What Happens in London (Bevelstoke #2)(58)

“He’s an idiot,” Harry said again. “One who doesn’t deserve to lick your feet. You’ll thank me someday.”

“I have no intention of allowing him to lick me anywhere,” she retorted, then turned utterly red when she realized what she’d said.

Harry began not to feel quite so cold.

“I have no intention of allowing him to court me,” she said, her voice hushed yet strangely loud enough to reach him with every syllable crystal clear. “But that does not mean he can be ill-treated in my home.”

“Very well. I’m sorry. Are you satisfied?”

She was shocked into silence by his apology, but his triumph was short-lived. After no more than five seconds of her mouth opening and closing, she said, “I don’t think you meant it.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” he burst out. He could not believe she was acting like he’d done something wrong. He was only following his bloody orders from the bloody War Office. And even allowing for the fact that she had no idea he had any orders to follow, she was the one who had spent the afternoon cooing at a man who had insulted her most viscerally.

Not that she knew that, either.

Still, anyone with a grain of sense could tell that the Prince Alexei was an oily little toad. Very well, an extremely handsome, not-little-at-all toad, but a toad nonetheless.

“Why are you so upset?” she demanded.

It was a damned good thing they were not face to face, because he would have done…something. “Why am I so upset?” he practically spat. “Why am I so upset? Because I—” But he realized he could not tell her that he’d been forced to leave the opera early. Or that he had followed the prince to a brothel. Or that he— No, he could tell her that part.

“I am soaked to the skin, every inch of me ashiver, and I’m arguing with you through a window when I could be in a hot bath.”

The last part came out a bit like a bellow, which probably wasn’t the wisest thing, given that they were, technically, in public.

She was silent—finally—and then, quietly, she said, “Very well.”

Very well? That was it? She was done with a “very well”?

And then, like an idiot, he stood there. She’d given him the perfect opportunity to bid her farewell, shut his window, and march himself upstairs to the bath, but he just stood there.

Looking at her.

Watching the way she hugged her arms to her body, as if she were chilled. Watching her mouth, which he couldn’t quite see clearly in the dim light, and yet somehow he knew the precise moment she pressed her lips together, the corners tightening with hidden emotion.

“Where were you?” she asked.

He couldn’t stop looking at her.

“Tonight,” she clarified. “Where did you go that you got so wet?”

He glanced down at himself, as if only just then remembering that he was soaked.

How was that possible?

“I went to the opera,” he told her.

“Did you?” She hugged her arms more tightly against her body, and although he could not be sure, it looked as if she moved slightly closer to the window. “I was supposed to attend,” she said. “I wanted to go.”

He moved, too, closer to his window. “Why didn’t you?”

She hesitated, her attention moving from his face for a moment before returning as she said, “If you must know, I knew the prince would be there, and I did not wish to see him.”

Now this was interesting. He moved closer to the window, then—

There was a knock on his door.

“Don’t move,” he ordered, pointing up at her. He shut his window, then strode to the door and opened it.

“Your bath is ready, sir,” his butler announced.

“Thank you. Could you, ah, have them keep it steaming for me? I’ll be a few more minutes.”

“I shall instruct the footmen to keep water on the stove. Will you be requiring a blanket, sir?”

Harry looked down at his hands. Funny, he couldn’t quite feel them properly. “Er, yes. That would be marvelous. Thank you.”

“I will get it at once.”

While the butler went off in search of a blanket, Harry hurried back over to the window and wrenched it open. Olivia now had her back to him. She was sitting on the edge of her windowsill, leaning slightly against the side of the aperture. She had also sought a blanket, he noticed, something soft and powdery blue and— He shook his head. What did her blanket matter? “One more minute,” he called up. “Don’t go.”

Olivia glanced down at the sound of his voice, just in time to see his window close again. She waited another half minute or so, and then he was back, the wood of the window scraping as he pushed it back up.

“Oh, you got a blanket, too,” she said, as if that were something significant.

“Well, I was cold,” he said, also as if that were important.

They were quiet for a long moment, and then he asked, “Why didn’t you want to see the prince?”

Olivia just shook her head. Not because it wasn’t true, but because she didn’t really think she could talk to him about it. Which was strange, because that afternoon, the first thing she’d thought was that she had to tell him about Prince Alexei’s strange behavior. But now, window to window, with him looking up at her with dark, unfathomable eyes, she didn’t know what to say.