else, missing his ship from Liverpool would be the final straw. These last few weeks, since that life-changing letter had finally reached him, having followed him halfway round the world and back again, he felt as if he’d been through the mill. And in the end it hadn’t turned out to be a life-changing letter after all. Not a new chapter in his life, but a book closed for ever.
‘Ach!’
It wasn’t like him to be so fanciful. Leaning his head against the thick window pane, he screwed his eyes shut in an effort to block out the memory, but the words echoed in his head all the same.
You cast a blight over my childhood. You were responsible for making my father’s life a misery. I don’t want to see you or hear from you ever again.
It hurt. Devil take it, but it hurt. All the more because he hadn’t had a clue, until he’d met her, of just how unrealistic his hopes had been. The desire to belong he’d buried so deep for so many years had resurfaced. He wasn’t sure he was up to the task of digging a new and final grave for it.
‘Mr Dunbar? Excuse me, but perhaps you’d rather take your dinner alone after all. You don’t look like a man fit for company.’
Cameron opened his eyes, turning away from the window. Miss Kirstin Blair was hovering in the doorway, a vision of loveliness in a grey wool travelling gown, looking not at all discomfited by his obvious distress, but instead eyeing him in what he could only describe as an assessing way, as if he were some conundrum she wished to resolve.
‘I’ve not changed my mind.’
‘There’s no need to be polite,’ she said. ‘An idiot could see that you are troubled.’
He couldn’t help but laugh at this. She had a very singular way of expressing herself. He held out his hand. ‘Come away in, please. I won’t pretend that I’ve not got a lot on my mind, but I can say in all honesty that now you’re here I’ll be able to forget about it for a while. I’ve ordered dinner. Will you take a glass of sherry while we wait for the food to arrive?’
‘Thank you, I will.’
She sat herself down on one of the chairs by the fireside, stretching her boot-clad feet towards the hearth with a contented sigh. He’d known her for an extraordinary beauty from the moment he’d set eyes on her. Without her bonnet to shade her face, her cloak to conceal her figure, by the bright glare of the candelabra on the mantel Cameron could not detect a single flaw. Yet she had none of the airs of a beautiful woman, that assumption they all shared that they would be looked at and admired. He couldn’t believe, however, that she was oblivious to her charms.
He handed her a glass of rather cloudy sherry, taking the seat opposite her. She inspected the drink, taking a suspicious sniff and immediately setting the glass aside.
‘I would advise against it, Mr Dunbar. It is either the dregs of a keg, or the leavings of a decanter left open too long. It will be revoltingly sweet, if I am not mistaken, for the sugar has crystallised.’
‘I’m sure you are right, Miss Blair,’ he answered, ‘but it is all they have, and I am in sore need of a drink.’
‘You’ll be in sore need of a restorative in the morning if you drink too much of that muck.’
‘I’ll take my chances. Believe me, I’ve drunk a great deal worse. I have not your delicate palate.’
‘Obviously not.’
There was a glimmer of a smile in her eyes that brought to mind what it was that had first drawn him to her when he’d first boarded the coach. ‘You prefer your sherry to match your wit, Miss Blair.’
‘If you mean dry, then you are quite correct, Mr Dunbar.’
He laughed, tipping back the glass and swallowing the contents whole. It was, as she had predicted, far too sweet, and quite disgusting, but it served its purpose and warmed his gullet.
He poured himself another. ‘I hope the wine I’ve ordered will be more to your taste.’
She raised a sceptical brow. ‘Do you know anything at all about wine?’
‘I ought to. I do a deal of trade in it.’
‘Then I must presume your customers are not particularly discerning.’
‘Aye, well, it’s true. I reckon most of them prefer quantity to quality.’ He settled back in his chair, making no bones about studying her. She did not flinch, she did not blush, she returned his gaze evenly. ‘What are you doing, travelling alone on the public coach, may I ask?’
‘You may, but I’d far rather you told me first what you think I’m doing?’
‘By using my powers of deduction, as you did? Is that a game you like to play, Miss Blair?’
‘I do, though it’s usually a game I play for my own amusement.’
‘Ah, now, there you’ve given me another clue, though a surprising one. A woman as beautiful as you cannot possibly lack company.’
‘True, if I was inclined to value company because the company valued only my face, and nature must take the credit for that.’
‘A great deal of credit, if you don’t mind my saying so.’
‘It is simply a matter of ratio and proportion. What Luca Pacioli called de divina proportione and Leonardo da Vinci used to great effect. Of chin to forehead. The spacing of the eyes. The alignment of the ears with the nose. The symmetry of a profile. If any of those factors vary from the optimum, then beauty is skewed. My face has no variation, thus it is, mathematically speaking, perfectly beautiful. I hope you are not going to make the obvious mistake of assuming, however, that what is on the outside reflects what is on the inside?’
‘Nor am I going to join the ranks of your admirers who, I assume, make the mistake of feigning interest in what goes on behind that perfect visage. Lovely as it is, and I will not deny that I do find you very lovely, would you believe me, Miss Blair, if I tell you that it was rather your air of—it is not aloofness exactly. I’m not sure how to put it, but you strike me as one who coolly observes, if that makes sense?’
To his astonishment, she blushed, and, judging from the way her hand flew to her cheek, she was just as astonished as he. ‘My father taught me that observation and deduction are the key cornerstones of any scientific field.’
A tap at the door announced that dinner was served. As the servants set the table with steaming dishes and decanted the wine, Cameron took the opportunity to study his dinner guest. She had spoken impassively, but he was not fooled. His inadvertent compliment had touched her, and her discomfort touched a chord in him.
His own dark looks had been the source of endless whippings in his early years, an unnecessary effort to forestall any vanity taking root. Taking their lead from those who had wielded the whip, his peers had turned on him, forcing him to become tougher, to use attack as the best form of defence. As an adult, when those same dark looks had attracted a very different kind of attention from women, he’d been first incredulous and then—yes, just as Miss Kirstin Blair was now—he had resented it. No one looked beyond his appearance. Save this most surprising woman, now helping herself from the dish of mutton stew with undisguised hunger.
‘Dare
