A Study In Seduction(42)

Alexander waited for the inevitable questions. Threads of old hurt and embarrassment wove through him, but they were now ancient and frayed, too tattered to be binding.

“Did you love her?” Lydia’s question was quiet, her voice steady.

His hands dug into his upper arms, his spine stiffening. Lydia didn’t look at him, though her jaw appeared to tense as silence filled the space that should have contained his abrupt denial.

She rested her hand on a globe, lifting her gaze to him, her blue eyes concealed behind a shield of wariness.

“I had known Miss Caroline Turner for several years before proposing,” Alexander said. “She was everything I thought I wanted.”

“And what was that?”

“She was elegant, lovely, perfect for a peer. Polished as a diamond. And she was a good person, kind and without artifice. No one ever had an unkind word to say about her. I knew she would make an excellent wife.” He paused, then pushed the words through his constricted chest. “Before the scandal, yes, I loved her.”

Until this moment, he didn’t think he’d even made the admission to himself. And yet his sole concern was how Lydia would react.

She was quiet for what seemed a very long time, the tips of her fingers resting against the glass-covered surface of the miniature world.

“You must have been so hurt,” she finally said. An undercurrent of emotion tugged at her voice.

He wondered at its source, wondered how Lydia Kellaway had the capacity to experience pain over his loss. It was true—Lord Chilton’s severance of the engagement had sliced Alexander to the bone. But the humiliation had only deepened cuts already bleeding from his mother’s scandal, his father’s shame, his family’s disgrace.

“I can’t say I was surprised,” he told Lydia. “I knew what I’d have to contend with when I returned to London. I knew what I’d face. I’d other plans I didn’t want to give up, but I had to.”

“What were your plans?”

“I was preparing for a lengthy trip throughout Russia. I’d been planning it for years. Siberia, the Urals, Vladivostok. I’d proposed to Miss Turner before I left, and we agreed to marry upon my return.”

The frustration of a thwarted ambition rose in him. “The trip was intended to expand my company.”

“And you never went?”

“I couldn’t. The scandal, the divorce… I had to come back and attempt to repair the damage.”

“And Miss Turner?” Lydia asked.

Alexander rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, his muscles tight and pinched.

“What of her?” he asked.

“What will happen when you’ve restored your family’s reputation? Will she wish to reopen the question of marriage to you?”

Alexander might have laughed if Lydia hadn’t sounded so grave. He shook his head.

“Miss Turner married the son of a viscount over a year ago. She has thus far borne him one daughter, and by all accounts they are quite content.”

Lydia’s blue gaze sharpened, the clouds of wariness dissipating. “Did that disappoint you?”

“God, no.” He might have loved the woman at one time, but now his affection for Miss Turner seemed inconsequential and misguided. “If all had remained status quo with my family, I’d have had a good marriage to Miss Turner. But as things transpired… she hadn’t the constitution to withstand the ugliness of it.”

He pushed himself away from the display case and moved closer to Lydia, drawn into the clean, crisp paper smell that belonged to her alone. “And the past month has made me realize I owe Lord Chilton my deepest gratitude for not allowing me to become shackled to his daughter.”

He stopped in front of her and lifted a hand to that single loose tendril of hair against her neck. He wrapped the soft strands around his forefinger.

“Because if I had been,” he continued, “I couldn’t do this.”

Her lips parted as if she expected him to kiss her. Instead he rubbed his thumb across her mouth, the ridges of her lips both soft and slightly rough. Her breath tickled his hand, her cheeks darkening with a crimson flush.

Aware that anyone might see them, Alexander fought the almost overpowering urge to kiss her. He stepped back. If she were his wife, there would be no barrier, either self-imposed or external, to prevent him from touching her, kissing her, lov—

Well. He needn’t go that far.