“Racing across familiar terrain is not—”
Alex broke off at the sound of Mrs. Summers’s voice coming from farther down the hall. “Good heavens. What is all this?”
Evie poked her head around Whit’s shoulders. “We’ve visitors.”
A round of greetings followed, and then another when Christian arrived. It was a great mass of noise and movement, as bows and handshakes and embraces were exchanged. Sophie held on to Mrs. Summers for an extended period of time, Kate answered questions on the progression of their journey, and Evie sidled up next to Whit to whisper in his ear.
“Handle your wife and sister, can you?” she asked, reminding him of his pronouncement the morning she’d left Haldon.
“Mirabelle’s not here, is she?” Whit pointed out.
Evie doubted Mirabelle had been foolish enough to consider riding cross-country in her condition. “I’m sure convincing her to stay was a great trial.”
Whit pretended not to hear her. “Where’s Mr. Hunter?” he asked Christian.
Christian jerked his head toward that back of the house. “Cleaning a bit of dirt from his boots. I expect we arrived from the north not three minutes after you came from the east.”
“Two minutes for the ladies,” Sophie corrected.
Alex narrowed his eyes. “What if Herbert had been here? What if something had happened to both of us? Where would that have left our son?”
Sophie stood and stretched out the kinks in her back. “I imagine you should have thought of that before insisting you come along.”
When a low growl emitted from Alex’s throat, Mrs. Summers stepped between them. “Would anyone care for a spot of tea in the parlor?”
The answer to that question was delayed by the sudden appearance of McAlistair.
And just as Evie had feared, the sight of him turned her inside out. She felt her fingernails dig into the apple she’d almost forgotten she was holding, and she might very well have winged it at his handsome head if others hadn’t been present. Because the temptation still remained, she turned her attention to Sophie and Kate, who, unfortunately, had their attention turned to McAlistair.
Sophie dipped in a quick curtsy upon their introduction. Kate, on the other hand, had lived with the legend of the hermit McAlistair for a third of her life without having ever seen him. She indulged in a moment of gaping and then a long and obvious perusal of his person.
“The Hermit of Haldon Hall,” she breathed, fascination evident in every syllable. “I could scarcely believe it when Mirabelle told me you were real.”
“I’ve been telling you for nearly a decade,” Whit pointed out.
“Yes, but you’re my brother,” she said dismissively.
“And?”
“Brothers lie.” She ignored Whit’s grumbling and offered McAlistair a sunny smile. “I am delighted to finally make your acquaintance.”
Eventually, tea was prepared and consumed in the parlor, and the story of John Herbert’s plan for revenge summarized and discussed. Though there were still questions Evie would have liked to ask McAlistair about some of the things Herbert had said, she found she wasn’t quite interested enough to speak to McAlistair directly. Not yet.
She answered the questions of others instead, drank her tea and ate her apple, and then excused herself from the early dinner Mrs. Summers suggested, pleading nerves after the trying day.
In retrospect, it hadn’t been a very clever excuse for her exit. No one who knew her well was likely to believe she’d succumbed to a fit of nerves, and so she wasn’t terribly surprised when a knock sounded at her door an hour later.
Though she knew it to be foolish, a small part of her couldn’t help but hope, just for a moment, that it might be McAlistair.
It was Kate, holding a plate of cold meat and cheese. The early dinner, Evie surmised.
Without bothering to wait for an invitation, Kate swept past Evie into the room, took a seat on the bed, and shoved the plate at Evie. “Sit, eat, and tell me what’s happened.”
Left with no other choice, Evie took the plate, but set it on the nearby desk. “You know what happened. John Herbert—”
“Oh, devil take John Herbert. What’s the matter with you?”
“A run-in with a murderer isn’t enough?”
“He didn’t murder anyone—”
“That we know of.”
“From the sound of it, a man like that would have bragged. And that’s beside the point. You don’t suffer from nerves.” Kate accented the last with a roll of her eyes.
“Well, I might. I—” Evie gave up the fight and sat down heavily next to Kate on the bed. “Oh, all right. It’s McAlistair.”
“What about him?”
“I’m in love with him.” Oh, it hurt just to say.
Kate’s face expressed shock for a moment before it brightened. She gave one long, dramatic sigh. “Oh, that’s lovely.”
“It certainly is not.”