was about to change. He wanted to see her face alive with surprise, or with any emotion. This expression of bland passivity she wore in polite company did not do her features justice.
‘Miss Burke, I cannot shake the feeling that we’ve met before,’ he murmured as the first course was set in front of them.
‘That would be unlikely. I am not much in London,’ came the short ten-word response followed by a curt smile.
He’d thought that would be her gambit. She was pretending she didn’t recognise him. Either that or hoping he didn’t recognise her. But it was all pretence. Her left hand lay fisted in her lap, a sure sign of tension.
‘Then perhaps we’ve met around here,’ Merrick offered amiably, pushing the subject. She’d been a delightful juxtaposition of emotions that afternoon—part of her trying to pretend naked men in ponds was de rigueur while the other part of her had been rampantly excited by the titillating disturbance. He wanted that woman back. That woman was intriguing. This woman sitting next to him was a mere shell for that other person.
She set down her spoon with deliberate firmness and fairly rounded on him with all the chagrin allowed at a dinner table. ‘Lord St Magnus, I seldom go out even around here. I spend my time with local historians. So unless you are involved in the work of restoring medieval documents from Kent, we most certainly have never met.’ That was the shell talking. No woman with a mouth like hers was as proper as she was pretending.
Merrick stifled a grin. He was getting to her. She was past ten words now. ‘But surely, Lady Alixe, you must, on occasion, walk through the woods and visit a pond or two. Perhaps we met there.’
‘What an outrageous place to meet.’ A blush started up her cheeks. She must realise the game was up or very nearly so.
Merrick gave her a moment to regroup while the servants removed the first course. The second course arrived and Merrick fired his next salvo. ‘Of course, it is possible that you simply don’t recognise me. If it’s the occasion I am thinking of, you were wearing an old olive-green dress and I was wearing my birthday suit.’
To her credit, Lady Alixe choked only mildly on her wine. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘My birthday suit, nature’s garb, my Altogether.’
She set her wine glass aside and fixed him with a hard stare. ‘I knew precisely what you meant the first time. What I cannot fathom is why you want to recall the event at all. A gentleman would never confront a lady with a blatant reminder of such a difficult and accidental encounter.’
‘Perhaps you are making faulty assumptions when drawing that conclusion.’ Merrick sat back and waited for the next remove.
* * *
‘You are familiar with syllogisms, Lady Alixe?’ he continued easily after the servants had done their work. ‘Man is mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. In this case, gentlemen don’t discommode ladies, Merrick St Magnus is a gentleman, therefore, he won’t bring up the little escapade at the pond this afternoon. Is that how your reasoning went, Lady Alixe?’
‘I had no idea the three of you were taking a splash.’
‘Ah, so you do remember me?’
Alixe pursed her lips and capitulated. ‘Yes, Lord St Magnus, I remember you.’
‘Good. I’d hate to be unmemorable. Most ladies find my “Altogether” quite memorable.’
‘I’m sure they do.’ She took a bite of her beef in a clear tactic to tersely end the conversation.
‘Do I hear another syllogism in the making, Lady Alixe? Most ladies like my “Altogether”. Lady Alixe is a lady, therefore...’
‘No, you do not hear another syllogism in the making. What you hear is an exception.’
Merrick gave her a lingering smile. ‘Then I shall endeavour to change your mind.’ This was by far the most interesting conversation he’d had in ages, probably because how it would turn out was not a forgone conclusion. He wasn’t use to that. With his usual sort of woman, conversation was always a prelude to a rather predictable outcome. That wasn’t to say the outcome wasn’t pleasurable, just predictable.
Too bad it was nearly time to turn the table and engage the partner on his other side. Even if he didn’t recognise the signs that the table was about to shift, Lady Alixe’s deep sigh of relief would have cued him. He wouldn’t let her go that easily.
With a last sortie of mischief, Merrick leaned close to Lady Alixe, close enough to smell the lemon-
lavender scent of her toilette water, and said in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘Don’t worry, we can talk later this evening over the tea cart.’
‘I wasn’t worried.’ She managed to smile through clenched teeth.
‘Yes, you were.’
Lady Alixe turned to the man on her other side but not before her slipper-clad foot managed a parting kick to his ankle beneath the table. He would have laughed, but it hurt too much.
Dinner lost some of its lustre after that. The squire’s wife on his left was quite willing to engage in light flirtatious banter, but it was far less exciting than sparring with the stoic Lady Alixe. It had been a hard-won battle to wring the slightest smile from Lady Alixe, who’d been trying so desperately to ignore him. The squire’s wife smiled rather easily and laughed at everything, a conquest of moments.
After-dinner brandy dragged on with tedium. Merrick spent most of his time attempting to align the pretty but remote Lady Alixe from dinner with the openly curious girl at the pond. There’d been signs of that girl. Lady Alixe’s wit was finely honed and quite humorous in a dry sense when she gave it free rein. But she clearly hadn’t wanted to be recognised and not surprisingly so. If anyone got wind of their encounter the consequence could be dire for them both.
For the record, he’d have to be clear on that point with Ashe and Riordan. He didn’t truly worry they’d match the girl up with Lady Alixe. They’d been too far out in the pond to get a good look at her today and Lady Alixe wasn’t the type of girl either of them would look twice at. Most of that was Lady Alixe’s own doing, Merrick suspected. She had many excellent features. She simply chose not to maximise them and her sharp tongue would deter anyone from looking more closely at what was on offer. Ordinarily, he’d not have looked more closely either if it hadn’t been for the incident at the pond.
But now that he had, he wanted an even closer look at Lady Alixe Burke, who lived in something of a self-imposed social limbo. She had the potential to be pretty, had the propensity for clever conversation and had her father’s money. There was no reason she wasn’t up in London dazzling the ton’s bachelors or at the very least kicking them in the shins. Merrick smiled to himself. Hmmm. A mystery. If there was no reason, then by logical extension there was a very good reason she wasn’t in London. He was eager to get back to the drawing room.
In the drawing room, Merrick spotted Lady Alixe quickly. She was precisely where he thought she’d be, sitting on a sofa with an elderly neighbour, patiently listening to whatever the lady was saying. He filed the information away. Lady Alixe fancied
