near thing. Red, swollen eyes would have been impossible to explain away. Hopefully, she would be able to hide her vulnerability from the curious.
Charlotte pinched her cheeks for color, took a deep breath and summoned a broad, false smile. She could do it. She could return to the gathering and leave the past where it belonged—in the past. And, somehow, she’d find a way to stand up to her mother, for her sister’s sake if not her own. It was too late for Charlotte.
Her pace picked up as she hurried down the corridor toward the ballroom, eager to reclaim the evening. Then she rounded a corner and plowed, nose first, into the wide chest of another guest. Her heart lurched and she swayed a moment before a strong grip steadied her.
Lud, she was clumsy. If she’d been paying proper attention, she wouldn’t have nearly run the poor fellow down.
She withdrew a step and looked up, but the apology died on her lips. Her pulse seemed to slow and the world dimmed to a narrow point. The orchestra and the din of the crowd faded, muffled like sound carried underwater.
Him.
Her past, her heartbreak and her perpetual purgatory wrapped in one starkly masculine package.
CHAPTER TWO
“Don’t you dare faint, Charlotte,” Daniel Walsh snapped. “I won’t catch you.” The fact that he had already reached to steady her belied his words.
If he hadn’t spoken, she’d have believed it another dream. How many times over the years had she imagined suddenly coming upon him in a crowd or finding him in some random place? Somewhere along the way, the bittersweet dreams of love and passion and reunion had curdled into a nightmare of hopelessness.
Daniel’s grip was hot upon her skin despite the evening gloves that encased his hands, and she was reassured that this was no dream; it was her nightmare come to life.
He looked both the same as she remembered and altogether different, if that were possible. He still stood precisely three inches taller than she, and broad shoulders gave evidence that he was no longer a gangly limbed youth. Deep wrinkles were now etched into his face, baked by the same harsh sunlight that had darkened his skin to the patina of well-aged oak.
But his eyes were the exact same shade of melted chocolate that she remembered. She hadn’t been able to choke down a cup of the stuff in years because it reminded her of the rich depths of his gaze.
Charlotte had no idea how long they stared at each other in awkward silence.
“I’m perfectly fine now, thank you,” she said, amazed that her voice barely wavered. For good measure, she added a courteous, “Mr. Walsh.”
His blond brows rose, and he dropped his hands as if scalded. His mouth twisted, but not with amusement nor disdain. It was an expression she had never seen before and had no idea how to interpret.
“Mr. Walsh,” he murmured as if he’d never heard his name before, and he stared at her as if trying to read her mind. Then the moment broke and his familiar manner transformed to aloof courtesy. He bowed slightly.
“My lady,” he said, but it sounded like an admonishment. “I beg your pardon. Entirely my fault.”
Her chest tightened at the distance in his voice; it was as if he were gone all over again. She wondered, for the countless time, why he had left, what she had done and why he had never seen fit to write.
“Where—?” she began, reaching out with words that ended up failing her.
She simply didn’t know where to begin. What does one say to a former lover after nearly twenty years? Age and time separated them now. This was not the boy that she had fallen in love with; this was a man she didn’t know. They simply didn’t prepare young ladies for this sort of thing in finishing school.
“If you’ll excuse me,” he murmured and then pointedly stepped around her, fastidiously avoiding further contact.
Charlotte watched in dismay as his coattails twitched around the corner and he disappeared. She battled the urge to dash after him.
To what purpose? To stop him and beg him to … what? Take her back after all of these years?
Despite her soul’s clamor that she knew him still—had always known him—she didn’t really. It had been too long. For all she was aware, Daniel Walsh could have a wife, half a dozen children and a blissful life.
Just the thought of it twisted her stomach. She leaned against the wall, feeling flushed and ill. Lud, what if he did?
“There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you, Charlotte.” Her mother sailed toward her with all of the hauteur of His Royal Highness’s best warship. “We’re leaving. Now.”
She seized Charlotte’s wrist and set off toward the entryway. Charlotte trailed behind like a moored lifeboat in her wake.
They found Angelica already huddled in her cloak and looking pleased that they were leaving early. Three suitors circled, pouting and carping about their leave-taking and generally making a nuisance. Irritated, Angelica waved away the men and their promises to call in the morning.
“Mother,” Charlotte said, heart still pounding from the encounter with Daniel. “You cannot imagine who I just—”
“Not now,” her mother snapped and looked about as if she expected to be attacked by miscreants. Angelica’s eyes widened as she watched their mother’s unusual behavior. “Wait until we’re in the coach, if you please.”
“But you’ll never believe who I just saw, Mother,” Charlotte said and turned back to stare at the spot of the collision. “I can’t leave without—”
“You can and you will, Lady Charlotte Fortney,” her mother said in the low tone that she had perfected to manage her progeny. “Don’t you dare embarrass me and ruin your sister’s chances for a good match.”
“But—”
“You will get into that coach right now, Charlotte, and return home with your sister and me. No further questions.”
Charlotte continued to stare down the hall, silently willing Daniel to return. To prove the encounter wasn’t the wild imagination of a broken woman.
She recalled his beloved features, sharpened and toughened now by time. The familiar eyes with the unfamiliar distance and coldness. Her heart might ache for him as much as ever, but Daniel Walsh was a man she no longer knew. He had a life and a history apart from her, and she was unlikely to find a place in it again.
So, like the dutiful daughter she had always tried to be, she followed her mother into the night.
CHAPTER THREE
Even after all of these years, Charlotte Fortney could cause his heart to seize.
She looked even better than he remembered. She wasn’t the same—how could she be, with the passage of so much time? Her brown hair looked just as rich and thick as when she had been a young girl, and she’d traded the softness of youth for the full, elegant curves of a mature woman.
Daniel gripped
