Page 58 of Secrets of the Heart

Awkwardly, she extended her hand to him. “How are you? Whatever are you doing here? I had thought you were back on the estate these last two weeks or more.”

He looked different, she thought, his hair a lighter blond and shorter—or, no, perhaps it was just that he looked different from James Hobson.

“I was,” he replied, taking her hand and raising it to his lips.

A shiver ran through her as his lips grazed the back of her hand. She hoped he did not see her response. Was she so lustful now that any man aroused her basest instincts? But she knew that that was not the reason. She had felt that little thrill of desire because he looked like his half brother. That was no doubt a terrible thing, she told herself, to feel something for one’s husband because he looked like someone else, someone she could not have. Yet was it really so wrong? What had been a sin with James would not be with Michael. Would it really be so awful if she could find pleasure with her own husband?

“I worried about you,” Michael went on, releasing her hand. “It came to me that it was worse than foolish to rush back to my lands. The estate manager can handle that. And I would never forgive myself if something happened to you. So I came back to London.”

“Why, thank you. That is very kind of you.”

They sat down, and silence fell upon them. Then they both rushed to talk, their words coming out at the same time, and they stopped, smiling in an embarrassed way.

“You first,” Rachel said.

“I was merely going to ask what you had been doing. If you were busy.”

“Oh, yes. Balls and parties and such.” Rachel hoped she did not begin to blush. “The other day Perry and I went to the opera.”

“How is Perry?”

“Oh, as always.”

“And Lady Sylvia?”

“She is much the same, as well.” Rachel wanted to tell him about what she had been doing and discuss it with him—Anthony’s wife’s death and her investigating it with James Hobson, the shot that had been fired at James, the suspicious behavior of the Birkshaws’ footman. She wanted to tell him about Lilith, his half sister, and her affair with Sir Robert Blount. She wondered if he knew Sir Robert.

Yet she could say nothing of any of it. She doubted that any aristocratic husband, even one as kind and tolerant as Michael, would approve of her traipsing about the East End, looking for Birkshaw’s ex-servants and asking them questions. Dining at an inn with a man she barely knew. Dodging bullets and frequenting a gaming house, conversing with a woman who was someone’s mistress. No, she felt sure that such things would be enough to send even Michael into a fury. He would not like that she had conversed with Anthony, let alone all the rest of it.

“Well,” she said finally, “I suppose, um, no doubt you would like to go up to your room to freshen up after your journey. I shall make sure that Cook knows you are here.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, his tone a little weary.

She walked up the stairs with him, even though there was really no reason to. They lingered for a moment outside his door.

“I trust that you will find everything as you want it,” Rachel said, nodding toward his room.

“I am sure I will.”

She nodded and, having nothing else to say, walked on to the door of her own room, which lay next down the hall. She went inside and glanced over at the door that led to Michael’s room. It was, as always, closed.

After informing Cook of Michael’s arrival, Rachel rang for her maid and began to dress for dinner, taking extra care tonight to look her best. She told herself it was foolish to feel excited and hopeful. Just because something in her had changed, it did not mean that Michael had changed in any way. The fact that her foolish infatuation with James Hobson seemed to be seeping into her feelings for Michael would only rouse Michael’s ire, she was sure.

Still, she could not help but think about the fact that Michael had loved her once, had desired her, and even if it had been many years ago, and even though she had ruined the feeling by her actions, surely there might still be a spark lying buried somewhere inside him, some small flicker that could be brought into life again.

So she wore her pearls and her favorite green silk gown, and she had her maid fix her hair up into a fetching style, with curls caught to the side and cascading down to her white shoulder. She looked, she thought, alluring, and she thought that when she walked into the dining room later, a spark flashed for an instant in Michael’s eyes, although it was hard to tell in the soft light of the candles.

The setting was scarcely intimate, for even though they ate in the smaller of the two dining rooms, they were seated at opposite ends of the table, with a silver epergne filled with fruit in the center between them, and two footmen to serve their meal. Whatever thought Rachel had had of flirting with her husband died quickly.

After the meal, Michael excused himself, saying that he thought he would drop by his club. In fact, he had an appointment with one of his informers in a tavern, but, of course, he could not tell Rachel that, and he cursed inwardly when he saw the look of hurt flash across her face.

He had been a fool to come home, he thought, striding down the street and looking for a hansom to take him to his sister’s house, where he would change clothes for his appointment with a pickpocket. He should have realized how it would be, how awkward and unworkable.

All he had thought about was how much he missed Rachel and how good it would be to be with her, able to talk and laugh together as they had the past few days during their investigation. So he had decided that he would change back into himself and go to live at his house with her, and had to that end leached the color from his hair and had Lilith cut it to make him look as different from James Hobson as he could.

He had ignored the problems inherent in operating in secrecy out of his own home, the lies that would be necessary to explain his absences, the logistical problems of having to turn into a different person from the man Rachel and his servants saw in his house. Nor had he thought of how it would be to be with Rachel as himself.

He could not give himself away, he knew. It would be disastrous if Rachel realized that he had been playing the role of his half brother. She would be furious with him for playing such a trick on her, and she would have every right to be. There would be nothing he could say to excuse himself.