Oh God, oh God, oh God. Her feet kept time with the beat of the words in her head. Oh God, oh God. She rushed down the alley, trying not to run, trying to suppress the urge to fly into the road in sheer, blind panic. The alley spilled into the bright sun of the street. Kate looked back, saw that no one followed, and pushed into the flow of traffic.
What were the chances? What were the chances he would wander into her shop?
Turning left at the next lane, she found a deserted alleyway and stopped to lean against the rough stone. Sounds flew from an open doorway further along, the clinks and clanks of the printer’s shop jostling her nerves.
Her face began to crumple, her eyes stung, and the loss of control set off a rhythm of panic in her veins. Terrified at the rush of feeling, Kate raised her head and forced her face to be still. He was nothing to her, nothing. He’d sent her away long ago. He’d forgotten her until it was too late.
He was nothing to her. And yet she’d run from him. Fled from her own home as if he could harm her. It had taken her years to build up some semblance of her old courage, and now she’d dropped it and run as if her hard-won bravery was a worthless rag.
What was he doing here? What did he want? And most importantly, how had he found her?
Her legs weakened. She slid down the wall and crouched there, listening for pursuing footsteps.
He could ruin everything.
She took a deep breath and told herself not to be a coward. He knew nothing of her life. In fact, he seemed to think she should be dead.
Closing her eyes, she drew a deep breath and tried to still the hundred questions swirling madly about her head. None of that mattered right now. She only had to think what to say to Aidan York.
Rubbing her forehead lightly, she cursed herself. She should not have reacted to him so, should have been cool and calm and completely at ease with his presence. Should have acted as though his appearance meant nothing whatsoever to her. Because it meant nothing, surely. He’d set her aside. She’d been given to another. It was as simple as that.
But how disturbing to see him again. He did not look the same. He was older, and his body was larger or harder or simply more intimidating. She might not have recognized him if not for his voice shaping her name. Katie. It sounded like an old secret. Or an old betrayal.
“Faithless wretch,” she whispered, pressing a handkerchief to her hot face. She had loved him so much.
With every fiber of her earnest, eager heart.
“Missus?”
Kate jumped, pushing herself up along the wall at the man’s graveled voice.
“Be ye all right, missus?”
“Oh, yes.” She tried to smile at the hunched figure of the local rag picker, tried to remember his name. “Yes, um. I’m well, thank you.”
“Ye look a mite bloodless.”
“The sun. I think I shall return home. Get out of the heat.”
The man glanced around at the shadows of the lane. “You do that, missus.”
Kate set her teeth and pushed away from the wall. But she didn’t turn back toward her shop on Guys Lane. Instead she walked. Walked for blocks until the pain had numbed. Until she’d calmed down. Then she headed back to him.
She had a masquerade to maintain, after all. She could not back down from it now. Not even for Aidan York.
Aidan stared out the small front window before resuming his pacing. He felt like a wild animal, wanting to growl, to snap at someone or something.
He could not get his mind around the situation. She had not died ten years ago and seemed not to even know she should be dead. Unless that was just part of the lie. Where the hell had she been? His confusion made the specter of madness more real.
Through the glass of the front window, Aidan watched a woman stop and peer curiously at the closed door. After the first customer had come in and asked after Mrs. Hamilton, Aidan had turned the lock. He was in no mood to act as substitute shopkeeper.
This woman put her hand to the glass to peer blindly around. Her round face and the avid curiosity in her eyes reminded Aidan of his mother. My God, his mother was going to love this story. She wasn’t an unkind woman, but gossip was gossip after all, and the story of Katie had always been a delicious one.
Mrs. Hamilton. Was she married then, or had been? Had she run off with someone else, leaving her parents to concoct a story to cover her indiscretion? The possibility stunned him.
He glared out the window for the hundredth time, watching for her. He would have some answers, if, of course, she hadn’t disappeared again. The thought turned his blood cold, stopped his heart completely.
Just as his hand curled into a fist, he heard a small sound from the back room and twisted to find her standing there, smiling tightly.