“Thank you, no.” Alice suddenly realized that she was more or less alone with this big, looming colonel. Former colonel. Lord Tarrant. He presented his arm and said, “Shall we take a turn around the room?”
She looked around for an excuse to escape, someone needing to be talked to, but there was nobody, not a single person looking in her direction. Even Lucy seemed happily occupied, chatting to the two elderly gentlemen and observing her new friends parading their charms to a harassed-looking Gerald.
Trapped, Alice glanced back up at her tall companion.
He looked amused. “No urgent appointment? Nobody needing your exclusive attention? Then, shall we?”
“Thank you,” she muttered and took his arm.
They strolled around the room.
“I understand you are a widow.”
She tensed. “Yes.”
“My condolences.”
Alice inclined her head in acknowledgement. She could hardly admit she was glad to be free of her husband, and it felt hypocritical to be accepting condolences.
They strolled on. “I knew your late husband slightly,” he said after a few minutes.
“Indeed?”
“Yes, at school.”
“Mmm.” She made a vague, polite, indifferent noise.
Another few minutes passed, then he said, “We were not contemporaries, of course. He was in his final year, and I was a small boy in my first year.”
“Mmm.”
“I was not an admirer.”
She had no intention of discussing her husband with anyone, let alone this big, unsettling stranger. If he wanted to fish for information, he would be disappointed. “The weather has been very pleasant lately,” she said. “It augurs well for the harvest.”
“Indeed. Are you interested in agricultural matters, Lady Charlton?”
“Not in the least.”
The smoky gray eyes glinted with amusement. “You grew up in the country, I understand. Whereabouts?”
“Worcestershire.”
“A pretty part of the country. I myself am from just outside Kenilworth in Warwickshire. Do you know it?”
“No.” She pressed her lips together. She was being horridly uncivil, she knew. Normally she was quite good at keeping a conversation bubbling along. With any other man, she would be asking questions—men always liked to talk about themselves—and encouraging him to talk about his home or the harvest or his military career or his horsesor whatever he was interested in, but she didn’t want to offer this man any encouragement.
What was it about him? Apart from the way he had initially accosted her, his manners had been unexceptional. She’d been prepared for an improper suggestion, or at least a hint. Instead he’d been all consideration.
But he unsettled her. The way he looked at her. And the way he refused to take a hint, apparently indifferent to her patent lack of interest in him or his conversation. And that look of... of amused understanding in his eyes, as if he knew what she was thinking. But he didn’t. He couldn’t.
Some men were so wrapped up in their own importance that they didn’t notice when a woman was bored or uninterested or even—she thought of Thaddeus—quietly furious. They just talked on, confident of their intrinsic fascination.
But this man wasn’t like that, she was sure. He seemed perfectly aware that she was doing her best to freeze him out. And it seemed to amuse him. Which was very annoying.
She was also very aware of the warmth and strength of the arm on which she’d laid her gloved hand. Just to be polite. And that was irritating, too. She didn’t want to be aware of him. She just wanted him to go away.
Somehow he’s more attractive than the really handsome men here.It was true. She would feel much more comfortable with a useless, pretty man. This one... His mere physical presence unsettled her. As for those all-seeing gray eyes that kept capturing hers and making her forget where she was. She was too... too conscious of him.
