Stranger in My Arms(18)

Hunter wore a pleasant smile, but his tone was inflexible. “I insist on it.”

He had proceeded to welcome any and all guests with a relaxed enjoyment that stunned Lara. Although Hunter had always been competent as a host, he had never seemed to take great pleasure in it, especially where the lesser gentry and plain townfolk were concerned. Dullards, he had referred to them contemptuously. Today, however, he had taken pains to welcome each of them with equal enthusiasm.

With easy charm, he regaled them with stories of his travels in India, carrying on two or three conversations at the same time, strolling through the gardens or the art gallery with a favored friend or two.

As midday approached, he opened bottles of fine brandy and boxes of pungent cigars, while gentlemen gathered around him. At the back of the house, the kitchen clattered with the efforts of the staff as they labored to prepare refreshinents for the multitude.

Trays of delicate sandwiches, platters of preserved limes and figs, and plates of cakes were brought out and devoured eagerly.

Lara did her own share of entertaining, dispensing dozens of cups of tea and fielding questions from a gaggle of happily agitated women.

“What did you think when you first saw him?” one woman entreated, while another demanded to know, “What were his first words to you?”

“Well,” Lara said uncomfortably, “naturally it was a very great surprise-” “Did you weep?”

“Did you faint?”

“Did he take you in his arms-” Bemused by the onslaught of questions, Lara stared into her own cup of tea. All at once she heard her sister’s dryly amused voice from the doorway. “I should think those things are none of our concern, ladies.”

Lara glanced upward and felt close to weeping as she saw Rachel’s sympathetic face. Rachel, more than anyone, understood what Hunter’s return meant to her. Struggling to conceal her relief, Lara excused herself from the gossip circle and pulled Rachel out of the room. They stopped in the private corner beneath the grand staircase, and Rachel held Lara’s hands in a comforting grip.

“I knew you’d have a surfeit of visitors,” Rachel said. “I was going to wait until later, but I couldn’t stop myself from coming.”

“None of it seems real.” Lara kept her voice low to avoid being overheard. “Things have changed so fast that I haven’t had a moment to catch my breath.

All of a sudden Arthur and Janet are gone, and I’m back here with Hunter… and he’s a stranger.”

“Do you mean ‘stranger’ in a figurative or literal sense?” Rachel asked gravely.

Lara gave her a startled glance. “You know that I wouldn’t acknowledge him unless I believed him to be my husband.”

“Of course, dear, but… he’s not exactly the same, is he.” It was a statement, not a question.

“You’ve met him, then,” Lara murmured.

“I happened to cross his path as he was walking with Mr. Cobbett and Lord Grimston to the smoking room. He recognized me on sight, and stopped to greet me with every semblance of brotherly affection.

We drew aside and talked briefly, and he expressed his concern for all you’ve suffered in his absence. He asked after my husband, and seemed genuinely pleased when I told him that Terrell would come tomorrow.”

Rachel’s face was wreathed in a perplexed pucker. “He seems to behave and react in a manner befitting Lord Hawksworth, but…”

“I know,” Lara said stiffly. “He is not the same. It is only to be expected that he has been altered by his experiences, but there are things about him that I can’t understand or explain.”

“How has he treated you so far?”

Lara shrugged. “Very welL actually. He is trying to be agreeable, and… there is a sort of charm and perceptiveness about him that I don’t remember from before.”

“Odd, isn’t it,” Rachel commented thoughtfully. “I noticed the same thing-he’s really rather dashing.

The kind of gentleman that ladies swoon over. And he wasn’t that way before.”

“No,” Lara agreed. “He’s not like the man I knew.”

“I’m curious as to what Terrell will make of him,” Rachel said. “They were such close friends. If this man is a fraud…”

“He couldn’t be,” Lara said instantly. Her mind refused to accept the frightening possibility that she was living intimately with a consummate liar and actor the likes of which she had never encountered before.

“Larissa, if there is the slightest chance that he is an impostor, you could be in danger. You don’t know what his past is, or what he might be capable of-” “He is my husband.” Lara remained resolute, though she felt herself turn a shade paler. “I’m sure of it” “Last night, did he try “I suppose that when he holds you in his arms, you’ll know whether he’s the man you married or not” As Lara tried to reply, she remembered the hot mist of his breath over her skin, the texture of his hair against her fingers, the spice of sandalwood in her nostrils. She had felt some strange, elemental connection between them. “I don’t know who he is,” she said in an uneasy whisper. “But I have to believe he’s my husband, because that makes more sense than anything else. No stranger could know the things he does.”