Gloriously beautiful in a demure gown of white embroidered muslin, short, dark curls artfully framing her face. Their gazes had met and held, and for a moment, he’d lost his breath and capacity for thought both.
But then he had recalled the obligation awaiting him, and he had carried out the painstaking process accordingly, hating that she was his audience. Hating that he was binding himself to a woman who wasn’t her.
He bowed formally, still nettled by the sight of her in Nando’s coat, drowning her as if it were a cloak two sizes too large. “Tansy.”
Another curtsy from her, the sleeves of Nando’s coat grazing the gravel walk, her countenance wary. “Your Majesty.”
“What were you doing out here with my scoundrel of a brother?” he asked, his voice bearing a sharpness he hadn’t intended.
“We were walking.” At last, her eyes were on his instead of at her feet. “Taking the air.”
“It is raining,” he pointed out.
A faint smile curved her lips. “So I said to the prince. However, I must agree with His Royal Highness’s assessment that it is merely misting.”
Absurdly, he didn’t like that she was agreeing with Nando. He didn’t like that she was wearing his brother’s coat. He wanted to toss it into a puddle and stomp on it like a child who had been denied a favorite toy.
What a colossal arse he was. And yet, he couldn’t control the way he felt.
“You should have worn a bonnet,” he said stupidly. “You’ll take ill.”
“Thank you for your concern, Your Majesty. I am quite well without one.”
Her crisp tone was distant, as if they were no more than strangers. It sliced through him like a blade.
“What were you and Nando speaking about?” he asked, needing to know.
Had Nando been flirting with her? Attempting to woo her? Nando was loyal to him, but there was no telling what he would do when a woman was involved. Maxim didn’t think his brother was capable of resisting anything in petticoats, let alone someone as gorgeous and alluring as Tansy.
“You,” she said simply.
Relief rushed over him that Nando hadn’t been attempting a seduction, replaced swiftly by dread. “What about me?”
Although, he suspected he knew. Damn Nando and his loose tongue.
Her impassive countenance cracked for a moment, giving way to vulnerability and compassion. “About your wife.”
Mina.
His chest tightened. He didn’t want to speak about Mina to Tansy, not here in the gardens of a strange town house in London. Not after he had just signed a contract that promised him to another in a marriage that would be a sham compared to the one he’d had with his first wife.
“I see,” he forced out, the words almost painful to speak.
“I’m sorry for what happened,” she said softly.
He wished Nando hadn’t been so free with his knowledge. There were some things he wasn’t ready to admit or discuss with others. Mina’s death was one of them. But Tansy was standing before him, agonizingly lovely as the mists fell around them, her eyes laden with unabashed care and tenderness.
For him, he realized.
“Thank you,” he managed past the lump in his throat.
“It must have been very painful for you.”
It was strange to hear Tansy speaking of Mina. It felt…not like a betrayal. But odd just the same.
“Life is filled with pain,” he said, trying to keep thoughts of Mina at bay.
Trying desperately to keep from falling into one of his fits before Tansy.
