Serena exhaled as the doors shut behind him. She had watched him run out of the portico staring across the deserted cobbled squares apparently seeing any sign of her. She was only a few feet away from him pressed tightly against one of the great columns of the portico that hid her from his sight.
She did not know what had made her run away or why she had hidden. She only knew that just seeing him again and knowing she had no place in his life and never would, hurt – hurt so much she could scarcely breathe or think.
Slowly head bowed down she made her way across the square shaken and quivering. She was almost a mile away before she realised she had left her shawl and bonnet behind.
"You are thinking about that young woman who came to apply for governess aren't you Darien?" Raye laughed with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes as she watched her brother. She had noticed that he was not paying attention to her babbling for the last couple of minutes, but instead absorbed with the flickering flames of the drawing-room fire.
"A governess?" he gave a half laugh. "Then she cannot be the person I mistook her for. She was an heiress to a considerable fortune." He glanced at Raye and saw the small frown upon her face, "Who did you think it was?" she asked.
"The girl I met when I was in Banffshire for the summer, just before I took the despatches to India."
"Miss Ross, the one who let you think she was her widowed cousin!" Raye laughed. "Oh I have only met her once and she was absolutely wonderful!"
"Well anyway, she must be wed with a brat or two, no doubt by now" Darien gave a slightly forced laugh which did not go unnoticed by Raye.
"You were in love with her, weren't you?" Raye looked at her brother sceptically obviously regarding weather or not what he would say next were true.
"In love?" he snorted and leant against the arm of the green silk sofa, picking up the neatly folded silk shawl in which Serena had placed there when she had got up to play on the piano. His dark brows lifted. "Come now Raye, you know me better that that!"
"I know you better than you think," his sister said tartly with a smile still lingering on her lips. A long silent reined upon the siblings each in their own thoughts – until Raye gave a sudden gasp as Darien was feeling the shawl between his fingers. "Beryl, you must know about Beryl!"
"Beryl?" he repeated the name as he straightened the shawl still in his hands. "Lady Beryl Margaret! Your betrothed! Do not tell me you have forgotten her entirely brother?" Raye gave an exaggerated sigh.
"And what of Beryl?" Darien asked with a blank face clearly stating he was not the least bit concerned. "Well you can hardly blame her Darien, not when you volunteered to take those despatches to India before the ink was even dry upon the announcement, and then no sooner are you back from there, you left for Spain without even calling upon her…or a matter of fact me!"
"Will you just get to the point Raye," he said wearily as his midnight blue eyes lifted momentarily to her agitated face. "Well….she became betrothed to Sapphire Ruther last week. She thought you were dead as we all did."
"Betrothed?" he said impassively his eyes dropping back to the shawl. "Then I must write and thank my French host for timing my resurrection well. To think a week earlier and I'd have been facing a lifetime of Beryl's babble at the breakfast table."
"Darien how could you say that, that is not appropriate to say about one's grief over you! She was distraught!" Raye gave a scowl at Darien. "I'm sure she did, until she became bored with playing the heartbroken heroine and realised that black does nothing for her complexion." He replied his eyes still glued to the silken shawl.
"Oh Darien don't be so mean!" Raye cried out but then thinking about it for a minute, Darien did have a good point since if she was in Beryl's position she would not have jumped to the next man after a couple of weeks of hearing her beloved's death. Besides she seems to over the top!
Darien did not notice that Raye was talking to him after the news of Beryl's new groom because he had suddenly paled. "This shawl." He cut her off in mid sentence as he held up the garment. "Who does this belong to?" Raye glanced at the faded silk and gave a small frown, "Oh dear it must be Miss Smith, she must have left it behind."
Darien exhaled as he ran his thumb over a neatly mended cornered tear near its fringed hem, knowing suddenly it had been Serena he had seen. How could I have doubted it for a moment, he wondered thinking of her face so white and thinner, she seemed so fragile than he remembered but still as breathtakingly beautiful.
His fingers tightened around the shawl. She had been wearing this the first time he had kissed her. They had been walking in the grounds of her god-mother's house in Banffshire. It had been one of those lovely mornings with the slight breeze in the wind. She had been laughing as he leant across her, his hand brushing her shoulder. Her big blue eyes had stared right back at him, part startled and part afraid. It was at that moment when all his intentions and his resolutions flew out of the window. He had pulled his arms closer around her and her mouth softer that the silken shawl had opened to his.
