It was a well-known fact that the viscount had lost his leg in the war with the French, twenty years earlier.
He walked down the gangplank, his wooden leg tapping lightly, and Adam prepared to introduce Madeline. Adam froze, however, when he looked beyond the lieutenant-governor’s shoulder and met the eyes of the woman coming down behind him.
Dressed in silks and satins and fluttering her fan ridiculously in the driving wind, she smiled broadly at Adam.
He struggled to keep his balance, for the woman approaching, flashing her blue eyes at him, was Diana.
Chapter Twelve
Dumbfounded and bewildered, Adam struggled to maintain his composure.
Lord Blackthorne appeared before him, looking all around at the vast green landscape. “Mr. Coates! What a magnificent countryside you have here.”
Adam forced himself to greet the viscount and make some audible response.
Lord Blackthorne gestured behind him. “As you can see, I brought another flower to add to it, and what an exceedingly great pleasure it is to do so.”
Adam remembered a conversation he’d had with the viscount one evening at Government House when they were enjoying a glass of brandy together.
“Are you married, Mr. Coates?”
Adam had swirled the amber liquid around in his glass. “No, my lord. I am widowed, but I’ve recently proposed to a woman I once knew in Yorkshire years ago—Lady Thurston. She, too, is widowed. Her younger sister is here now, and we’re awaiting my lady’s arrival.”
“What’s the woman’s sister doing here?”
So Adam had been forced to explain the mix-up….
Lord Blackthorne slapped Adam on the back, shocking him back to the present. “I’ve come on the same schooner as Lady Thurston! What an extraordinary coincidence, what?”
Diana moved to stand beside Lord Blackthorne, who seemed to enjoy the opportunity to bring two long-lost lovers back together again. “Adam Coates, may I present your betrothed, Lady Thurston.”
Adam’s heart throbbed in his ears as he forced himself to meet her sparkling gaze.Diana…
She looked as young and slim and perfect as the first day he had met her, sixteen years ago. Almost nothing had changed, save a line or two around her eyes. Her smile was the same, her full lips were the same, her tiny, dainty nose…it was all the same.
Diana—his Diana—here in the flesh. The shock of it. It was incomprehensible.
She smiled and tilted her head in that old, familiar way. He was shaken by how well he knew her mannerisms, as if they were etched in his heart and mind and soul.
“Adam,” she said, “how wonderful it is to see you again. It seems like a lifetime.” Her voice was the same, too—rich and velvety like a song.
He felt everyone’s eyes upon them, as if they all knew the situation and were waiting to see what would happen next. Of course, no one knew therealsituation, that he had a letter to break off their engagement searing a damn hole in his pocket.
He turned to look at Madeline, somewhere behind him. God, his chest was aching.
Madeline stood tall and unruffled, her hands clasped together in front of her. As he turned, Diana turned, too, then Madeline moved forward to greet her sister.
The whole scene was excruciating to Adam, like something out of a bad play. They hugged each other, and it was all Adam could do to keep himself from demanding an explanation. What was Diana doing here? She couldn’t possibly have received his proposal and arrived so quickly. It wasn’t feasible.
Madeline smiled warmly at her sister. “What are you doing here so soon? We didn’t expect you.”
“It was your letter, Madeline. Thank goodness, you sent it!”
“My letter?” Madeline replied, sounding confused. “It was Adam who wrote to you after I arrived, but you couldn’t have received that yet, and have traveled all this way.”
“No, no!Yourletter! Don’t you remember? You wrote to tell me you were leaving Yorkshire to marry Adam, that father had arranged it.”
Madeline’s brow furrowed as she contemplated her sister’s explanation. Adam watched the scene with a sick feeling in his gut.
