“Excuse me?” She’d glanced back at him with raised eyebrows.
“The village, where the festival…”
“Oh, Heaven’s no! I was simply travelling through… the same as you.”
And then their eyes held, almost as though they were both imagining the same thing: That but for such an ironic twist of fate, they might never have become reacquainted. They might have been lost to one another forever…
The secret to finding your future lies in the fortune you lost in your past. Madame Zeta’s words stole their way into his mind.
Folly. Ridiculousness. And yet…
“My aunt lives here, in London. I’m between positions and it seemed as good a time as any to come home for a visit.” Her face glowed and her gaze seemed to soften as she spoke of spending time with her family.
His gaze fell on her lips. She was doing it again… mesmerizing him.
And like a moth to the flame, he couldn’t help but step closer to her, not quite touching. If he reached out…
She did not step away from him.
“Your aunt lives in Mayfair?”
“Number thirty-six Wigmore Street.” She spoke the address as though reciting it for school, and then laughed. He rather enjoyed the sound. It wasn’t an annoying titter, feigned for deliberate effect, but a melodic expression of mirth.
He couldn’t help but match her grin. “Number twelve Brooks.”
He’d returned to London many times and she’d only been a scant number of blocks away. A strand of her hair caught on her lips and he lifted his hand to brush it away.
At his touch, she blushed and dropped her head, then turned back to stare into the fountain. “Will you remain in London for the season?” Her voice came out sounding wistful.
He did not know. In that moment, all he knew was that he wanted to pull her up against him. Taste her lips again.
That enchanted feeling wouldn’t be there again, it couldn’t possibly be, and yet some defiant need inside of him demanded he find out.
“Matilda.” His voice came out gravelly sounding. He cleared his throat. She turned to face him.
Her chin lifted and she gazed back at him boldly. Did she wonder as well?
When he’d kissed her before, he remembered, he’d braced his hands above her on the bark of the tree. This time he wound them around her waist, drawing her against him.
She exhaled sharply, still gazing into his eyes. She wondered too. He knew it. She was not a stranger to him, even after all these years. He didn’t know how, or why. But…
He knew her.
She trembled beneath his hands. The pulse in her neck fluttered like a trapped butterfly.
When her lashes dropped, he swept in and claimed her lips.
She’d wondered.
When he’d led her onto the terrace, she’d known this would happen. And she’d given in to him––to it.
Because she’d wondered.
From the moment he took her hand to assist her out of that blasted tent.
She’d wondered.
When he’d placed her hand in his and led her around the dance floor.
