He stared at the candelabra in front of him. “By some trick of fate, we have ended up side by side.”
“Fate, sir?” Mockery curdled her tone. “I don’t believe in it.”
“Mayhap the Almighty is having a fine jest at our expense.” He drummed his fingers lightly atop the damask tablecloth. “To your credit you were never one for theatrics or hysterics. You’ll simply soldier on through supper and make the best of it.”
“And you, stalwart seaman that you are, shall do the same.” She shifted as if uncomfortable in her chair. “Despite the fact we are drawing noticeable attention.”
He raised his gaze. No less than half a dozen pairs of eyes were on them. “People have long memories of thwarted love affairs.”
“Indeed.”
“Well, I for one have a few overdue inquiries,” he said, then paused to swallow a sip of wine. “How is your dear mother?”
“Buried.”
Nay.Dismayed, he let the news settle. Her terse answer begged details he could not ask about. “My deepest sympathies.” He meant it. Eleanor Shaw had been an uncommon woman. A woman ahead of her time, or rather a woman who made good use of the time she’d been given.
“A question for a question,” Esmée said as soup was served. “Why have you come ashore?”
He eyed the monogrammed bowl surmounted by the Lightfoot family crest that was set before him. Crab bisque? “I spent the last three years in the Summer Isles. I was beginning to forget Virginia.”
To this she made no reply. The lukewarm soup was more enjoyable than their stilted conversation. Only a dozen more courses to go.
“How is your father?” he asked, having spied the admiral earlier in the evening. It was a far safer question.
“Adrift without my mother.”
“And your sister?”
“’Tis my turn, Captain.”
He wished for a little levity, but she was unsmiling. Intense. Gone was the warmth and approachability that had once marked her. Had she somehow assumed some of her sister’s mercurial hauteur? If so, it was a cold, shrewd beauty that left him missing the Esmée of old.
“What of your own Virginia kin?” she asked, turning intelligent eyes on him.
“Deceased. The rest are in Scotland, if you recall. And France. I’ve none left in the colonies.”
Her lengthy pause rattled him. “I’m ... terribly sorry.” She ran a spoon through her soup but made no move to eat it. “To answer your earlier question, my sister is as irrepressible as ever.”
Down the long table came Eliza’s unmistakable laugh. She was heavier than he remembered.Enceinte?And all aglitter from head to toe. In the press of guests he’d not gotten a good look at the bewigged gentleman who’d danced with her. Her husband?
“Your sister was always one to land on her feet,” he murmured.
Esmée herself was dressed far more sedately. Her yellow gown seemed rather faded, but the lace draping her bodice and sleeves was exquisite, a foil to her bountiful black hair. And her pearls ... She’d always preferred them. When in the South Seas he’d oft been reminded of that.
Fish was served along with dishes he later couldn’t recall, so intent was he on their forced talk. Esmée pushed her food around her plate while he managed a few forkfuls. Had his presence stolen her appetite? Pale as she was, she resembled the wilting white roses at table’s center. Hardly the enchanting creature he’d stored away in memory’s darkest corner.
The silence chafed. Whose turn was it now? Though he wanted to convince himself he could navigate this encounter with aplomb, that her hold on him was irretrievably broken, he could not.
CHAPTER
seven
They seemed an island unto themselves. Little eddies of lively conversation on all sides of them made their forced, close proximity all the more painful. The silver fork grew heavy in Esmée’s hand. Every bite seemed more difficult to swallow. All at once she felt far from a self-possessed woman of nearly thirty but rather childlike and fragile, throat tight and near tears.
Dear Hermione.
Sorrow made her sag and went unrelieved as supper wore on. Esmée felt blindsided by the news, further thrown off by the captain’s stoicism reporting it, as if family were of no more merit than his crew and deserved little mention.
