Old Friends Reunited #2
Once more looking up from recounting his tales, Christopher found that Juliet’s sisters were…watching him. Perhaps even observing him. Was that possible? Or was he merely imagining it? Yet time and time again, their gazes strayed to him before they turned to one another, whispering quietly.
“Are you all right, dear?” the dowager asked, gently patting Juliet’s folded hands. “You haven’t said a word since we sat down.”
Lifting her head, Juliet smiled at her grandmother. “I’m perfectly fine, Grandmother.”
The dowager nodded, then leaned heavily onto her walking cane and pushed to her feet.
“Pardon me for a moment.” Juliet was about to jump to her feet, but her grandmother pushed her back down.
“You sit and talk. How long has it been since you’ve last seen each other?
” And then she hobbled away, leaving them alone.
Alone in a room full of people.
Curious people.
Christopher swallowed, then allowed his gaze to move to Juliet, determinedly ignoring all those watching them with ill-concealed interest. What was going on?
Juliet was still looking after her grandmother as though wishing with all her heart that she could join her. Then, however, she inhaled a deep breath, no doubt to steady her nerves, and her head slowly turned back to him.
Inch by inch.
Christopher held his breath as he watched her lashes sweep downward, her head turning another fraction in his direction before her eyes rose to settle upon his.
Finally.
Christopher felt it like a lightning strike. Her moss-green eyes held him in place, barely allowing him to breathe. To look at her like this, so close, was something he had dreamed of for years.
He had been a fool.
In more ways than one.
The very day he knew her lost to him; Christopher had come to realize that he loved her.
Not like a friend.
Or not only like a friend.
“Are you all right?” Juliet asked tentatively, her voice barely more than a whisper, her eyes still hesitant as they looked into his.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, Christopher nodded. “I suppose I am. It…It’s simply been a long time since…” Again, he cleared his throat, mesmerized by the dark green flecks illuminating the moss-green of her irises. “Last time I was at Whickerton Grove, we…we didn’t…”
Juliet swallowed. “Speak,” she finished for him, as she had countless times before. It was a small, almost insignificant thing, but it made Christopher’s heart soar.
“We did not,” he agreed, wishing he could think of something more to say.
Her eyes fell from his but only for a moment. “You did not seem to wish to.” A hint of accusation rested in her voice; yet Christopher could not help but think that she mainly longed to understand.
“I did,” he admitted out loud, feeling his heart skip a beat when her eyes flew open at his words and returned to meet his. “I did.”
Her breath shuddered past her lips as she held his gaze. “But you did not,” Juliet finally remarked, and her gaze once more fell from his as she turned in her seat, once more facing the front of the room.
Christopher closed his eyes. Indeed, he had not.
He had not spoken more than a few words to her, nothing beyond a greeting or a polite remark.
He had wanted to but had thought it wiser to keep his distance.
Only after he had left, had he realized the moments he had lost. If only there was some way for him to explain.
Would she understand, though? Or would the truth simply sever the thin thread still connecting them?
“Which one is Harry’s betrothed?” Christopher asked, leaning closer, for he desperately wished to continue this moment.
To hold on to it.
Juliet’s gaze flickered to his before moving to a tall, dark-haired man at the front of the drawing room. “Over there,” she whispered. “His name is Bradley Jackson, Duke of Clements.” A small chuckle escaped Juliet’s lips, and she carefully glanced at him. “Harriet calls him Jack.”
Christopher smiled at her, delighting in the warmth that shone in her eyes. “I assume Jack was not too happy about that?” Indeed, the man speaking to Lord and Lady Whickerton possessed a bit of a stiff and rather formal demeanor.
Another chuckle left Juliet’s lips, and Christopher wished he could lock it in a box for safekeeping.
“He was not…at first.” Her gaze warmed as she looked at her little sister’s betrothed.
“But I think he likes it now. It’s in the way he looks at her when…
” Her voice broke off, and she seemed to retreat into herself.
Christopher swallowed. “And who is that?” he asked, nodding his chin to an equally tall and broad-shouldered man. This one, however, wore his brown hair unfashionably long; so long, in fact, that he could tie it at the back of his neck.
“His name is Keir MacKinnear,” Juliet replied after a moment of hesitation. “Grandmother invited him. He’s from the Highlands.”
Christopher frowned, then tried to catch her gaze. “Your grandmother invited him?”
Juliet nodded.
“Do you know why?”
“She won’t say,” Juliet replied with a glance at the Scot.
“Chris and Harry speculated it had something to do with Grandma’s matchmaking schemes.
They think she brought him here for m—” Her voice broke off, and her head snapped around, her wide eyes meeting his before they dropped back down to her folded hands.
Christopher swallowed hard. “For you,” he finished this time. “You meant to say, she brought him here for you.” His jaw clenched at the thought. “Do you care for him?”
Juliet’s gaze remained so stubbornly fixed on the front of the room that Christopher wanted to grasp her by the shoulders and shake her. Instead, he followed her example and turned away, his eyes staring straight ahead as he fought the urge to strangle the unknown Highlander.
And then the wedding ceremony began, and a hushed silence fell over the room, allowing Christopher to force a few deep breaths down into his lungs as he watched bride and groom stand up together.
As stiff and formal as the duke had appeared only moments earlier, Christopher could not deny that a rather besotted look came to his face the moment his eyes fell on his young bride.
Harriet being Harriet, she winked at him; her smile luminous as she took his hand.
Christopher felt his own heart clench with envy.
He wanted nothing more but to reach out and grasp Juliet’s hand.
Again, it seemed like such a simple, almost insignificant gesture.
To him, however, it meant everything. He had dreamed of holding her, of seeing those enchanting green eyes looking into his.
Gritting his teeth, Christopher glanced at the Scot.
Was it true? Had the dowager invited Mr. MacKinnear because she wished to see him matched with Juliet?
And why had she brought him, Christopher, here?
Again, for Troy? To see two old friends reunited?
Although Christopher wished for it, it was not all he wished for.
Far from it.