Argent (Hundred Days Series Book 3) (15 page)

              “I did not say otherwise.” At first he was aloof, exchanging coin and gathering the quilt tighter. He claimed her fingers, pressing the heat of his hand between their gloves. “Your stubbornness is endearing any other time, Alexandra. Just allow me this one thing.”

              Flustered, Alix held her tongue, nodding and staring at the ground. Her stomach betrayed her with a protesting rumble, and she laughed.

              “I see,” grumbled Spencer. “No gratitude for my toast.” His chuckle warmed her, and he tugged her arm. “Come on then. Let's have something to eat.”

              There was plenty to choose from: boiled fresh eggs, ham and sausages, boiled potatoes and leeks. A meaty, spicy odor of mince pies nearly concealed the scent of her absolute weakness, strawberry tarts. Nearly, but not entirely; she’d claimed two in-hand by the time Spencer had gathered the rest of their meal.

              Spencer led them to a wide field just beyond his horses and spread her quilt on the grass. He worked on uncorking some ale he’d purchased while she undid the twine binding their brown wax-paper parcels. Alix bit the crispy, salty rind from a slice of ham, chewing thoughtfully and sighing. “This has been the most wonderful day.”

              “Has it?” He downed a mouthful of ale and passed her the bottle. “I was afraid you'd be bored to tears.”

              “With you? Impossible.”

              Spencer ducked his head, looking for all the world a little shy. It was an appealing contrast after an hour of the entire town doting on him.

              After a second sweet, yeasty mouthful of ale, Alix found her nerve. “I want to ask you something.”

              Leaning back on one arm and claiming an egg with the other, he nodded.

              “What made you notice me that night?”

              He chewed thoughtfully, squinting against noonday sun. “I had determined to enjoy myself with a lady. When I found the most beautiful one, I advanced.”

              She snorted and shook her head.

              “You may well dismiss it, but it's true.” Spencer drew knees to his chest, sitting forward and bringing them closer. His eyes closed. “True, but not the entire truth. If I dare complete honesty, I’m not certain what caught my attention.” Spencer met her eyes. “But I recall the moment it happened. There was a gentleman standing behind you. He remarked upon something and you laughed, threw him a look over your shoulder. I swear, you stopped my heart for a moment.”

              She didn't remember the gentleman, or the moment to which Spencer was referring. Not that either one mattered against his words. Alix ducked her face to hide a blush.

              Spencer claimed the ale from her. “Curse John Hastings and his good manners.”

              Before Alix could offer her agreement, something slammed her from behind, snuffling hot breath into her neck.

              “Sampson!” cried a tiny voice. “Sampson, no!”

Sampson
she discovered, was a dog, and not just any dog. He was a Dane, and the biggest animal she’d ever seen not pulling a carriage. He nuzzled her harder, licked her cheek, and began snorting along a scent trail to their food while Spencer waved his hat at the giant beast.

              Huffing and panting combined with tiny footfalls drew her attention away from the behemoth, and she turned to find a petite little thing of six or seven, brown braids flapping, chasing after the dog. Waving a chunk of sausage, Alix did her best to distract him from the rest of their fare.

              “Bad Sampson!” the girl scolded, making a half-hearted dip for Spencer's benefit. “No running away.” Alexandra was chastised by a pouty frown. “You can't feed him sausages; they make him sick.”

              “Oh!” She pulled a grave face. “I am very sorry.”

              Sampson, for his part, wagged eagerly, a happy gesture in opposition to his morose, drooping black and white face. The girl stretched up on tiptoes, wrapping slender arms around her dog's neck. “It's all right. You can have just this one, even if it is naughty.”

              “Why not two?” offered Spencer with a wink, already feeding the beast.

              Looking pleased with so much attention, Sampson finally gave into his tiny master's grunting and chiding and loped off, dragging her behind.             

Laughing, Alexandra glanced to Spencer and found his eyes already on her. She smiled and raised an eyebrow, inviting the question she read on his face.

“Do you have children?” he asked.

              “No! Of course not. You?”

              His mouth quirked. “Bennet is my perpetual child.”

              “For all your digs, I like your brother,” she protested.

              Spencer's brows wiggled. “And he likes you.”

              “He does?” She sat forward, excited that a member of Spencer’s family approved of her. “What did he say?”

              “Nothing I'd repeat in a lady's company. They weren’t platonic declarations, I assure you.”

              Flattered, she laughed through a mouthful of strawberry tart. “Be certain to send him my
regards
.”

              “Don't toy with the lad. You'll crush him.”

              Alix cocked her head and drank him in. “And what about you?”

              “What about me?” he challenged.

              “Will my toying crush you?”

              His smile was slow and wolfish. “Where I am concerned, madam, you had better be prepared to make good on your threats.”

              “Oh,” she breathed, and leaned back on her arms, “I believe we've established that I am.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

              They had been sitting together silently in the parlor for more than an hour, judging by the clock's chiming out in the hall. It was a perfect, contented silence, without anxious remarks or outside intrusion. It was Spencer’s favorite brand of silence.

