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commissioner and his wife. Both of Lindsay’s newly married ‘cousins’ had accepted invitations. Each had brought reinforcements. They had ordered their husbands to invite and/or bribe their bachelor friends with promises of hunts, gaming, and whisky. Dr. Evers was last to arrive with his elderly aunt and mother.
    Lindsay, standing patiently in the entry, received the last of her guests with a sinking heart. Her flowing white cotton gown suited her petite frame. The embroidered green stalks and blue flowers brought vitality to the picture she created. Hours had been spent, getting her unruly, wavy black locks into a coiffure that appeared to be simplicity itself. Pulled back from her face, it fell in soft curls down the center of her back.
    She looked delectable and she knew it. Lindsay wanted Aiden to see her like this, without the stuffy ballroom hoop and wig. Despite the appreciative looks of ten gentlemen, she was unsatisfied. Where was he? Biting her lower lip until its pale pink became a cherry red; she turned to enter the larger of the receiving rooms. Just then the doors opened. She turned hoping desperately to see Aiden there.
    No, it was Charles Donovan! Lindsay’s hungry eyes drank in ever chiseled feature. His wavy brown hair had grown lighter from the sun, his skin burnished. Lean muscle rippled beneath his black waistcoat and buff breeches. He gained the room with a lithe grace and self possession she had never seen in him before. Glancing about the room, his whisky eyes fell upon her, raking her up and down as if she were some ship he planned to broadside and board. He looked like a dashing, debonaire pirate, and something told her he was just as dangerous.
    How dare he show his face here, uninvited and unwelcome! Unbidden, tears of anger and loathing filled Lindsay’s eyes as she turned to give him the cut. Charles thwarted her attempt, bowing slightly and taking her hand for a brief kiss to her knuckles. Lindsay hiccuped as she choked back her overflowing emotions. Charles had always been handsome enough, but now, something had changed, an inner hardening made him breathtaking.
    She stepped back to assess her old chum. His hair was of similar length to Aiden’s but there the similarity ended. Instead of striking green eyes, she met his somber, toffee-colored gaze and glowered. Lindsay squeezed Charles’ work-roughened hand in silent confrontation, then dropped it, shocked to feel the protrusion of bones there. In the four years since their last encounter, Charles had certainly not prospered. And yet, the burning intensity of his eyes, the hard thin lines of his frame sent shivery waves of fire racing up her skin.
    Her voice shook as she attempted an ascorbic levity. “Charles?! I have not seen you in years! Please tell me you have not come home to stay. It appears the navy life is not all it promised to be.”
    Charles’ wolfish grin threatened to consume her. “My dear Linnie, you positively radiate disdain,” he breathed, menacingly. “Was it not just last we met, you called me friend? Why, you sift through chums as you do your gowns. Yet, your fickle nature has served you well, I hear.”
    “Charles, what a riot you are, carrying on as if I were the fickle one, really you are too much,” Linnie’s caustic laugh faltered when she looked up to see that Charles’ ascorbic smile did nothing to hide the lethal intent in his eyes.
    Grasping his chest, he murmured, self-deprecatingly, “You wound me deeply, dear Linnie.”
    Growing quiet, Lindsay grasped her hands together to keep her younger self from slapping Charles and then sobbing into his chest how much she’d missed him. This is the man responsible for your mother’s death , she chided herself.
    “I wish I could say it is good to see you again, Charlie,” Lindsay offered, heeding the deep well of roiling emotion beneath both their facades.
    Charles’ whiskey eyes devoured her burning face as he again raised her hand to run his lips