Summer's Distant Heart - Laura Landon Page 0,26
you, my lady.”
Frannie left the room and Lia almost didn’t notice that the door hadn’t closed behind her and that Hunter Montclaire stood in the open doorway watching her.
“My lord,” she said when she looked up and her eyes locked with his.
Her heart raced and she fought with its wish to leap from her chest. The man had startled her. Or rather, the devastatingly handsome man had startled her. She’d never known anyone who could cause her cheeks to warm the way he did. There was something so intriguing about the chiseled cut of his cheekbones and jaw that she had a hard time looking away from him. Or, perhaps it was the dark, captivating look in his eyes that mesmerized her.
“How are you feeling, Miss Lia?”
The pain of discovery shot through her skull and worked its way down her spine. He knew! How? When?
His gaze grew more intense. He took a threatening step into the room and stood in front of her. It was obvious that he wasn’t about to avoid confronting her with the fact that she’d tried to deceive him.
“How long did you think you could get away with pretending to be your sister?”
“How did you find out?”
“That hardly matters. The point is, I know.”
He knows.
The very words should have sent her screaming from the room, but oddly, they brought an unexpected breath of relief. Of safety.
“What are you going to do now that you know?”
He stepped further into the room and sat in the chair beside the bed. “I don’t see that the fact that you are George’s aunt instead of his mother changes anything. At least as far as I’m concerned. The courts or my father finding out would be another matter altogether.”
“Yes,” Lia said on a sigh. “I’m sorry I tried to deceive you, but…” Her voice trailed off. Partly because she didn’t know what to say in defense of her actions, but partly because his dark, threatening gaze stayed focused on where she sat and refused to move.
He looked at little George playing in her lap. Then, without asking, he reached out and took the babe into his arms.
“Hello, George,” he said, placing the babe in his lap. “Have you adjusted to your new home?”
The babe gurgled and cooed, then reached out to grab the ends of his uncle’s perfectly tied cravat. Hunter didn’t stop him.
“And you, Miss Halloway. Are you improving?”
Lia didn’t answer him. She didn’t know what answer to give. But she was saved from having to answer him at that moment when Frannie entered the room.
“Frannie, would you please take George back to the nursery?”
“Of course, my lady.”
The nursemaid took the babe and left the room, leaving Lia alone with Hunter.
“I owe you an apology, Lord Mont—”
“Hunt. Call me Hunt.”
Lia lowered her gaze to the cravat George had untied. “Hunt. Yes. I owe you an apology.”
“Your brother explained in part your reasoning. I can’t deny that I might have made the same decision had I been in your position. I can’t imagine what it was like to be weighted down with the responsibilities that were forced upon you.”
“I wish I’d have had the strength to carry the weight the world placed on my shoulders, but I did not. I never thought I would have to watch my sister die in front of me. Nor did I believe I would ever know what it felt like to be truly alone. But that is how I felt when Jannie died. More alone than I had ever been.”
“I know it’s not the same,” he said taking her hand, “but that’s how I felt when Evan died. As if I had just lost my best friend, for in truth, that’s what he was. No one knew me or understood me like Evan did. He was the only person in the world who knew what it was like having to live with my father. He was the only person who understood what it felt like to be rejected by the one person a child should never be rejected by.”
“I understand,” Lia whispered. “Jannie told me about your father. Your brother had explained what your father was like. She told me how mean and cruel he was and how unaccepting he was of anyone he considered beneath him.”
“And that was most of the world,” Hunter added. “Did your sister tell you the details of their meeting with my father?”
“Yes. She said it was horrible. Your father called her everything from an interloper to a whore who