It had become a quick tradition, tonight marking their fourth evening together in the sitting room after John and Laurel had retired for the night. The first few nights they had played cards, conversed; he’d drawn a battle map for Alexandra while telling a story, and she had added artist’s details to his poor sketch. He had traced her fingers while she drew; fingers led to knuckles and then a wrist and then he was brushing her throat. Lips a breath apart, they had resolved to keep a safer distance the following evening.

              Spencer had no idea what made him look up from his letter at Alexandra, curled onto a small blue sofa directly across from him. Whatever it was, he found her watching him. Spencer took a long draw of his scotch and raised his brows.

              She closed her book and tossed it onto her lap. “I want us to have an affair.”

              He sputtered, smoky liquor burning his throat. “What!” he wheezed, coughing to expel liquor from his lungs. He couldn’t have heard her properly.

              She spoke slowly, words husky and annunciated here and there by a teasing pause. “I
want
to have an
affair
with you.” Her gaze was frank, honest.

              His chest spasmed. He coughed again and rubbed a fist over his heart. “I think you did me an injury,” he croaked.

              Alexandra rolled her eyes. “I'm serious.”

              “So am I,” he panted, wincing. “I think I'm having an attack.”

              “Well?” She looked unconcerned by the prospect of his impending death.

             
Yes; a hundred, a thousand times yes
. Spencer cleared his throat and sat back, slapping his ribs and still dodging her. “You cannot just
ask
to have an affair.”

              Hands went up. “Why not?”

              “Alexandra, have you ever
had
an affair?”

              “No.” The information surprised him, and he thrilled at her eagerness in the garden.

He nodded. “That explains your asking to have one.”

              “Well,” she started, crossing her arms, “Were
you
going to ask me?”
              “No.” Because one person couldn’t simply ask another. It was a dance, a choreographed string of encounters which he hadn’t managed to arrange with her, at least not yet.

              Her frown stretched into silence, and he raised his palms. “Because I hadn't thought of it,” he amended. “Not because I am not interested.”

              “You've proved my point! If I had not asked you, and you were not going to ask me, how were we going to have one?”

              Not much to argue with in her logic. Still, there was an art to the whole thing which she seemed to be missing, something he struggled to quantify. “You can't ask,” he repeated. “That's not how it’s done.” As quickly as the words were out, Spencer wondered why it mattered. Why did people go to such lengths, do such a ridiculous dance? Was there any harm in the sweet, earnest way Alexandra risked herself now?

              “Well,” she fired back, “have
you
had affairs?”

              “Yes,” he mumbled into his knuckles. “Oh, yes.”

              “Well then,
you
tell me. When would you call on me? How would we go on? Tell me how it’s done by other people.”

             
Tediously
, he admitted, running through the sequence. “They meet. Share a few dances. Are sat together at dinner. They find one another attractive, and hopefully enjoy some conversation. Then some innuendo, a flirtation, and each returns the other's banter. The lady offers her card and invites the gentleman to call at an opportune hour. Perhaps he even asks for her key.”

              “Oh,” breathed Alix. “I thought we were already doing most of that.”

              He opened his mouth, then closed it into a frown, dumbfounded. He really had been buried in the wool. “So we have.”

              “But you never thought of me...?” She shrugged.

              “As I said Alexandra, not because I don't think of you in that way. I don’t believe I appreciated how much territory we’ve covered.” He wondered that it had felt painless, natural, and not a bit like the effort he’d described.

She perked up, a smile dimpling her cheek. “Then we should. Why wouldn’t we?”

              Spencer raked fingers through his hair, refusing to believe that Alexandra grasped what she was asking. “It's not a ham or a birthday party. You don't simply
have
it.”
And you certainly couldn’t take it back
.

              Her sigh bubbled with frustration. “Well, explain it again, then.”

              “It's not an open sort of thing. Meeting after dark, sneaking away before dawn.” Affairs involved a great deal of contortion and cloaking about, things which tried his patience. Then again, watching her bite her lip as she considered his words, he had difficulty remembering why he objected so much.

              She frowned. “But we already have an 'open sort of thing'. John and Laurel invite us everywhere. We can still sit together, dine together, dance together. Ride out together. Plenty of young men take ladies to the park and no one seems to raise a brow. If we were younger, or married, someone might fuss.” Alexandra winked. “But we're just old Lord Reed and dusty Mrs. Rowan. Even Paulina will be hard pressed to object, if we keep company with other people.”

              It was nearly frightening, how much sense she was making. And how anxious his body was over it. Spencer sat up, pressed his fist to his lips again and looked her over. “I have an idea, but you're not going to like it.”

              She sat up, too. “What is it?”

              “You're not going to like it,” he warned again. It was dangerous, built on impropriety and fraught with risk, where Paulina was concerned.

              Her arms flailed. “Just tell me!”

