David and Walter exchanged knowing looks at that point, but it was David who expressed their thoughts with, “Then perhaps we should hope that, for whatever strange reason she might have been in that Gypsy camp, your ‘wife’ and Sir William’s niece are one and the same, after all. I’d make a call at the Siddons household tomorrow, indeed I would, were I you, Kit. Be nice if you were pleasantly surprised.”

Would it? Christopher wasn’t so sure, but he’d already decided to do just that.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

CHRISTOPHER WASN’T EXPECTING TO BE SURPRISED as he was shown into Lady Siddons’s parlor, where her “guest” was holding court. Sir William’s niece could be a raving beauty as the rumors indicated, but she wouldn’t be the Anastasia he was looking for.

After giving it some thought, though, he didn’t think the identical names were so coincidental. That would be too far-fetched. It was much more likely that his Anastasia hadn’t given him her true name, that she’d met William’s niece at some time in the past, liked her name, and decided to take it for her own as well.

Yet he had to find out for sure, thus his early morning visit to old Lady Siddons’s house. And not expecting to be surprised just made his surprise all the worse when he saw Anastasia.

She was standing in the center of seven slavering men, all vying for her attention, wearing a morning dress that would have done a queen proud, wide-skirted, tightly corseted, her wild hair caged in a fashionable manner, frilled and laced. Black lace and powder blue satin, making her cobalt blue eyes so incredibly vivid.

For the first startled moment, Christopher actually thought there was merely a resemblance between the two women, so much did she look like an English lady, rather than the Gypsy he had first met. But only for a moment . . .

Their eyes met across the room. She immediately went very still. Then she blushed and lowered her gaze, as if she had something to be guilty about. But then she did, didn’t she? Masquerading as a lady. Presenting herself on the marriage mart, when she was already married.

He was letting his jealousy supersede his delight in finding her again. He realized it, and yet those nasty emotions were too powerful to easily ignore, and were coloring his every thought. Even Adam Sheffield was here, obviously having had no trouble getting past the front door this morning, and looking utterly bedazzled by Anastasia. His friend, too, the one who’d mentioned putting a bid in for her himself, was gazing at her worshipfully.

Christopher had the distinctly violent urge to walk over there and knock their heads together, the whole lot of them. How dare they fawn over his wife and entertain lurid thoughts about her? And he had no doubt whatsoever that their thoughts were lurid.