Stranger in My Arms(9)

He closed the box in his hand and tucked it back into his coat pocket.

Lara lifted her incredulous gaze to his. She felt as if she were in a dream. “How did you get that?” she whispered.

“You gave it to me,” he replied. “The day I left for India.

Remember?”

Yes, she remembered. Hunter had been in such a hurry to leave the estate that he’d nearly been too impatient for good-byes. But Lara had managed to draw him aside for a private moment, and had given him the miniature case. It was common for a wife or sweetheart to bestow a memento on a man going abroad, especially to a dangerous place like India, where he had an excellent chance of being killed by wild game or bloodthirsty rebels, or dying of a fever.

However, the risks had appealed to Hunter, who had believed himself to be invincible.

Hunter had actually seemed touched by Lara’s gift, enough to press a careless kiss on her forehead.

“Lovely,” he had muttered. “Thank you, Larissa.”

The atmosphere had been thick with the memories of their unhappy two-year marriage, the mutual bitterness and disappointment of two people who had found no common ground to sustain even friendship.

Yet Lara had still worried for him.

“I will pray for your safety,” she had told him, and he had laughed into her concerned face.

“Don’t waste your prayers on me,” he had said. The man before her seemed to read her thoughts.

“You must have spared me a prayer or two after all,” he murmured.

“It’s the only thing that brought me back home.”

Lara felt the blood drain from her face, and she staggered beneath the weight of sudden realization.

Only her husband would have known their parting words to each other.

“Hunter?” she whispered.

He caught her elbows, steadying her, and ducked his head to stare at her with teasing dark eyes.

“You’re not going to faint again, are you?”

She was too overcome to reply. She allowed him to guide her to a nearby chair, and sat with an abrupt collapsing motion. Sinking to his haunches, the man brought their faces level. He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, his roughened fingertips skimming the fragile curve.

“Starting to believe me?” he asked.

“F-first tell me something else that only my husband would know.”

“Good God. I went through enough of this with Young and Slade.” He paused and glanced at the widow’s weeds that covered her body, and she flinched at the intimacy of his gaze. “There’s a small brown mole on the inside of your left leg,” he said softly. “And a dark freckle on your right breast. And a scar on your heel from when you cut your foot on a rock one summer when you were a girl.” He smiled at her dumbfounded expression. “Would you like me to go on? I can describe the color of your-” “That’s enough,” Lara said swiftly, blushing hard.

For the first time she allowed herself to really look at him, at the dark grain of his shaven whiskers, the hard jut of his chin, the lean hollows where his cheeks had once been round and full. “The shape of your face has changed,” she said, timidly touching the edge of his high cheekbone. “Perhaps I would have recognized you if you hadn’t lost so much weight.”

He surprised her by turning his mouth in to her palm. As Lara felt the heat of his lips against her tender skin, she snatched her hand back reflexively.

“And your clothes are different,” she continued, staring at the gray trousers stretched taut across his thighs, the worn white shirt, and the unfashionably narrow cravat around his neck. She had always seen Hunter dressed in the finest garments: broadcloth coats, embroidered brocade vests, breeches of leather or fine wool. His evening attire had been equally superb: crisp black coats, streamlined trousers or pantaloons, gleaming white linen shirts, stiffly starched collars and neckcloths, shoes polished with champagne.

Hunter smiled wryly at her close scrutiny. “I wanted a change of my old clothes at the Hall,” he said, “but they seem to have been misplaced.”

“Arthur and Janet disposed of everything.”

“Including my wife, it seems.” He glanced around the gamekeeper’s cottage, his brown eyes turning cold. “My uncle will pay for putting you in such a place. I would have expected better of him than this, though God knows why.”

“It’s been comfortable enough-” “It’s not fit for a washwoman, much less my wife.”

Hunter’s voice was as stinging as a whip, making Lara jump. Seeing the involuntary movement, he softened his gaze. “Never mind that. You’ll be taken care of from now on.”

“I don’t want…” The words slipped out before Lara could stop them.

Horrified, she clamped her lips together and stared at her lap in silent misery. It was incredible, something beyond a nightmare.

Hunter was home, and he would take charge of her life as he had before, crushing her independence like a flower beneath his booted foot “What is it, my love?” he asked quietly.

Startled, Lara stared into his serious face. “You never called me that before.”

His hand slid around the slim curve of her throat, his thumb caressing the line of her jaw. He ignored the way she shrank from his touch.

“I’ve had a great deal of time to think, Lara. I spent months convalescing in Cape Town, and then I went through the damned long voyage here. The more I remembered about you and our marriage, the more I realized what a selfish bastard I’d been. I promised myself that as soon as I returned to you, we would begin again.”