Lions and Lace by Meagan McKinney Page A

across from his desk, thinking with shattering clarity about what her uncle had done to her. If she'd come to the conclusion that her uncle was a devil, then the dark, emotionless man in front of her was Satan incarnate. Her uncle had proven himself to be so lacking in character that he was unworthy of cleaning the Van Alen chamberpots . But in truth, the Irishman Trevor Sheridan was the real source of all her trouble. Her uncle had thrown in his share of the kindling. She would never forgive him. But she couldn't escape the fact that it was the Irishman who had sparked the fire in the first place.
    While she churned with these thoughts, she leveled a cool green stare at Sheridan. She knew she must appear an ice princess on the outside, yet on the inside, when she thought about being tied to this man's banister like a runaway slave before the war, she burned with humiliation.
    She looked across the desk The man's attitude toward her bedraggled presence seemed as cold and professional as if he were dealing with one of his bankers. She watched him, and her anger produced another silent thorn. She wondered how the man could be so emotionless and calculating. He'd taken all her money and now didn't even possess the grace to offer her a shawl.
    She studied him more closely. Her host, if that was what this devil could be called, was finely attired in black trousers and a burgundy silk paisley waistcoat. Her unexpected appearance had caught him unawares because his shirt was missing its starched collar, and the stud was gone at the throat, revealing a mass of dark chest hair. His head was bent as he perused a document on his desk, and the flames from the gas lamp lit the planes of his profile. He was a handsome man. His hair was cropped, and she thought the color was black, yet it was difficult to tell in the dim gaslight. He wasn't looking at her now, but from the first time their gazes had met, she had known that particular dark-hazel color of his eyes could only be from his native Erin.
    An uncontrollable shiver caught her, and she wrapped her palms around her upper arms in a futile attempt to warm herself. This seemed finally to gain his attention. He looked up from the paper he was reading, and his gaze ran down her soaked Worth gown, taking particular note of the way the sodden peach flowers wilted at her décolletage and the defeated way she grasped her limp ciel -blue satin train. All at once the silence became deafening.
    "Miss Van Alen ?" he asked rhetorically, shattering the library's tomb-like quiet.
    She didn't answer, giving him a frosty leaf-green glance that belied the blush of shame pinkening her cheeks.
    As if expecting her to be difficult, he checked the paper before him and began to recite from it, his pronunciation almost artificial in its exactness. "You are Miss Alice Diana Van Alen , of Thirty-eight Washington Square. You are considered to be one of the foremost treasures of the city of New York. Your family has had a box at the Academy of Music from the beginning of time, even before the illustrious Caroline Schermerhorn got her clutches on old Backhouse. Your ancestors were shareholders in the Dutch West India Company, and you can trace your family all the way to the Schuylers , the Philipses , the Van Rensselaers —even Peter Stuyvesant." He looked up. "Have I the right woman, then? Am I correct?"
    Alana felt the sudden heat of anger. Instead of shivering, she boiled. The man looked at her as if she were some kind of dead poet whose meaningless life could be summed up in a paragraph.
    "No, you are not correct, Mr. Sheridan," she said in a tone that could cause frostbite. "He signed his name Petrus . I am related to Petrus Stuyvesant."
    "Of course. My mistake." Their eyes met for a moment, and as if to taunt her, he took the paper from which he'd read her biography and made a display out of changing Peter to Petrus .
    She stood and leaned over the great rosewood desk separating them. With a boldness she