Page 79 of In the Prince's Bed

“Alec—” she began.

“Not yet,” he murmured. “Let’s go into the garden, where we can be alone.”

She started to pull her hand from his arm. “I don’t think I want to be alone with you just now.”

He gripped her hand as he steered her toward the doors leading outside. “You have no choice…unless you want me to go back and knock Lovelace into the next county after all.”

She shot him a nervous glance. “You wouldn’t.”

“Right now, I just might.”

She headed out the doors without a murmur. But as soon as they’d entered the garden, she wrenched free of his grip to whirl on him. “You are unconscionable. You don’t show up, you don’t send word, and then you get angry withmebecause I danced with Sydney?”

He stalked forward. “It wasn’t your dancing with him that sparked my temper, sweetheart. It was the fact that you hadn’t told him we’re marrying.”

Backing away, she shook her head. “You were angry before you even knew that.”

“How wouldyoureact if you’d raced here after two frantic days dealing with an emergency, only to find your intended on another man’s arm?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Probably the same wayyou’dreact if you heard that your intended had gone to some hotel the very night he offered marriage. And that he didn’t want you to know about it.”

That knocked the wind right out of him. Only now did he notice the tears shining in her eyes and the trembling of her chin. Blast, blast, and double-blast.

A sound beyond her made him look up to see several people watching them from the balcony. Katherine followed his gaze and cursed under her breath.

He leveled a black look on their audience, who one by one disappeared back into the ballroom. Spotting an orangery at the end of the walk, he grabbed her arm and towed her toward it.

“What are you doing?” she snapped, trying to wriggle free.

“Do you really want to have this argument in front of half the world?”

“They’re gone now.”

“They’ll return, I assure you. No one can resist a public quarrel.”

That seemed to decide her, for she let him lead her inside the orangery. Despite the windows on the opposite end, the place was as black as gunpowder on the moonless night. He removed his gloves, then felt along the ledge near the door until he found a lamp and the flint box beside it.

Once lit, the lamp illuminated a very annoyed Katherine, who watched him with thinly disguised impatience. “Well? I had good reason to dance with Sydney. What is your reason for going to the Stephens Hotel and keeping it from me?”

He should have known Katherine would wheedle the truth out of that damned footboy. But how much had she learned? It would be just like his clever wife-to-be to pretend ignorance in order to catch him in a lie.

Better to stick to the facts. “I live there.”

Judging from the shock on her face, she hadn’t learnedthat.“Y-You what?”

In for a penny, in for a pound. “I live at the Stephens Hotel when I’m in town. My father sold our town house when he grew too ill to come into society, and I haven’t had time to buy a new one.” Or the money to rent one.

Confusion knit her brow. “But why didn’t you want me to know that?”

“The Stephens Hotel isn’t exactly the grand lodgings an earl should have. I could have gone to the Clarendon, but the owner of Stephens is a friend of mine.” And the Clarendon was beyond his means.

She eyed him suspiciously. “Then why did your ‘friend’ say he’d never heard of you?”

Alarm swamped him. “What did you do—have a runner interrogate him?”

She had the good grace to blush. “No, but…well, when the footboy you sent wouldn’t say where he worked, I…had Thomas follow him. Thomas talked to the owner, who denied knowing you.”

Alec shrugged. “I requested that Jack not mention it to anyone. I didn’t want to deal with people’s questions about why I had no town house.”