              “My family has a small parcel near the Scottish coast. It’s tiny, and I think my father only stubbornly hung onto it because it was contested for centuries. There’s nothing there but an old chapel, some wild horses and a stone cottage.” He leaned forward and rested elbows on his knees. “I had planned to go for perhaps a fortnight, next week. Some quiet for both inside and outside my mind.”

              Alix was leaning forward, beautiful face lit by a grin. “And when you return, we could commence?”

              “We could commence while
we
are there.” He reached for her hand. “Come with me, Alexandra.”

              She exhaled sharply, sat back and then fell completely into the sofa, eyeing him. “It's risky.”

              “Aye. But we would have time. Time to sort this out, and make a start out from under prying eyes.” Days and nights alone with not a soul around.

              “I like it.”

              He didn't trust his ears. “You do?”

              “I do.” She nodded slowly. “Can you wait that long?”

              In that particular moment, the truthful answer was 'no'. “I don't know.”

              Her half-lidded smile hammered his resolve, and she shrugged. “Neither do I.”

*              *              *

Spencer lay in bed long after the house was silent, well past the final creaks of servants drifting specter-like through Broadmoore at their final night time tasks. He had wrung every moment of Alexandra’s time from the day, before retreating to relative safety inside the shadows of his bed. With the velvet curtain drawn tight, he’d hoped for nerve to examine his feelings about her. Instead, he had shifted restlessly beneath the quilt, afraid of daring into such unfamiliar territory.

Afraid to venture
alone
, he amended. For all her teasing and flirtation, Alix had made few overtures before tonight, no meeting him halfway as she had in the garden. He needed to hear that he consumed her thoughts, her body and her mind, as much as she did his.

Slapping his way out of the bed, Spencer claimed his breeches from a chair beside the door and wriggled into them. Determination carried him down one staircase and through darkened halls, promptly fizzling when he came to a stop in front of Alexandra’s door. Minutes passed, ticked out by a clock somewhere far off in the house, and Spencer began to pace. His thoughts were sorted and composed in increments of five steps down and five back. He lost count of passes, muttering scraps of feeling he couldn’t piece together.

Her door flying open startled him and stopped his progress.

He took her in, head to toe, receiving the same treatment in return though he hardly noticed. More than once he had indulged a fantasy with images of Alexandra as his harlequin from the masquerade. Her appearance now eclipsed those, a delicious new imagining for his private moments.

Dark waves tumbled over her shoulders, their length drawing his eye to the swell of breasts beneath her white muslin shift. A half-moon spilled through windows inside her room, bathing her in ethereal light which caught the depth of her blue eyes. His heart ached at her loveliness, body following suit.

Alix swallowed and broke their silence first. “Have you any notion how much noise you’re making out here?” She had meant to tease, he guessed, but a tremble pulling at each word stole her mirth and hinted that she felt at least a fraction of what he had, pacing alone in the hall.

“Alexandra…” He’d meant to say more, to explain his reasons for coming and plead his case like a rational man. Reason burned to ash as his fingers twisted between silken strands of hair, and he drew her in, their bodies meeting with more force than he had intended when she didn’t resist. His shirt and her shift; two layers of fabric were a poor substitute for willpower when her breasts pressed his chest.

Her slender fingers gripped his neck and finished the distance between their lips. Full and sweet, her mouth was every bit the pleasure he remembered. She matched his every slant and press, catching his lower lip between her teeth when he mustered the strength to pull away.

She pressed the back of one hand to her mouth, panting. “Oh, my goodness.” Her cheeks flushed and he caught a smile in her eyes. “I’ve told myself a thousand times that it would never be as good as I remembered.”

He grinned broadly enough that his jaw ached. “It is.”

“It is,” she agreed, her words little more than a whisper of breath, hot against his throat.             

He darted from her shoulder to her waist, her hip and then her cheek, trembling fingers reacquainting him with her shape, and then he stepped back. “Good night, Alexandra.”

“What?… No.” Her head shook, brows drawn into a puzzled vee. “What do you mean,
good night
?”

He moved back a few more steps and bowed low. Her unspoken invitation nearly did him in when he met her eyes.

“Where are you going?” she demanded in a husky whisper.

He stopped backing away. “To sleep.” Now that he could sleep, certain that Alexandra’s feelings mirrored his own.

“You...what?
Sleep
?”

“There are times,” he murmured, closing the distance again a pace at a time, “when a man has need of an answer.” At arm’s length now, he stopped and ran fingers over her throat and cradled her neck, thumb brushing her hair. “And he can rest once he has it.”

Her eyes closed, and there was no missing a hitch to the rise and fall of her breasts. “What was the question?”

“You were,” he admitted, tracing the curve of her cheek.

She swallowed, fingers perching on his wrist without enough pressure to encourage or deny him. “What was your answer?”

He put space between them, palms tracing her shape one last time. “You were.”

“Can we wait?” she asked again.

He drank her in, soft and flushed and well within reach, and swallowed some doubt. “Can we?”