How much time had passed since she had been touched with tenderness? Since her heart had thudded hard and fast, since someone had kissed her passionately, brought her pleasure, made her feel alive? Far too much.
Not since Robin.
But as handsome as Dorset was, and as tempting as his offer, Tilly was not ready to make herself vulnerable to another man. Not now. Mayhap not ever.
“I do not dance,” she warned the marquess.
“Excellent.” He grinned, revealing his dimples and a neat line of teeth. “Neither do I.”
Dear Dorset. The handsome fellow was not taking a hint. Where was the footman with the champagne when she needed him?
“I want to drink,” she elaborated, “and watch my guests in their revelries. That isall, my lord.”
“My dear duchess.” His grin turned to a smirk. “I know not what rumors you have heard about me, but allow me to reassure you that I have no wish to do anything aside from drinking and watching. Indeed, watching is a favorite indulgence of mine.”
There was no doubt that he had issued a double entendre, and that thewatchinghe referred to did not involve ballroom quadrilles but rather bedchamber romps. Once, when she had been younger, wilder, and more desperate to escape the misery of her circumstances, she may have been intrigued. But no longer. She was free now, but her heart was still trapped in a gilded cage of its own making.
Tilly was about to change the subject and steer their conversation into safer territory when her eye caught upon a man whose back faced her. He stood across the crush of the ballroom, scarcely twenty paces, and when her gaze settled upon him, it was as if all the breath had been thieved from her lungs. There was something about the way he stood, the breadth of his shoulders, and his uncommon height, a head above all the men and women surrounding him, that was familiar.
Toofamiliar.
Desperately, achingly familiar.
Her heart sped up. Her mouth went dry. Hope, long dormant, flared to life.
“Robin.”
His name fled her lips as a whisper and a prayer, all its own.
“I beg your pardon?” Dorset was asking at her side, likely as flummoxed as she felt.
It could not be. Could it? She had spent all her pin money, had sold jewelry, and risked her husband’s wrath to hire investigators to find him. The servants had been silent despite her pleas. Her good friend the Earl of Sinclair and his wife had aided her when desperation had at last led her to seek help from others. Every hint, each clue, regardless of how initially promising, had eventually led nowhere.
The man she loved had vanished.
“Forgive me,” she murmured to Dorset, unable to tear her gaze away from the other man. “I see a friend I must greet.”
She did not wait for the marquess to respond. Her feet were moving. Her body was careening forward like a carriage set into motion. The distance was closing between herself and the stranger who possessed a bearing so similar to Robin’s.
His hair was different, she noted. Longer. Darker.
It was not him. How could his hair have changed? She was seeing what she wanted to see. The champagne had rendered her quite mad.
Unless she was mistaken in the particular shade of Robin’s formerly cropped locks? She had not even a picture of him to recall him by, something she would forever regret. So much time had passed since she had seen him. Too much. A lifetime, it seemed.
And still, she was moving, the lights and the colors and the sounds swirling around her. She remained intent upon her course, on proving it was him. Or that it wasn’t. Either way, she was beyond the ability to control herself…
He moved. His gait was labored, stiff. And that was wrong, too. Robin had not limped. He had moved effortlessly, fluidly, with a gracefulness few possessed, as if the world had been fashioned for him alone. That was when she noticed the walking stick the mystery gentleman clutched. When she took note of the long, elegant fingers clasping the gold handle as he leaned on it for purchase.
She reached the man, her hand landing on his elbow. The barest hint of a touch. But the awareness she had always felt for Robin skipped up her arm like sparks, burning, fiery, bright. A brand of the most painful and delicious sort. One she felt on her heart.
Recognition hit her before he turned. Before those stormy blue eyes she had gazed into so many times clashed with hers. Before she saw the mouth that had kissed her senseless all those nights. The cleft in his chin.
But then, he was facing her. And it washim.
Her heart stopped.
Her breath stopped.
