Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Alison was sitting by the fire in the drawing room when Lord Grayhill returned. The valet had given her a dress to wear, she still had her brother’s coat wrapped around her shoulders, and with the warmth of the fire seeping through her body, she was finally starting to feel at ease.
By her feet slept Pickle, snoring as the little terrier so often did.
“Still here, I see.” The Earl strode into the room.
“Oh.” She turned to find him coming for her and was quick to jump from the couch. “Yes, I…” He was still wearing just his bathrobe, body shaking from the cold. “I was not sure what I should do while I waited.”
“Considering what I know of you, the less the better.” His eyes flicked over her body, noting the dress she wore.
“And what does that mean?”
“I meant nothing by it,” he assured her calmly, not giving in to her sudden rise in anger.
“Sorry…” She winced, feeling guilty at having turned so quickly toward hostility.
Alison had not meant to, because she was indeed grateful for what he had done.
But there was just something about the Earl that made her so…
uneasy. Constantly on edge, as if she had to be prepared for anything he might say.
“It is no bother,” he dismissed as he made for the fire. There, he held out his hands and rubbed them to find warmth. His body shook and his teeth chattered. “But the next time you insist on asking for help, might I suggest you do so during the summer months?”
“I will try and remember that,” she laughed softly.
Then she watched him. He stood with his back to her, rubbing his arms over his robe, stretching his thick shoulders as the fire worked its magic. His body glowed, power emanated from his presence, and again Alison felt safe like she could not have imagined she would be around the cantankerous Earl.
It was a few moments later when he finally turned to face her again.
“I take it that your family left you behind.” It wasn’t a question.
She started. “Wh – why would you say that?”
“Logical reasoning. I saw Lord Pemberton leave earlier today, and I figured you to be with them. That you are not leaves little room for guess work.” His brow furrowed and he almost looked concerned. “Might I ask how such a thing happened?”
A cold swept through the room. Or perhaps that was just Alison’s imagination? The way the Earl looked at her, pity fixed upon her, brought with shame and embarrassment because how could she possibly explain that her family thought so little of her that they did not even notice she wasn’t with them?
She looked away. “It does not matter how…” Her voice was soft, her posture withdrawn. “That they did is enough.”
Again, she braced herself for a snide comment. That was how it always was, after all. The few times she and the Earl had spoken, he could not help but drive the knife in where he saw a chance to wound her.
“I am sure it was an accident,” he offered. She balked and looked up, noting an expression that was not mocking but riddled with concern. “Just as I am certain they are worried about you.”
“I doubt it…”
“Be that as it may, I will write them as soon as possible and have a courier sent first thing on the morrow. They need to know you are safe, and that you will be until they return for you.”
“If they do.”
“I cannot imagine that they will not,” he said. “Likely, this time tomorrow you will be on your way with them, and all this will be a… well, not a funny tale, so much. But one that might arouse some interest when told over Christmas dinner.”
“Thank you.” A grateful smile tugged at Alison’s lips as she looked at the Earl, and she felt that same warmth from earlier creep through her body. His eyes were kind, his expression gentle. Not at all the man she thought him to be. “I do appreciate it.”
He nodded once and exhaled, stepping away from the fire. No longer shaking, his robe still hung open to expose his chest. And how Alison tried not to glance… “Until then, you will sleep here. I will have a room made for you and –”
“Wait!” Alison’s eyes widened because it was only just then that the very reason that she was here at all came to her. “What happened? The voices – the men! Did you find them? What did they want?”
“Oh yes, the voices…” The concern fled his face, replaced by sympathy. “I am not certain what you think that you heard, Lady Alison, only that I found no evidence whatsoever of men outside your home. And certainly, none to suggest that they were inside it.”
“But there were,” she insisted. “I heard two voices –”
“I am sure that you think you did,” he spoke over her. “With the storm raging as it was, a big empty home. It is not unusual to imagine –”
“I did not imagine anything.”
“And that you were left on your own,” he continued, his voice hardening over her interruption. “Feeling a little chastised and lonely, no doubt. Whatever it is that you think you heard, I assure you, was not the case.”
