Winning a Lady's Heart (6 page)

With each step she took, the pads of her slippers tapped a soft, rhythmic echo against the floor and in her mind.
Mad-mad, mad-mad
. “You
are
mad, Alexandra,” she muttered under her breath.

First, it was madness to consider a walk in the frigid winter air with a sky threatening snow. Second, it was madness to consider a walk in the frigid winter air with a sky threatening snow
beside
the man who’d broken her heart. In spite of the hundreds of other rational excuses she could muster, Alexandra continued her course through Danby Castle. The silence surrounded her, eerily crypt-like.

After an hour of telling herself she would not meet Nathan in the stables—that he could sit there all night and rot—after bathing, paying far too particular attention to the gown she selected, and brushing her hair back into a simple, silken plait, she could now acknowledge the truth—she must see him.

She told herself she had merely agreed to see him because she wanted him gone from the grounds. Told herself she wanted to rail at him for the pain and humiliation he’d wrought on her life.

But she hadn’t convinced herself. For against all better reason she simply wanted to see him.

Alexandra pushed open the kitchen doors, one of the more discreet exits leading to the stables, and met the two dozen pairs of eyes of startled servants hard at work in the kitchen.

Apparently not so discreet.

With a flush staining her cheeks, she cleared her throat. “Good afternoon, uh, just continue with what you were doing,” she urged.

All two dozen pairs of eyes quickly fell away, returning to their work, but the curiosity had been there.

Wonderful. How much time before Mother learned of her escapade? On the heels of that thought was the defiant part of her. What did it matter? Her reputation was already in tatters.

In fact, there was something oddly freeing in having a reputation that didn’t need caring for. Alexandra threw her shoulders back and marched proudly through the kitchen.

She stepped outside and the day’s cold embrace enfolded her. She shivered, tugging her sapphire velvet cloak closer, and marched towards the stables, her brisk movements setting the fabric fluttering.

A wisp of snow drifted down and landed upon her nose, bringing her feet to a halt. Inhaling deeply of the crisp, clean winter air she tipped her head back and became lost in the shower of flakes raining down silently from their place in the sky. She loved the snow. It was clean, quiet, and the flakes so innumerable she’d always been able to lose herself in counting each different flake as they settled to their spot on Earth.

“I didn’t think you would come.”

Alexandra’s eyes flew open and a flake landed on her lid, blurring her vision. She froze. “I’m not a coward.”

Nathan’s jaw set stonily. “I’m not a coward, Alex. A bastard and a fool, but not a coward.” It was the first real indication of emotion she’d seen from him since…since—

“Is this is why you’ve come then, Nathan? To argue the merits of your character? Or have you come to further humiliate me? Only this time in the presence of my entire distinguished family?”

Nathan held his arm out. “Walk with me.”

It wasn’t a question.

She eyed his extended elbow suspiciously. After all, it was the same elbow that had bent as he’d scribbled that blasted wager into the books.

“Never tell me you are, in fact, a coward,” Nathan challenged.

Alexandra gritted her teeth and bit back a retort. “Fine, then.” She slipped her arm into his and hated herself for the thrill of awareness that shot through her.

“You still feel it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, my lord,” she lied.

Nathan didn’t argue the point any further. Instead they continued their silent, stilted journey with no specific destination, their bodies perfectly synchronized with each other’s movements, his boots and her slippers leaving footprint reminders in the dusting of snow along the ground.

They trudged up a small incline, and her slipper caught a slick patch of snow. She nearly careened backwards down the hill.

A strong, steady hand reached out quickly and rescued her from the imminent fall.

“Thank you,” she said breathlessly.

“Three hundred.”

Alexandra blinked in confusion.

“Three hundred steps we’ve taken in silence.”

He’d become a counter. She smiled. Then promptly hated herself for smiling. Blast it all. She did not want to laugh with him. She did not want to find him endearing. And she most certainly did not want to feel her heart warm towards him. “I counted three hundred and twenty-five,” she said with a forced edge of hardness to her words.

Nathan looked as if he wanted to say something but held back the words. Deep blue eyes peered out at the vast holdings below their position on the hill. In those expressive pools, despair, regret, and a whole host of other emotions that made her hope. Foolish, foolish hope.

“Slippers were not the best idea for a walk.”

Her lips twitched again. “On that score, I can agree with you.”

They continued walking in no particular direction, their steps carrying them further and further from Danby’s lair. When she returned, she’d earn an earful from her mother. Nor did she care that the winter chill stole through the velvet fabric, sending frissons of coldness up her spine. For in that moment, she’d achieved what she’d wanted since the Williams’s ballroom—freedom from the prying eyes and questions. In this moment, she was the only person whose questions mattered. So she would have her questions answered, and then she would be free of him.

The pain of that thought stabbed through her like a jagged icicle spearing the earth with its blade.

They arrived at a small copse of trees. An enormous boulder large enough to serve as a bench for three people cut across the path. She allowed him to lead her to it, then she took a seat and waited.

