He’d written back, agreeing with Baron Stone that Erienne deserved the best husband in the world. He’d told the baron he would tell Erienne in person during his next leave, which was coming up. He refused to tell her in a letter like a coward. Baron Stone had agreed to that stipulation.
The afternoon Collin had writtenLet me goon that slip of paper and pressed it into Erienne’s hand was the worst day of his life.
He’d left the next morning, gone back to the army early because he couldn’t stand to be so near her and not see her. Worse, he didn’t trust himself in the same town with her. He might forget himself and go find her and tell her he’d been insane and hadn’t meant a word of it. He took a swallow of his drink. It burned a path through his insides as he stared out the dining room window at the night. He saw nothing in that dark glass but his own reflection, and for the first time, he recognized a hardness to his features he knew wasn’t put there by war with his fellow man, but by war with his own traitorous heart.
Erienne had been the only wonderful thing in his childhood. She’d been the promise he’d kept in his heart all these years, and he’d been forced to let her go. It was for her sake, however. That was the only thing that comforted him. He’d always believed that someday she would thank him for giving her the chance to live the life she truly deserved.
His mouth twisted in a humorless smile. He’d had a moment of insanity, however. After that day, he hadn’t received another letter from her, but he’d come home that Christmastide and rushed to her house, wanting to tell her he’d been a fool, wanting to ask her if she would forgive him and marry him after all.
He’d been shown into the Stones’ drawing room by their house steward and waited with his hat in his hands, his palms sweaty, before Lady Stone came marching into the room, her face tight. “Lieutenant Hunt,” she intoned, not sounding particularly pleased to see him. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I’ve come to see Erienne,” Collin replied.
“Erienne?” A brief look of surprise flashed across the woman’s face.
“Yes. Is she here?”
Lady Stone composed her features into a mask. “She is not.”
“May I wait?”
The lady lifted her chin. “I’m afraid you’d be waiting quite some time, Mr. Hunt. Erienne no longer lives here. She’s moved to Shropsbury.”
“Shropsbury?” A mixture of surprise and concern clutched at his throat.
“Yes.” The woman’s gaze dropped to the floor. “To live with herhusband.”
The statement gutted him. Collin nearly doubled over in pain. “She’s married?” he asked to clarify the news to his own stumbling brain.
“Yes.” Lady Stone folded her hands together. She still didn’t meet his eyes.
“Who? Who did she marry?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking the awful question.
“Ah … Viscount Tinworth. Do you know him?”
The name was completely unfamiliar to Collin. But he’d hardly taken stock of London’s finest. “No.”
“They’re quite happy together. I expect news of a baby any day now,” Lady Stone added.
Collin’s jaw turned to marble. “I see.” He turned on his heel and headed toward the door. “Thank you, Lady Stone. I’ll show myself out.”
He walked all the way home without a coat, kicking his boots through the newly fallen snow. It had been madness for him to try to come back after all these months. Erienne had married someone of her class. She was out of his reach. As it should be, for the best.
That had been the last time he’d ever attempted to contact Erienne Stone.
And now they were about to meet again, a hapless reconciliation hardly of their own making. For some insane reason, he’d decided to wear his uniform to dinner tonight. As if the medals on his jacket could protect him from ... what? The decisions of his past? He clutched his drink. God, but his nerves felt as if they could wind up his insides and strangle a cry of utter frustration from his throat. He took another long draught to stifle it, to set those nerves afire and destroy the emotions. He emptied his glass.
And he waited.
Chapter Twelve
At last, the moment came.
Such moments are always less than one expects, Collin thought later, and somehow so much more.
At the flash of movement in the dining room doorway, Collin immediately pushed back his chair and stood to greet the duchess and, finally, Erienne.
She wore an ice-blue gown, one worthy of a fine lady. The kind of gown he’d always pictured her in when he thought of her married in Shropsbury.
