Alice did not move.
She did not move because she could not. Her hand had gone to her throat of its own accord, to the place where the pendant ought to have hung (she had put it away three days ago because she had not trusted herself to wear it since the orangery). Her other hand had gone to her hip, to the place where the silk fellagainst her curves, and she found that her body had decided to remain where it was and to let him look without consulting her.
From the doorway, Mrs. Hatcher, who had not lost her composure once in twenty years of dressing brides, said in a very polite voice, “Lady Joanna, I believe you mentioned you wished to see the new patterns that have just arrived from Brussels. Shall we?”
“Yes,” Joanna said from beyond the door in a voice that suggested she understood exactly what was happening and proposed to be entirely complicit in it. “Yes, Mrs. Hatcher. The Brussels patterns. I have been looking forward to seeing them.”
“They are at the front, Lady Joanna.”
“At the front, Mrs. Hatcher. By all means.”
The two of them moved away, and the paneled door quietly clicked shut.
Cassian and Alice were left alone.
It was, Alice realized after a moment, the first time they had been left alone in a room with the door closed. The orangery had had three glass doors, an open walk, and an entire household at the windows. The terrace at Almack’s had been four feet from two hundred people. The dance floor had been the most public possible place.
This was not.
This was a small, warm paneled room with a chair, a screen, and a long mirror. The door had a latch on it, and the latch was at present holding the door shut.
Cassian set his hat down on the chair. He did not come closer.
“Lady Alice.”
“Your Grace.”
“You are?—”
“Yes.”
“That is?—”
“Yes.”
“Alice.”
“Your Grace, I am quite aware of what I am wearing.”
“Yes.”
He came closer by perhaps two feet, which was as close as he had been to her since that morning four days ago, and stoppedthere. He did not touch her. He had, she could see, decided very precisely how close he was going to come. He had calculated it the way he calculated everything. He had decided that two feet, in a paneled room with a latched door and a young woman in a silk dress that did not reach her knees, was the precise and impossible distance at which he could remain a respectable man.
“You look…” he trailed off.
“I look what?”
“This would look well with my gift.”
She lifted her hand back to her throat to the place the pendant ought to have been.
“Which you are not wearing.”
“You do not own me.”
“Yet.”
“We shall see, Your Grace, whether you ever do.”