When she had confessed that she was Serena and not Selene Ross a week later, it had been too late – he had fallen in love with her.
But that had been five years ago, and now she was begging for a post as a governess under an assumed name –
"I must see her, Where does she live?" his sister started at his sudden barked question. "Who do you must see Darien?"
"Ser – I mean Miss Smith, where does she live?" Darien snapped at the question obviously worried that he had lost her by wasting this precious time of talking about Beryl and the latest news.
"Miss Smith, well…I don't know Darien, but she may have talked to Molly I suppose –" she broke off as the slamming of the drawing-room door indicated that her brother was already out of earshot.
He had not even been certain it was you, Serena told herself as she trudged along the dreary street of shabby houses, stumbling now and then as her long skirt clung to her from the scorching sun. He have probably forgotten all about me since the day he had left Scotland five years before and yet…I can't help but think that I saw something in his face and eyes when he had first noticed me – fool! She screamed mentally in her head trying to shake off her thoughts. Will I never learn? He cares nothing for me, he never had –"
"Didn't get the place, then?" an all too familiar sneering voice halted her in mid-stride and mid-thought as she reached the door of her lodgings, and a strong built man in a shiny black frock coat and greasy moleskin waistcoat, stepped out of the shadowy hall to stand upon the step.
Diamond, I should have known he would have me followed, she thought flatly. Since she had refused his advances and she had a debt against her, he had been trailing her like a carrion crow until she had nothing left to pawn or sell, nothing left in which to feed herself.
"Friend of mine saw you going off West all dressed up," he said snidely as his eyes travelled over her muslin which clung to her like second skin. "What happened?" he asked as his button eyes came to rest upon her breasts. "Why don't you come back to my house now, Miss Ross and get yourself tided up? We'll forget all about the fifty pounds –"
He broke off his gaze as she lifted her head and pushed back a piece of her golden hair from her face. "Get out of my way, Diamond." The words were cold and sounded almost dangerous as the expression in her now dark eyes.
"All right, all right, no need to look like that –" he put his hand up and retreated back a couple of steps to let her pass. "I was only trying to help you out –"
"I will give you your money a fortnight from now as you requested, and until then I do not wish to speak with you, see you or worse smell you!" she added ferociously. "You'll change your mind when you are starving." He snarled. "Your price won't be fifty pounds? You'd be lucky to get half if you sold yourself to a duke in the Row."
She made no reply not to start a fight in front of her lodgings. With a curse he turned abruptly and left. She watched him go and entered her lodgings and only when she slammed the door and was in the narrow hall did she let out a breath and her anger gave to despair. She had no chance of raising fifty pounds in just short time.
Startled by the noise of the outside door opening, she rose to her feet and her thin face blaze with anger. If that is Diamond again… "Serena?" She stilled instantly, her heart, breath and her mind stilled as she recognised the tall, broad-shouldered figure that blocked most of what little light penetrating the dark hall. "Serena, may I come in?" he stepped forward without waiting for her answer.
The tightness in her chest kept her mute as she could only stare at him in disbelief; her eyes drank in everything as she took in the changes the five years had made. He seemed taller, more muscled in the shoulder, leaner at the waist. The sun had left streaks of gold in the rich dark black hair which swept back from his brow. His face was harsher, the angled jaw and slanted cheekbones, the wide thin slash of his mouth seemed more define. The war had wiped out all traces of boyishness that had been there when he was twenty-three. There was a new hardness beneath the lazy grace, coldness in the blue eyes she did not remember seeing – but all else was the same.
She still wanted to touch him, wanted to run to him and beg him to hold her, wanted it so much that it hurt – God, how could it still hurt so much after five years!
"I have brought your bonnet and shawl," he said apologetically. "You left them at Lady Carteret's house. I thought you might need them…." When she made no effort to grab the garments but remained still and silent, not moving and even scarcely breathing. He came further into the hall and set the shawl and bonnet down upon a rickety side table.
"I – I… well….if I have come at inconvenient moment then let me apologise." He sounded embarrassed as his gaze flicked from her hair hanging across her face down to the back of her clinging muslin gown. She dropped her gaze to the floor afraid that she would see pity in his eyes, where once been love. No! She told herself, which was a mistake, he had never loved me and it had been no more than lust!
