In the next moment he had the door open and was waiting for her. She had no choice but to turn to her subordinates. “Wait here.”
The last thing she saw was Becky’s wide-open mouth as she entered the house through the door reserved for the master and his guests.
Chapter Nineteen
Wait here,” he said, the exact same words in the exact same tone as she’d used with Becky and Marjorie. He climbed up the stairs and left her alone in the main hall. She set down her valise and took off her gloves—her palms perspired, she didn’t want to ruin her best pair.
The longcase clock was still there, as was the Constable painting, which had been joined by a small, unsigned watercolor. Next to the Chippendale console table, there was now an upholstered Hepplewhite chair. She sat down on it. She shouldn’t, of course, but her limbs didn’t seem to want to continue to support her weight.
Time ticked away on the longcase clock, an otherwise pleasant, homey sound that made her heart palpitate. She wiped her palms on her skirt and thirsted after a good, stiff drink.
Would you like some whiskey? She wished he would offer her some.
She jumped to her feet when she heard him coming down the stairs. He arrived carrying a large, ornate box, the kind in which bespoke boots were delivered to the homes of prized patrons.
“This belongs to you,” he said, in English.
“To me?” she replied uncertainly, in the same language.
She thought he clenched his teeth at the sound of her speech. He pushed the box toward her. “You may leave now.”
The box was practically shoved into her chest. She took it and stumbled a step back. “Sir, what is it?”
“Something of yours,” he said. “Good day, Madame.”
She watched in disbelief as he turned and left the main hall. Somewhere beyond her view, the door to his study closed softly. Only scant days ago, he’d said he was in love with her. He’d once wanted to marry her. Did any of it count? Did their history not merit a few more words at their final farewell?
She set the box down on the console table and lifted the lid. Beneath a great undulation of gray tissue paper, she found not handsome bespoke boots, but a pair of rubber galoshes. They were not new—she could see places where the rubber had hardened and cracked in fine lines—but they were clean, the last speck of mud eradicated through laborious brushing. Though why anyone in his right mind would want a spotless pair of galoshes when come the next downpour they’d only—
She emitted a shriek, then clamped her hand over her mouth. The galoshes were hers! Well, not really hers, since she’d borrowed them from Mr. Simmons, the head gardener—who had been then a new arrival at Fairleigh Park and not as disdainful toward her as many of the other servants had been after she stopped sharing Bertie’s bed—and she’d had to buy him another pair when she’d forgotten his at Sumner House Inn.
But to Stuart the galoshes had been hers.
There were sachets of dried lemon peel and lavender inside them. Mr. Simmons would die laughing if he knew that his nasty old overboots had been so ardently venerated. She, too, had the urge to giggle—even as a drop of abrupt tear fell on the back of her hand.
She replaced the box lid, bent down, and kissed the box. Then she went to look for Stuart in his study.
She didn’t knock. One minute he was staring at the whiskey decanter, wondering if he had enough to render him comatose. The next minute she was there beside him, the hem of her skirt nearly brushing the side of his shoe.
“May I have some whiskey?” she asked.
The weight of her angular, sculptural English syllables made him shiver, as if a ghost had passed through him. He poured. He was a well-mannered man and it was not in him to refuse a politely worded request. His knuckles around the neck of the decanter, however, were quite white. He wondered if she noticed.
She didn’t. She had stars in her eyes, eyes like the sky in paradise. He could scarcely look at her—she was exactly as he remembered and nothing as he remembered. Her eyes and her lips were every bit as extraordinary as his memories had insisted. But she was neither delicate nor frangible—a woman made not of porcelain but of steel.
“Thank you,” she said. She took a sip. “It’s the same whiskey, isn’t it?”
He said nothing. He was caught between the two versions of the same woman, trying to reconcile the distant perfection of Cinderella to the robust reality of his cook. He couldn’t.
“I’ve missed you so much,” she murmured.
“Have you?”
“Every day. Every night.”
He’d never thought of her eyes as seductive, but they were, God, they were. And she was far more sexually ripe than he was prepared to think of her. He turned his gaze away, and poured some whiskey for himself.
“You could have found me anytime.”
“I didn’t know how I would be received.”
“That is a lie and you know it.”