“I assure you, Mrs. Dove-Lyon, I have no designs to marry. As such, I keep my distance from young women of marriageable age.”
She gave him a tilt of that head, the veil slipping to reveal striking, red lips curling upward. “Why don’t I introduce you, then, and you can tell the young woman of your disposition yourself?”
The woman is here? Waiting in the other room?
Neck prickling, Jackson nodded in acceptance. And when Mrs. Dove-Lyon crossed to the other door that led into a private waiting room, he leaned down under the guise of brushing lint off his boot—while his other hand slipped inside the leather and extracted a sharp blade thin enough to hide in the sleeve of his coat.
Mrs. Dove-Lyon rapped her knuckles on the door and stood back, her gaze behind the veil seeming to watch Jackson with rapt interest.
Jackson had stood as the widow had found her feet, as much to show respect for a woman as to place himself in a better defensive position, but as the young woman in question stepped over the threshold, familiar eyes of verdant green caught his.
The same dark, red hair. Skin smooth and as pale as cream. The same stubborn set to her jaw.
Jackson’s balance wavered.
Anna.
“Your Grace, may I present Miss Annabeth Greene,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said. “Miss Greene, you know the Duke of Grandfellow.”
‘Know.’Yes, they knew each other well.
Blood roared in Jackson’s ears. His heart, that atrophied muscle, swelled with life, painful and aching after so long without use.
He made to step forward, his hand reaching, needing to feel she was real—
But Mrs. Dove-Lyon shifted, breaking his trance.
Jackson’s feet stayed rooted, and his arm fell to his side. Anna was here... and lovelier than ever. To be in the same room with her again, to have those eyes of hers meet his once more.
Hope, that damn fickle flame he’d snuffed out so long ago, flared. And Jackson didn’t think before he made a delicate sign with his hand at his side—a minor pressing of his thumb to his middle finger. A signal—their signal—a language they’d used since children.
Are you well?that small movement asked.
His heart slumped as the seconds ticked by and she did not move. Then—
A quick rotation of her pointer finger.I am well.
She remembered. His heart pounded as he tipped his hat to distract Mrs. Dove-Lyon as he made his next-hand signal:Meet at the trees. It was an old signal, one that had meant the great oak tree on the edge of the Grandfellow property, but one he knew she’d understand meant the park down the lane.
Her pinkie tapped her thumb twice.I’ll be there.
“What is your decision, Your Grace?” Mrs. Dove-Lyon asked.
Jackson’s mouth opened, but he hesitated to speak. His circumstances hadn’t changed; he was still a spy for the Home Office, still a man with enemies and secrets. If there was a way he could persuade Mrs. Dove-Lyon out of the match—a large sum, perhaps, he could—
“Jackson.”
Everything stilled.
That husky tone. His name from her lips. The past six years were ripped away in an instant, and he was back in the grove at Grandfellow Hall. Their bodies pressed close. Her silky lips against his fingertips, only to be replaced with his own lips. The day he’d held her in his arms for the last time.
The day he’d lost everything that had mattered.
A log in the fireplace cracked, and Jackson jolted back to the present with his chest aching and new determination curling his fingers into fists at his sides. This time wasn’t like six years ago. Now he was the duke, and he wouldn’t walk away a second time.
Whatever the reason, howevershehad found her way into this spider’s web—God, what scandal would forceherhand—he could no more leave her than he could drop his investigation.
Expression blank, he turned to Mrs. Dove-Lyon. “I accept your terms.” He buttoned his coat. “A special license will be procured, and we will be married by week’s end.” A slight, if not obviously shallow, bow to Mrs. Dove-Lyon. Then a deeper bow, one with the weight of his heart lowering him nearly perpendicular at the waist for the woman who still stood too far away. “Good day, Miss Greene.”
