“Wonderful. How lovely to know my little life has been the source of much speculation and questions,” she said with full sarcasm, turning on the spot again.
“Would you stand still please for one minute, so we can have this conversation face to face?” he begged.
She abruptly turned to face him, her hands on her hips, narrowing her eyes.
“How is this any better?” she seethed.
“For one thing, I can see just how angry you are now,” he said with a sigh.
“You embraced me!”
“I told you, I thought you were another.”
“How noble, the Marquess of Padleigh has a lover who he is sneaking off to see in the backroom of an assembly. How romantic.”
“When did you get so sarcastic?” he said, tilting his head to the side as he watched her. “And I don’t remember saying anything about romance.”
She flinched at his words then took a small step back.
“Enough of this.” She shook her head. “My Lord, where is Dorothy?”
“Did you come tonight with your parents?” A thought had struck him, as if it had been placed there by a bolt of lightning. They had been searching for her for a year. He knew that. He’d even spoken to her father at one event, hardly surprised at the conversation.
The Earl of Campbell had a habit of trying to ingratiate himself with anyone of a higher position than him. As Allan was a marquess, it had been expected when the Earl of Campbell sidled up to him at a club one night, being slimy and overly flattering. Allan’s behavior had been so cold towards him that, fortunately, the Earl had understood that Allan wanted little to do with him.
“They have been searching for you,” Allan said hurriedly. “Advertisements in the paper though they tried to play down the matter in conversation with others.”
“How surprising.” That sarcastic tone was back.
“What has happened to you, Frederica?” Allan asked in alarm, stepping toward her. She turned to face him fully, biting her lip. “When I last saw you, you were… different.” He couldn’t put it into words, fearing she would take his opinion as an insult.
She used to be the woman that would stand in quiet corners and not say boo to a goose. She would often look at Dorothy and their friend Lady Charlotte, too, before she spoke her mind.
“People change,” she said coolly, turning her gaze to look away from him. In the moonlight, those blue eyes were all the more striking. They could have almost been silver.
Allan had to look away. He had managed to ignore the beauty he had noticed when he first met her a few years ago. He had even forgotten it when he was on the continent. He did not need it to return when they were in a corridor alone together. He did not need to be even more attracted to her now.
“Have you not changed over these last few years?” she challenged. He jerkily nodded, reluctant to say any more. “You’re still the same brother to Dorothy who was overly protective and even… domineering?”
“I see your tongue is much looser these days.”
“Perhaps I’m just not as afraid to speak my mind.”
He had to bite the inside of his mouth to stop himself smiling again. He wondered if she was trying to drive him away with her jibes — to make him leave this corridor — but now, something in her words had garnered his interest.
“Where’s Dorothy?” she asked again.
“Your parents don’t know you’re here, do they?” he concluded, watching as her lips parted in a panicked ‘o’ shape. “Frederica, they have been in fear this last year. You must see them. You must go to them.”
“I shall do no such thing.” She shook her head firmly.
“You must — the fear they’ve suffered —”
“Probably over losing positions and reputations more than fear for their daughter,” she said offhandedly, looking around the corridor once again as if she was wary of someone appearing.
“Who are you looking for?”
“That’s my business.”
