Forever My Love (Berkeley-Faulkner #2)(71)

“You stopped to speak with him out of my hearing,” Rosalie observed, her hands white with tension as she grasped the ribbons and guided the horse through the street.

“Yes,” Mira replied dazedly, wondering if the past two hours had somehow been a dream. “You seemed to be arguing.” “We had a brief exchange of words.” “Tonight was not the first time you have met.” “No. He was… he was a guest at Sackville’s hunt. Almost everyone at that hunt knew who I was and the pretext for my presence there.”

“Those things you said to him just after he came to our aid … Mireille, I’ve never seen you act so rudely! It seems to me that your acquaintance with him must be more than superficial if you—”

“I was merely upset,” Mira said instantly. “I hardly knew what I was saying.” She knew exactly what she had been saying. But for her own peace of mind, her past relationship with Alec would have to remain in the past, and the only way to ensure that was to pretend that nothing had gone on between them. The question was, would Alec fall in so easily with this plan?

“That’s a relief,” Rosalie said, sounding vaguely unconvinced. “I certainly would not have been happy to find out that you had been involved with him in any way.”

Mira frowned and peered at her curiously. “You sound as if you dislike him.”

“To be dreadfully honest, I’m afraid that’s true. I don’t like him. I appreciate what he just did for us, and I won’t deny that he is a charming man when he cares to be, but…” Rosalie’s voice nearly sank into the wind, “... he is not a gentleman. I have heard.

many things about him. He has a bad temper. Further-more, he is not in the least straightforward… he will say one thing when he means another, and he seem; to be a most untrustworthy man. There have been tales of his involvement in shocking scandals, even though nothing is ever proven—”

“But it would be rather hypocritical of me to hold a scandal against someone, wouldn’t it?” Mira pointed out. As Rosalie made no reply, she added, “Are you keeping something back? Has he ever done something objectionable to you?”

Rosalie sighed uncomfortably. “I don’t like the way he treats people… especially women. One of my friends was in love with him once—she is married now but was unattached at the time—and he did not return her affection. He could have tolerated her attentions until she tired of pursuing him—as a gentleman would have—but no, he was cruel and cold to her, breaking her heart and severely injuring her self-confidence. So he can be as sweet as treacle to me, but I’ll never forget how unkind he was to my friend. He treats women as if they are disposable objects. Everyone knows it. He has never kept a mistress for more than a week—and do you know why? Because women are as convenient and meaningless to him as cotton handker-chiefs.”

“I see.” Mira could think of no defense to offer on Alec’s behalf. The story sounded too much like him He was capable of being kind and gentle, but also of being brutal, and he did not often tolerate the com pany of those he disliked.

“I just hope he doesn’t say anything about what he saw tonight,” Rosalie said. “I wonder if he was herr when we were speaking with Brummell and Alvanley He did not mention their names, but I wonder…”

“I don’t really know what he saw.”

“Oh,” Rosalie wailed softly, “I just hate the though^ that a secret of mine depends on his sense of honor!““So do I.”

As the days and weeks passed, Mira’s fears about

Alec were completely undone by the simple and dis-concerting fact that she never heard from him, not even a short note. Apparently he had forgotten about her. Strange, that the relief she would have expected to feel was absent from her heart. In a moment of honesty, she admitted inwardly that she was far from relieved. She was frustrated, despondent, and terribly disappointed. She had thought during those weeks at the Sackville hunt that she had meant something to him—he had seemed to need her; it had even seemed as if he had cared for her a little… or had she merely been a fool, easily taken in by words and empty promises?

Taking out the Falkner medallion one afternoon, Mira wound the gold chain around her wrist and held the round disk in her palm. The design of the falcon in flight was familiar to her by now: she had held the medallion often and had thought of Alec as she stared at it; she had even worn it underneath her clothes a few times for ridiculously sentimental reasons. She still did not know why Alec had given it to her, especially since it was a family heirloom. Had he wanted to give her payment for what he might have considered to be “services rendered,” he could have offered her money or a gaudy piece of jewelry, but the medallion—that had been a puzzling gift indeed.

Mira had been further puzzled when, the day before

Christmas, a package was delivered to Berkeley Hall by a boy who had not revealed the identity of the sender. The package had been addressed to Miss

Mireille Germain, in handwriting that no one recog-.

nized. From an admirer. The words were written with clean, neat strokes of ink on a simple white card with no other identification. The card had accompanied the most beautiful set of books Mira had ever seen, withred morocco covers and gilded pages. All during the holidays, the Berkeley relatives and guests had made a game of guessing the identity of Mira’s admirer.