Perhaps she should pretend to be a stranger or–
A pain in her side and she stared down to the cotton-clad elbow in her ribs.
Sephi’s elbow.
Her gaze flew upwards, to his waistcoat – an exquisitely embroidered affair with blue forget-me-nots, the threads shimmering with his movement as though the flowers themselves were alive. Verity endeavoured to recall any of those rehearsed words…yet her mind had gone as blank as a fresh canvas.
“Well, I’m not sure where Juliet has got to,” Mrs Tait continued, “but I must introduce you, my lord, to my fine companions.”
“I…” Verity cleared her throat and dropped to a curtsey. “Lord Stonewold.”
Mrs Tait’s gaze flicked between them. “You know each other?”
A curt nod. “A lifetime ago.” He took two steps forward. Halted. Sketched a shallow bow. “Mrs…Locksley, I presume it is?”
“Oh… No. I never…” She bit her lip. Glanced to Sephi whilst Mrs Tait’s forehead creased in confusion. “He’s…”
“Dead,” blurted Sephi.
Alas it was at the same time that Verity had found her voice to say, “I didn’t marry.”
His own forehead rumpled. Even his eyebrows had aged to perfection in the past seven years.
“I mean… We mean…” The wheels in Verity’s noddle refused to turn. “He and I did not suit. We did not wed and… And then he died.”
Mrs Tait blinked. “Poor fellow.”
“Well, I’m most sorry to hear that,” returned Lord Stonewold. “And that you did not find happiness, even with his… Now, what was it that caused you to accept his courtship? Ah, yes, I remember… His large botanical garden.” And he hitched those perfect brows.
“Yes, indeed, but he had…” Verity’s practised excuses had fled like the fiction they were. “Well, he had…”
“Bad breath,” stuttered Sephi.
Alas it was at the same time that Verity had found her voice to say, “Bad teeth.”
Mrs Tait blinked again. “Gosh.”
Those green eyes narrowed further. “But I’m correct in recalling his name was Locksley?”
Verity shifted her foot and pressed it upon Sephi’s.
“Yes. That was it.”
“With a house in….”
“C-Cornwall,” Verity supplied.
Alas it was at the same time that Sephi had found her voice to say, “Devon.”
“Straddling the border,” Verity explained. “And I don’t believe you’ve met my cousin, Miss Nash? Sephi, allow me to introduce…the Earl of Stonewold.”
While Sephi and the earl did the pleasantries, Verity attempted to regain her equilibrium, but the past had nowrushed in like a rampaging winter tide and she felt adrift in a sea of memories, tongue now loose as a wind-driven ship.
And as his stern gaze found her once more, how she wished to be smashed upon the rocks.
Drawing a measured breath,Miles willed the tension from his shoulders and dipped his head. “Are you here in Kensington Gardens to promenade?” Eyes halted on her satchel. “Or sketch the flowers?”
It had been so long since he’d seen this woman, the memory of their last meeting one of crushing disappointment, and damn it all, but Miss Verity Seymour was still exquisite, like an everlasting bloom untouched by time – her hair deep as nightfall, her eyes alight with the rich golds and russets of autumn.
