on it. Alex looks very much at ease, even as the horse dances excitedly underneath him, its legs flexing and skipping around at twice the speed they need to. Just watching it makes me nervous.