The Return of the Stranger. Kate Walker

was Kat who asked, unable to suppress her curiosity.

      ‘Why not? After all you were the one who once told me that my father could have been an emperor of China.’

      Memory stabbed like the sharpest stiletto as she recalled the light-hearted way they had created an imaginary ancestry for him. A rich, powerful background that would enable him to hold his own against Joseph and Arthur’s tyranny. They had been on the same side then. And she had believed that nothing could come between them.

      ‘You remember that?’

      ‘I remember,’ Heath acknowledged and the emphasis he put on the words sent a shiver down her spine.

      What else did he remember? And more importantly, how did he remember it?

      ‘I’d love to go to Brazil.’

      Isobel was determined to drag Heath’s attention back to her. Not that there was any dragging needed, Kat acknowledged. Isobel had always had the effect of an open honeypot on men. Men who had never looked at Kat in quite that way. Certainly men of the type that Heath had become had never looked at her like that.

      Even her husband had never looked at her in that way. Not even on her wedding day, when every woman had the right to feel beautiful. As soon as they had been alone, he had criticised her appearance and set himself to try to change everything about her. It was only later that she had come to realise just why he had been that way.

      ‘Rio de Janeiro … the sun—the sea—samba dancing.’

      Isobel let her curvaceous body sway in time to imaginary music inside her head.

      ‘But don’t you think you should offer our visitor some refreshment, Kat? How long has he been here and you haven’t even offered him a drink?’

      ‘I was just about to.’

      It wasn’t the truth and a quick sidelong glance from Heath’s dark eyes told her that he knew that only too well. The thought of her sister-in-law reproving her for her neglect of hospitality for the man who as a boy had always had the door of this house slammed in his face twisted something deep inside. She had no doubt that exactly that thought had come to him too.

      She had once promised herself that if she had ever found herself in a position of wealth and comfort where she could welcome Heath then she would do so with open arms. Now she was exactly where she dreamed of being but too much had come between them to ever let that happen.

      ‘Perhaps I should ring for tea. If you would like that …’

      The words were barely out of her mouth before she was hearing in her own head how they must have sounded to Heath. And seeing the way that his lips curled she could almost read just what was going through his mind. That she had deliberately played the ‘lady of the manor’ card, offering afternoon tea as if she were her mother-in-law and not a young woman of nearly twenty-five. Though the truth was that she hadn’t felt young for too long. Not for almost four years.

      ‘Tea?’ he drawled mockingly. ‘How very English.’

      ‘Well I am—we are English,’ Kat snapped defensively, her tone too sharp for politeness as the suddenly vicious twist to his beautiful mouth said only too clearly.

      ‘While I am just a mongrel, hmm?’

      There was open challenge in those blazing jet eyes now. Challenge and a dark, cynical derision that had all the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stiffening in wary sensitivity.

      ‘That isn’t at all what I meant!’

      ‘And why not? It is true after all. I am of mixed blood as you always suspected—and not pure-bred English like you and your family.’

      Memory stabbed again at the thought of how they had once speculated on just what his ancestry might be, what exotic background could have created his dark dramatic looks.

      ‘You found out about your true background?’

      ‘I did. And your husband would have been delighted to know that it was every bit as far from his aristocratic pedigree as he always believed it was.’

      And he wasn’t going to enlighten her any further, his tone declared adamantly. He had no intention of letting her in on anything he had found out about himself. If anything marked how wide the chasm that divided them had become then it was that.

      ‘Are we having this tea or not?’

      Isobel’s impatiently petulant voice broke in on the intense concentration of his gaze on her face, making those deep dark eyes blink just once, slowly, before he deliberately looked away, in the direction of her sister-in-law.

      ‘Perhaps not,’ he drawled silkily. ‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t stay. I have business to attend to.’

      He was picking up his coat as he spoke, tossing it over his shoulders like a cloak as he had worn it on his arrival, and turning towards the door. That was the second time today he had mentioned business deals but never explained himself. Once more that icy sensation slid down her spine.

       I’ll be back one day. And then you’ll see how everything you think you have can all be turned on its head.

      Suddenly afraid that he would walk out of her life again as he had done once before and that this time he would never come back, she hurried after him.

      ‘Heath—wait …’

      He was almost all the way down the long, tiled hall, never hesitating or looking back. But then, just at the last moment, he paused and turned back very slowly.

      ‘You never said why you came. What you are doing here.’

      ‘Why did I come to the Grange today? Surely the answer to that is obvious.’

      ‘Not to me.’ Her voice croaked embarrassingly as she forced out a response.

      Heath smiled briefly once again. It was a smile of ice, totally without any hint of warmth in it.

      ‘I came to see you, of course. Why else would I be here?’ ‘To …’

      ‘To see you, Lady Katherine,’ Heath repeated, the words sliding over her like a stream of ice water, making her skin shiver miserably. ‘To look into your face just once and then walk away—this time for good.’