I pivoted to the side, fiddling with the long rope of my braid where it lay over my shoulder. “And you?” I asked, glancing at him out of the corner of my eye. “Are you well?”
“Yes. Yes, I am. Thank you for asking.”
I nodded, wondering if we could possibly have become more staid or polite. Either we seemed to argue with one another or we turned to stilted small talk. And I wasn’t certain I didn’t prefer the arguing. At least it didn’t leave me standing here feeling foolish and uncertain, wondering what Gage was thinking.
“You said you wanted to talk,” I prodded, unable to stand the awkward silence a moment longer.
“Uh . . . yes.” But he hesitated to say more, his gaze turning cautious, as if he wasn’t certain how to voice his next words. Or he was wary of how I would react to them.
I tilted my head, considering him. Beyond his ruffled hair, which I knew he was prone to comb his fingers through when he was frustrated or impatient, he was still impeccably turned out in his evening kit. Even his cravat had not become rumpled through the evening’s events. I suspected he had been planning to make this midnight visit before we even parted company, and he had been pacing his room, biding his time, until he knew he could steal into my chamber without being seen. I had but one guess as to why he was so eager to speak with me, and it made sense he would be cautious in bringing it up.
“This is about William Dalmay, isn’t it?”
Gage did not try to insult my intelligence by denying it or couching it in gentler terms.
I sighed in frustration, knowing what he was going to say. “I have no intention of discussing him with you.”
“Be reasonable,” he said, an edge returning to his voice. “I’m concerned for your well-being. The man is simply not safe.”
I glared over my shoulder at him. “Says who? You?”
His mouth tightened into a thin line.
“You have no right to speak to me on this matter. I think I know William just a little bit better than you do.”
“Perhaps you did,” he replied, emphasizing the past tense of the word. “But he’s not the same man he was before he went into the asylum. You can see that.”
“And what do you know of the matter? You were in London or Greece . . .” I gestured with my hand “. . . or wherever you were when he was locked away. And you’ve been here at Dalmay House all of—what? A week? How does that make you an authority on William Dalmay?”
“It doesn’t. But I would wager I know far more than you about the inmates of lunatic asylums and just what they’re capable of.”
“Will isn’t just some nameless inmate,” I snapped, hating that detestable word. “He’s my friend. And I am not going to let you scare me or turn me against him. He needs our help, not our condemnation.” I turned to walk away from him, but Gage’s hand shot out to grip my upper arm.
“I’m only asking you to be sensible,” he growled, his face tight with frustration. “The man is, at the very least, unpredictable. And I don’t like erratic, potentially volatile men.”
“Will is not volatile.” I stared up into Gage’s angry gaze, trying to make him understand. “I know him. He would never hurt me.”
Gage’s eyes searched mine and in my gaze I pleaded with him to listen to me, to stop this ridiculous campaign to keep us apart. His hand pulled me closer to him, tightening almost painfully around my arm, and then loosened, though he still did not release me. “Who is William Dalmay to you?” he surprised me by asking.
I blinked up at him in confusion.
“Was there really nothing between you?”
Heat blossomed in my cheeks as I realized what he meant. “No. I already told everyone we were just friends. He would never have behaved so dishonorably.”
Gage’s gaze sharpened beneath his furrowed brow. I wanted to turn away, to hide from his all-too-knowing eyes. “But you wished he would?”
My heart squeezed sharply, whether from the remembered heartache of my adolescent self or my current mortification, I wasn’t certain. Either way, I could not maintain eye contact with the man in front of me. “I was fifteen,” I offered by way of explanation. “And he was a handsome war hero.”
He considered my words while I contemplated the lapels of his frock coat. “And a tortured one.”
His insightful response drew my gaze back to his. “Yes,” I admitted.
Gage nodded.
“Didn’t you ever become infatuated at fifteen? Whether it was wise or not?”
His mouth quirked wryly and a glimmer of humor returned to his eyes. “The young women of Devon were never more safe than when I left for Cambridge.”
I arched my eyebrows.
Seeing the look in my eyes, he coughed. “But let’s not discuss my adolescence, shall we?”