There were other officers in their various uniforms, scarlet or black trimmed with gold. The attention they garnered, especially from women, only increased Christopher’s unease.

He searched for Prudence, but she wasn’t in the parlor or drawing room. Minute after painstaking minute he made his way through the crowd, stopping frequently as he was recognized by an acquaintance and forced to make conversation.

Where the devil was Prudence?

“. . . you could pick me out of a crowd blindfolded. Simply follow the scent of scorched stockings.”

The thought brought a faint smile to his lips.

Restless and full of wanting, he went into the ballroom. His heartbeat had lodged in the base of his throat.

His breath fractured as he saw her.

Prudence was even more beautiful than he had remembered. She wore a pink gown with lace-trimmed ruffles, her hands tucked into little white gloves. Having just concluded a dance, she stood chatting with an admirer, her expression serene.

Christopher felt as if he had traveled a million miles to reach her. The extent of his own need stunned him. The sight of her, along with the luminous echo of her words, gave him a sense of something he had not felt for a long time.

Hope.

As Christopher reached her, Prudence turned and looked up at him. Her clear green eyes widened, and she laughed with incredulous delight. “My dear Captain Phelan.” She extended her gloved hand, and he bent over it and closed his eyes briefly. Her hand in his.

How long he had waited for this moment. How he had dreamed of it.

“As dashing as ever.” Prudence smiled at him. “More so, actually. How does it feel to have so many medals pinned to one’s chest?”

“Heavy,” he said, and she laughed.

“I had despaired of ever seeing you . . .”

Thinking at first that she was referring to the Crimea, Christopher felt a thrill of heat.

But she continued, “. . . since you’ve been unforgivably elusive upon returning to England.” She curved her lips in a provocative smile. “But of course you knew that would only make you more sought after.”

“Believe me,” he said, “it is not my wish to be sought after.”

“You are, however. Every host and hostess in London would love to claim you as a guest.” A delicate giggle escaped her. “And every girl wants to marry you.”

He wanted to hold her. He wanted to bury his face in her hair. “I may not be fit to marry.”

“La, of course you are. You’re a national hero and the heir to Riverton. A man can scarcely be more fit than that.”

Christopher stared into her beautiful, fine-featured face, at the gleam of her pearly teeth. She was talking to him as she always had, flirtatious, light, teasing.

“The inheritance of Riverton is hardly a foregone conclusion,” he told her. “My grandfather could leave it to one of my cousins.”

“After the way you distinguished yourself in the Crimea? I doubt that.” She smiled at him. “What moved you to finally make your appearance in society?”

He replied in a low voice. “I followed my lodestar.”

“Your . . .” Prudence hesitated and smiled. “Oh, yes. I remember.”

But something about that hesitation bothered him.

The hot, joyous urgency began to fade.

No doubt it was unreasonable of him to expect Prudence to remember everything. Christopher had read her letters a thousand times, until every word had been permanently engraved on his soul. But he could hardly expect that she would have done the same. Her life had gone on much the same. His had changed in every regard.

“Do you still like to dance, Captain?” she asked, her long lashes sweeping over vivid green eyes.

“With you as a partner, yes.” He proffered his arm, and she took it without hesitation.

They danced. The woman he loved was in his arms.

It should have been the finest night of his life. But in a matter of minutes he began to realize that the long-awaited relief was no more substantial than a bridge made of smoke.

Something was wrong.

Something wasn’t real.

Chapter Thirteen

In the weeks that followed, Christopher frequently recalled what Audrey had said about Prudence, that there was nothing beneath the layers of artifice. But there had to be. He hadn’t imagined those letters. Someone had written them.

He had asked Prudence early on about the last letter she had written . . . “I’m not who you think I am” . . . about what she had meant, and why she had stopped corresponding with him.

Prudence had turned red and looked awkward, so different from her usual fetching blushes. It was the first sign of real emotion he had seen in her. “I . . . I suppose I wrote that because . . . I was embarrassed, you see.”

“Why?” Christopher had asked tenderly, drawing her farther into the shadowed corner of a balcony terrace. He had touched her upper arms with his gloved hands, exerting the faintest of pressures to bring her closer. “I adored the things you wrote.” Longing pressed against his heart and made his pulse unsteady. “When you stopped . . . I would have gone mad, except . . . you asked me to come find you.”

“Oh, yes, so I did. I suppose . . . I was alarmed by how I had behaved, writing such silly things . . .”

He eased her closer, every movement careful, as if she were infinitely fragile. His mouth pressed against the thin, delicate skin of her temple. “Pru . . . I dreamed of holding you like this . . . all those nights . . .”