Her eyes came up to study him. “You admire him.”
“There is much to be admired.” He lifted his chin a trifle defensively.
She ran a slim forefinger along the edge of the beat-up desk as she walked around it. He found he could breathe slightly easier when she’d moved a few feet away from him. “Most people do, don’t they?” She glanced back at him, her finger still on the desk. “Admire him, I mean?”
“I imagine they do.”
She nodded. “Is he a nice employer to you?”
He raised his eyebrows at her direct question, unaccustomed to someone asking him about his situation. “I have only been in his employ a fortnight, and it is not my place to comment on your father’s treatment of his employees.”
“Of course not. You were very cool to Victor.”
Her statement threw him, until he realized she was referring to the young gentleman just in the room. “A playmate of yours?”
“I’ve known them both since childhood.”
“Does that make them your friends?”
She tilted her head and a slow smile spread across her face. “I…don’t know. I’d never really thought about it.”
As if the mention of them summoned them, he heard their voices once again from the end of the corridor.
“Now, I say, Alice, we’ve searched this place from top to bottom—”
She sighed and took a step toward the door. “I’d better leave you to your work before they barge in on you again. I do apologize for interrupting your work, Mr. Tennent. I’m sure it’s important.”
He shook his head, trying to dispel the wave of disappointment he felt at her departure. “No need to apologize.” He looked down at his column of figures, reassuming a business-like tone. “Good day to you, Miss Shepard.”
“It was a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Tennent.”
She sounded like a society lady, the kind of women he only saw from a distance in London. Hearing Victor’s voice closer, she flashed him a smile then spun on her heel and left the room, once again the young schoolgirl.
Victor and Lucy pounced on her as soon as they saw her. “Where in the world were you?”
Alice laughed, the sound coming out breathless and excited. “You sillies, I was behind you all the time.” She’d moved far enough from the office door that they wouldn’t suspect where she’d come from.
Victor turned away from her and marched in the direction he’d come from. “I say, this game is silly. I, for one, am too old to be playing at hide-and-seek.”
Alice stifled a laugh. He only thought it was silly because he hadn’t found her. “All right, what do you suggest we do?”
At the moment all she wanted to do was be alone somewhere and ponder the encounter she’d had with Papa’s new secretary. Miss Shepard. The way he’d said it sounded so grown-up and ladylike. Everyone else called her Miss Alice. She would not be Miss Shepard for another year-and-a-half at her coming out.
In those few moments of conversation, she’d felt taken seriously by an adult. A young gentleman, at that. Her heartbeat quickened at the intensity of his gaze.
She went over his features in her mind. Dark, short-cropped hair over a high forehead, a thin face, a high-bridged nose. But most arresting were his deep-set eyes, their irises almost black, the eyebrows straight and dark above them before arching outward.
“Let’s go riding.” Victor’s voice, always peremptory when he wanted something, brought her thoughts to a halt.
“It’s too hot to go riding.” Lucy sounded peevish.
She took the girl by the arm. “Come along, we can take a walk in the grove. It’ll be cool in the shade.”
Two weeks of holidays stretched out before her. How she’d hoped that she’d be able to see Father. But he was always off to London and she was forced to entertain unwanted guests. There’d be no peace now until she returned to school.
Alice stood on the grassy tennis court, her attention fixed on Victor, her racket held firmly in her hand. “Come on, put some spirit into your serve.”
Just as she knew they would, her words brought a frown to his face. The next second, he slammed the rubber ball across the net.
But she was ready. The ball sailed out of her reach. With a laugh, she sprang towards it and then hit it dead-on with her racket. It went flying back, forcing Victor to sprint to connect with it. “I say, you’re not playing the game as it should be played.”
She laughed again. “I’m playing it the way I saw it played at Wimbledon last spring!”
“This is not a competition!”
When she sent it back again, she aimed it at his partner, Lucy. The girl didn’t move from her position, merely raised her arm halfway in a vain attempt to reach the ball.
Alice blew her bangs off her forehead in frustration. “Lucy, it went right to you!”
Lucy made a face at her and let Victor fetch the ball. “You’re not playing fairly, Alice. You know you mustn’t make me reach for it.”
What a bore it was to play with these three. She glanced over at her own partner, a neighbor’s son, also home for the holidays. He was looking away from the court, leaning on his racket. Oh, to be paired with someone who showed a little spirit!
She lunged to the right, almost missing the ball Victor served back to her. Despite his indolence in the drawing room, once she taunted him, he was roused to make some effort. Thunk! Her racket connected with the ball and it went whizzing back to him.
A tall figure coming around the corner of the high yew hedge caught her attention.
She recognized the new secretary immediately. She hadn’t seen him at all again yesterday, and wondered if he was forced to take his meals with the servants or all by himself in his little office off Father’s library.
In the time it took for the ball to return over the net, Alice made up her mind. She knocked the ball at the wrong angle, so that it missed the net altogether and bounced sidelong into the shorter trimmed hedge on her side of the court.
“Alice! What are you doing?” Victor’s voice was filled with disgust. With a shrug and shamefaced smile his way, she skipped toward the hedge. She stooped to retrieve the ball where it had landed in the soil beneath the hedge and stood in time to meet the young secretary coming along the path.
“Hello, Mr. Tennent.”
He looked different in the bright sun. Hatless, his short ebony curls gleamed. His face was slim, the cheekbones rather prominent, but his eyes were as dark and intense as the day before.
They widened slightly as if surprised that she’d remembered his name. “Hello, Miss Shepard.”
She thought of him confined to that tiny office. “Would you like to join in the match?” With his tall, lean build, he would probably prove a swift player.
His gaze flickered over the court then returned to her. “No, thank you.” His tone sounded more formal than yesterday.
“We’re having ever so much fun.”
He looked away from her. “I have no time for sports.”
She fingered the edge of her racket, refusing to give up so easily. “I should think playing a hard game of tennis would help you in your work.”
A slight crease