They grinned at each other, and Neville, Earl of Kilbourne, who was just out of earshot, pursed his lips and looked innocent.
13
Claudia and Susanna had just returned from a visit toHookham’s library the following morning when the Duke of McLeith called at the house. He was admitted to the morning room, where Claudia was sitting alone, leafing through the book she had just borrowed. Susanna had gone up to the nursery to see Harry.
“Claudia,” he said, advancing across the room after the butler had announced him and the collie had rushed across the room to bark at him and then wag his tail. “Your dog?”
“I believe it is more a case of my being his person,” she said as he tickled him behind one ear. “Until I can find a good home for him, I am his.”
“Do you remember Horace?” he asked.
Horace!He was a spaniel she had adored as a child. He had followed her everywhere, like a floppy-eared shadow. She smiled as they both took a seat.
“Viscount and Viscountess Ravensberg spoke with me last evening before I left the ball,” he said. “They invited me to spend a few weeks at Alvesley Park before returning to Scotland. Apparently there is to be a large gathering there for the Earl and Countess of Redfield’s anniversary. I must confess I was surprised—I did not think I had a sufficient acquaintance with them to merit such a distinction. However, the viscountess explained that you were going to be staying at Lindsey Hall nearby and that I might be glad of a few weeks in which to enjoy your company again after so long.”
He paused and looked inquiringly at Claudia.
She clasped her hands in her lap and looked back at him without comment. Susanna and all her friends seemed charmed by the story he had told—which was quite true, though it was not by any means the whole truth. She had once loved him with all the ardor of her young heart. But though the days of their courtship had been innocent and decorous, their parting had been neither.
She had given her virginity to Charlie out on a deserted hilltop behind her father’s house.
He had sworn that he would come back for her at the earliest opportunity to make her his bride. He had sworn too, holding her tightly to him while they had both wept, that he would love her forever, that no man had ever loved as he loved. She had said much the same in return, of course.
“So,” he said, “what do you think? Shall I accept? We have had so little chance to talk since we met again, yet there is so much to say. There is so much reminiscing still to do and so much getting to know each other again. I believe I like the new Claudia every bit as much as I liked the old. But we had happy times together, did we not? No real brother and sister could have been more contented with each other’s company.”
She had carried anger inside her for such a long time that she sometimes thought it was gone, over with, forgotten. But some long-ago feelings ran so deep that they became part of one’s very being.
“We werenotbrother and sister, Charlie,” she said briskly, “and we certainly did not think of ourselves as such for the year or two before you went away. We were in love.” She kept her eyes on him as the dog settled across her feet and sighed with contentment.
“We were very young,” he said, his smile fading.
“There is a perception among the not-so-young,” she said, “that the young are incapable of loving, that their feelings are of no significance.”
“Young people lack the wisdom that age brings,” he said. “It was almost inevitable that we develop romantic feelings for each other, Claudia. We would have grown out of them. I had almost forgotten.”
She felt a deep rage—not for herself as she was now, but for the girl she had been. That girl had suffered inconsolably for years.
“We can laugh about it now,” he said.
He smiled. She did not.
“I am not laughing,” she said. “Whydid you forget, Charlie? Because I meant so little to you? Because remembering was too uncomfortable for you? Because you felt guilty about that last letter you wrote me?”
I am a duke now, Claudia. You must understand that that makes a great deal of difference.
…I am a duke…
“And have you forgotten also that we were actually lovers on one occasion?” she asked him.
A dull flush crept up his neck and into his cheeks. She willed herself not to flush too. But she would not look away from his eyes.
“That was unwise,” he said, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck as if his neckcloth had suddenly become too tight. “It was unwise of your father to give us so much freedom. It was unwise of you when I was going away and there might have been consequences. And it was unwise of me—”
“Because,” she suggested when he hesitated, “there might have been consequences and they might have caused complications to your new life—as your final letter made very clear?”
I must not be seen to associate too closely with people who are beneath my notice. I am a duke now…
“I had not realized, Claudia,” he said with a sigh, “that you were bitter. I am sorry.”
