Page 4

“Lady Catherine!” Mrs. Somerville exclaimed as Violet and Catherine were shown into the Somerville drawing room. “It is so good of you to be here tonight.”

“It’s my pleasure,” Catherine said. “And my mother and aunt send their apologies again for missing dinner. The trip was difficult for Aunt Nora, and she’s still recovering.

But I am delighted to present my cousin, Miss Violet Goodwin, here all the way from America. She’s to accompany me for the season.”

Violet curtsied, awkward and out of practice. She hadn’t curtsied since she’d been in London three years ago. “Thank you for having me.”

“You are more than welcome,” Mrs. Somerville said and turned her attention back to Catherine. “I’d like to introduce you to your dinner companion for the evening. He’s newly back in town, and we are hopeful he can be convinced to stay.”

She winked at Catherine and then waved Alistair over. “Lord Alistair, come meet Lady Catherine West and Miss Goodwin.”

No, Violet thought to herself, her eyes taking in the long, lean man dressed in his sharply tailored evening clothes who had turned at Mrs. Somerville’s beckoning.

No, no, no.

She’d have recognized him anywhere. The man from the balcony. The one who made her nerve endings alight and her mind empty of all reasonable thoughts. The one who almost kissed her and then left her without a word, standing alone like a fool in the cold.

She watched him approach. His dark lashes and chestnut-colored hair were the same, as was the uncommon height and smooth gait. But the rest of him had changed over the last three years.

He now filled out every inch of those six plus feet with muscle. Broad shoulders, strong thighs, a jaw cut from some kind of marble slab. His face and hands were sun-bronzed and gleaming. He was, impossibly, even more beautiful.

She might have laughed but for the other differences she found in him.

A new sternness in his face evidenced by the furrow between his brows and the way he pressed his lips together in a thin, hard line.

A coldness in the dark eyes she recalled as warm and passionate.

Their depths no longer twinkled with good humor or the arrogance that had once filled them.

No matter.

She had changed as well. She glanced down at the severe blue dress she wore and flexed her callused fingers.

She’d developed those calluses from her work with the charitable nursing brigades that provided free medical care to the needy in the poorer districts of Lower Manhattan.

They were a constant source of irritation for her mother, but Violet wore them with pride.

They were emblematic of her life as it was now; a life that didn’t have room in it for men like this one.

He was from before, when James was still alive.

Before she’d hovered over the feverish body of her twin brother and promised him she would devote her life to keeping as many others from dying of fever as she could.

Before she’d forsaken balls and gowns and marriage altogether in favor of chasing that promise with a singular focus.

This man, she reminded herself as those long legs strode toward her and her heart began to beat wildly of its own accord, is only a relic from the past.

Just the dunderhead who abandoned you on a balcony.

He’s nothing to do with your present at all.

Still, she licked her lips subconsciously at the thought of that almost kiss.

“Good evening, ladies,” Alistair said as Lady Catherine dropped into a graceful curtsey.

“Now,” he heard her whisper to the rather green-around-the-gills looking Miss Goodwin, who dropped into her own clumsy version on the command of her cousin.

He stifled a smile and turned his attention instead to the ample glimpse of Lady Catherine’s bosom that her curtsey allowed him. While he had no interest in the obvious matchmaking of Mrs. Somerville, he was more than happy to take in the sight of a lovely bosom when such a sight was offered.

But for some reason, he couldn’t concentrate on Lady Catherine West. He was distracted by Miss Goodwin and her dress. Its high neckline and modest fit were an affront to bosoms everywhere.

Why, he wondered, would any woman choose to wear that dress to dinner ?

Why would she even own such a dress?

It was a botheration.

“Miss Goodwin,” Mrs. Somerville was saying as Alistair remembered himself and bent down into a low bow, “has graced us with her presence from across the sea. This is Lord Alistair Crawford, recently returned from his own sea voyages. Although we hope he’s in London for good. Isn’t that right, Lord Alistair?”

He rose and smiled at the two women. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he said, ignoring Mrs. Somerville’s last remark.

“Likewise,” Catherine replied.

“I must see to my other guests,” Mrs. Somerville announced and departed.

