He summoned a forced smile. “I was under the impression this was my home. Am I not welcome here?”
Court cursed himself for the touch of bitterness leaching into the question. There was something damned disagreeable in the air here at Sherborne Manor. It was as if all the agony and despair of centuries’ worth of miserable Sherborne ancestors had seeped into the stone foundation, remaining like wraiths to haunt the unfortunates who still traversed these halls.
He hated it here. He should not have come. Would not have done, were it not where his wife was.His wife.Christ, but it felt strange and yet right to call her that. To look upon her and think something so ridiculously possessive asmine. He hated himself for the awareness of her careening through him. For the thoughts of her beauty, for the unwanted longing.
What would Percy say if he could see his oldest chum now? Court shuddered to think it.
Vivi was frowning at him as if he were the source of her everlasting disappointment. She had not moved any nearer, making no effort to close the distance between them. Nor to greet him in a wifely manner.
Not even a friendly one.
His wife’s blue eyes were fashioned of ice.
“Of course you are welcome,” she said, her tone of voice suggesting entirely the opposite.
Court was vaguely aware of some female domestics hovering in the distance, one of whom appeared to be matronly and elegantly dressed enough to be the housekeeper his wife had hired according to his steward, a set of keys hanging at her waist. They had an audience. He ought to keep his thoughts to himself.
And yet, his stupid mouth was moving. Moving the same way his legs were, carrying him closer to the wife he had missed.
“You are not pleased to see me,” he observed, stopping before her.
The freckles were gone, he realized, mourning their charming path which had once reminded him of a constellation all her own lightly dancing over the delicate bridge of her nose. He wondered what else had changed. What she had lost besides the tiny coppery specks that had once entranced him.
“You are unexpected, Your Grace,” she said with cold civility.
Decidedly not the spirited hoyden he remembered. She had a smear of dirt on her cheekbone, and he longed to wipe it from her pale skin. Perhaps there was a hint of her former self lingering within, the intrepid girl whose bravery and determination had never ceased to amaze him.
“Formality, Vivi?” he asked, an odd, hurt sensation lingering, rather like an old wound newly opened.
Like Percy’s death.
Like returning to England and being forced to face the fact that his friend was no longer here. How easy it had been by comparison, to travel and lie to himself that Percy was merely at home in England. That he hadn’t drowned when theMargueritehad been swallowed by the sea.
Vivi’s full lips tightened incrementally, and Court couldn’t help but notice how full and lush they were, the pale, delicate pink of a summer rose in bloom. Lips he remembered beneath his all too well.
“How am I meant to greet a stranger, if not with formality?” she asked, her voice dripping with scorn.
She was angry with him.
He might have known; indeed, he had brought it on himself, keeping his distance for so long.
“I’m hardly a stranger,” he reminded her. “You’ve known me since you were a girl who adored splashing in puddles and climbing trees.”
She remained unsmiling and aloof, staring at him with an inscrutable gaze that may as well have been a blade for the way it cut at him. “I realized some time ago that I never knew you, Bradford. Now, if you please, tell me what you are doing here and when you plan to leave again. I have dozens of guests about to descend upon me in two weeks’ time, and your unexpected arrival only adds to the strain of the household preparations.”
She made him feel unwelcome. As if he were an undesirable visitor in his own home. Never mind that it was a home he never had truly felt comfortable in; it was the ancestral estate that reminded him of his father, the previous Duke of Bradford, a man who had been as unforgiving as he had been cold and cruel.
“Dozens of guests?” he repeated, focusing on that detail rather than the sharp rebuke unspoken in her words. “What is the reason for it?”
“The reason?” Her nostrils flared—a small characteristic he recalled from their younger days, whenever he had bested her at something.
Somehow, it pleased him to see this old part of herself, regardless that it meant she was irritated with him. He had earned her irritation, after all. But he wouldn’t think of all the ways he had failed her and Percy just now.
“Yes, the reason, Vivi dear,” he explained patiently, still distracted by that errant smudge of dirt on her delicate cheekbone, which seemed to call for him to remove it, though he dared not touch her. Not yet, even if his heart demanded the contact he’d spent all his time away pining for. “Why should you have dozens of guests about to arrive at Sherborne Manor?”
And how soon would they be leaving? He hadn’t intended to have a damned audience for his wooing. It would be awkward enough attempting to make amends for the past without being presided over by London lords and ladies, sharp-tongued gossips, and stiff-backed sticklers for propriety alike.
His wife didn’t answer his question, however. Instead, she spun on her heel and strode away from him. There was a swing to her hips that was all womanly, and the ankles peeping from the dampened hem of her gown were well-turned and tempting. Her waist was as lush as he remembered, the pleasing curves calling for his hands to travel over them, to learn her shape anew.
