Page 6

“ Bara brith ,” he said. “Laverbread. Cockles with vinegar. And Welsh cakes. I’ve dreamed of them.”

“You have strange dreams.”

“Who are you, milady, to denounce a man for his dreams?”

His regard spurred strange sensations, as if he’d trailed a hand over her bare skin and left her with gooseflesh. The hair on the back of her neck lifted in warning. The dreams he spoke of were not all about food.

She turned away, flinging out a hand. “The seaweed is that way.”

“Ahem. Why don’t you precede me?”

“Do you require an introduction?”

“Let us just say there are one or two people in that company who will be very glad to see me.” He touched his fob pocket, as if checking for a valuable. “And one or two people who decidedly will not be overjoyed.”

“Why? What have you done?”

“That depends on who you ask. Proceed, Miss—” He gestured with one hand, a rather elegant flick of his wrist. So, the manners of a gentleman, if not the birth. “You have not told me your name.”

“Will you tell me yours?”

He drew in a sharp breath as a surge of voices rose suddenly, an excited babble. His gaze went to the hall leading to the refectory. “It’s time for the reckoning,” he said.

This ought to prove interesting. Anne, not certain she had fully vented her spleen, wanted to see the impression this stranger made.

More than that, she wanted to watch him a bit longer.

He grew more prepossessing the more one looked at him, more discoveries to acknowledge and appreciate.

There was something not quite right in the way he moved, though she couldn’t define what it was, and at any rate, as she turned toward the refectory, he was behind her. Hair prickled all over her scalp.

Why should she be so very conscious of his eyes on her, perceiving the cut of her gown, the drape of her shawl over her arms?

She put a deliberate sway in her hips, a delicate, ladylike glide she’d been taught in endless grueling lessons in the Vine Court drawing room. Let him look. She wanted him looking.

The noise had resulted from the long, heavy refectory tables, there since the reign of Henry II, being moved aside to make room for dancing.

Everyone in the room was on their feet, circulating excitedly, while musicians set up in one corner.

Someone brought in Gwen’s traveling harp—Anne remembered her having it at Vine Court.

She felt an imposter, an imposer on these revelries, watching from the outside but not part of the merriment.

And beside her this stranger, tall, lean, and alert, was an outsider, too.

“Oh, someone dropped a pin.” Anne spotted the small stick of bronze on the floor, about to roll between two flagged stones, and picked it up.

“The pin!” Prunella shrieked. “Anne found the pin!”

“The pin!” The cry spread, leaping from mouth to mouth like the sweep of wildfire. “The pin has been found!”

Anne stood bewildered. Pins were dear, yes, especially a bronze pin like this, but such an uproar.

It must belong to someone important. Her heart took up its rabbit beat once again.

Perhaps Lydia, the dowager Dowager Viscountess.

Perhaps she would notice Anne at last and make a pet of her.

Take her to London. Introduce her to men who were as handsome as this stranger, but less alarming in their manner.

Perhaps she could marry someone proper and he would pay to keep her parents in their home.

Dovey, the dark-skinned beauty, clapped her hands. “Bodes a wedding!” she said with a smile. “Another wedding for St. Sefin’s.”

Gwen slung her way through the crowd toward them. “You found my pin!” she exclaimed. “That’s the custom, it is. You’re next to be married, Anne bach . Who’s the young man to be, then?” She turned to the newcomer with a frank, curious grin that faltered once she got a look at him.

A storm of wind shook through Anne’s head.

Calvin Vaughn, back inside, pushed toward them like a fat pike swimming upstream.

The smirk on his face was ten times as smug and condescending as the saint’s in the window.

Marriage. He meant for Anne to marry him, and now this blasted pin was his opportunity to claim her.

Then he marked the man standing beside Anne, and the smile dropped off his face.

The most curious silence followed the pin clamor. It spread swift and somber, like the ripples in a pond when something precious had been dropped and lost in it. The hush reached the edges of the room, including the head table, where Penrydd stood, his eyes widening.

Beside him the Earl of St. Vincent shot to his feet, disbelief overtaking his placid features.

“You,” he exclaimed.

“Me,” the stranger agreed.

Lady Vaughn gave a scream like her soul had been torn from her body. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her limbs collapsed like a marionette clipped of its strings. Mr. Evans, Dovey’s new husband, caught her ladyship with his one good arm before she hit the floor.

Anne turned to regard the stranger. He started forward in a halting fashion, his eyes on Lady Vaughn, every line in his body as tight and pained as a rigged sail fighting the wind. The fragments of suspicion rushed together with a snap, and she knew him.

Calvin’s older brother, Lady Vaughn’s revered hero, Greenfield’s prodigal son and heir. Hewitt Vaughn.

Back from the dead.