‘What are you thinking about?’ Nikolai prompted in the imposing dining room as the first course was delivered, for the faraway look in her face was unmistakable.
Abbey reddened and ducked her bright head and rubbed nervously at her wedding ring with the pad of her thumb. ‘Nothing important.’
But Nikolai had noted that revealing contact with the gold ring on her finger and was convinced otherwise. He sensed that he was in competition with her memories of the very special man she had mentioned. The suspicion that her mind wandered to her dead husband even when she was in Nikolai’s company infuriated him. It was the very first time that he could remember considering or even caring about what a woman might be thinking about when she was with him.
‘What age were you when you got married?’
Abbey gave him a surprised look. ‘Nineteen.’
‘That’s very young.’
‘I was old enough to know what I was doing.’
‘What age was your husband?’
Abbey tensed, reluctant to answer that question. ‘Thirty-nine.’
Nikolai dealt her an incredulous look. ‘He was old enough to be your father!’
‘You’re being very rude,’ Abbey told him curtly. ‘Jeffrey was handsome, successful and very much in demand socially. I think very few women would have regarded him in that light.’
Nikolai shrugged, well aware that some men went for very much younger women. He was only thirty-three years old, but the idea of bedding a giggly teenager with no experience of men or the world repulsed him. He could only think that Jeffrey Carmichael must have been inadequate in some way to choose such an unequal partner as a wife.