Trevor scowled at me. “We still have Alana’s chamber . . .”
“It’s pink,” I snapped, before he could add to that ludicrous statement. “Trevor, what is going on? Why are you acting this way?” He turned his head aside, but I continued on, wanting an answer. “And why do you care which bedchamber he sleeps in? He’ll be at the opposite end of the house from you, if that’s what bothers you, across the hall from . . . Ohhh,” I groaned in annoyance. “Is that why? Because he’ll be across the hall from me?”
His gaze was sharp and angry. “Kiera, I’ve spent time in London. I know Mr. Gage’s reputation. He’s a rake.”
I rolled my eyes and turned away. “He’s not a rake.”
“Kiera, as a man, I think I know just a little bit more about these things than you do,” he declared, following me across the room.
“Then you realize that some people’s reputations are unearned. That rumors are often false,” I shot back at him. After everything I’d been through, the scandal and the name-calling, I’d thought my brother would have learned to be a little slower to rush to judgment.
I saw that he knew what I was referring to, but far from being chastened, his mouth set into even more mulish lines. “He has a history of dawdling with widows.”
“And so, because I’m a widow, you think he wishes to dawdle with me?”
“I know he does.”
I had opened my mouth to respond, but the certainty in my brother’s voice startled me into silence.
“I see the way he looks at you,” he persisted. “And it’s not innocent.”
I felt a blush beginning to burn its way up into my cheeks, and hated that betrayal of my reaction to such a statement. “Gage has behaved nothing but honorably toward me.”
Trevor’s eyes searched my own, the bright lapis lazuli color softening to a more muted hue. “That doesn’t mean I have to trust him.”
“Trevor!” I protested.
“No, Kiera,” he told me gently. “You may believe his intentions are good, but I have the right to withhold my confidence until he’s proven it to me.” He reached up to chuck me playfully under the chin, a gesture I’d hated as a child, but now accepted as the endearment it was. “I’m your brother. If I don’t look out for you, who will?”
I sighed and reluctantly nodded. I knew he was right. I couldn’t force him to trust Gage, not when it had also taken me some time and persuasion to do so myself. Gage was not one for confidences, and he preferred to charm people and fool them into thinking they were close, when in actuality he’d shared next to nothing of his real self. He’d slowly begun to let me in, and as relieved and flattered as I was by that, I was also frustrated by his unhurried pace to do so. He was the most secretive person I’d ever met. Except for, perhaps, myself.
CHAPTER NINE
Monday dawned bright and nearly cloudless. The sun’s rays streamed through my bedchamber window as Bree threw back the drapes. I groaned and rolled to my side, while she persisted in humming some ditty she’d undoubtedly danced to at the ceilidh three nights past. Normally I didn’t hold my new maid’s perpetual cheerfulness against her, but this early in the morning, after another night of fitful slumber, I was a hairsbreadth away from snarling at her.
Then I recalled the reason she was waking me so early. My heartbeat quickened in remembrance that Gage was in the bedchamber across the hall from mine. Though I’d half expected him to, he had not visited my chamber the previous evening. At least, not to my knowledge. And I’d been awake until after the clock struck three. I should have been relieved that he’d decided to follow the rules of propriety—and I was—but I would be lying if I didn’t admit I was also a little disappointed. Apparently, Gage was still able to keep me off my guard, even when that meant not appearing when I was prepared for him to do so.
I pushed myself upright, scraping my wild hair back from my face. From his corner at the bottom of the bed, Earl Grey cracked open one golden eye to see what was happening and then settled back into slumber.
“Good morning, m’lady,” Bree proclaimed brightly as she bustled across the chamber carrying a gown from my dressing room, which she laid over a chair.
I mumbled my greeting in reply, unable as yet to bestir myself more.
She carried over a tray filled with toast, jam, and chocolate—my normal morning repast—and set it across my lap. “It looks teh be a lovely day.”