“No, you need not bother. If she is unwell, I shall not request a visit. I will await you here in case she has a message for me.”
“Very good, miss.” The butler bowed and exited, leaving the spacious anteroom in perfect silence.
Georgina found a chair alongside the wall, clasped her hands in her lap, and waited. Disappointment thronged her. What had she hoped would happen? That she’d be shown into the drawing room today, only to find Simon Fancourt standing by the mantel, dressed as he’d been twelve years ago and charmed to see her?
What nonsense.
He had never been charmed to see her in his life.
Within minutes, the butler returned with a kind word from Mrs. Fancourt, handed her back her cloak, and bid her a good afternoon for the second time.
She started down the steps, the low temperature expelling her breath in condensation. What would Agnes say when she realized that Georgina had come? She would likely scold and—
Voices.
Georgina froze, drawing her cloak tighter as the hum of words grew louder. ’Twas utter ridiculousness to think the voices indicated Simon Fancourt, but they did sound young and…had he not had children with him at the port?
A brown-headed boy rounded the stone wall beside the steps. He halted, stared up at Georgina, just as a tiny girl bumped into his side.
Then a flash of brown. The coat.
For the second time, weakness surged through Georgina’s knees, but she locked them and forced in air.
“Go on. Up with you.” Simon Fancourt motioned his children to ascend, and they scurried past her before he had taken one step. His eyes were wary. He was different. Taller, broader, with a set to his stubbled jaw that hinted of resilience and pain and something else she could not identify.
Why could she not move? She should smile. She should say something—anything—instead of staring at him like some sort of half-witted fool.
With measured steps, he climbed the stairs in silence. Then he paused, no longer looking at her, an arm’s breadth away. “How are you, Miss Whitmore?”
“I am well.” Blood rushed to her face. “And you?”
“I am home.” Ragged emotions, too many to decipher, rang in his answer. He bid her good day and continued up the stairs.
Seconds later, the entrance door thudded shut. The voices were gone. The stairs empty.
Georgina hurried back to the carriage and drew the blankets over her legs. She burrowed herself into the warmth and wished the chill would leave her soul.
Because he’d spoken to her as a stranger, as if he scarcely remembered, as if she was not the woman he had once been pledged to marry.
As if, in all these years, he had not thought of her at all.
CHAPTER 5
The last place he wanted to be was here.
Simon lowered himself to the edge of an old black chest, the lid creaking under his weight. Mercy scrambled onto his lap, and John strode into the center of the round turret room, sweeping his hand across dusty items and sheeted furniture.
The paintings, hung crooked and without thought, stared back at Simon. How long had his parents waited before they’d ordered the frames to this forgotten room? Had Father dismissed them in anger—or sadness?
“This looks like me.” John climbed atop a saggy wingback chair and pointed to one of the largest paintings. “Don’t it?”
Simon nodded.
The child in the muted brushstrokes hid behind a drapery, as a glistening couple danced the crowded ballroom. His parents. How he had sighed and despised the sights and sounds of a world so caught up in nonsense. All the pretense, all the shallow chatter, all the flaunting show of wealth and position had frustrated him for as long as he could remember.
But the boy in the painting was a fool.
He should have ceased hiding in drapery windows.
