“I preferred brandy.”

He closed the door, giving her a brief moment to savor the sound of his voice. Why she should notice its slight rasp now, when she hadn’t before, puzzled her.

“I have it here.” She gestured toward the low table where a china tea set, brandy decanter, and goblet waited.

Gray’s mouth widened in a slow smile. “You are always thinking of me. Thank you.” He looked around. “I am pleased to find the space exactly as I remember it. With the walls and ceiling draped with white satin, I have always felt like I am standing in a tent when I am in here.”

“That was the effect I wanted,” she said, relaxing into the low back and curling her legs next to her.

“Is that so?”

He sat across from her, tossing his arm across the back of the settee. Isabel could not help but remember how he used to do the same to her shoulders. At that time, she had thought nothing of it. That version of Grayson had merely been exuberant.

He also hadn’t been quite so large.

“Why a tent, Pel?”

“You have no notion of how long I’ve waited for you to ask that,” she admitted with a soft chuckle.

“Why didn’t I ask before?”

“We did not talk about such things.”

“No?” His eyes laughed at her. “What did we talk about then?”

She moved to pour him a brandy, but he shook his head. “Why, we talked about you, Gray.”

“Me?” he asked with raised brows. “Surely, not all the time.”

“Nearly all the time.”

“And when we weren’t talking about me?”

“Well, then we were talking about your inamoratas.”

Gray grimaced, and she laughed, remembering how much fun she used to have in simple discourse with him. Then she noted how he looked at her, as if he could not quite put his finger on something about her. Her laughter faded away.

“How insufferable I was, Isabel. How did you ever tolerate me?”