“Ah, but that is not any gray sky.” Lettie shot a finger up. “That is a blackened sky with thunder and lightning, which is vastly more interesting.”

She was vastly more interesting, as engaging as she’d ever been. Nay, as a winsome woman, she was even more so.

Mayhap out of a need to remind himself of their past, he pointed out, “As a girl, you hated thunder and lightning.”

“Ah, yes, but only because it interfered with my plans to race about and swim. Now, I’ve not the same freedoms afforded me and certainly no lakes or ponds in which to swim.”

He detected something in her tone, something wistful and regretful, and he had a sudden longing to chase away that sadness. “It is for the better,” he murmured, and Lettie blinked as if having forgotten his presence.

She turned a frown on him. “And why is that?” She sounded prickly, and even prickly, he found her dangerously endearing.

Anthony kept his features in a solemn mask. “Because that way you’re spared from the usual good trouncing by me.”

Her eyes went slowly wide, forming enormous pools of blue in her face, and then she gasped. “Anthony Charles William Bradford Grafton.” She shot a foot out, catching him none too gently in the shin.

He grunted and reached down to rub the offended flesh.

“You most certainly did not trounce me.”

“No,” he allowed, and the tension eased from her narrow shoulders. “You were invariably the winner of our matches.” He paused. “Only because I allowed you to win.”

This time, he was wise enough to shift his leg away from her kick.

Anthony grinned and took the seat across from her.

“You did, didn’t you?” she said, reaching for her teacup. “Let me win.”

“Once or twice,” he conceded.

She gave him a look.

“Or three or four times.”

Lettie wrinkled her nose. “Yes, well that makes sense as you were a good deal older than me.”

They shared a smile, and this one transformed her from beautiful to ethereal creature, one who commanded a man to look and forbade him from glancing away. How odd, the great age gap between them had melted away, and they were both now grown adults. Two little dimples filled Lettie’s cheeks, and her eyes glittered. It was strange how time could change even a smile, how it could be the same uptilt of the same pair of lips of a little girl he’d once known and yet be something entirely different and powerful upon her as a woman.

It also recalled him to the dangers of her being here and him being around her.

“What are you doing here, Lettie?” he asked solemnly.

With a quizzical look, she lifted her teacup. “I’m drinking tea.”

He leaned forward in his chair. “No, Lettie,” he murmured, holding her eyes. “What are you really doing here?”