Page 34 of Forgery, Love, and Other Lies
His hand dropped and his gaze startled to hers. “Well don’t ask me again, right?”
“I do appreciate it, Daniel. Thank you. But one last question.”
His eyes flickered left and right. The man might bolt, no other words, just boots taking him far away from her. “What kind of question?”
“Was I horrid at it?”
He slumped, scrubbed his face with his palms, and spoke through the barrier of his hands. “You did everything just fine in the end, Miss Frampton.” He groaned. “You’re just not the right gal for me.”
“Do not be worried I’ll get attached, Daniel. You’re not the right fellow for me.”
“Bah.” He waved her away and returned to the horse.
She’d not embarrassed herself, then. At least not with the kissing. Daniel may avoid her for a while, and she’d suffer that awkwardness gladly because she’d obtained the gold nugget of knowledge she’d been after. She’d kissed a man, and he’d not gagged. Brilliant. She could now kiss the man she actually wished to kiss with a modicum less worry.
She stepped into the alley, and someone stepped out of it at the other end. At a quick pace too. She rushed after the figure, no reason but that curiosity drew her, and she saw him—tall, dark hair beneath a beaver hat, his trim figure familiar.
Lord Lysander. She thought of calling after him then thought better. Instead, she flew to their loose brick and pulled from it a freshly penned note.
When she’d finished reading, she read it over once more, slower this time to make sure she understood.
He was going to an auction, a masquerade hosted by Lord Currington, and she was not to come along. He’d not even told her when it was happening, the cad! Anger boiled her bones, and she stomped back into the shop and flung herself into the chair she’d vacated earlier. She needed distraction from wanting to throttle Lord Lysander. He’d promised to include her, and yes, he’d sent her a note, but… she wanted to go with him.Of courseshe wanted to go with him. He’d known she would, too. It was why he’d been so cursed stingy with his information, telling her but not telling her, keeping his promise to include her in the investigation while keeping her at arm’s length.
She opened her notebook, seeking that distraction, but the rubies in her sketch still winked up at her, this time mockingly. She’d just kissed Daniel so that she would be better equipped to kiss the man who had promised to include her, had seemed to think better of her intellect than most, then had betrayed her with his high-handedness. He’d likely call it protectiveness.
No.
She flipped to a blank page and started a new sketch. Inspiration had finally struck. This sketch featured paste diamonds instead of rubies, a black velvet ribbon instead of a clasp, and eyeholes so she could see the look on Lord Lysander’s face when she did exactly what he wished her not to do and claimed a right to a say in her own life.
Thirteen
Zander hated masquerades. The dominos were always itchy, and the ribbon tied at the back of his head pushed his hair out in ridiculous directions. He wasn’t usually vain. Except when he wished to be, and it suited his foul mood to let his vanity be piqued. Additionally, he could see the mask in his peripheral vision, and that sent growls of annoyance through him, though the disturbance to his actual vision was slight. How would anyone properly view the art in order to purchase it?
Currington was a fool of the first order. He should simply admit to his dire straits and offer his collection to Sotheby’s instead of pretending. Instead, he’d gone to the trouble—and expense, it must be noted—of a masquerade ball. The ballroom was huge with balconies circling it above from which garlands of some white flower draped. Three chandeliers hung from the ceiling, flickering with a city’s worth of wax and flame, and a string quartet played beneath the center one. Extravagance to hide rising poverty. Ridiculous. Currington and this event were as fake as Fiona’s forgeries. But unlike her copies, everyone knew this night was an illusion.
Whole thing reminded him too much of his damn father—the extravagance, the refusal to face facts, the clear disdain for duty. Zander had plenty of faults, but he knew how to care for those who belonged to him, and he knew extravagance like that surrounding him now came with a price dearer than pounds and pence.
How many times had he, Raph, Theo, Drew, and Atlas rushed to save their family from this precise fate—an auctioning off of all the family’s belongings, a ruination in the eyes of society, a failure to the generations of Bromleys who had come before them? Too many times. But they’d always done it. Just in time. They’d saved him, and themselves, the shame of having their lives picked over, auctioned off. And by doing what other men of their station, men like Currington would scoff at them for—work. Theo’s satires, Zander’s clients, Atlas’s body in the wars, and Drew’s tutoring. They’d all worked when the alternative was this—a spectacle of their failure and a parade of curiosity seekers.
Zander tugged at his waistcoat and too-tight cravat. He much preferred a less formal manner of dress. He wasn't made for the country like Raph and Atlas, but he did prefer the comfort of rolled-up shirt sleeves, something he usually couldn’t have unless he was in the privacy of his own home. Or, to be more precise, Maggie’s home or Theo’s flat or Raph’s estate.
He possessed no home of his own, no place to take a woman of the heart and make her comfortable. Even if he wanted such a woman, she’d have to dash about with him from one residence to the other. No, he could not do that. He wouldn’t even be thinking about it except for the blasted infatuation with Miss Fiona Frampton.
Rage flashed in his breast, and his hands found the shape of fists. Another reason for his foul mood… she’d been kissing another man. Only the tightest self-control had kept Zander from pounding the lad into the dirt, and only the cold parting of the two kissing bodies had convinced Zander to leave the damn note and run.
He should be done with the cursed infatuation after witnessing that.
He wasn’t.
He wanted her in his arms to teach her how men kissed properly. They didn’t stand an arm’s length away and hinge at the waist to peck a woman’s lips. They took her body and soul and gave themselves the same.
Bloody hellish infatuation to make a man consider giving a woman his soul as well as his body, make him think of all the ways his bachelor life could not accommodate a wife. And think on those facts with…hell! How did he think on them?
With worry. With exhaustion. And a little bit with disgust.
The trouble, likely, was that he’d been around Fiona in such comfortable spaces—fire-warmed parlors, crowded workrooms, shadowed personal galleries striped with dusty sunbeams. When a woman who made you laugh did so in places like that… it turned your guts inside out. Made a man think of home or the lack of one and exactly what that word—home—meant.
Another irritant to rub his insides raw.
