It was life itself.
A slip of a girl peered around the footman. “Or is it ‘I’? I can never remember, can you?”
Reynaud scowled. She wasn’t what he’d expected somehow. She was of average height, with gold hair and fair skin and a pleasant expression. Her eyes were wide and gray. She was very English-looking, which made her exotic. No, that wasn’t right. He swayed where he stood, trying to clear his mind. It was just that he still wasn’t used to the sight of a blond woman. An English woman.
“Who are you?” he demanded.
Her pale brown eyebrows flew up. “I thought I’d explained. Pardon me. I’m Beatrice Corning. How do you do?”
And she curtsied as if they stood in the most formal ballroom.
Damned if he’d bow; he was unsteady on his feet as it was. He started forward again, intending to bypass the chit. “I’m Hope. Where’s my—”
But she touched his arm, and the contact froze him. A wild image of her rounded form lying beneath him as he pressed his length into her softness filled his head. That couldn’t be a true memory, he knew. Was he still delirious? His body seemed to know hers.
“You’ve been ill,” she was saying, speaking slowly and firmly as if to a small child or a village idiot.
“I—” he began, but she was crowding him, moving him inexorably backward, and the only way to continue forward would be to push past her and perhaps hurt her.
His entire being recoiled at the thought.
So, slowly, gently, she maneuvered him into the scarlet room until he was staring down at her bemusedly by the bed again.
Who was this female?
“Who are you?” he repeated.
Her brows knit. “Can’t you remember? I’ve already told you. I’m Beatrice—”
“Corning,” he finished for her impatiently. “Yes, that I understand. What I don’t understand is why you’re in my father’s house.”
A wary expression crossed her face, so quickly he almost thought he’d imagined it. But he hadn’t. She was hiding something from him, and his senses were put on the alert. He glanced uneasily around the room. He was cornered here if an enemy attacked. He’d have to fight his way to the door, and there wasn’t much room to maneuver.
“I live here with my uncle,” she said soothingly, as if she sensed his thoughts. “Can you tell me where you’ve been? What has happened to you?”
“No.” Brown eyes stared up through a mask of blood, dull and lifeless. He shook his head violently, banishing the phantom. “No!”
“It’s all right.” Her gray eyes had widened in alarm. “You don’t have to tell me. Now, if you’ll just lie down again—”
“Who is your uncle?” He could feel some imminent danger raising the hairs on the back of his neck.
She closed her eyes and then looked at him frankly. “My uncle is Reginald St. Aubyn, the Earl of Blanchard.”
He gripped his knife harder. “What?”
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “You need to lie down.”
He grasped her arm. “What did you say?”
Her pink tongue darted out to lick her lips, and he realized, incongruously, that she smelled of flowers.
“Your father died five years ago,” she said. “You were thought dead, so my uncle claimed the title.”
Not home, then, he thought bitterly. Not home at all.
“WELL, THAT MUST’VE been awkward,” Lottie said with her usual bluntness the next afternoon.
“It was simply terrible.” Beatrice sighed. “He had no idea, of course, that his father was dead, and there he was holding that huge knife. I was quite nervous, half expecting him to do something violent, but instead he became very, very quiet, which was almost worse.”
Beatrice frowned, remembering the pang of sympathy that’d shot through her at Lord Hope’s stillness. She shouldn’t feel sympathy for a man who might strip Uncle Reggie of his title and their home, but there it was. She couldn’t help but ache for his loss.
She took a sip of tea. Lottie always had such good tea—nice and strong—which was perhaps why she’d fallen into the habit of calling round the Graham town house every Tuesday afternoon for tea and gossip. Lottie’s private sitting room was so elegant, decorated in deep rose and a grayish sort of green one might think was dull but was actually the perfect complement for the rose. Lottie was extraordinarily good with colors and always looked so smart that sometimes Beatrice wondered if she’d bought Pan, her little white Pomeranian, just because he looked so smart as well.
Beatrice eyed the little dog, lying like a miniature fur rug at their feet, alert to the possibility of biscuit crumbs.
“The quiet gentlemen are the ones you have to watch out for,” Lottie stated as she judiciously added a small lump of sugar to her tea.
It took a second for Beatrice to remember the thread of their conversation. Then she said, “Well, he wasn’t very quiet when he first appeared.”
“No, indeed,” Lottie said contentedly. “I thought he’d strangle you.”
“You sound rather thrilled by the prospect,” Beatrice said severely.
“It would give me a tale to dine out on for a year or more, you must admit,” Lottie replied with no trace of shame. She sipped her tea, wrinkled her nose, and added another tiny lump of sugar. “No, it’s been three days, and I’ve heard nothing else but the story of the lost earl bursting into your little political tea.”
“Uncle Reggie said we’d be the talk of the town,” Beatrice said dolefully.
“And for once he’s right.” Lottie tried her tea again and must’ve found it palatable, because she smiled and set aside her cup. “Now tell me: is he or is he not truly Lord Hope?”
“I think he must be,” Beatrice said slowly, choosing a biscuit from the tray on the tiny table between them. Pan raised his head and followed her hand as she transferred the pastry to her plate. “But so far no one who actually knew him from before the war has seen him.”
Lottie looked up from selecting her own biscuit. “What, no one? He has a sister, doesn’t he?”
“In the Colonies.” Beatrice bit into her biscuit and said somewhat indistinctly, “There’s an aunt as well, but she’s somewhere abroad. Her butler was rather vague. And Uncle Reggie said he’d met Hope, but the viscount had been a boy of ten or so at the time, so it doesn’t help.”