She got to her feet and shook out her skirts and her cloak.
“There is a snowdrop here,” she said, “though it has not bloomed yet. I always look for the first one.”
“You believe in springtime, then?” he asked.
“Believe in?” She looked inquiringly at him.
“New life, new beginnings, new hope,” he suggested, circling one gloved hand in the air. “Off with the old, on with the new, and all that rally-the-old-and-tired-spirits stuff?”
“I want only an end to the cold,” she said, “and the sight of flowers and leaves on the trees.”
If he asked her to walk with him today, she would say no. But even as she thought it, he opened the gate and stepped inside, Hector at his heels.
“It is a lovely day,” she said.
He looked up at the blue sky above and then back down at her.
“Must we talk about the weather?” he asked. “It lacks a certain . . . originality as a topic of conversation, would you not agree? But it is a lovely day, I must concede. I came to bring the joyful tidings that dearest Fluff has presented the world with kittens—six of them, all apparently as healthy as horses. No runts. And I have it on the most reliable authority that they are the sweetest things in the world.”
“Aunt Lavinia?”
“And a few assorted maids and one footman, who ought to have been on duty in the hall but had inexplicably taken a wrong turn and ended up in the stables instead,” he said. “Mrs. Ferby is as usual unimpressed with such sentimental stuff. I may even have heard a rumble of drown ’em spoken in her voice as I left the dining room after breakfast, but it may have been merely the rumble of a bit of dyspepsia coming from her, ah, stomach.”
She had no choice, Imogen thought. She could not be openly rude, even to him. Especially when he was spouting absurdities again.
“Would you care to step inside, Lord Hardford?” she asked him. “Would you care for a cup of tea, perhaps?”
“Both, thank you.” He smiled at her, his spontaneous, genuine smile—which somehow did not look either spontaneous or genuine.
If she did not know better, Imogen thought as she led the way inside, she would say he was ill at ease. She did not want him here. Did he not realize that? Did he not understand that she had come back here yesterday, even before the house was ready for her, in order to escape from him? Though that was perhaps a little unfair. She had come back to escape from herself, or, rather, from the effect she had allowed him to have on her. She did not want to feel the pull of his masculinity and the corresponding stirring of her femininity.
He and Blossom eyed each other in the sitting room. Blossom won the confrontation. He took the chair on the other side of the fireplace after Imogen had seated herself firmly in the middle of a love seat. Hector plopped down at his feet, ignored by the cat. Mrs. Primrose had seen them come in and would bring the tea tray without waiting for instructions. Visitors were always plied with her tea and whatever sweet delight she had baked that day.
He talked with great enthusiasm about the weather until the tray had arrived and Imogen had poured their tea and set his beside him with two oatmeal biscuits propped in the saucer. He made dire predictions for the future based upon the fact that they had been enjoying a string of fine days and must surely suffer as a consequence. He almost had her laughing with his monologue, and once again she was forced to admit to herself that she almost liked him. She might even withdraw the qualification of the almost if he did not fill her sitting room to such an extent that there seemed to be almost no air left to breathe.
She resented that charisma he seemed to carry about with him wherever he went. It seemed undeserved.
He picked up one of his biscuits and bit into it. He chewed and swallowed.
“If not that, then what?” he asked abruptly, and curiously she knew exactly what he was talking about. His whole manner had changed, and so had the atmosphere in the room. If not rape, he was asking her, then what?
She ought to refuse to answer. He had no right. No one else had ever asked her outright. At Penderris, everyone—even the physician, even George—had waited until she was ready to volunteer the information. It had taken two years for it all to come out. Two years. She had known him . . . how many days? Eight? Nine?
“Nothing,” she said. “You were mistaken in your assumption.”
“Oh,” he said, “I believe you. But something happened.”
“My husband died,” she said.
“But you not only mourn,” he said, looking at the biscuit in his hand as though he had only just realized it was there, and taking another bite. “You also refuse to continue to live.”
He was too perceptive.
“I breathe air into my lungs,” she told him, “and breathe it out again.”
“That,” he said, “is not living.”