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fully restored to its natural slimness.
    She and Charlotte might be identical in appearance, but her sister possessed an air of well-loved contentedness that made Catherine both happy and envious all at once. She wanted that: the adoring husband who put her above all else. And she wanted children. A whole houseful of them. But as life would have it, she was unlikely to have either.
    “You will not believe who has just arrived.”
    “The Queen?” she teased. “Don’t tell me that word of my irrefutable charm has reached her ears and now I alone can claim the triumph of wresting her out of years of inconsolable mourning?”
    Charlotte chortled, a gaily infectious sound. “I’d venture to say even better than poor dear Victoria.”
    Catherine’s eyes widened and she clapped her hand over her open mouth in mock affront and shock. Drawing her hand away, she asked in hushed tones, “Who on earth could possibly be better than our Queen?”
    “I hope you’ll find me a favorable substitute.”
    Had Catherine held a glass in her hand, it would lay shattered on the marble floor much like her composure. The man who’d dominated her thoughts the last twelve months stepped into view. For a moment, she was certain she was hallucinating, conjuring him up from a series of dreams and fantasies.
    A gasp escaped her lips, her shock now as real as the man approaching from the direction of the drawing room. And if possible, he looked even better than she’d imagined him—than she remembered him. From his cravat down to his buffed lace-up boots, today he resembled more an English aristocrat than an American businessman. Even the distinctly American way he had of collapsing vowels into consonants seemed to have taken on a crisper, more polished English tone. He seemed to have shrugged off the American in him with his overcoat.
    “Lucas.” His name tumbled from her lips, uttered in a rush of breathless disbelief, rippling the currents of the air with a longing that left her vulnerable and exposed. She caught herself when she realized just how she sounded. Bewildered. Bewitched.
    Her pride scampered to the scene, belated but not so much so that all was lost. She straightened her spine, cleared her throat, and spoke louder as if that would negate her initial reaction. “Mr. Beaumont, what an unexpected surprise.”
    Her sister averted her face, a smile fringing the corners of her mouth. Lucas smiled, elevating his looks from exceptional to sublime. He moved with a precision of purpose, his gait that of a man comfortable in his skin in a world not even she felt entirely comfortable.
    He wore a coat the same color of the brown flecks in his hazel eyes and his waistcoat and trousers indicated how mulberry stripes and tan could happily co-exist. Catherine took him in, all long lean muscles and uncompromising masculinity, and wished she didn’t find him so appealing.
    “Catherine. You look more beautiful than ever.”
    A shiver raced through her at his words and the informality of his greeting. He halted in front of her, standing much too close for proper breathing. She then made the mistake of inhaling, only to permeate her collective senses with everything that was him. Her mind was muddled. She couldn’t recall what she had said last, but stalwart, forged on in an attempt to somehow deaden his effect.
    “Pray, what brings you to England again so soon?”
    “So soon? Katie, Lucas has been gone for some time,” Charlotte chided. “Over a year if memory serves me right.”
    Her sister’s memory served her ill as it had been exactly eleven months and two weeks. But really, who was keeping track? Not she who had counted the days like a miser counted his coin.
    “Has it been so long?” Catherine asked with a slight lift of her eyebrow, continuing to hold Lucas’s stare.
    “It has been eleven months, two weeks and five days,” he stated with a confidence of fact that one would be smart not to question.
    Catherine’s jaw sagged and