She was of average height, with blonde hair coming loose from an elaborate arrangement of pins, and bright brown eyes that swept the room until they found the basket on the sofa.
She looked at the baby. She looked at Evander.
“Is this Charlotte’s child?” she demanded.
Evander stared at the woman standing in his parlor in a wedding dress, breathing hard, with a look in her eyes that dared him to get between her and that basket.
The very last thing he needed was a bride.
And yet, it appeared, one had arrived.
CHAPTER 2
“Leave us, Godfrey.” Evander did not take his eyes off the woman in the wedding dress.
She stood in the center of his parlor as though she had every right to be there, her chin lifted, her gaze fixed on the basket behind him.
Godfrey bowed and slipped through the door without a word. The latch clicked shut.
Evander folded his arms. “Who are you, and why are you in my house?”
The woman did not answer him. Her eyes looked at the basket on the sofa, and she moved toward it with a certainty that made Evander step into her path. She pulled up short, close enough that he could see the pins loosening in her hair and the flush that ran from her throat to her cheekbones.
“Is this really Charlotte’s baby?” she asked.
“I asked you a question.”
Her gaze snapped to his. Honey-brown eyes, bright with something fiercer than tears. “My name is Mary Gillies. I am Charlotte Gillies’s sister, and I wish to confirm that the child in that basket is my blood.”
Her eyes moved past him to the basket, and Evander watched the moment she saw the ring. The engagement ring, tied to the handle with its strip of blue ribbon.
Her lips parted. Her cheeks drained of color.
“It is Charlotte’s ring,” she whispered.
Evander studied her. The shock on her face was genuine, and it told him more than her words had.
“You mentioned you wished to confirm you are the aunt of this child.” He tilted his head. “Does such an occasion typically merit a wedding dress?”
Her eyes cut back to him. The grief vanished, replaced by something with teeth. “Do you truly have no idea what is happening in society this morning?”
“I have far more serious matters to attend to than gossip.”
“Of course you do.” Mary took a step closer. “Serious matters. Like dishonoring marriage contracts and leaving others to the mercy of the ton.”
The words landed. Evander’s jaw tightened.
He knew what she meant. When Richard and Charlotte had vanished, the marriage contract between the two families remained unfulfilled. Lord Langham had written to Evander, suggesting that the contract might still be honored if Evander himself were to step in as the groom for one of his remaining daughters.
Evander had declined in a letter so brief it could have fit on a calling card.
“Finding my brother,” Evander said, “was far more important to me than a piece of paper. It still is.”
“That piece of paper was my family’s future.”
“And my brother is mine.”
They stared at each other. The fire popped in the grate. The baby stirred in his basket, and Mary’s attention shifted to the sound.