Snow swirled around them a flurry of white piling upon the ground and layering along the brim of his black hat. Nathan doffed it and beat the article against his buff-clad leather breeches, inadvertently drawing her eyes to his muscular thigh.

Her mouth went dry.

“I missed you, Alexandra.”

“It’s only been six days.”

“But it’s felt like six years.”

He’d always claimed he was no poet and yet…he had a poet’s soul. With just a few words, he could reach inside her and bring the balm of peace.

“All the times you told me you loved me. The times you said you dreamed of making me your wife. Were they all lies?”

Nathan raked a hand over his eyes. “Oh, God. What have I done to you?” His tone was weary. Turning suddenly, he took her by the shoulders. “The only lie I ever told was the bloody wager I scratched down at White’s.”

It was what she’d longed to hear and yet, how could she believe him?

“Then, why? Why did you—”

Then his lips were on hers. Every rational thought slipped by on a sigh of longing. Their lips met in a violent explosion of yearning and pain. His tongue slid between her teeth and mated with hers in a primitive movement of unfulfilled desire.

Nathan’s hand worked across her body, reacquainting himself with the flare of her hip, the underside of her breast, the silken smoothness of her neck. Then he reached up and tugged free the pins holding her neat chignon in place, sending the silken strands tumbling to her shoulders. He combed his fingers through her hair, deepening the kiss.

Alexandra, who counted everything from steps to ticks on a clock, lost track of time. All she knew was in that moment, in his arms, the ache of betrayal dissipated into a corner of make-believe, and she felt blessedly alive. Joyous.

It was Nathan who broke the kiss. Not in a forceful way, but rather with a gentle separation sealed with a kiss on her forehead.

Alexandra’s breath came in quick, little spurts that marked the air with the whisper of white breaths meeting cold air.

“I will always love you,” he whispered.

She pulled back and pinned him with an intent stare. “You come to me insisting that you love me. You claim you didn’t fill my ears with empty platitudes. Yet you speak of goodbye? You owe me answers, Nathan. You owe me the truth.”

You owe me the truth.

Yes, he did owe her the truth. But at what cost? What kind of bastard would he be if he admitted the reason for his betrayal? And after receiving the Duke of Danby’s blessings, he’d committed himself to confessing every ugly aspect of it. Even if it would hurt her.

Yet now, with her seated before him, the idea of causing her any further pain made it hard for him to speak.

Unable to meet her accusatory stare, he looked out at the snow-laden fields. “More than a week ago, I visited your father at his club. I requested a private audience with him.” Nathan still remembered the humiliation of that audience. He’d foolishly believed the Marquess of Tewkesbury had been amiable to his request. “I showed up at your father’s townhouse and asked him for your hand.” Alexandra gasped and he resisted the urge to look at her.

“I did not know,” she whispered behind him, the words almost booming in the silence of the snow.

He shook his head and laughed. Even to his ears the sound came out rusty and bitter. “No, I don’t imagine you would have. He…” Nathan drew in a deep fortifying breath. “He spoke to me at some length about my father. He said he would be damned if he ever saw his daughter wed to the whoreson of a bastard.”

“No,” Alexandra bit out.

Nathan didn’t know if she was protesting the truth of those words or whether that single word was more a plea. He continued. “The marquess insisted if I truly loved you as I claimed, that I would free you to make a match with a gentleman worthy of you. I told him to go to the devil, insisted that you would never believe I would betray you.”

“So why did you go along with his scheming?” she whispered.

Her question was latent with the sting of betrayal. If it were any other person before him, he’d manage one of those affected smiles he adopted for the
ton’s
benefit, the same smile that allowed him to disregard the condescension and judgment he faced as the son of one of England’s most disreputable lords. Except his predecessor, a man he didn’t think of as father, had been worse than disreputable. He’d been an unfaithful bastard, a whoremonger.

“I never told you about the day my mother died.”

My beautiful, patient Alex
. She stood there so silent. So silent. Only he knew her as well as he knew himself, and just knew she was counting something. Mayhap she was counting the falling snowflakes or the seconds passing, all to exercise restraint. It was just one of the many things he loved about her. Alex was not impulsive. She was contemplative and thoughtful in ways most members of society were not. In spite of the curiosity lighting her eyes, she was mindful of
his
feelings.

“No, you never did tell me about your mother, Nathan.”

Nathan closed his eyes and inhaled deeply of the crisp winter air, searching deep within himself for the courage to continue.

Alexandra waited for Nathan to speak.

When Nathan had begun courting Alexandra, her father had been more than vociferous in his disapproval. He’d even gone so far as to forbid his daughter from attending any of the same functions Nathan was rumored to be attending.

As Danby’s granddaughter, she’d never wanted for suitors. What she had lacked was
serious
suitors—suitors who had a genuine desire to be with her, who found her amusing, who didn’t mind that she was slightly plump and prone to awkward stretches of silence. That was until Nathan. Only her mother had seen the pain the mandated separation had caused Alexandra.

