Seeing him now . ..
He has changed, she thought.
Broader, muscular, and deep of chest. Lines bracketed his eyes, wheel spokes stretching toward his temples. A beard framed lips that pulled into a taut line—lips she knew to be as soft as velvet beneath her own.
His gaze was fiercer—more Scottish raider than the youthful knight errant of her memory.
He had once laughed and smiled with ease, but intuition told Chrissi that his smiles were rarer now.
Hmmph.
Well, theyshouldbe.
Years. It had taken her years to recover from his betrayal.
The blackguardshouldhave difficulty smiling after such villainy.
Betrayal and bitter regret. That was all that remained between them now.
She gazed at him, willing none of her surprise and roiling emotions to show on her face. Waiting forhimto recoil in shock and astonishment.
But no.
Fate handed her one final, outrageous indignity of the day—
Alistair stared blankly at her and nodded politely, tipping his hat in greeting. Not a trace of recognition to be had.
“Lord Farnell, at your service, Mrs. Newton. I suspect this is not quite how either of us planned to meet,” he called, Scotland winding through his rolled Rs and expansive vowels. “However, your bravery is to be commended. We shall have ye topside shortly.”
Chrissi closed her eyes, swallowing back the thick lump of pain clogging her throat.
Ofallthe reactions she had envisioned if she ever encountered Alistair again—anger, sadness, recriminations.Shouting, perhaps. Groveling, in her more maudlin moments. Tears, even...preferably his.
Never once had she imagined that Alistair would have simply forgotten her.
That her existence would be banished from his memory, as if she and her heart had been so much fairy floss, strands of spun sugar whisked away on a stiff Highland breeze.
But that had been the problem from the beginning, had it not? His lack ofseeingher?
Deliberately, she forced her lungs to breathe in and out—to accommodate the lacerating agony of his dismissal sitting atop her sternum like a spike-studded chest.
What a nightmare.
She could hardly stay and continue with the excavation now...what with Alistair being Lord Farnell.
Working together would be impossible, no matter how desperately she needed this situation. She bit back the encroaching tears, refusing to add weeping to her list of humiliations.
Besides, surely at some point, Alistair would remember her.
Maybe once she was cleaned of mud and speaking of antiquities, some spark would ignite in his dark eyes—eyes her dreams still remembered all too clearly and frequently—and he would say in that puzzled way of his, head tilting to the side, “Ye seem a wee bit familiar, Mrs. Newton. Have we met before?”
And how would she reply?!
“Why, yes, my lord. I do believe we were betrothed once upon a time. Handfasted, even...in Florence, Italy. It was rather idyllic, what with Florence and the kissing and handfasting and all. Do you not recall?”
Awkwarddid not begin to describe the scene. To have toexplainto him what they had once been to one another. Or what she hadassumedthey had been.
Instead, she watched from her bog—mud-covered, cold, and miserable—as Alistair shrugged out of his tailored coat and gold-embroidered waistcoat, handing them along with his hat to Fiona for safekeeping from the muck.
