Page 41 of The Remarkable Myth of a Nameless Lady
Her fingers closed around the food reflexively, startled. “I did not…”
“Hmm?” he paused in his pacing, turning to look in her direction. It was too deeply shadowed here under the trees to see his expression but even from here she could see the distraction in the set of his shoulders, in the way he tilted his head toward hers.
“Your Grace, you need to understand that my father holds a deep grudge against the Duke of Woodworth. It is nothing personal against you, he would feel the same over any who occupied Ravencliff,” she said, lifting the Duke’s portion and taking a bite without thinking.
“And what of your father’s daughter? Does she likewise bear a grudge against this Duke?” he asked, harshly, from several feet away. “Enough so that she would take the Duke’s own brother into her bed?”
“Botheration!” she exploded to her feet, losing the cheese off the roll somewhere in the darkness and being mad enough to throw the roll after it. “You might have tried asking your brother to explain what I meant, rather than expecting me to explain. You would require a lady to speak so indelicately?”
“You are the one who brought it up in the first place!” he shot back. “In front of witnesses, I might add.”
“Only in desperation. You would have half-killed your brother before I managed to get you to listen in any other way.”
“You certainly were clear enough when you clattered the musket upon the pail,” he muttered. “You might as well have tried to take my head off with it.”
“I shall have you know that had I wished your head to be removed from your body, you would not have it still sitting nestled between your shoulder blades now. The musket had already been fired, or I would have shot it into the air to cease the nonsense between yourself and your brother, instead of beating that pail with it.” She stood, arms akimbo, and stared him down.
He stared at her a long moment. “You have fired a musket before?” He nodded, as if to himself. “That one in particular, I am sure. I noted you checking it, as if you knew it. How else would you have been so certain that it had been fired—?”
“Before you accuse me of attempting to kill you, you might want to check with your brother as to my whereabouts. I was—”
“Yes, yes, we have been over this ground before. You were within your own chamber with my brother between the sheets.”
“More on them than between them,” she muttered rather indelicately, after all. “Though in truth I was quite twisted within their confines…”
He strode to her, reaching as if to grab her, only to drop his arm and whirl away, groaning deeply, with his hands pressed to his head. “Is this your goal, to see if you can reduce a Duke to madness?”
“Am I any less mad?” she asked turning away and wrapping her arms around herself, suddenly cold. “Why am I here, Your Grace? Why did you summon me back to Ravencliff to meet with you like this? My reputation would be ruined were we to be seen together…”
“You have done fine enough with that on your own,” he said, and she flinched.
“Perhaps it would be better to focus on something different,” she said, softly sinking down upon the rock where she had been sitting earlier. “You are correct in saying my reputation counts for very little at this point. Thankfully, I am no longer a Lady, so my being compromised by a man such as your brother is only a sad tragedy and a fact of life for one such as me. I am only a servant, after all.”
“You could never be ‘only’ anything,” he ground out harshly. “Though why I am obsessed with you I do not know. My brother may have acted dishonorably but you have clearly made your choice. It is for you to live with the consequences.”
“Oh la, how generous of you, Your Grace. I am surprised you did not leave me upon the ground, kneeling at your feet, taking the obeisance as your due,” she said, and pulled the cloak around her tighter, trying to disappear entirely within the warm folds.
“Will you cease your incessant prattling, and listen for a change?” He threw up his hands in frustration and she winced. “I need to know exactly what is being planned within the village. My men cannot get close enough to the locals to find out, and my guests arrive tomorrow. Your father wanted that list for something, and when he could not find it, he came back to the house to get what he was lacking. Or am I wrong?”
Alicia bit her lip and thought a moment before answering. “You are not wrong,” she said softly.
“Then for the sake of those innocents who have no part in this ridiculous feud, will you tell me what I need to know? Or shall you be responsible for the spilling of more blood?”
She flinched. “I truly do not know. We never understood…when my brother…when the Ribbonmen were at Garvagh, they had no thought of revolution. They only wished for the fine Englishman to notice them, to understand that they were not welcome. It was only a tavern…none of the men were evenarmed…”
“Someone did,” he said harshly. “Someone betrayed you all, and as a result how many Irish suffered from that protest? For I will tell you now, there wasn’t an Englishman who suffered so much as a scratch from that altercation. Do you honestly wish to see it happen again?”
She was crying now, her the cloak pulled up to hide her face. “My brother died because of Garvagh,” she said between sobs. “I would not have another family suffer what we did.”
“Then tell me what you know.”
“You will only beat it out of me, I suppose,” she said on a long sigh. “That is the way of men…”
He reeled back as if he were the one who was struck. “If that were the truth, you would have felt the back of my hand long before this,” he growled and came over to kneel before her, brushing the hood of the cloak back from her face with the back of his hand before she realized what he was about. She froze there, as he studied her in the moonlight.
“Tom had said you were injured, but I had not realized he had marked you. It was your father in the library, after all. And his musket that you held. You refused to confirm the fact when I said it before, so I shall say it again. You cannot protect him forever.”
She stared at him, blinking back the tears, seeing only the tenderness and concern on his face. It was impossible not to see the way he frowned, the way the lines drew together upon his forehead when he looked at her. She swallowed hard, and whispered a single word. “Aye.”
