Love in the Afternoon (The Hathaways #5)(17)

It was a walk she had taken hundreds of times before. The scenery was familiar, shadows broken by sunlight that came in shards through the tree limbs. Bark was frosted with pale green moss, except for the dark erosions where wood had turned into dust. The woodland floor was soft with mud, overlaid by papery leaves, ferns, and hazel catkins. The sounds were familiar, birdsong and swishing leaves, and the rustlings of a million small creatures.

For all her acquaintance with these woods, however, Beatrix was aware of a new feeling. A sense that she should be cautious. The air was charged with the promise of . . . something. As she went farther, the feeling intensified. Her heart behaved strangely, a wild pulse awakening in her wrists and throat and even in her knees.

There was movement ahead, a shape sliding low through the trees and rippling the bracken. It was not a human shape.

Picking up a fallen branch, Beatrix deftly snapped it to the length of a walking stick.

The creature went still, and silence descended over the forest.

“Come here,” Beatrix called out.

A dog came bounding toward her, crashing through brush and leaves. He gave the distinctive bay of a terrier. Halting a few yards away from her, the dog snarled and bared long white teeth.

Beatrix held still and studied him calmly. He was lean, his wiry fur stripped short except for comical whisks of it on his face and ears and near his eyes. Such expressive bright eyes, round as shillings.

There was no mistaking that distinctive face. She had seen it before.

“Albert?” she said in wonder.

The dog’s ears twitched at the name. Crouching, he growled in his throat, a sound of angry confusion.

“He brought you back with him,” Beatrix said, dropping the stick. Her eyes prickled with the beginnings of tears, even as she let out a little laugh. “I’m so glad you made it through the war safely. Come, Albert, let’s be friends.” She stayed unmoving and let the dog approach her cautiously. He sniffed at her skirts, circling slowly. In a moment she felt his cold wet nose nudge the side of her hand. She didn’t move to pet him, only allowed him to become familiar with her scent. When she saw the change in his face, the jaw muscles relaxing and his mouth hanging open, she spoke firmly. “Sit, Albert.”

His bottom dropped to the ground. A whine whistled from his throat. Beatrix reached out to stroke his head and scratch behind his ears. Albert panted eagerly, his eyes half closed in enjoyment.

“So you’ve run off from him, have you?” Beatrix asked, smoothing the wiry ruff on his head. “Naughty boy. I suppose you’ve had a fine old time chasing rabbits and squirrels. And there’s a damaging rumor about a missing chicken. You had better stay out of poultry yards, or it won’t go well for you in Stony Cross. Shall I take you home, boy? He’s probably looking for you. He—”

She stopped at the sound of something . . . someone . . . moving through the thicket. Albert turned his head and let out a happy bark, bounding toward the approaching figure.

Beatrix was slow to lift her head. She struggled to moderate her breathing, and tried to calm the frantic stutters of her heart. She was aware of the dog bounding joyfully back to her, tongue dangling. He glanced back at his master as if to convey Look what I found!

Letting out a slow breath, Beatrix looked up at the man who had stopped approximately three yards away.

Christopher.

It seemed the entire world stopped.

Beatrix tried to compare the man standing before her with the cavalier rake he had once been. But it seemed impossible that he could be the same person. No longer a god descending from Olympus . . . now a warrior hardened by bitter experience.

His complexion was a deep mixture of gold and copper, as if he had been slowly steeped in sun. The dark wheaten locks of his hair had been cut in efficiently short layers. His face was impassive, but something volatile was contained in the stillness.

How bleak he looked. How alone.

She wanted to run to him. She wanted to touch him. The effort of standing motionless caused her muscles to tremble in protest.

She heard herself speak in a voice that wasn’t quite steady. “Welcome home, Captain Phelan.”

He was silent, staring at her without apparent recognition. Dear Lord, those eyes . . . frost and fire, his gaze burning through her awareness.

“I’m Beatrix Hathaway,” she managed to say. “My family—”

“I remember you.”

The rough velvet of his voice was a pleasure-stroke against her ears. Fascinated, bewildered, Beatrix stared at his guarded face.

To Christopher Phelan, she was a stranger. But the memories of his letters were between them, even if he wasn’t aware of it.

Her hand moved gently over Albert’s rough fur. “You were absent in London,” she said. “There was a great deal of hullabaloo on your behalf.”

“I wasn’t ready for it.”

So much was expressed in that spare handful of words. Of course he wasn’t ready. The contrast would be too jarring, the blood-soaked brutality of war followed by a fanfare of parades and trumpets and flower petals. “I can’t imagine any sane man would be,” she said. “It’s quite an uproar. Your picture is in all the shop windows. And they’re naming things after you.”

“Things,” he repeated cautiously.

“There’s a Phelan hat.”

His brows lowered. “No there isn’t.”