‘I find I have no appetite tonight.’ She would not have him believing she was in favour of his company.
‘Then we’ll walk outside. You needn’t stay indoors.’ Hayworth reversed direction, taking them away from the crowd moving towards the supper buffet.
Avaline saw her mistake immediately. He was punishing her. If she would not eat with him publicly, she’d be forced to walk with him privately where anything might be said or done. The French doors leading outside to the veranda closed ominously behind them, the temporarily deserted garden spread out before them. This was not a situation she wanted to be in. ‘We have our seclusion, my dear. Just the two of us. Perhaps now you’ll tell me why you resist my offer so vehemently? Or do you need some different form of persuasion?’ Something dangerous glinted in his eyes. His body shifted, moving closer to hers, crowding her against the rail, a predator stalking his prey, a horrifying reminder of how alone she was out here with him.
‘I don’t consider cornering a woman on a dark balcony persuasion of any sort,’ Avaline replied staunchly, trying to ignore the fact that to keep herself from touching him, her back was pressed against the hard wrought-iron of the balcony. She could physically go no further.
The knuckles of his hand gave a possessive caress of her cheek, his touch leaving her cold while her mind debated the plausibility of what he might venture here in the dark. Would he truly go so far as to force attentions on her? Admittedly, it was difficult to conceive that he would. She’d been raised in the belief that gentlemen knew the limits of propriety and abided by them, yet that very assumption was being challenged before her eyes. ‘You’re a beautiful woman, Avaline, who has been on her own too long, you’ve forgotten certain pleasures. You need a man to remind you.’
‘I have a man.’ Avaline was starting to panic now. He was giving no sign of retreating.
He gave a harsh laugh. ‘You have the memory of a man. It is not the same, I assure you.’ His mouth bent to hers in a swift move meant to take her by surprise, meant to render her helpless. The moment his mouth caught hers, she shoved, hard and certain. There could be no hesitation on her part or he would see it as acceptance. The shove bought her space, enough of it to rush past him and gain the door. She fumbled with the handle, struggling with it in her haste. She slipped inside, but not before he got his hands on her again, his grip punishing about her wrist.
‘Don’t be a fool, Avaline. I like a good, hard chase,’ he growled, ‘and I always win.’ As if to prove it, he dragged her to him and then danced her back to the wall until she was trapped between him and the damask. ‘I don’t mind if we play rough. I will have my answer.’ His mouth was inches from hers, his body pressed to hers, giving no quarter. ‘Tell me again, why do you resist?’
Then he was gone, miraculously pulled away from her, a fist crashing into his jaw with enough force to send Hayworth sprawling into a Louis XV chair too brittle to take his weight. He went down and the chair splintered with him. A man was on Hayworth like a wolf on its prey, straddling the prone figure, one hand gripping his collar, the other forming a ready fist to finish the job. No, not a man, an avenging angel, Avaline thought, taking in the dark hair, the broad shoulders beneath the soldier’s blue coat and the ripple of muscle as the man bent over Hayworth. Another blow landed, galvanising Avaline. Avenging angel or not, she couldn’t allow him to continue even if Hayworth deserved it. Violence was violence.
She ran forward, gripping her rescuer’s arm. ‘Stop! Please, stop!’ The arm tensed, muscles flexing beneath her touch, iron hard and rigid.
The man turned his face to her, blue eyes lethal, mouth set grim. ‘Are you sure, my dear Avaline? I will only stop if you say he’s had enough.’
He let go of Hayworth’s collar, dropping him on to the floor. Hayworth rolled to his side, curled in a ball, nursing his jaw. ‘Allow me to answer your question. Perhaps the lady resists your proposal on the grounds of bigamy, Hayworth.’ His growl was pure, primal possession and it sent a trill of excitement down her spine. ‘Looks as though I’ve come home just in time.’
Avaline’s breath caught. She did not remember that voice, the rich rolling timbre of it behind the growl or the sound of her name on his lips as if it belonged there. How could she forget such a voice? But the hair, the shoulders, the blue eyes, the uniform... Her mind started to grasp the details, the realities. This must be what it felt like to see a ghost, the impossible made real. The world spun. She instinctively reached for him in a desperate attempt to steady herself against the overwhelming realisation.
‘Fortis. Oh, my God, you’re back.’
Blandford Hall—the next afternoon
Fortis sat on a sofa upholstered in rose silk, his back to the wainscoted wall, his sight line trained on the wide double-doored entrance of the drawing room, his peripheral vision aware that beyond him to the left were French doors and beyond that a manicured garden bursting with autumn colour. He was aware, too, that he was surrounded on all sides by luxury, safety and people who loved him. Beside him on the sofa sat Avaline, keeping respectful—or was that wary?—inches between them, making sure not to touch him. Perhaps she was unsure what to make of his return? To his right sat Her Grace, the Duchess of Cowden, his mother, clutching his father the Duke’s hand against the joy and the shock of her son’s return. Across from him on a matching sofa were Helena and Frederick, his oldest brother and his wife. In the last chair sat his newest sister-in-law Anne, with his other brother, Ferris, standing protectively at her shoulder.
Everywhere he looked there were reminders that he was safe. He was returned to the bosom of his family. But what his eyes could see proof of, his mind struggled to accept. This was his life? Wherever he turned, this was what it always came back to. This was all his: Blandford Hall, his wife’s home—their home, the place they’d spent the first three weeks of their marriage; this family full of graciousness and warmth and unbounded love, this family who’d held him close in turns and cried openly at Hayworth’s ball when he’d made his appearance in the supper room, Avaline in his arms.
He supposed, in hindsight, his entrance had been rather dramatic—dramatic enough to make Avaline swoon. All he’d thought about when he’d caught her was getting her away from Hayworth, finding his family and going home. The result had been somewhat more. Upon their arrival today, Anne and Ferris had reported that romantic tales of the hero returned were already circulating the neighbourhood. His return had not been the private affair he’d envisioned on the journey from Sevastopol with Cam Lithgow. Today, however, it was just the eight of them, just the Treshams. He was missing Cam sorely. He hadn’t realised how much he’d counted on Cam to smooth the way, to be the bridge between his long absence and his sudden return. Cam had been a godsend last night, shooing people away, putting himself between Hayworth’s gawking guests and the Treshams’ emotional reunion. It had been Cam who’d ushered them all to carriages and sent them home—he and Avaline to Blandford and his family to the Cowden estate at Bramble. But he couldn’t rely on Cam for ever. Cam had his own business to see to, which left Fortis with tea poured out, no one to ease the conversation and an awkward silence settling over the room.
Fortis supposed he should be the one to say something, to take charge, but what did one say after having been gone for seven years? ‘How are you? What have you been up to?’ It seemed too trite, too open ended. Even if by some stretch of the imagination such a question wasn’t impossible to ask, it was impossible to answer in a decent amount of time. It would take Frederick alone at least an hour to tell him of his nephews—all five of them now—and Ferris another hour to tell him about falling in love with Anne, let alone anything else that had happened in his absence.
The enormity of that swamped him. He’d missed so much: births, weddings, deaths. Avaline’s parents had both died. He