funny, you harridan?” the gentleman shot back.
“I think it’s amusing that you and I and Dorothy and that one”—Althea jabbed a thumb in Mowbray’s direction—“can at last manage to agree on something. Lydia was always too good for—”
“That is enough,” Lydia called over the din. When her words failed to penetrate the increasing melee, she raised her voice. “I said that is enough.”
The increased volume, layered with a sternness, managed to break through their noise. Silenced, the group looked to Lydia. “Now, I, along with His Grace, deeply appreciate the support and devotion of our friends…”
“Do speak for yourself,” Geoffrey muttered at her side, and she repressed a smile. He leaned close and whispered at her ear, “But then, you were always the more diplomatic of our pair.”
Althea gasped. “My God, is he flirting with her even now?”
Lydia felt her cheeks burning once more. Had she even blushed this much as a debutante? And what’s more, what would they say if they knew the manner of activity she and Geoffrey had engaged in just a short while ago?
“Been so long since anyone’s flirted with you that you fail to recognize it,” Davenport mumbled.
Fire sparked in Althea’s eyes. “I’ll have you know I have plenty of fellows flirting with me. Plenty. Why, your own son just this very night was making an overture for—”
Horror wreathed the other man’s features. “My son is here, too,” he croaked. Then his eyes bulged. “And he was flirting with you.”
Althea bristled. “How dare—?”
Lydia cleared her throat loudly, interrupting her friend and giving the other woman a warning look.
“What?” Althea asked. “His son was flirting with me, and it was rude of Davenport to suggest—oh, fine,” she mumbled when Lydia gave her a look.
“However,” Lydia went on, “you may rest assured we are not some young children just out, but rather, completely grown adults capable of making decisions as to who we wish to speak with. And I daresay we can all agree that one of the benefits of our increased years is the absence of having to answer for who we speak to and when.”
The pair of gentlemen—once scoundrels, since reformed, and now widowers—bowed their heads with the proper contriteness.
The same, however, could not be said of Lydia’s more obstinate friends.
“You are done here, gel,” Althea muttered.
As one, Althea and Dorothy reached into the doorway, and each collected Lydia by an elbow, tugged her out, and led her off.
As she found herself dragged away by her well-meaning friends, she couldn’t resist stealing a last and final look over her shoulder at Geoffrey.
Hands stuffed in his pockets, his hair mussed, he’d the look of the roguish gent who’d stolen her heart all those years ago.
Catching her eye, he winked.
Lydia swiftly yanked her focus forward as she found herself riddled with terror by the realization that he’d the same effect on her senses and heart all these years later.
Chapter 5
In the early morn hours, Geoffrey found his way home from Mowbray’s son’s scandalous affair.
Seated on the bench of his carriage, he stared out at the passing London landscape as the sun crept up over the horizon and cast an orange glow upon cobblestones slicked with dew from the warm spring air.
A smile pulled at his lips.
Mardel’s affair had initially been one Geoffrey had had zero interest in attending, but now he was so very grateful and glad for attending. Not because he’d remembered any lost appreciation for those events. Hardly that, at all. Those balls remained tiresome and ridiculous.
Nay, rather, it was because Lydia had been there.
How many years had it been since they’d spoken to each other and teased and laughed together? When she’d first married, he’d mourned those missed moments with her. He’d drowned himself and the sorrow of losing her in the bottom of too many bottles and in the arms of too many women.
With time, the pain of losing her hadn’t left him, but with a maturity granted by life’s passage and the passing of time and years, he’d come to appreciate just how special what they’d shared had in fact been. And he’d looked back on all the exchanges they’d shared with great fondness and warmth…and love.
But tonight? Alone in the library with her, sitting with Lydia and speaking to her in the flesh and picking right up where they’d left off, they hadn’t just been memories… it had been real. She’d always shared so freely with him her hopes and fears and dreams. And tonight, she’d shared with that same openness.