Was she?
The knock sounded again, louder this time. “I’m coming,” she grumbled, unlocking the heavy door and swinging it open.
Her lungs froze with the blast of frigid air, snowflakes swirling around her and catching on the curled brim of the man’s bowlerhat. He lifted his chin slowly, and she recognized everything in disjointed pieces before seeing the whole.
The long, slightly crooked nose from an accident years ago. High cheekbones glowing pink in the cold, the hollows below no longer sunken. The coarse beard, not scraggly and unkempt, but neatly clipped and highlighting the sharp jaw she’d once loved to touch.
Finally, his eyes met hers, not red-rimmed and bloodshot but clear, the midnight blue sparkling like the deepest part of the sea as it reflected the gaslight from behind her. His full lips parted, and his breath escaped in a rush, alongside a single word. “Lily?”
She did the only thing she could think of.
She slammed the door in her husband’s face.
Chapter 2
Allthingsconsidered,theirreunion could have gone much worse than a slammed door to the face.
For the weeks leading up to the holiday, and every moment of the interminable train-boat-train-carriage-horseback ride from Paris to Oxfordshire, he’d imagined what would happen when he saw his wife again.
She’d scream—in delight or horror, he wasn’t sure. She’d punch him in the nose. She’d kick him in the bollocks.
Occasionally, when he was feeling somewhat optimistic, he’d imagine she would smile and embrace him. That the work he’d been preparing for, the words he’d practiced again and again, the endless nights and interminable days spent fixing all the parts of himself that were broken, would be unnecessary.
But Philip Marshall, the long-absent Earl of Whitby, had a lot of explaining to do.
He knocked on the door again. “May I please come in?”
“No!”
A smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. She hadn’t run into the house to escape, which was something.
Unless she was arming herself.
“I know this is a surprise, and you probably don’t want to see me—”
“Probably?” The door swung open again, just far enough for her to poke her head out into the cold. “I absolutely, without a doubt,do notwant to see you.” She slammed the door again.
“I deserve that.” He stomped his feet; he’d lost sensation in his toes sometime in the past hour, and expected his fingertips to be next. “And I have no right to your time, but I’m still asking for it. Please, Lily. I’m your hus—”
She opened the door once more, this time letting it smack against the interior wall with a shuddering thud. “If you sayhusband, I cannot be held responsible for what I do to you.”
Christ, but she was lovelier than he’d remembered, even when threatening his life. Her wide-set hazel eyes blazed, and strands of her chestnut hair had escaped their confinement, swirling around her head and catching the snow as it fell. She was enchanting, strong and furious, fiery and passionate.
And about to kick him in the bollocks.
He held up his hands, palms out. “Can you spare me a few moments of your time—”
“I owe you nothing,” she spat.
He chanced a step forward, and she snarled. “I know, but—”
“Gracious, Lily, what are you doing with the door open? You’ll freezeto death!”
Philip froze as his mother-in-law appeared in the doorway, her lips parting in a gasp.
“Whit?” she breathed. “Is that you?”
“It is I, my lady. But I’d prefer it if you called me Philip.”
