Over there was the first tavern he and Whit had ever visited. At the ripe age of fifteen, they had managed to become entirely foxed before the hour struck eight, necessitating their removal from the establishment over the backs of two sturdy footmen.
And there was the corner at which a ten-year-old Alex had accidentally knocked over a fruit vendor’s cart in his panic to outrun Lady Willard’s nasty little dachshund. That misadventure had ruined his first pair of breeches—of which he’d been exceedingly proud—and had required him to purchase six bags of mashed apples and fourteen lemons.
Sophie listened to the inflections of his voice, the gravelly pitch, the cadence, the ups and downs that were uniquely his. She watched the way he frequently cocked his left eyebrow but never the right. She noticed he tapped one finger on his knee whenever lost in thought, and when he laughed he tilted his chin up. She saw the way hard muscle moved beneath the fabric of his clothes, and how the mere brushing of his arm against hers started a slow traveling burn along her skin. She noticed that his eyes seemed to dart to her mouth every time it happened. She observed every detail about him, and it unnerved her.
She couldn’t afford to lose her heart to the Duke of Rockeforte. Never mind that he appeared to be in the habit of seducing women, and that he had never professed any feelings for her beyond simple physical desire. She couldn’t risk having her heart distracting her from the necessity of marriage to a suitable gentleman. The task was quite difficult enough without the added complication of unrequited love.
Over the next hour, she made a near heroic effort to emotionally distance herself from the man sitting across from her. And failed miserably. Only she wasn’t miserable. She laughed and teased, talked and debated. She felt more relaxed and happier than she’d been in a very long while. Since that seemed unlikely to change during the course of the afternoon, she decided to let be the matter of safe distances and simply enjoy herself.
“Are you hungry?” Alex asked.
“A bit.”
“Excellent. I know just the place.”
Just the place turned out to be a ramshackle inn and tavern near the docks.
“Are you sure no one who knows us will be here?”
“Absolutely,” he replied. “This place is far outside the bounds of the fashionable.”
She had no trouble believing that. The large room was crowded with boisterous patrons in serviceable work clothes who spoke loudly and laughed even louder. Several small children darted from table to table with such gleeful abandon that it was impossible to determine which child belonged to which parents. A steady stream of friendly barmaids poured in and out the kitchen doors. To the ton, the room would be a study in the uncouth. To Sophie, it was a clean establishment where the majority of the diners were happy, well-fed families. She could think of vastly more respectable dining rooms where the miserable occupants were fed third-rate food prepared by an overpaid, fifth-rate chef.
“You’ve obviously been here before,” she said once they’d taken a table.
“Mr. McLeod was a groom of my father’s,” Alex explained. “Once, when I was a small boy, I toddled away from my nurse and fell into a fishpond. It was Mr. McLeod who found and pulled me out.”
Unnerved, Sophie took a swallow from the mug of ale a server had brought. “He saved your life.”
“He did. When my father died, he settled a small sum on the McLeods, and they used it to open this tavern. His wife and daughters have always been gifted cooks.”
“Your father must have been a very kind man,” Sophie remarked softly.
“And determined,” Alex agreed with a fond smile. “He tried rewarding McLeod for his good deed in life, but the man stubbornly refused every offer. Said he hoped someone would do the same for one of his children if need be, even if he couldn’t afford a reward. So in his will, my father claimed it was his dying wish—one of many it turned out—to see the McLeods comfortably settled. He was quite poetic about it. I could almost hear him laughing as he wrote it. He was a bit of a trickster, and he knew McLeod could never deny a man his final request.”
Sophie started to ask him more about his father, but stopped when a young woman brought a large platter full of a food she had never seen before.
“What are those?”
“Jellied eels,” he supplied.
If she had been looking at his face rather than the platter she might have noticed the mischievous glint in his eyes, and hesitated before saying “Oh!” and immediately reaching for one.
Alex couldn’t hide his startle. “You like them?”
“I’ve no idea,” she answered truthfully. “I’ve never had one before.”