“
So you’ve run off from him, have you?” Beatrix asked, smoothing the wiry ruff on his head. “Naughty boy. I suppose you’ve had a fine old time chasing rabbits and squirrels. And there’s a damaging rumor about a missing chicken. You had better stay out of poultry yards, or it won’t go well for you in Stony Cross. Shall I take you home, boy? He’s probably looking for you. He--”
She stopped at the sound of something…someone…moving through the thicket. Albert turned his head and let out a happy bark, bounding toward the approaching figure.
Beatrix was slow to lift her head. She struggled to moderate her breathing, and tried to calm the frantic stutters of her heart. She was aware of the dog bounding joyfully back to her, tongue dangling. He glanced back at his master as if to convey Look what I found!
Letting out a slow breath, Beatrix looked up at the man who had stopped approximately three yards away.
Christopher.
It seemed the entire world stopped.
Beatrix tried to compare the man standing before her with the cavalier rake he had once been. But it seemed impossible that he could be the same person. No longer a god descending from Olympus…now a warrior hardened by bitter experience.
His complexion was a deep mixture of gold and copper, as if he had been slowly steeped in sun. The dark wheaten locks of his hair had been cut in efficiently short layers. His face was impassive, but something volatile was contained in the stillness.
How bleak he looked. How alone.
She wanted to run to him. She wanted to touch him. The effort of standing motionless caused her muscles to tremble in protest.
She heard herself speak in a voice that wasn’t quite steady. “Welcome home, Captain Phelan.”
He was silent, staring at her without apparent recognition. Dear Lord, those eyes…frost and fire, his gaze burning through her awareness.
“I’m Beatrix Hathaway,” she managed to say. “My family--”
“I remember you.”
The rough velvet of his voice was a pleasure-stroke against her ears. Fascinated, bewildered, Beatrix stared at his guarded face.
To Christopher Phelan, she was a stranger. But the memories of his letters were between them, even if he wasn’t aware of it.
Her hand moved gently over Albert’s rough fur. “You were absent in London,” she said. “There was a great deal of hullabaloo on your behalf.”
“I wasn’t ready for it.”
So much was expressed in that spare handful of words. Of course he wasn’t ready. The contrast would be too jarring, the blood-soaked brutality of war followed by a fanfare of parades and trumpets and flower petals. “I can’t imagine any sane man would be,” she said. “It’s quite an uproar. Your picture is in all the shop windows. And they’re naming things after you.”
“Things,” he repeated cautiously.
“There’s a Phelan hat.”
His brows lowered. “No there isn’t.”
“Oh, yes there is. Rounded at the top. Narrow-brimmed. Sold in shades of gray or black. They have one featured at the milliner’s in Stony Cross.”
Scowling, Christopher muttered something beneath his breath.
”
”