Stranger in My Arms(7)

Lara blinked in confusion. “Who is here? Mr. Young has sent for me?”

“Yes, they’ve brought him from London.”

“Him?” Lara asked faintly.

“Yes, milady. The earl has come home.”

Chapter 2

The WORDS SEEMED to hover and buzz around Lara like gnats. The earl has come home, come home… “But it can’t be,” she whispered.

Why would Mr. Young have brought the stranger here from London? She licked her dry lips, the inside of her mouth feeling like parchment.

When she spoke, her voice didn’t sound like her own. “H-have you seen him?”

The maid nodded, suddenly bereft of words.

Lara stared fixedly at the ground and forced out a few halting words.

“You knew my husband, Naomi.

Tell me… is the man at Hawksworth Hall…” She lifted her beseeching gaze to the maid, unable to finish the sentence.

“I think so, milady. Nay, I’m certain of it.”

“But… the earl is gone,” Lara said numbly. “He drowned.”

“Let me help you to the castle,” Naomi urged, taking her arm. “You look all queer and white, and ‘tis no wonder. ‘Tisn’t every day a woman’s dead husband comes back to her.”

Lara pulled away from her with a jerky movement.

‘Please… I need a few minutes to myself. I’ll walk up to the Hall when I’m ready.”

“Yes, milady. I’ll tell them to expect you.” Throwing her a concerned, excited glance, Naomi retreated and hurried along the path leading back to the castle.

Stumbling into the cottage, Lara went to the wash-stand and poured lukewarm water into the chipped earthenware basin. She splashed the dust and perspiration from her face, her movements methodical, her mind whirling with frantic thoughts. She had never found herself in such an impossible situation before. She had always been a practical woman.

She didn’t believe in miracles, had never asked for one.

Especially not this one.

But this wasn’t a miracle, Lara reminded herself, letting down her disheveled hair and trying to coil and pin it back in place. Her unsteady hands wouldn’t obey, fumbling with pins and combs until they fell to the floor in a delicate clatter.

The man who waited for her at Hawksworth Hall was not Hunter. He was a stranger, a cunning one if he had managed to convince Mr. Young and Dr. Slade that his claim was true. Lara would simply gather her composure, go to assess him for herself, and assure the others that he was certainly not her husband. Then the matter would be over. She took several breaths to restore herself and continued to stick pins haphazardly in her hair.

As Lara stared in the square Queen Anne mirror poised on the chest of drawers in her room, it seemed that the atmosphere changed, the air suddenly heavy and pressing. It was so quiet in the cottage that she could hear her own mad heartbeat. She caught sight of something in the mirror, a deliberate movement that paralyzed her. Someone had entered the cottage.

Skin prickling, Lara stood in frozen silence and stared into the mirror as another reflection joined her own. A man’s bronzed face… short, sun-streaked brown hair… dark brown eyes… the hard, wide mouth she remembered so well. Tall… massive chest and shoulders… a physical power and assurance that made the room seem to shrink around him.

Lara’s breath stopped. She wanted to run, to cry out, faint, but it seemed that she had been turned to stone. He stood just behind her, his head and shoulders looming far above hers. His gaze held hers in the mirror. The eyes were the same color, yet…

he had never looked at her like this, with an intensity that made every inch of her skin burn. His was the hard gaze of a predator.

She shook in fright as his hands moved gently to her hair. One by one he slipped the confining pins from the shining sable mass, and set them on the dresser before her. Lara watched him, quivering with each light tug on her hair. “It’s not true,” she whispered.

He spoke in Hunter’s voice, deep and slightly raspy. “I’m not a ghost, Lara.”

She tore her gaze from the mirror and stumbled around to face him.

He was so much thinner, his body lean, almost rawboned, his heavy muscles thrown into stark prominence. His skin was tanned to a copper blaze that was far too exotic for an Englishman. And his hair had lightened to the mixed gold and brown of a griffin’s feathers.

“I didn’t believe…” Lara heard her own voice as if from very far away. There was a pinching sensation around her chest, and her heart could no longer sustain its own violent rhythm. Although her lungs moved in painful spasms, she couldn’t seem to get enough air. A thick mist rolled over her, covering all sight and sound, and she sank swiftly into the dark abyss that opened beneath her.

Hunter caught her as she fell. Her body was light and lush in his arms, conforming easily to his hard grip.

He carried her to the narrow bed and sat on the creaking mattress, cradling her in his lap. Her head tilted back, her ivory throat encased in the banded black fabric of her mourning gown. He stared intently at her, riveted by the delicacy of her face. He’d forgotten a woman’s skin could be so fair and fresh.

Her mouth in repose was soft and a little sad, her face as vulnerable as a child’s. How strange for a widow to look so unawakened. She had a tidy band-box prettiness that appealed to him tremendously.