Mr. Hunt, I Presume (Playful Brides, #10.5)(19)

“Yes.” Lady Stone folded her hands together. She still didn’t meet his eyes.

“Who? Who did she marry?” He couldn’t stop himself from asking the awful question.

“Ah … Viscount Tinworth. Do you know him?”

The name was completely unfamiliar to Collin. But he’d hardly taken stock of London’s finest. “No.”

“They’re quite happy together. I expect news of a baby any day now,” Lady Stone added.

Collin’s jaw turned to marble. “I see.” He turned on his heel and headed toward the door. “Thank you, Lady Stone. I’ll show myself out.”

He walked all the way home without a coat, kicking his boots through the newly fallen snow. It had been madness for him to try to come back after all these months. Erienne had married someone of her class. She was out of his reach. As it should be, for the best.

That had been the last time he’d ever attempted to contact Erienne Stone.

And now they were about to meet again, a hapless reconciliation hardly of their own making. For some insane reason, he’d decided to wear his uniform to dinner tonight. As if the medals on his jacket could protect him from ... what? The decisions of his past? He clutched his drink. God, but his nerves felt as if they could wind up his insides and strangle a cry of utter frustration from his throat. He took another long draught to stifle it, to set those nerves afire and destroy the emotions. He emptied his glass.

And he waited.





Chapter Twelve





At last, the moment came.

Such moments are always less than one expects, Collin thought later, and somehow so much more.

At the flash of movement in the dining room doorway, Collin immediately pushed back his chair and stood to greet the duchess and, finally, Erienne.

She wore an ice-blue gown, one worthy of a fine lady. The kind of gown he’d always pictured her in when he thought of her married in Shropsbury.

Apparently she was a governess now, however. He’d half-expected her to be wearing a serviceable gown with an apron like the ones he’d seen Miss Langley sport a time or two. But Erienne stood there looking heartbreakingly beautiful in that gown, and for a moment he thought this meeting, the one where he stood in his dress uniform and she in ice-blue perfection, was as it should have been all along if he’d been able to attend her debut, to court her as he’d always desired.

She was thinner than she used to be. But the same knowing, lovely blue gaze shined from her delicate features. There were slight, dark smudges under her eyes as if she were tired. Diamonds clung to the fragile bones of her neckline and matching diamonds hung from her ears. Her golden hair was up in a chignon and her lips, pink and full, rested in a straight line, neither smiling nor frowning.

But he recognized the apprehension gathered in the lines of her familiar face.

She glanced at him and then away, so quickly he’d barely seen it. He wouldn’t have noticed at all if he hadn’t been watching her so closely.

“Collin.” Lucy came to his side of the table and gave him a hug. “It’s lovely to see you again. It’s been far too long.” She turned to Erienne. “You remember Miss Stone, I believe.”

He cleared his throat, not trusting his voice, but having no choice. “Of course.”

“Erienne.” Lucy turned back to face her. “You recall General Hunt?”

“General?” Erienne’s startled eyes flickered to meet Collin’s, and the words seem to die on her lips before she found them again. “I’d no idea.”

“Yes,” Derek said as he held out Lucy’s chair, leaving Collin to hurry around the table and pull out Erienne’s seat. “Collin is quite a high-ranking official at the Home Office now. Of course the position has come at the expense of his social life.”

They all took their seats. Derek at the head of the table, Lucy at the foot, with Collin to Derek’s left and Erienne to Derek’s right, directly across from Collin. The footmen rushed to place napkins on their laps and fill their wineglasses for the first course.

Erienne kept her eyes trained on her plate, though her chin took on a subtle, stubborn set that Collin instantly recognized. “Yes,” she said primly, “I do seem to recall Mr. Hunt placing emphasis on his position in the army over his own personal interests.”

And off went the warm light of sentimentality he’d foolishly been entertaining. Collin grabbed the half-poured wine glass in front of him and nearly downed its entire contents.

Lucy’s bright eyes glanced back and forth between Collin and Erienne. “Yes, well, Collin’s been forced on holiday. That’s why he’s here at the moment, isn’t that right, Coll?”

“Indeed.” He couldn’t stop glancing at Erienne. Despite her apparent state of pique, she was even more beautiful than she’d been when they were young. More so, even, with the tiny lines near her eyes and the sides of her mouth, borne of too many smiles—and perhaps too many frowns. She looked as if she’d seen pain. He hoped he hadn’t been the cause of it.

“A general and high-ranking officer in the Home Office,” Erienne echoed as the footmen set a bowl of turtle soup in front of each of them. “How ever did you manage that, Mr. Hunt?”

“Years and years of hard work, Miss Stone.”