Rather the way one would keep something lethal or something miraculous in one’s sights. A dragon, or a holy grail, she thought.
A warmth akin to a low and not unpleasant fever again flushed her skin. As if she had been set aglow by the fixed quality of his attention.
It was impossible to know what he was thinking. It seemed rude to look away. Moreover, she didn’t want to, not at all, and this was what finally made her force herself to turn her head to gaze out the window.
She had spent most of her day making lists of the additional things she wished to bring with her to New York. The packet ship she would take from Liverpool required two copies of the list of the possessions each of the twenty-eight or sopassengers were bringing on their journeys, and she needed to redo the chore in light of the fact that she would not be returning to England. So she fought back resentment and a thousand other conflicting feelings, and did it.
Rummaging through her head for things she could not live without gave her a reason to reminisce, and then she became reflective. She would be bringing a little more than she’d originally planned, of course, but far less than she’d anticipated. It was a revelation to discover what she truly valued: a few little mementos from her childhood, a miniature of her mother, her art supplies. And to find that even as her heart felt somewhat heavy at the reason for doing it, as though she were sorting through a dead loved one’s possessions, she gradually began to feel oddly lighter. And to even dare to begin to look forward to a new life, given how thoroughly she had inadvertently botched the one she had.
“This carriage is new, isn’t it? It’s very beautiful.” She aimed her words out the window. They were nearly to St. James Square.
“Yes, I commissioned it last year. For now, I keep it in a livery nearby. Eventually I will keep it in the mews of a town house on Grosvenor Square I’m in the process of purchasing.”
Her heart jolted. She turned to him. “You’re purchasing a home on Grosvenor Square?”
“Yes,” he told her quietly. “I thought a new home would be the best way to make a fresh start. It’s why I’m selling the town house.”
She nearly swallowed, but she was afraid he might notice. Her eyes burned.
“Of course,” she said politely, finally. “I hope it’s all you want it to be.”
The footman’s announcement—“Colonel and Mrs. Magnus Brightwall”—was greeted by the swirl of bright dresses and flash of tiaras and jewels in the chandelier glow as everyone turned toward them.
Magnus was about as physically conspicuous as a man could be and a notable personage on the threshold of becoming even more notable. And Alexandra was somewhat new to the people of the ton, who were accustomed to seeing the same people over and over at all their balls and parties.
And she was beautiful. Beauty conferred a different sort of royalty on a woman.
The dramatic contrast between them essentially ensured that all eyes would be glued to them.
Magnus had known they would be.
He was accustomed to negotiating crowds and to the feel of hundreds of eyes upon him. But he’d never entered a room with a woman like Alexandra on his arm.
Her gown was the same shade as her lips and her blushes, and, he could not help surmising, her nipples. It was overlaid with a sort of gossamer net dusted with tiny gold flowers, and her skin and coppery hair were luminous.
She stunned, in every sense of that word. His senses were consumed with the fact of her. Hewas quietly furious that he’d briefly lost his ability to speak when she’d stepped out of her room this evening. As surely as if he’d been physically smote.
But he had grown adept at metaphorically locking inconvenient feelings away into little cells, as if they were criminals who oughtn’t mix with the civilized population, and a particularly inconvenient feeling was desire for the wife who had betrayed him.
It was best to view her tactically, as though she were a fine rifle. The best tool to accomplish a job needing done, which was restoring a measure of dignity to the Brightwall name in the eyes of the ton before he officially became an earl.
But bloody hell, he loved the way her face lit each time she was introduced to someone new, as if she was opening her whole self to this person, inviting them into her warmth. Of all the tasks he’d been given when he was a little boy in the Coopersmith house, where he’d grown up—so many of them vile, so many of them only tasks the other servants didn’t want to do—he’d loved best carrying a candle with him through the halls to light the sconces. It had always felt like magic to him that one little flame could create so many others. And that’s how he felt with Alexandra on his arm as he made introductions and greeted every titled, distinguished person in the ton—as though he were bringing her light to them.
He noticed, too, how all the men looked from her to him and back again, with envy, or wonder,as if he was some sort of mad genius for marrying such a beautiful woman.
And sometimes they looked at him with sympathy.
Most unlovely husbands of beautiful women eventually learn the perils involved, as well, he suspected.
“Why, you don’t look feral at all, Mrs. Brightwall,” Lady Chisholm purred. “I’m almost disappointed.”
Alexandra understood her mission—to enchant everyone to whom she was introduced, to make Magnus look like a genius for marrying her, to restore gloss and dignity to the Brightwall name by appearing to be half of an exemplary, perhaps even slightly dull, and devoted couple—and she’d had enough experience as a hostess to know how to tailor her approach to each new person.
Lady Chisholm was a bit of a doyenne: socially powerful, older, beautiful, and not, on the whole, a nice person, though she was known to never be dull. Her striking green eyes had taken Alexandra’s measure swiftly and her expression suggested a piquant blend of guarded approval and acute and not entirely charitable curiosity.
The Earl of Chisholm had pulled aside Magnus, and the two of them were talking in low voices a little to the left of their wives. Perhaps there was a special club for earls he was being invited to join once the Letters Patent creating his title were officially filed by the king.
“‘Feral’! My goodness! What a powerful word.It’s so fun to use, isn’t it?” Alexandra replied cheerfully. “But please forgive me if I sound provincial when I confess to you that I’m not certain I understand the reference. Is ‘feral’ something the fashionable set is saying this year?”