They approached the room and heard voices drifting into the hall from inside. Both she and Celia stiffened at once when their grandfather’s voice rose above the others. He was blustering about eggs.
“Doesn’t sound like he’s in a good mood,” Rosalinde mused.
Celia laughed, but it was a brittle, unhappy sound. “Does it ever?”
“I suppose not. Into the lion’s den we go.”
They walked through the door arm in arm and found their grandfather, the dowager countess, and Stenfax’s sister Felicity all gathered in the room. There was a long table on one side of the chamber and a sideboard heavy with delicious-smelling breakfast treats on the other.
“Ah, Mrs. Wilde,” the dowager said, moving across the room to greet her. “You have arrived at last, we were all so worried.”
Rosalinde smiled. She had met the dowager a handful of times since Stenfax had begun his courtship of Celia. The woman was warm and welcoming…and flighty as a gnat. It was funny, for she had produced very intelligent children. Her daughter Felicity, the Viscountess Barbridge, who was just a year younger than Rosalinde, was obviously clever.
The viscountess joined her mother as she greeted Rosalinde. “What a harrowing time you’ve had,” Lady Barbridge said, squeezing Rosalinde’s hand with a friendly smile first for her, then for Celia.
“I—” Rosalinde began, but before she could say anything her grandfather turned from where he had been standing at the sideboard and glared at her.
“Aharrowingtime? More likely you were dancing and laughing in your sleeve as you spent my money on a ridiculous night at an inn,” he snapped.
Rosalinde blushed at the set-down, delivered so cruelly in front of their hostesses. She drew a breath and tried to keep her own demeanor calm to combat his. His round face was red, which made his white hair even more shocking. And his blue eyes, the ones she and Celia had both inherited, were cold as ice when he stared at her.
“I assure you, Grandfather, had I not paid for an inn,youwould have been paying for four coffins,” she said softly.
He did not say anything more, but spun away, muttering something about value that stabbed her directly in the heart. She forced a smile for Lady Barbridge and the dowager, who both looked uncomfortable with what they’d witnessed. And why not? Mr. Fitzgilbert usually maintained a false joviality around the Stenfax family and a pretended affection for Celia.
This was likely the first time they’d ever seen the truth of him.
“Your home, or what I’ve seen of it, is lovely,” Rosalinde forced out as she willed tears not to fall.
The dowager’s face lit up, the unpleasantness of the previous moment clearly forgotten. “Oh, thank you. I did most of the decorating myself, you know, when I came here as a young countess years ago. I would love to show you around after breakfast.”
Lady Barbridge nodded swiftly. “An excellent idea. It may even warm up enough today to be able to look at some of the grounds.”
“I would like that,” Rosalinde said, and meant it.
“Ah, you have made it at last.”
Rosalinde turned to watch as the Earl of Stenfax entered the room. He was well over six feet tall and exuded a wiry strength that women in thetonhad been cooing about for years. And yet he didn’t have much arrogance about that fact. He hardly seemed to notice it at all. Now he had a warm smile on his face for Rosalinde. She shot Celia a look to see her sister’s reaction. There was none. Though her handsome fiancé had just entered the room, her sister was caught up talking to Lady Barbridge rather than noticing her intended’s entrance.
“I have,” Rosalinde said, moving toward him. “I do apologize for the inconvenience of my delay.”
“Not at all,” the earl assured her. “Why, my brother was waylaid by the same storm, weren’t you, Gray?”
He stepped aside, allowing a man behind him to enter the chamber. Rosalinde looked at him—and her world stopped. Time didn’t move, her heart didn’t beat, she didn’t draw breath. All she could do was stare, the blood draining away from her face and making her lightheaded.
She knew this man. She knew him all too well. He was the man from the inn.
And he was staring right back at her, the recognition just as plain on his face as it was on hers.
“Mr. Grayson Danford, may I present Mrs. Rosalinde Wilde, Celia’s sister,” Stenfax said, motioning to her.
Mr. Gray…no, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t Mr. Gray and he never had been. That had been a lie. Mr.Danfordducked his head toward her rather dismissively. “Mrs. Wilde, is it?” he drawled.
Her body clenched as it remembered all the ways he’d said her name just two nights before. All the ways he’d touched her and pleased her and made her feel alive.
Now he looked at her like she was nothing.
“Yes,” she managed to squeak out. “A pleasure to meet you.”
