Page 25 of A Stolen Heart

Alexandra’s jaw dropped. How dare he tell her where she was going and what she was doing tomorrow afternoon? She whirled and took out some of her frustration by kicking a stool across the room.

“Ow!” She hurt her toe and hopped over to the sofa, holding it. “Blast that man!”

Lord Thorpe, she decided, was the most arrogant, aggravating, high-handed man she had ever had the misfortune to meet. First he left her at the party, telling her to wait there, as if she were a dog or a servant. Then he had the nerve to tell her that she should not have left the party without him, that she had not heard what she had, and that it was her fault someone had attacked her because she had walked home alone. And he had finished it all off by telling her that he was taking her to the Countess’s the next afternoon, as if she had nothing to say in the matter!

The awful thing, she had to admit to herself, was that despite all that, no matter his arrogance or his ordering her about, she was still all aquiver from those moments when they had kissed. His kisses had stirred her in ways she had never known before, and even now she felt hot and jittery—and if he walked in the door this instant, she would have to struggle to keep from running to him to kiss him again! How could a man infuriate her so much and at the same time make her want him so? Alexandra would not have thought it possible.

Her aunt bustled in. “Has he left?” Her eyes searched Alexandra’s face carefully.

“Yes. Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know—as if you are searching for something.”

“No. It’s only…I’ve never seen you look at someone that way.”

“What way?”

“The way you looked at Mr. Thorpe.”

“Lord Thorpe.”

“Of course. Lord Thorpe.” Her aunt rolled her eyes. “These Englishmen and their infernal love of titles. As if that makes any difference to what the man is.” She paused. “Alexandra, do you…have feelings for this man?”

“Feelings?” Alexandra could feel heat rising in her face, and she hoped the light was dim enough that her aunt could not see. “Don’t be absurd. He’s an egotistical, overbearing—” She made a noise of frustration, then said, “If I have any feeling for him, it is one of dislike.”

“Oh.”

“And don’t give me that look. I am going to bed now,” Alexandra went on grumpily.

“I think that’s an excellent idea for all of us,” her aunt agreed.

Alexandra stalked upstairs and got ready for bed, finally dismissing her maid, who kept chattering about the attack and asking Alexandra excited questions until she was ready to scream. She finished brushing her hair herself, which she preferred, anyway.

She didn’t know when she had ever felt this strange, this jangled and puzzled and uncertain, even scared. Why had that man attacked her tonight? No matter what Thorpe said, she was certain he had told her to leave. Why would anyone threaten her like that? Why would anyone care whether she stayed or went home? It made the whole thing seem somehow much more frightening than if the man had been a common thief.

Adding to her mental turmoil were thoughts of Thorpe. She didn’t understand her feelings for him, and she also didn’t know how she could possibly get to sleep with this yearning still bubbling through her. And, finally, she could not get out of her head this evening’s meeting with the Countess. She had thought about it ever since, her mind returning like a tongue to a sore tooth, and she was still no closer to an answer than she had been in the beginning. The Countess, whom she had never seen before in her life, had looked at her almost with horror. What had she thought? What had she felt? Alexandra could not see how the Countess’s reaction could have anything to do with her.

And most unnerving of all, why had the Countess called her Simone?

A shiver ran through Alexandra. For the first time since she had been in London, she got up and turned the key in the lock of her door.

CHAPTER FIVE

ALEXANDRA WOKE THE NEXT MORNING feeling vastly better than she had when she went to bed. She got up, unlocked her door and retrieved the tray of tea and rolls that the maid had left there upon finding her door locked. Alexandra wondered what the girl had thought—no doubt that she was shivering in fear after her attack. Alexandra grimaced. She hated anyone to think that she was hiding in her room like a coward.

Last night, she told herself, had been an aberration. She was not going to live in fear just because some madman wanted her to leave England. It was absurd, and that was exactly the way she was going to treat the incident. She rang for her maid and got dressed, putting on her most attractive day dress. She had considered not going with Lord Thorpe to the Countess’s, just to show him that he could not order her about. However, her curiosity had finally won out over her righteous indignation. Even if it meant that Thorpe would assume she was obeying him, Alexandra knew that she had to meet the Countess and find out what the woman had meant the night before when she called her by a strange name. She would have to teach Lord Thorpe that she was an independent woman in some other manner.

As for the way she had felt about him last night, Alexandra resolved that the most easily. She had acted the way she had because she was in turmoil. She had been frightened and confused, as was only natural when one was attacked, and so she had clung to him. Her feelings had been all stirred up, and she had thought that it was because of him. But it was simply an aftermath of her scare. She could see that now, in the clear light of day.

So Alexandra was ready and waiting for Thorpe when he drove up to the house the next afternoon in a sporty curricle. Her aunt, of course, deplored the vehicle, saying it was ridiculous, but Alexandra was thrilled. She had seen several of them since she had been here, and she had wanted very much to ride in one. Shushing her aunt, she tied on her chip straw hat and sallied forth with Thorpe.

The Countess’s house was smaller than the one she had visited the evening before, but very graceful in its lines and much warmer and more intimate. The butler showed them into a drawing room, an elegant room done in tones of blue, and said that he would inform her ladyship that they were here.

Alexandra looked around the room. When she walked in, she had thought it was empty, but as she turned toward the sofa, a middle-aged woman popped up from behind it. Her hair was brown, streaked with gray, and she was a trifle plump. She wore an unremarkable brown merino gown, and in her hand she held a skein of yarn.

“Excuse me, I was just—” She stopped in midsentence, staring at Alexandra, her mouth forming an O. “My goodness.” One hand went to her heart. “Her ladyship said you were a likeness, but I never imagined—”