He gave an exasperated sigh, "Say something Serena, anything, a greeting at least –"
"Good afternoon Major Haldane." The words were cold and hard like stones. "Good afternoon – is that all you have to say after –" she cut him off mid-sentence. "After five years? I can't think of anything else to say."
"Serena." He took a step forward and put out a hand as if to touch her arm, but she recoiled from it as if she was stung by a bee. His arm dropped heavily back to his side. "I cannot blame you if have come to hate me."
"Hate you?" she said harshly as her brows lifted, "I feel nothing towards you, Major Haldane except what I should feel for an old acquaintance." His mouth twisted into a humourless laugh, "I suppose I have no right to think myself more than that."
"None, now if you'll excuse me I have to change my gown…" she took a step towards upstairs but was blocked by his muscular body, "No, I want to know what had befallen you – why you are in this place –" he looked around disdainfully, she replied coldly as she stared at him, "I do not see why my situation should concern you now, since you have been abroad and we are unlikely to have much to say."
He shook his head. "I have a great deal to say to you, things that I should have said five years ago." He looked down at her small form and wanted badly to touch her and take all the pain he had caused gone. "Really? About what?" she said coldly. "The weather? The State of Spain?"
"No, I was thinking of Lady Beryl Margaret," he said grimly. "Lady Beryl…oh of course, your betrothed. I wonder how I could have forgotten. So many people took the liberty in to show me all the details. They said she is very pretty, you must tell me where the wedding is to be, so I may be sure to come and watch at the church – or will it be in the country?" she asked lifting her gaze and giving a false bright smile.
"Stop!" the words exploded from him with such savagery that she flinched. "I never meant to cause you such hurt," he said more gently. "Hurt? No Major Haldane you did not hurt me one bit." She answered avoiding his gaze and turning away abruptly.
"Wait!" he caught her arm as she tried to pass him. "Please?" she went stock still, aware of nothing but the warmth of his strong brown fingers burning through the thin material of her gown, melting her insides that she trembled.
"This has not change." His voice softened as he felt the tremor run through her slight body. "Has it?" wrong move he thought as her chin jerked up. She stared at him with almost black eyes filled with fury. For five years a mask of coldness were her only defence against the laughter, the sneers, the sudden silences when she had entered the room in which everyone had been talking a moment before. But now her anger welled up inside her that she desperately wanted to release. She lifted her hand to strike but she met his all-too-knowing gaze and she let her hand drop.
"Is this a Spanish or French custom?" her gaze dropped pointedly to where his hand still gripped her arm. "My apologies." He released her instantly, "Perhaps I am wrong – five years ago you would have hit me –"
"Almost certainly," she said, "but then I was very young and lacking injudgement about many things. Now will you go?" he looked at her wearily. "I am not going until you tell me why you were at my sister's house seeking a place and why you are living here, it is evident you are in some kind of difficulty and I should like to help –"
"You may help me by leaving!" she said impatiently. "Serena –" he began but was cut off. "No Darien, there is nothing – now if you'll excuse me, I have to change, I cannot think we have anything else to say, do you?"
"It would seem not," he said after an endless moment of silence in which he stared at her, "But if you are in need of funds…I owe you that, at least…"
"You owe me what?" her blue eyes blazed to silver as she spoke. "A guinea for each kiss?"
"Damnation Serena – I did not mean –" Serena reverted her gaze as she slowly whispered, "Just go." Darien face softened fractionally, until he decided it was no use in ever being part of Serena's life again, "Then Goodbye Miss Ross." She stood there motionless for several minutes after the door slammed shut behind him, too numb inside to even cry.
"That was stupid, letting him go," Mrs Crouch, her landlady sneered putting her head around the kitchen door from behind which she had undoubtedly listened to every word. "Who are you waiting for, the Prince Regent?" she cackled at her joke. "A gentleman like that could have set you up real nice with a house and carriage." Serena agreed dully as she picked up her shawl and bonnet. She knew she ought to run after him and gratefully accept whatever help he could give, but she couldn't. For tonight at least, she would allow herself the luxury of pride. Tomorrow – she would write and beg for his assistance.
Wow that was longer than I thought!