“And what brings you all the way across the Atlantic, Miss Goodwin?” Alistair asked and wondered as soon as he did why he’d addressed his first question to her instead of to her companion.

The woman was hollow cheeked and slightly green and was looking at him strangely, narrowing her eyes as if she were angry at him.

Has she reason? Have we met before ?

He wracked his vaguely whisky-addled brain.

No.

Not that he could recall anyway.

But there was something about her and her obvious distaste of him that was as bothersome as that dress. He felt a slight discomfort in her presence, which was surprising, as he generally didn’t care much what the rest of the beaumonde thought of him.

But there it was, nonetheless, some kind of irritation. Like a bur in his stocking, nettling him when he wished to concentrate on other things, like Lady Catherine’s bosom.

Catherine cast a sidelong glance at her cousin, who had not yet answered Alistair’s question. They all stood awkwardly for another moment and waited for her response, which never came.

“She’s come to visit me,’’ Catherine said finally. “Haven’t you?”

“I have,” Miss Goodwin agreed, still staring at Alistair with those pursed lips.

“Well, I do hope you have a pleasant time here in London.”

He wondered if she wasn’t a bit addled. She clearly didn’t know how to make polite conversation at all, and her face was still set in an angry scowl. He should turn away from her and find his father and his brother.

“She just arrived this week,” Catherine continued, looking at her companion with her large blue eyes. They shared those eyes, he noticed. “She, well… she–”

Both he and Miss Goodwin turned to look at Catherine then, wondering what she might possibly say next. There was no way to save this most awkward of introductions.

“The boat was unbearable,” Catherine finally blurted out, and Miss Goodwin’s cheeks turned a bright shade of red. It was the only show of emotion the woman had made yet and was enough to make Alistair all but roll his eyes at them.

Of course, they would make derisive comments about the sea. It was nothing he hadn’t heard before. The aristocracy had barely tolerated his stint in the Navy as a working officer instead of the position normally favored by men of his social class, a cushy seat behind a desk in the Admiralty.

And the idea of the East India Company had been, in his father’s words, abhorrent. The fact that he’d quit it and would start his own trading company should he be able to raise the capital?

That would be baser still, he knew, before he even brought it up to the Marquess. The beaumonde did not favor tradesmen within their ranks, and he would have quite an uphill battle to gain his father’s confidence and approval.

He sighed. He had neither the time nor the patience for women like these, nor for the ton that spawned them. He couldn’t wait to leave behind their prosaic mindsets, adherence to arcane rules, and distaste for an actual day of hard labor.

“It’s a ship not a boat,” he said crisply. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” He left to find his father.

First, though, he leaned against the wall in a quiet corner of the hallway and took a surreptitious sip of whisky from his pocket flask.

Keeping his spirits close at hand was a trick he’d picked up in the Navy, when long days of work aboard a ship meant one was never close to refreshment.

He noticed many gentlemen now considered a pocket flask the height of fashion and carried them everywhere, although he didn’t understand why. Aristocrats were never far enough away from a servant or wet bar to need a flask.

And neither will you be unless you find the Marquess.

He sighed and took another sip. It didn’t matter what affectations the ton was putting on these days. He should go find his father; the man was here somewhere.

“Drinking already, Alistair?”

Hell’s teeth.

Alistair stuffed the flask back in his pocket and turned. His father was standing right behind him with his elder brother. “Father,” he said. “Darius.”

“Alistair,” Darius held out his hand and grasped Alistair’s. “It’s been too long.”

Alistair felt a wave of relief at the warmth in his brother’s greeting. They’d seen little of each other since he’d joined the Navy at fifteen, and Darius had been ensconced at one of the family’s country estates in Kent since Alistair had arrived back in town.

Alistair had been unsure of the reception he might receive.

His return home from his second career in under a decade with nothing to show for it except the whisky flask in his hand was more than enough reason to give Darius pause, but he saw no censure in his brother’s eyes.

There was only a genuine fondness for his younger sibling shining back at him.

“How is Rosehips?” Alistair asked.

“Still beautiful. Although the land remains problematic. You ought to come and see it.”

“Hmph.”