As he handed her up to the same black carriage he'd handed the countess into weeks before, she squeezed his hand. Then she ducked and entered the carriage. He shut the door and stepped back as Folwell flicked the reins.
Alathea sank back in the carriage, frowning now the shadows gave her freedom to do so. Beside her, Alice chatted animatedly with Tony Carstairs, seated opposite. She left them to their dissection of the performance; there was another performance with which she was far more concerned.
A performance she was starting to think might not be an act at all.
If there was any possibility that that was so…
It was time to face her fear and the emotion that gave it birth. Both were new to her. She'd pandered to the former, while pretending the latter didn't exist. She couldn't do so any longer.
She remained absorbed through the drive back to Mount Street, absentmindedly responding as, together with Serena and her stepsisters, she bade farewell to Esher and Carstairs in the front hall. She climbed the stairs, murmured her good nights, then surrendered to Nellie's ministrations, all the while analyzing each of their encounters, trying to see past his warrior's shield. Finally alone, she hitched a shawl over her nightgown and curled up on the padded seat before her window.
Morwellan House was over fifty years old, built on the foundations of a much older residence. Morwellans had owned the site for centuries. How much longer they would continue here was in the lap of the gods. Her own life, however, was in her hands. She stared at the old trees at the bottom of the back lawn, then heaved a deep sigh, crossed her arms on the stone window ledge, and settled her chin on her wrists.
When had she fallen in love with him? Had it been when she was eleven? Had he sensed it-was that what had first made him edgy when near her? Or had it been later? Had love bloomed unknown to her sometime in her teens? Or had a girlish fancy slowly developed into something more?
Unanswerable questions now. All she knew was that sometime, it had happened. It didn't, in truth, feel like something new so much as something newly discovered, a vulnerability she hadn't known she possessed until fate and circumstance had revealed it. That was bad enough, but there was more she'd yet to face. She loved him, but her love had not yet fully blossomed. It was still a bud, newly burgeoning after an extended winter, it had yet to open. She'd yet to experience the full expression of her love, the total spectrum of her need. But she could feel the force, the power swelling within the bud; if freed, it would sweep her will before it-it would become the dominant force in her life.
That fact only added to her fear.
The two threads of her worry-her family and her love-were headed for simultaneous resolution. Regardless of what transpired in the Chancery Court, he, she knew, would be there, ready to whisk her to safety be the outcome victory or defeat. If it be victory, he'd push for her surrender; if defeat, he'd wait for no permissions but simply claim her as his. From his point of view, all was straightforward; from hers, it was anything but.
Her fear she at least understood now that she'd acknowledged the strange notion of loving him. One benefit of being twenty-nine was that she knew herself well. Loving him as she knew she would if she allowed her love free rein would leave her wholly committed, totally enmeshed in their relationship. She wasn't capable of doing anything by halves-when she gave, she gave completely. If she gave her heart, it would be his, all his, forever. She hadn't done it yet, hadn't surrendered her love and her life into his keeping. If she agreed to be his wife, she would do precisely that.
But what would happen if he didn't love her?
The pain she feared flowed from that. She'd faced disappointment, misery and loneliness, the threat of servitude, of destitution, of seeing her loved ones in rags. She'd found strength when she'd needed it, yet she knew in her heart that the pain of his kindness would slay her.
For he would be kind, considerate, always gentle. Yet if he didn't love her in the same way she loved him, her love was of the sort that would destroy her from within. She couldn't contain it, simply hold it inside if there was no one to give it to, to lavish it upon. She'd waited too long for the bud to bloom-it would now bloom in glory, or wither and die. There was no other way. And if it died, so would she, in all ways that mattered.
Better the swelling bud froze again, and never bloomed.
She'd been certain he didn't love her. Not for a minute had she believed fate would be so amenable as to arrange for him to fall madly in love with her. Life had never been so kind. He cared for her, yes, just as he always had, in that guarded, rational way of his, where every emotion was nicely logical.
She was annoyed with him for that. How dare he be so logical when she felt so emotional? Yet that difference had seemed to confirm that love as she was coming to know it was not what he felt for her. He was presently in lust with her, he wanted to care for her, to protect her, to marry her, but he didn't love her. She'd held firm against his proposal, utterly certain she'd read him aright.
Until tonight.
It hadn't been the extravagance of the box, or even the fact that he didn't, as she well knew, appreciate music. The moment when her certainty had been rocked to its foundations was when he'd whispered, "As with other pleasures, my reward is your delight."
It was his tone that had struck her, so accustomed as she was to every nuance, every inflection he used. He'd uttered those words as if it was his soul speaking, not just his mind. The words had resonated within her, as if in that moment, heart spoke to heart.
Had she been wrong? Did he love her? Could he love her?
The question was: How to tell?
Raising her head, she looked up at the stars, at the moon slowly waning in the west. Asking outright was out of the question. If she wasn't prepared to confess her love for him out aloud, in words, then she could hardly expect him to do so. She felt far too vulnerable to make such a confession; she credited him with sensibility enough to feel much the same way. As for expecting him to go down on his knees and declare his heart…
Lips curving, she uncurled her legs and rose. Sobering, she walked to her bed. She slipped between the sheets, no clever plan of how to prompt his confidence revolving in her head, yet on that she was determined. If there was any chance that fate had at last smiled and sent love to touch them both, she could not live without knowing.
The next morning dawned leaden, the skies gray, the light gray, all of a piece with her mood. Toying with her toast, conscious of the subdued nature of the conversations around the breakfast table, Alathea struggled to shrug off a deadening sense of aftermath. The triumph of their ball had been eclipsed by persistent worry over the looming prospect of their incomplete case failing to convince the Chancery Court to declare the Central East Africa Gold Company a fraud. The special magic of her night at the opera, with its seductive suggestion that perhaps, possibly, Gabriel, too, might be concealing the true nature of his feelings, had dispersed in the cold light of morning.
Despite numerous restless hours, she'd been unable to devise any plan guaranteed to make him lower his shield, the barrier with which, for as long as she'd known him, he'd protected his heart. She couldn't, despite their closeness, see into his soul.
She was no better-she'd always been careful to protect her innermost feelings. She wasn't about to drop her guard and let him see into her soul, either. Unfortunately, that seemed the one approach with any chance of success, but the risk…
Inwardly heaving a sigh, she reached for the teapot. There had to be something she could do, some positive action she could take to slough off her dour mood, if not in unraveling the complexities of her nemesis-turned-lover-and-now-would-be-husband, then in pursuing their investigations. There had to be something not yet done, somewhere not yet searched. Some stone as yet unturned…