It had been her mother who’d spoken on her behalf and insisted Nathan be allowed to pay court to Alexandra. Surprisingly, Father had capitulated. But whenever he’d seen her, which wasn’t often, he’d always made vague references about the scandalous death of Lady Pembroke.

She’d always ignored him or made her pardons from the room. She had not wanted to learn such an intimate part about Nathan from anyone but Nathan himself.

“My mother was desperately in love with my father. The poor, foolish woman. I knew her for ten years, and each year her happiness grew dimmer and dimmer until she was a shell of the woman who’d held me as a child.”

Her heart ached at the thought of Nathan as a sad, forgotten little boy. She imagined he’d have been a solemn young fellow. Poor Nathan. And his poor mother. Even unfinished, she recognized the story was a tragic one.

“What happened to her?”

Nathan dragged a hand through his hair, sending flakes flying to join the others slipping from the sky. “My mother was with child. In spite of her delicate condition and my presence in the house, my father had
guests
.” The way he said the word guests indicated he did not speak of respectable members of the
ton
. “The revelry in the ballroom was so loud it reached above stairs. I wandered out and found my mother. She was winding her way through the house, towards the merriment.” He stared out at the thick winter sky. “I followed her and watched as she opened the ballroom doors. What she saw the men and women…” His voice trailed off. “I cannot even speak of what they were doing. My mother ran. She didn’t even hear when I called to her. I saw her race up the stairs, but her foot caught in her gown.”

Alexandra climbed to her feet and crossed over to Nathan, offering him the solace of her presence. She took his hands and squeezed them in encouragement.

He squared his shoulders and continued. “I couldn’t catch her, Alex. I cried out, but she fell backwards. Tumbled down the stairs. She lost the baby and her life that night.” A sharp, bitter laugh escaped him. “Hearing my screams, my father’s guests streamed out of the ballroom. My family’s scandal, my mother’s death, they are all very public, shameful stories, Alex.”

She cocked her head at a defiant little angle. “And you think I’m as fickle as the
ton,
as those who witnessed your pain?”

A strangled sound caught in his throat. He wrenched his hand free of hers. She looked down, mourning the loss of contact.

“Don’t you understand? I’m not respectable. Your father was, nay,
is
right about me. And he’s right that you deserve more than wedding the son of a man who all but killed his wife and gambled away most of our wealth.

“He visited me, Alex, and reminded me of my origins. Said if I truly loved you, that I would set you free. And he was right. But he was also right about me being a selfish bastard who only cares about himself. Because as much as I know you are best without me, as much as I know there are many men who can bring you far greater happiness, I want you all to myself.”

Alex felt something hot streaking down her cheek and blinked in confusion. Snow was cold and yet…she wiped a hand across her face and realized she was crying. He’d given her up because he loved her. He’d done so in such a public way that he’d earn not only the further condemnation of the
ton
who expected nothing less of him, but also in a way that he would earn Alexandra’s scorn and hate.

“You foolish, foolish man. Did you really not trust that my love was strong enough?” Her breath hitched painfully as reality slammed her hard around the middle. She folded her arms over her belly and squeezed to try and tamp out the pain. It was useless. Her inability to have looked beyond Nathan’s motives indicated that he hadn’t really been far from the mark.

Taking her forcefully by the shoulders, Nathan gave her a slight shake. “Don’t you look like that. What else were you to believe?”

She swallowed around a ball of hurt. “I should have believed in you, Nathan. I should have known there was some reason—”

Filled with restless energy, Alexandra pulled away from Nathan’s touch and turned to face the snow-white horizon. Needing something, anything to do, she scanned the vast expanse of Danby’s holdings as the implications of Nathan’s revelation penetrated her roiling thoughts.

“My father betrayed me.”

“By the nature of my decision, I was complicit in that betrayal.”

She turned back to him. “Because you were meant to protect me.” A small mirthless laugh escaped her. “For the first time since I received Danby’s summons, I wish my father had been included in the traveling party.”

The solid, reassuring feel of Nathan’s hand settling on her shoulders grounded her to the moment. He leaned down; his hot breath stirred the hair at her nape. “I’m fairly certain your father will not have it, but—” he dropped to a knee, the snow crunching under the weight of his leg, “marry me?”

Alexandra’s mouth fell open and she had to reach a hand up to close it. Even then, words escaped her. The glint of an oval diamond surrounded by a cluster of sapphires glittered bright in the cold, gray day. It was a ring.

“It is my mother’s ring,” Nathan said, shifting his weight on the ground. In response to her silence, he held the stunning creation towards her. His hands trembled faintly.

Was it fear that she would say no?

With that faint telltale sign of his anxiety, Alexandra held out her own trembling hand. She looked at him, willing him to see the love in her eyes.

“Yes.”