The Elsingham Portrait - By Elizabeth Chater Page 0,25

isn’t so much the things you were saying as you looked into the glass. It was the way you said them. You truly believe that you are someone else, don’t you? I hadn’t accepted that before.”

“My lord,” said Kathryn soberly, “as God is my witness, I am Kathryn Hendrix of New York—to the best of my knowledge and belief.”

The big man looked at her, his eyes less cold than she had ever seen them. “Yes, you believe it. So what are we to do, Kathryn-Nadine—whoever you think you are? Have you a solution for our problem? Do you want to stay here —with me?”

An involuntary shiver of delight went through Kathryn at the sound of that deep male voice. And he noticed it—and in his eyes there leaped a fire such as Kathryn had never seen in a man’s gaze before. She drew back from the force of it, just as Lord John took the last step which brought them face to face.

“I am without doubt the greatest fool God ever made, but I’m going to ask you. In spite of everything that has happened between us—in spite of the folly and the quarreling and the shame—shall we try again, Nadine?” His voice was low and husky with passion, and something in Kathryn responded to it with an intensity she had never known in all her lonely life. Almost without willing it, she was in his arms, strong arms that yet, even in that moment of passionate attraction, remembered to hold her injured arm gently, protectively . . .

While their lips still clung and her mind refused to function, Kathryn felt deep within some inner small core of commonsense crying out that this ecstasy was not for her. She told herself that it was the beautiful body of Nadine that this man loved, not the mind and soul of Kathryn Hendrix. Could she remain in this place and time, aware always that she was a substitute—aware always that not only Lord John but everyone who knew them would remember the ugly things Nadine had done? A vision of the contempt in Randall’s eyes and the stern judgment in Lord Peter’s face flashed into her mind, and she drew herself out of Lord John’s embrace.

“No!”

It was no more than a breath of rejection, but he heard it. Almost reluctantly he pulled himself away from her. He loomed above her, a big blond giant of a man, staring down intently into her face. Had Kathryn been less distracted, she would have been aware of the wakening trust in the man’s eyes, the almost desperate desire to believe in her—or to believe that this beautiful, wanton child had matured into the woman he had dreamed of when first he saw her, breath-taking in her dark green habit, the glorious auburn hair flying in the wind as she rode her powerful hunter across the green field. But Kathryn was too full of her plans for return to her own time to be sensitive to the man’s reactions. She had not considered the ultimate hazard this place might offer—that she might feel tenderness—face it!—might even fall in love with a man who had died a hundred years before her own birth. It was impossible! She drew away, trembling, and Lord John, a mature and sophisticated man, recognized at once the difference between this trembling and the shiver of desire his wife had felt a moment before. Still, there was the new and exciting look in those fascinating green eyes, a look they had never held for him before. He frowned.

“What is it? What troubles you so? I am willing to come half way—to forgive and forget—to begin again with what we have. You cannot deny that we do have . . . something for each other?”

At that moment Kathryn knew that she had fallen under the spell of this virile man. Beside him, poor Don faded to a miserable creature, a conniver, an opportunist. She realized with gratitude that she would never grieve for Donald Madson again. Better nothing than that pallid excuse for love she had felt. But this man posed a real threat. He was dangerously attractive, disturbing to her peace of mind. If she yielded to his charm now, she would be frozen here forever in this body, in the persona of a woman for whom no one could have respect—not even Lord John. Not even herself. On his terms: to be Nadine, the forgiven sinner, always to be watched lest the