His entrance had not been preceded by the butler, as she had expected. He came in alone, though some unseen hand closed the doors behind him.
Time stood still.
He looked nothing like what she had been expecting. He must have shed his outdoor garments downstairs, but he still looked somewhat travel-worn in clothes that appeared to have been donned more for comfort than for elegance. He was not a particularly tall man. He was not portly, but he had lost the slenderness of youth. He was solidly built. His fair hair was cut short and in the candlelight appeared to be almost the same color as his bronzed face. His blue eyes looked light in comparison.
He was not a particularly handsome man. And yet there was something about him—a certain air of assurance and command, perhaps—that would surely turn heads wherever he went, particularly female heads. There always had been something ... But he no longer had a good-humored face, that charisma of charm she remembered so painfully well. There was a hardness about his eyes and his jawline, a certain set to his mouth that suggested a ruthless determination always to have his own way. Perhaps it was a look a successful businessman acquired over ten years.
It was all a momentary impression. But in that moment Christina felt as if she were gazing on a stranger, one for whom she felt an instinctive dislike—and perhaps a certain degree of fear. She and her daughters were dependents of this man, who had very little reason, except common decency, to treat them kindly.
And then his eyes met hers for a brief, timeless moment.
He was so very different, she thought. She might have passed him on a deserted street and not recognized him. And yet he was so very much the same. Her heart pounded its recognition. He might have been hidden at the opposite end of a crowded room and she would have felt his presence.
Gerard.
His bow included all three of them. “My lady?” he said. He had already turned his eyes away from her. “Ma’am— Aunt Hannah, is it not? And Margaret?”
He spoke and behaved as if she were a stranger to him, someone to whom he was paying his formal, distant respects for the first time. And yet for that single moment he had gazed at her surely as she had gazed at him—down the years, pausing and pondering, stripping away layers of change. Stripping away the years.
Aunt Hannah and Margaret were already curtsying and smiling and greeting him. Christina realized in some mortification that she was still seated. She set her work down beside her, got to her feet, and sank into a deep curtsy.
“My lord,” she said.
She was in the presence of a stranger, of a man she had never seen before, yet one she had known all her life and perhaps even before that.
The worst was over, she told herself. He was quite simply a stranger.
Christina was thankful for the fact that the other three were inclined to converse at dinner. She did not feel so inclined herself. For one thing, she felt unduly upset by what had happened after the butler had come to the drawing room to announce dinner.
“His lordship has not had time to change yet, Billings,” she had said. “Have dinner kept for another half hour, if you please.”
“It will be served immediately,” the earl had said briskly. “Everyone has waited long enough. May I escort you to the dining room, ma’am?” He had offered his arm to his aunt.
Christina had felt foolish and even a little humiliated— she had given the command without a thought to the fact that she no longer had the right to do so. She should have waited for him to respond to the announcement. But as if that were not bad enough, he had turned his eyes on her and spoken again.
“Unless, that is,” he had said, “you take exception to my appearance, my lady?”
Her eyes had swept over him, taking in his slightly creased coat, his loosely tied cravat, his breeches and top boots, which had become filmed with dust at some time during the day.
“Not at all, my lord,” she had assured him with all the civility of which she was capable. Gilbert would not have allowed anyone to thebreakfasttable so dressed.
He had said no more and had proceeded to the dining room with Aunt Hannah on his arm—but only after staring at her coolly a little longer than was necessary, an unreadable expression on his face. Mockery? Triumph? Dislike? All three?
He had left Christina with the feeling that she had been subtly but very firmly put in her place. It had left her with the uncomfortable conviction that perhaps the worst was not yet over after all. He had taken the chair at the head of the table, of course. There had been no question of that. But it was where Gilbert had always sat, where she herself had sat since his death. She sat facing him along the length of the table, feeling the full reality of her subordinate, dependent position.
He was very different from what she had expected. She had expected—what? Signs of age? He was only one-and-thirty. He was older, but it was no negative thing. He was no longer the slender boy of her memory, but a mature, well-built man. Signs of moody restlessness to replace the eagerness with which he had faced life as a young man? He was a confident, self-assured, even arrogant man. Signs of dissipation? There were none. There was nothing in him—yet, at least—with which to comfort herself and her conscience. Nothing visible with which she might tell herself that yes, she had been wise, she had been right.
She could sense his dislike, as she could feel her own.
“London was more crowded than I expected it to be,” he was saying in answer to Margaret’s question, “considering the fact it has been only the Little Season and not the spring squeeze.”
“Ah.” Margaret sighed. “How wonderful that must have been.”
“Not as wonderful as your come-out Season was, I daresay,” he said. “Did you enjoy it?”
Margaret pulled a face. “Whatcome-out Season?” she asked. “I have never been farther than ten miles from Thornwood.”
He raised his eyebrows and his eyes met Christina’s along the length of the table. She read both surprise and accusation in them.
