spreading her skirts as she dipped coquettishly before this new admirer. All other conversation stopped while everyone listened and watched, curiosity turning them into eager, avid spectators. Word that the famous—some said infamous—Lord Revell Claremont had joined the party had raced through the house earlier, but this was the first real glimpse of him that most of them had had.
He did not disappoint. Though he smiled warmly enough at Clarissa, his eyes betrayed no emotion, and even standing still he seemed to have the restlessness and grace of a wild tiger, barely contained in impeccable black evening dress and white Holland linen.
Later Sara would overhear the whispers: how the ladies admired the splendid width of his shoulders, the intriguing aura of danger he wore as comfortably as his waistcoat, and the size of the cabochon sapphire—at least as large as a pigeon’s egg!—that he wore in a ring on his right hand, while the gentlemen noted the harsh lines fanning from those chilly blue eyes and the ruthless set of his mouth, souvenirs of living too long in a pagan place like India, and to a man they resolved never to cross a coldhearted bastard like Claremont.
But what Sara saw now was how all gentleness had vanished from Revell’s face, and how the hardness that had replaced it made her wonder sadly if he ever laughed anymore, or even could.
Lady Fordyce glided forward, resting one hand protectively upon her daughter’s shoulder while holding the other outstretched to Revell. The unspoken message in her posture was unmistakable to Sara; Lady Fordyce took her position and her responsibilities as the most prominent hostess in the county very seriously, and Revell had already grievously erred by coming down to the drawing room so late.
“Surely,” began Lady Fordyce, “you must be Lord Revell Claremont, yes?”
Revell nodded, lifting her hand to kiss the air over it. “Surely I am, my lady.”
“Then just as surely you may now take Lady Lawrence into dinner, my lord,” said Lady Fordyce, pointedly withdrawing her hand. “We are most honored by your presence here, my lord, but I do not wish to keep either my guests or my cook waiting.”
He bowed again, and turned toward Lady Lawrence, an older widow in lavender silk who was clearly as terrified as she was titillated to have him as her dinner companion. The others fell in by rank with their accustomed partners and followed through the arched door festooned with holly boughs, leaving Sara and Clarissa behind.
“Ooh, Miss Blake, didn’t I tell you!” exclaimed Clarissa with relish. “That Lord Revell is a wicked devil, isn’t he? He didn’t even tell Mama he was sorry, because he wasn’t!”
“Hush, Clarissa,” murmured Sara, still gazing toward the now-empty doorway. “It’s not fitting for you to speculate over Lord Revell’s character.”
They had stood not four feet apart, and he’d not noticed her. Not a glance, neither a smile nor a frown, no acknowledgment whatsoever that she’d ever meant anything to him that was worth remembering. She hadn’t dared hope their first meeting would happen with so little consequence. For now, anyway, she’d escaped.
But how was it possible for a broken heart to break again?
Chapter Two
With his elbows resting on the arms of the chair and fingers pressed together into a little tent over his waistcoat, Revell smiled across the room at Albert Fordyce, striving to project a relaxed bonhomie that he assuredly did not feel. They had outlasted all the other male guests tonight and had the room to themselves, though from the unfocused foolishness of Albert’s eyes and the nearly empty bottle of brandy beside him, Revell guessed he, too, would soon need help to his bed. If he wanted answers to the questions plaguing him, he’d better ask them now, before Albert was completely beyond coherent reply.
“So tell me of your sister’s governess,” began Revell, striving to sound idly interested and no more. “What do you know of her?”
“Clary’s governess?” Albert frowned, struggling to compose a reasonable answer to what clearly seemed an unimaginable question. “That dry little stick of a female?”
“Yes, your sister’s governess.” How could Albert speak so slightingly of Sara? And why did it seem to still matter so much that he did? “Though I should hardly call her a ‘dry little stick.”’
Albert stared with blank curiosity. “Wouldn’t you now?” he marveled. “She’s scarcely seemed worth the notice to me.”
“I noticed her.” How could he not, seeing Sara there like a flesh-and-blood ghost come back to haunt him? She was fine-boned and fair-skinned, true—the hot Indian climate often seemed to reduce English women to their very essence—but her delicacy had never seemed a fault to Revell. She’d been light as a fairy in his arms when they’d danced and vibrant with warm-blooded passion when they’d kissed, and lovely enough that every English gentleman in Calcutta had jostled for a favoring smile from her. “I thought her, ah, rather handsome.”
What kind of blasted understatement was that? He certainly wasn’t in love with Sara any longer, not the desperate way he’d been six years ago, but “rather handsome” didn’t begin to explain how he’d felt seeing her again. Where he’d simply grown older, she had somehow grown even more beautiful, her girlish brilliance burnished and refined by experience and time into a softer, more womanly elegance. She’d tried to hide it in those hideous clothes—shrouding herself in grim black and white, her bright curls skinned back beneath a plain cap—but how could she disguise the sunny blue of her eyes or the generous curve of a mouth made for laughing and teasing and lavishing with kisses?
Oh, aye, she was still Sara, still beautiful, still desirable, and still wretchedly, hopelessly unattainable.
“Ah, well, every man must pick his own poison,” said Albert blithely as he once again reached for the bottle beside his chair. “And here I thought you were taken with that saucy Talbot girl, the fine plump one making kitten’s eyes at you over dinner!”
Revell grimaced. He’d scarcely noticed the young woman sitting at his right until she’d freed her foot from her slipper and brazenly tickled her stockinged toes up and down his calf.
“No, don’t scoff,” said Albert. “I’d wager you’d find a warm welcome from that one, no mistake. But if Miss Blake’s the sort that catches your fancy, Claremont, well, that’s a different kettle entirely. I’d no notion that was how you felt.”
Thunderstruck, that’s how Revell had felt to discover Sara there beside him. Bowled over and blasted and for once so completely unable to trust his own emotions that he’d looked away, down to the little girl holding her hand.
And Sara—hell, Sara had ignored him as if he didn’t exist.
“That is her name, then?” In Calcutta she’d been Sara Carstairs. No wonder he’d not been able to find her since. “Miss Blake?”
“So she is called.” Albert shrugged carelessly, pouring the brandy in a sloppy arc into his glass. “Missy-Miss Priss Blake.”
Revell’s fingers tightened on the arm of the chair. When he’d returned to Calcutta from visting the mines in the hills, eager to announce their engagement, he’d been told that Sara hadn’t waited for him. The governor’s wife, who’d been appointed to tell him, had been as kind as possible, her voice full of pity. Sara’s father had died of a sudden apoplexy brought on by the record heat and dust of that last summer,
