Yet here he was, turning his back on the promise of whatever warmth might be available in this frosty and unpleasant land, and going voluntarily out into that cold night. It was only just past five, but the early winter dusk had already fallen, turning the grounds of Girdings House dark as night. The great parkland stretched before them like the uncharted seas of a medieval explorer’s map, the topiary rearing from the landscape like sea serpents along the way. The torches placed at intervals along the uneven paths served more to cast shadows than to illuminate, making two of every shrub and tree.

Ahead of him, his cousin bobbed around, peeking over her shoulder. Wisps of blond hair had escaped from her hood, sparkling like angel dust in the light of the torches interspersed along the path. At the sight of him there behind her, she looked — pleased. As though she had actually meant those words of welcome. They did say time healed all wounds. But then, people said a lot of bloody silly things. Didn’t she realize that she wasn’t supposed to be happy to see him?

Robert decided it probably wasn’t in his own best interest to remind her of that.

He sent a warm smile her way, undoubtedly a wasted gesture given the uncertainty of the lighting and the fact that her friend was already claiming her attention with a hand on her arm and a whispered comment that made his cousin laugh and shake her hooded head.

Little Charlotte. Who would have thought it? She was still very much Little Charlotte, Robert thought with a slight smile, for all that she must be turned twenty. The top of her bright red hood came up just to her taller friend’s ear, and she walked with a bouncing step that was nearly a skip. He remembered her as she had been, a whimsical, wide-eyed little thing with rumpled blond curls that no one ever bothered to brush and a disconcertingly adult way of speaking.