“You are not listening to me,” she said. “This had nothing to do with being alone or… or feeling upset. I heard two men arguing outside the window. As clear as I can hear you right now.”
“I am sure you think that you did. But as I am telling you, there was nobody there.”
“Then they left.”
“And why would they have done that?”
“Because… because…” She could see the mockery return to his eyes.
Oh, he was trying to hide it. He was doing his best to give her a way out of what he clearly thought to be her burgeoning imagination.
But he did not believe a word of what she told him, and as past experience suggested, he wasn’t about to change his mind.
“Because they saw light inside the house. And they heard me -- and Pickle barking. He must have scared them off.”
“Pickle? Scared them off?” He raised an eyebrow as he found Pickle the terrier snoring away by the fire. Perhaps the least threatening dog of all time. “Forgive me, but that sounds a little… unlikely.”
The feelings of abject terror left her completely. As did those of the need to find safety and comfort discovered in the home of the Earl. Lord Grayhill might not have been mocking her outright, but he was certainly questioning her sanity, and Alison could hardly contain her frustration and anger.
“You don’t believe me.”
“It does not matter what I believe,” he said. “What matters is the reality, and as things are, it suggests that nobody was there.”
“Why would I lie?”
“I do not suspect that you are doing so on purpose,” he continued. “But the mind tends to play tricks when it is feeling vulnerable and afraid.”
“I am not afraid!”
“No?” He cocked a questioning eyebrow at her. “And the woman who turned up on my doorstep thirty minutes ago, begging to be let in lest she be attacked, was what exactly?”
There it was, back to how things had once been between them. Oh sure, he offered her help when he did not need to. Just as he had been kind when he thought she was broken. But now that the moment was passed, she could see once again the same man who had argued with her at the marketplace.
“Fine, don’t believe me,” she snapped. “I do not care.”
“It is not about believing you, Lady Alison. Did I not offer you safe haven? Did I not brave the winter in nothing more than a robe just to put your mind at ease? Truly, I think you are being rather ungrateful.”
“And you are being condescending and rude!” She scowled at him, her body trembling, but not from the cold. She held his stare, wanting him to see how annoyed she was, wanting him to know that this was not some flight of fancy or need to be heard. “Only, why I am surprised at all, I cannot imagine.”
He groaned and rubbed his eyes. “And here we are, right back where we started.”
She scoffed. “Let us see an end to it then, shall we, before either one of us says something we will regret.”
“Too late for that, I am afraid.”
“Thank you for your help, Lord Grayhill, but seeing as there is nothing for me to worry about, and no reason for me to be here, I think I might leave.” With that, she turned and stormed toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Where do you think?”
If Alison had been thinking clearly, she might not have been so quick to leave.
She still believed that there had been two men outside her home, and she had no desire to find out the truth of the matter.
But the Earl was beyond frustrating; she found her anger growing by the second, and it was better to remove herself from the situation entirely than risk seeing it spill over.
Or rather, that was her intent.
She stood, smoothed down the folds in her borrowed dress, and made for the exit.
“I must insist that you stay.” Behind her, she heard footsteps pounding across the room. “Lady Alison!”
“Do not worry about me.” She was through the door, storming down the hallway. “You said it yourself, there is nothing to fear. Pickle!” she cried over her shoulder. “Pickle, we are leaving!”
“Lady Alison!” He moved quickly, coming at her like a storm. She felt it in her bones, upon her, the hallway growing small and suffocating until his hand grabbed her by the arm. “Wait!”
She stiffened to feel his hand around her arm.
His fingers, clutching her, the strength of them was such that she felt frail by comparison.
Alison gasped, a pulse shot through her body, and she clenched down her jaw as her heart began to hammer in her chest. He had touched her in the same way just a few days ago, and her reaction had been the same then, too.
“Let me go…” She looked over her shoulder at the hand around her arm. “Now.” Her breathing was ragged, her body trembling.
He held on, standing up to her so that his body towered over her like a mountain. “Not until you calm down.”
“I am perfectly calm.”
“See reason then,” he repeated. “Despite having found nothing, I cannot possibly allow you to simply return home. Not alone, as you are.”