Drawing a slow breath, she stared at, the cruet set.
She was certain of what she'd sensed but-and here was the rub-he was such an accomplished lover, could he conjure that, too, without it being real? Was what she'd sensed simply a facade created by his undoubted expertise?
Setting down her teacup, she straightened. It was tempting to imagine that she might, perhaps, have misjudged, and his "love" was deeper than she'd supposed. She distrusted that conclusion. It was too neat-too self-serving. One part of her mind was trying to talk the rest into it. Into entertaining the notion that he might love her in the same way she loved him.
As distractions went, that won the crown.
Lips tightening, she picked up her well-buttered toast and crunched. After arriving on her threshold unheralded, he'd taken himself off the same way-before she'd had time to wake up, let alone think. But if what she thought was even half-true, she wanted to know. Now.
She glanced at the clock; it would be hours before he called.
"I say, can you pass the butter?"
Setting aside her impatience, Patience handed Edmond the butter dish. Beside him, Angela smiled brightly. Idly scanning the faces opposite, Patience encountered Alice Colby's black-eyed stare. Intensely cold, black-eyed stare.
Alice kept staring. Patience wondered if her topknot was askew. She was about to turn to Gerrard to ask-
Alice's features contorted. "Scandalous!" Uttered in a voice hoarse with righteous fury, the exclamation cut across the conversations. All heads turned; all eyes, startled, fixed on Alice. Who clapped her knife down on the table. "I don't know how you can, miss! Sitting there like a lady, taking breakfast with decent folk." Face mottling, Alice pushed back her chair. "I, for one, do not intend to put up with it a moment longer."
"Alice?" From the bottom of the table, Minnie stared. "What is this nonsense?"
"Nonsense? Hah!" Alice nodded at Patience. "Your niece is a fallen woman-do you call that nonsense?"
Stunned silence gripped the table.
"Fallen woman?" Whitticombe leaned forward to follow Alice's gaze.
The others looked, too. Patience kept her gaze steady on Alice's; her face had frozen, luckily in a relaxed expression. She was leaning on her elbows, her hands, steady, gripping her teacup. Outwardly, she consciously exuded calm; inside, her wits whirled. How to respond? Coolly, she raised one brow, faintly incredulous.
"Really, Alice!" Minnie frowned disapprovingly. "The things you do imagine!"
"Imagine?" Alice sat bolt upright. "I didn't imagine a large gentleman in the corridor in the middle of the night!"
Gerrard shifted. "That was Vane." He glanced at Henry and Edmond, then looked at Minnie. "He came upstairs with us when we got in."
"Yes. Indeed." Distinctly pale, Edmond cleared his throat. "He… ah…" He glanced at Minnie.
Who nodded, and looked at Alice. "See, there's a perfectly logical explanation."
Alice glowered. "That doesn't explain why he walked down the corridor to your niece's room."
Timms sighed. Dramatically. "Alice, Minnie doesn't have to explain all she does to everyone. After the disappearance of her pearls, naturally, Vane has been keeping an eye on the house. When he returned to the house late, he simply did a last watchman's round."
"Naturally." Minnie nodded, chins in unison. "Just the sort of thing he would do." She glanced, challengingly, at Alice. "He's very considerate in such ways. As for these aspersions you're casting on both Patience's and Vane's characters, you should really be careful of making outrageous accusations without foundation."
Flags flew in Alice cheeks. "I know what I saw-"
"Alice! That's enough." Whitticombe rose; his gaze locked with his sister's. "You mustn't distress people with your fantasies."
There was an emphasis in his words Patience didn't understand. Alice gaped. Then her color surged. Hands clenched, she glared at her brother. "I am not-"
"Enough!" Leaving his seat, Whitticombe quickly rounded the table. "I'm sure everyone will excuse us. You're clearly overwrought."
He manhandled Alice, incoherent with rage, from her chair and locked an arm about her scrawny shoulders. With a strained smile for the rest of the company, he turned her and marched her, stiff-legged, from the room.
Slightly dazed, Patience watched them go. And wondered how she'd weathered potential calamity without uttering a single word.
The answer was obvious, but she didn't understand it.