“He came in with us,” Monty said. “Ah, here he is now.”

And Darcy stepped into the room.

Chapter 13

He hadn’t seen me. Before he could cross the room Bunty rushed at him. “Cousin Darcy. How absolutely lovely to see you again. It’s been ages and ages. Haven’t I grown up a lot since you saw us last?”

“You certainly have,” Darcy said, accepting the hug and the kiss on his cheek. “And how are you, Aunt Camilla?”

“All the better now that you are here,” she said, beaming at him. “Lovely to see you again after so long, dear boy. I’m not sure where Oswald has disappeared to. Really, it’s so hard to make him be sociable. But here are our guests, all dying to meet you: Colonel and Mrs. Rathbone, recently home from India. Mr. and Mrs. Wexler, all the way from America, and their children. The Upthorpe family from Yorkshire, and may I present you to the dowager countess Albury. Countess, this is my nephew, the Honorable Darcy O’Mara.”

Darcy went over to her and kissed her hand. She squinted at him through her lorgnette. “Kilhenny’s son? Yes, you have the look of him about you. I’ve no doubt you’re as big a rogue as he was as a young man.”

“Indubitably,” Darcy said and grinned.

“And this,” continued Lady Hawse-Gorzley, “is Lady Georgiana Rannoch.”

I had been about to eat a bite of scone, but had stood frozen with a mouthful unchewed. Now I tried to swallow it rapidly, which resulted in a fit of coughing.

It was hardly the traditional meeting of sweethearts. We didn’t rush across the room into each other’s arms. In fact, I read mixed emotions in Darcy’s astonished stare. “Good God, Georgie, what on earth are you doing here?” he said.

“Hello, Darcy,” I said, trying to recover my dignity from the coughing fit. “The same as you, apparently. Looking forward to a jolly good Christmas.”

“Ah—you two know each other. How splendid,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “But of course you would. You bright young things go to all the same parties in town, I’ve no doubt.”

“Shall I take Cousin Darcy up and show him his room?” Bunty asked, slipping her hand through his arm.

“You most certainly shall not,” her mother replied. “A young lady does not escort a young gentleman to a bedroom, Hortense, even if he is your cousin.”

“We’ll show Darcy his room later, Mother,” Monty said. “But at the moment we are all in dire need of refreshment and I notice scones and cream. Come on, Badger. Dig in, old chap.”

The two young men pulled over a sofa and attacked the scones. Darcy accepted a cup of tea, then came over and perched on the arm of my chair, which I found reassuring. Given his less than exuberant greeting when he saw me, I wasn’t sure how to treat him. I reminded myself that he hadn’t even contacted me properly when he arrived back in England. And a succession of wild thoughts were rushing through my head: that he might have been meeting a girl when my mother had spotted him in London at the Café Royal, and was embarrassed to find me here when he’d hoped to find her. Or, a second alternative, that Lady Hawse-Gorzley was no more his aunt than I was, and this was actually some kind of secret meeting of spies into which I had blundered by mistake. This one made more sense, since I suspected he secretly worked as some sort of spy. I gave him a polite little nod and waited for him to make the first move.