Alex wrapped a staying hand around her delicate arm, tilted his head and considered the pretty young woman for a long moment. He took in her frozen expression, as well, and carefully let go of her arm. “Where will you go? You seemed not to know what you would do now that the countess is away.”
Tears welled up in her startling eyes, magnifying the multihued qualities of their green color. He had never seen their like. “But that isn’t your problem,” she whispered as if forcing the words forth.
“But I fear it is of interest to a certain man moving furtively along the street, checking yards.”
She sucked in a breath and cast her fear-filled gaze toward the window.
“Perhaps you need help, even if only from the cousin of the earl?” Alex asked, shocked to his toes to hear himself ask the question. Why could he not learn to mind his own business? He was to leave in the morning.
She blinked and hesitantly leaned back against the headboard. “Alexander? You’re Alexander?”
He forced a smile, though he loathed that name having heard it on his father’s lips one too many times. “My reputation seems to have preceded me. I hope what you’ve heard hasn’t been all bad.”
“On the contrary. Amber calls you a hero. She wrote about the problems in San Francisco and how you saved them all from certain death. I am sorry it cost you so much personally.”
Alex pushed thoughts of that night out of his mind. He relived it often enough in his nightmares. “I did only what I had to do. The question is how may I help you? We—Winston and I—already assume you’ll stay the night.”
She looked at her hands where she’d rested them in her lap. “That is very kind of you but I don’t wish to put you out. Or to cause you trouble. My father is a powerful man.”
“I assure you, powerful men rarely frighten me. I cut my teeth on a father who probably makes yours look like a petulant angry kitten. We seem to have troublesome sires in common. So tell me. What is so forbidding about yours that you would flee him?”
She sighed, staring at him as if weighing her options. The expression in her startling eyes clearly put him in the dubious category of the lesser of two evils. Truly, nothing new to him.
“I am a recent widow. My marriage was more on the lines of a prison sentence—though the prison itself was quite lovely.” She looked down again as if ashamed of her next statement. “My husband was very disappointed in me as a wife. To spite me, he went through his fortune in his last years. He left me penniless at his death. I had no choice but to return to my father. Father blames me for the problems in my marriage and now has arranged another marriage. Soon.”
Alex was incredulous, though why he would be after his treatment at his own father’s hands he did not know. Perhaps because she was so utterly angelic he couldn’t imagine any man, especially her father, not being softened by that endearing grace. “Your father blamed you?”
“My husband spoke ill of me to Father. And my father also holds a great grudge against me. My husband refused to allow me to travel, you see. Impatient to see her only daughter and how I was enjoying the wonderful marriage my father had arranged for me, my mother and brothers came to visit. She departed swiftly when she saw how unhappy I was. They were killed on their return trip. All of them.”
Alex’s own father had certainly been capable of such disloyalty. “And so your father blames you for their deaths and not your husband or the driver of the carriage?”
“My husband was a friend of Father’s and, as I said, he often spoke ill of me so I would have nowhere to go if I tried to flee my marriage. He claimed I’d grown full of myself and that I’d declared Mother would need to visit me if she wanted to see me. At least she left knowing the truth.”
“You said you’re recently widowed. For how long, if I may inquire?”
“Three months.”
He blinked. He knew Americans were less formal in general than the English but not in the upper echelons of society. Bedraggled as she had been on arriving, she was clearly from that group. “And yet, you said he wishes you to marry again soon.”
“The man is another of his friends though quite a bit younger. Mr. Bedlow has long wanted me.” She shivered and, though Alex could tell she tried to hide the reaction, he saw nonetheless.
“Father told me he has arranged our marriage for two weeks from now.”
“Am I to understand you don’t wish this man’s attention?”
She cast her gaze at her knotted fingers. “I refused the marriage, and more specifically the man, so Father locked me in my room. He told the servants they were not to feed me until I agreed to marry Mr. Bedlow. He made a mistake, though. Amber had come into my life at Vassar.” Patience’s smile was just a touch mischievous. “She taught me to climb trees. And the tree outside the terrace of my room has grown quite a bit since I lived there before my marriage. It was an avenue of escape. And I took it. I must admit, as afraid as I was of falling, my greatest fear was that if I fell and therefore failed to make my getaway, the fall might not kill me.”
Alex was truly horrified at the thought of a young woman preferring death to marriage to the man chosen for her. He wondered if his mother had had similar feelings when she’d been told of the marriage his grandfathers had arranged. And now he knew his father had eventually killed her. Or rather Alex had, by sharing the knowledge of his father’s misdeeds with her. If only she hadn’t found the courage to stand up to Oswald Reynolds over the earl’s murder.
If only he’d kept his own counsel.
Just then Mrs. Winston bustled in carrying a tray. “Time enough in the morning to make plans and decisions. Off with you now, Mr. Alex,” she ordered. “And here’s a bit of a snack, dearie. The husband says you fainted. Nothing a bit of soup and tea won’t cure.” She pinned Alex with a hard glare when he didn’t move. “What is it you’d be waiting around for, Mr. Alex?”
After assuring Patience that she’d be safe for the night, Alex stood and left, cursing his own cowardice. Had he not called upon Jamie’s love-able harridan of a housekeeper in the first place, he’d still be sharing a few more moments with their guest. Then he cursed his own stupidity and reminded himself that the only things he felt for Mrs. Gorham were lust and pity and he’d sworn not to let either emotion rule him in the future.
Patience stared after the admittedly handsome Alexander Reynolds as he left, having chivalrously promised to keep watch on the house while she slept. He’d been so kind. And had not even blinked an eye at all she’d revealed.
But really—what had possessed her to blurt out her shameful personal history? She tried to gain solace from the knowledge that she hadn’t spelled out the full spectrum of the degradation her husband had subjected her to.
But the question remained. In spite of all she already knew about Alexander Reynolds from Amber, she was unsure if she could trust him or any man ever again.
“You can trust that one,” Mrs. Winston said.
Patience jumped nearly a foot and her head instinctively snapped around to stare into the kindly face of the housekeeper who’d shooed Alexander away. It was as if she’d heard Patience’s thoughts. Her doubts. “How could you know what—?”
“What you were thinking?” the woman finished, her gray head canted. “Uncertainty is written all over your face, dearie. And I know he’s trustworthy because I’ve seen a lot in the years I’ve worked for the Quality. Their station doesn’t always mean they’re good people. The earl and his cousin are. Now, let’s get you fed and ready for bed, shall we,