. . . ah, she had forgotten.
It was he who stepped forward to open the carriage door and let down the steps. He reached up a hand to help her alight and . . . oh, she had forgotten the dark intensity of his eyes. And the breath-robbing feel of his hand closing about hers.
“Viola,” he said in that light, quiet voice she could always feel like a caress down her spine. “Welcome to Redcliffe.” He was still not smiling. Neither was she. When she was standing on the cobbled terrace before him, he raised her hand to his lips, and oh . . .
She knew him intimately. She knew his body, his voice, his mannerisms, his likes and dislikes. Even his mind. Yet it was like a dream, the knowing of him. The austere aristocrat standing before her was a stranger. She did not know him at all.
“Thank you,” she said.
His son, she was aware, was handing Abigail down from the carriage. His daughter was flushed and bright eyed and bursting with suppressed energy.
“Miss Kingsley,” she said, hurrying to her father’s side and smiling warmly at Viola. “At last. I thought the three weeks would never go by. They have seemed more like three months. You are the first to arrive, of course. I was sure you would like a day or so with just Papa and us before all the excitement.”
“That was thoughtful of you.” Viola smiled at the girl. “I hope you have not gone to too much trouble.”
“Aunt Annemarie and Uncle William will be arriving tomorrow,” Estelle said. “And so will everyone else if there is no bad weather to delay them.”
Everyone else?
“I cannot wait to meet them all,” Estelle continued. “Your other daughter and her children, your mother, the Countess of Riverdale, the Duke and Duchess of Netherby, the . . . oh, everyone.”
Viola’s eyes met Marcel’s, which were hooded and blank—with perhaps a hint of mockery in their depths.
“From the look on Miss Kingsley’s face,” he said, “I would guess this is all news to her, Estelle.”
“Oh, Abigail.” Estelle turned to hug Viola’s daughter. “How lovely it is to see you again. I cannot wait . . .”
Viola had stopped listening. She stared into Marcel’s eyes.
“This was your doing?” she asked.
“Oh, not at all,” he said, raising his eyebrows. “It seems I have a daughter who has stepped out of the schoolroom and out of her cocoon and has not waited to grow accustomed to her wings before spreading them and taking flight.”
She was speechless.
He offered his arm and indicated the steps up to the front doors.
Even her mind was speechless.
Sixteen
It struck Marcel only after Estelle had taken the new arrivals up to their rooms and they had come back down to the drawing room half an hour later that he had been remembering Viola as she had been fourteen years ago—young, slender despite the fact that she had three young children, poised and coolly dignified. It was almost as if his heart had shut off all memory of her enjoying herself at that village fair, decked out in the gaudy jewelry he had bought her, waltzing on the village green, demanding that they stop for every castle, church, and market they passed on their leisurely journey to Devonshire, buying him a black umbrella only because the hideous gold tassels amused her, giggling in their inn room when his wooden staff cracked in two, running downhill through the ferns with her arms spread wide, pirouetting on the bridge, glowing with animation, making love with uninhibited delight.
It all came flooding back now along with her somewhat more mature figure and her less youthfully lovely face. And he remembered, and felt again, that he found her more attractive now than he had then, perhaps because he had aged with her. She was now, quite simply, beautiful. Even, perhaps, perfect.
And with his memories of those weeks came the full force of the realization that he was still not over her. He ought to have been happy to realize it. She was, after all, going to be his wife. But he did not want a marriage in which there was sentiment involved—on either side. A leg shackle was one thing. A loss of oneself was another, and it seemed to him that he would lose something of himself if he could not get over her. Lust would be acceptable. And lust was all he had felt for any woman since Adeline. For almost twenty years he had been free, safe, his own master and master of his world. He liked it that way.
He deeply resented the fact that Viola Kingsley threatened his world.
Everyone was gathered in the drawing room for a formal presentation to his intended bride. He met her at the door, made her a slight formal bow, and offered the back of his hand. She set hers lightly upon it and he conducted her first to his aunt Olwen, the marchioness, who was seated in state in her large chair by the fire.
“I understand, Miss Kingsley,” his aunt said, “that you had the misfortune to discover after the death of the Earl of Riverdale that your marriage to him had been bigamous.”
“It was a distressing thing to discover, ma’am,” Viola said. “For my children more than for me.”
That was all she—or anyone else—said on the subject. She did not wade into explanations and assurances that she had been an innocent victim. She was, in fact and to her very fingertips, still the Countess of Riverdale as he had known her. She appeared perfectly relaxed as he continued to take her about. She repeated the name of everyone to whom she was introduced—a device for remembering, of course—and said everything that was proper. Her manners were impeccable, her demeanor poised.
After all the introductions had been made, she seated herself between Charles Morrow on one side and Cousin Isabelle on the other, accepted a cup of tea from Ellen Morrow with a nod of thanks, and proceeded to engage both her neighbors in polite conversation.
Her daughter meanwhile had been led about by Estelle while his relatives had eyed her with a certain wariness, as though they feared her illegitimacy might somehow contaminate Estelle.
He was not over Viola. By God he was not. He wanted to run away with her again, but so far away this time that they would never find their way home or want to. He longed for those days and nights back when there had been nothing to think about, nothing to brood upon except each other. There was no point in wanting, though. He had felt her gradual withdrawal during their last day or two at the cottage even before that final confrontation on the beach. Pleasure had become less enjoyable to her. He had become less enjoyable. She had told him it was over, that she was going home.
He was not over her, but she was over him.
The atmosphere in the drawing room was stifling, the chatter intolerable. Margaret had joined her mother and was telling Viola about the plans for her wedding to Sir Jonathan Billings in early December. The other young people—the twins, Abigail Westcott, Oliver and Ellen Morrow—were in a group together and talking rather loudly and not always one at a time. André was holding a conversation with Irwin, Lord Ortt. And Jane’s tight-lipped silence as she sat behind the tea tray even after everyone had been served and most had even had a second cup was somehow as loud as any of the actual sounds in the room.
Marcel got to his feet rather abruptly. “Viola,” he said, “come for a stroll outside with me.”
She looked up at him in some surprise before her eyes strayed to the window.
“It is almost dark out there, Marcel,” Jane pointed out.
“It is only early dusk,” his aunt said, for the mere sake of contradicting Jane, Marcel suspected. He ignored them both.