Page 9

He remembered that about her. She loved to take lengthy, meandering walks and always discovered something that excited her. A bird gliding overhead. A flower waving in the breeze. The sound of the leaves brushing against each other, or a pretty rock.

Regine had been so innocent back then. So unpretentious and unaffected. He’d never known her to covet fancy gowns or jewels or fallalls. That was why her abrupt decision to marry Heartwaite hadn’t made any sense. Still didn’t after all of these years, in truth.

They settled into silence—perhaps not companionable, but not stilted either—as she nibbled the pastry and sipped her coffee. A crumb balanced upon her lower lip, and she darted her tongue out to swipe it away.

Bloody hell.

James lowered his attention to his cold coffee, lest she see the desire flaring in his eyes. Though he’d only ever tasted her lips, she’d always had the ability to send his lust soaring with a tilt of her head, a twitch of her bottom, a look from those blue eyes, both innocent and seductive at once.

Regine was more delectable than she’d been as a fresh-faced girl of eighteen. She possessed a woman’s refined features and curved form now. Impossibly more exquisite and alluring than the last time he’d seen her, tears streaming from those mesmerizing eyes as he turned his back, refusing to listen to her reasons for marrying Heartwaite. The paunchy, old geezer.

James damn well knew the why of it…

Prestige. Wealth. Position. None of which he could’ve given her. Then.

Why settle for an impoverished vicar’s son? A man newly hired as the lowest ranking employee in a solicitor’s office? Well, there had been two clerks who ranked lower.

And now, James was a partner in that same firm, and if he didn’t say so himself, a damned exceptional lawyer, to boot. His clientele was very exclusive, and his fees very expensive since making partner.

Except he also offered his services pro bono. Often enough, truth to tell, to raise the grizzled eyebrows of his senior associates. Once a month, he opened the office on a Saturday and dispensed free legal advice.

If Regine knew, she’d approve. At least the Regine of old would have. He wasn’t sure about the richly garbed duchess sitting mere feet from him.

A thousand questions he wanted to ask her tapped at his tongue. A thousand things he wanted to say. Things he’d said to himself at least a thousand times these past eight years. Things he’d raged at the heavens a time or two or a hundred, as well.

And yet, he remained silent, unlike the garrulous ladies in the corner who kept sending inquisitive glances his way. Hopefully, their idle tongues wouldn’t carry gossip about Regine. She really oughtn’t to have sat with him. It gave the appearance of a lovers’ clandestine tête-à-tête.

At one time, he and Regine talked so effortlessly about everything. Now an awkwardness existed between them. Eight years in which the chasm had grown ever-wider and filled with uncertainty. Pain. Distrust. Loss. Unbearable loss.

He’d barely functioned the first few months after she’d married and left England. Only by pouring all of his energy and focus into becoming a solicitor had kept the heartbreak from snapping his reason. Well, after he’d stopped drinking himself into a stupor each night. He never wanted to experience that agony again. He wouldn’t survive a second time.

A clock on a shelf near the door chimed the hour, and Regine glanced over her shoulder. “Is that truly the time? Gracious, Juliet will be fretting. I promised to be home with her new spectacles in time for tea.”

She swiftly patted her mouth, and after fishing around inside her reticule, withdrew a letter and a timepiece before locating the coins she sought and placed them on the table.

Did she think he’d expect her to pay? What kind of a cad did she believe him? “I intended to see to your refreshments, Regine.”

She raised her uncertain azure gaze to his. Her eyes had been the first thing he’d noticed about her, as a young girl of perhaps three or four. Wide and round. Clear and bright and an impossible shade of pale blue. Like a frosty morning sky.

Then she’d laughed. Giggled that infectious, unfettered way that was Regine’s alone, and his little boy’s heart had landed at her tiny, waving, chubby feet—hers to do with as she pleased for all time. And for several years, he and Regine had been the best of friends, sharing everything. Then later, they’d become sweethearts. They’d eagerly made plans to marry and spend the rest of their lives together.

But her father had died, and she’d entered mourning. So, he’d tempered his impatience. Only, a month after old Edenshaw’s death, she informed him she was to marry Heartwaite. A week later, she’d become the Duchess of Heartwaite and left the country.

James hadn’t even permitted himself to follow reports of the Duke’s and Duchess’s of Heartwaites travels in the newssheets or gossip rags. He’d resolutely put Regine behind him and faced his future. Without her.

“I thank you, James, but it wouldn’t be proper.”

Now she considered propriety?

She tucked the feminine watch inside her bag before collecting the letter. A shadow flitted across her face, and her lips thinned the merest bit as she returned the folded paper to its nest, and then donned her gloves.

Bad or unwelcome news?

“Thank you for permitting me to interrupt you.” She slipped the reticule on her narrow wrist and rose, all elegant grace. One hand cradling the handbag, she skittered that blue gaze over him, hesitancy and a question brimming within. Something shifted deep inside those azure pools, and she dropped her hand. “Please say hello to your family for me the next time you see them.”

Trivial stuff. Polite, nonsensical pleasantries that acquaintances might exchange—not a couple once passionately in love.

James sought his feet. He might not be a lord, but no gentleman remained sitting when a lady stood. He should say something. But what?