The blacksmith had emerged from his forge, looking for his customer; seeing him socialising, he’d tethered the magnificent beast more securely to a post before returning inside.
‘Are you away from Suffolk to visit relatives in the area?’ Gerard asked amiably.
‘I have no relatives in the area,’ Randolph once more told him. ‘I’ve travelled to the south coast on a business matter.’
‘And will it keep you here long, sir?’ Harriet asked politely.
‘Possibly,’ Randolph replied succinctly.
After a pause that vainly begged a better explanation Harriet reminded her brother, ‘Well…we must be going. You’ve promised to take me to Rye this afternoon and I’ve not forgotten. Are you sure you won’t come with us, Debbie?’
‘I must be getting along home,’ Deborah replied huskily, but with a small smile for her friend. The ruthless golden gaze was again savaging the side of her face and instinctively she raised a hand to touch her hot cheek.
‘Is there somewhere we can talk privately without being gawped at?’ Randolph said whilst watching the vicar and his sister strolling away towards their dogcart.
Deborah, too, had noticed that they were under observation. In London well-bred people would mask their inquisitiveness behind concealing lashes or fluttering fans; these simple country folk employed no such sophisticated tactics. They stared quite openly as they passed by.
‘Strangers always stir interest hereabouts,’ she explained to him. Deborah knew, too, that undoubtedly news was travelling on the grapevine that her driver had been involved in a brawl whilst protecting her.
‘Is there a tearoom we can go to?’
She had heard nothing from him in almost seven years. Now he wanted to sit and chat over tea!
Oh, there was much they could discuss that need not touch on the very thorny subject of their brief romance. They might swap news about their mutual friends, the Earl and Countess of Gresham. They could reminisce on the couple’s glittering wedding when she had been a bridesmaid and Randolph had been Marcus’s groomsman. It had been the last occasion they’d seen one another, seven years ago. The last time he’d kissed her passionately before forgetting about her.
‘There is a teashop, but I’m not sure that visiting it, or prolonging this meeting, is necessary, sir,’ Deborah rebuffed him coolly.
‘Not necessary?’ he ground out. ‘Have we nothing to say to one another after so long?’
‘If you had something to say to me, I imagine you would not have waited seven years to air it,’ Deborah snapped. She took a deep breath and looked away, striving for composure. She would not give him the satisfaction of guessing that she’d pined for him for years after he went away. She would never let him know that she’d wanted to write to him in the Indies but had felt unable to abase herself and beg an address from his friend, the Earl of Gresham, so she might do so. Nor would she have needed to do so if Randolph Chadwicke had been true to his parting words on that glorious day when Marcus Speer had married Jemma Bailey.
At the reception, away from prying eyes in an alcove in the hallway of Marcus’s magnificent mansion, Randolph had kissed her and told her that he must go away to sort out pressing family matters, but that he would write to her as soon as he could. Obviously he had never found the time or the inclination to put pen to paper and say where he was, or how he was doing, or when he would return and issue that unspoken proposal that had thrilled in the air between them. But no disaster had befallen him to prevent a communication. She had heard through her friends that Randolph Chadwicke was still in the Indies with his older brother.
‘I didn’t wait one year and well you know it,’ Randolph muttered viciously through his teeth. He’d deliberately put too little volume in the words. He was equally keen not to reveal he’d been wounded by their ill-starred attraction. ‘You sound as though you might have missed me, Miss Cleveland,’ Randolph drawled as his eyes roamed over her classic pearl-skinned profile.
This time she heard very well what he’d said, just as he’d intended she should. A bubble of laughter met his conceit, but she swallowed the immediate denial that sprang to her tongue. It would sound false however she expressed it. ‘Perhaps I did at first, sir,’ she insou-ciantly agreed. ‘But a lot of water has passed under the bridge since then.’ A smile was forced to her lips. ‘I was just a girl of eighteen when last we spoke.’ She raised cornflower-blue eyes to his, held his narrowed gaze for a significant long second whilst adding, ‘Now I am a woman.’ Her brashness withered beneath lupine eyes. She felt suddenly uneasy for having implied something that was quite untrue, and she was at a loss to know why she’d done it.
‘Despite all that water and experience you recognised me straight away,’ he reminded her very quietly.
‘As you did me,’ she returned in a snap and then swiftly turned to stare at the sea sparkling in the distance. Her mind was in turmoil. She felt unprepared and unequal to dealing with this meeting. Once she had longed for it to occur; she had prepared in minute detail what she would wear and what she would say. But the event had sprung up defiantly when she’d believed the chance of it doing so had expired. She was at a loss to recall any of that witty conversation that had for years whirled in her mind, and her outfit was sensible rather than seductive. ‘I didn’t intend to sound brusque a moment ago,’ she hastened on. What was she thinking of? Seductive? She no longer wished to attract him, she reminded herself. ‘I have rather a lot to do. I expect you, too, have a lot to do as you are in the area on business.’ She inclined her head towards the forge. ‘I see Donald Smith is again looking for you. He is a stickler, so I’ve heard, for having his bills immediately settled.’ She imagined Donald would not be too worried that this gentleman might abscond without paying. She ran a discreet eye over the impressive masculine figure beside her. His tailored jacket and snugly cut buff breeches were of obvious quality and the long leather riding coat that carelessly covered them looked to have been topstitched by a master craftsman. She remembered that she’d always admired how well his lofty, muscular body suited formal attire when they’d socialised together at balls and parties.
But all that was gone and forgotten. Charming and elegant he might have contrived to be, but she knew it all for a sham. He’d been a practised flirt and she’d been naïve enough to take his empty promises seriously. She extended gloved fingers. ‘It is nice to have met you again, Mr Chadwicke. I hope your business in the area goes well.’ It seemed he was not going to match her polite farewell. A firm clasp tightened on her hand as she made to slip it free after an appropriate time had passed.
‘I have to go home now. My mother will wonder what has become of me.’ Deborah again wriggled her fingers against the warmth of his palm whilst scouring her mind for a polite yet meaningless remark. ‘Of course, if you find business ever again brings you this way, sir, you must come and see us.’
He looked down at those fidgeting digits and slowly released them. ‘Thank you for the invitation,’ he said softly. ‘I shall call on you tomorrow afternoon.’
‘I didn’t mean this time—’ Deborah blurted before her pearly teeth nipped at her lower lip. She hadn’t intended to sound quite so inhospitable, but she wasn’t sure she could cope with again being tormented with his presence. This impromptu meeting had set her pulse accelerating alarmingly; she couldn’t countenance sitting and politely taking tea whilst brooding on memories of what had happened seven years ago. The disturbing knowledge that just ten minutes of his company had the power to stir to life embers of emotions she’d believed withered to ashes made her heart constrict beneath
