*
Cherry Weston was conscious she was performing her duties as hostess somewhat mechanically that evening. She was tense, and found it unusually difficult to concentrate on what her guests were saying to her. She smiled and praised, asked interested questions about their families and friends, exchanged quips with the younger ones, pressed them to take more wine, or sample some of the many dishes laid out for them, but all the time she knew she was performing. It was with great difficulty she drove the image of a young man's face from her mind.
When she found a moment not occupied with attending her guests, she allowed her thoughts to wander back, and wondered why that image, which had not recently troubled her, should be so insistent this evening.
There were not many such moments. She moved round the room, taking care not to offend any guests by ignoring them, or spending too little time with them, and eventually, with a quickening of her heartbeats, approached Robert and Miles.
'I hope you find our little gathering to your taste, Mr. Talbot?' she said, smiling up at him, then turned a little hastily to Robert.
'And you, my friend? How are things with you? Your wife? When are you going to bring her to see me again? We enjoyed our meetings last year enormously.'
'I would have brought Jane, but she is breeding, and has been advised to stay at home.'
'Oh, give her my very best wishes. I do hope this time you have a son!'
'I will tell Jane, and she will do her best to satisfy your wishes!'
'Do so! Mr. Talbot, do you know Robert's wife?'
'I have not yet met her. '
'She is delightful, he is the most fortunate man alive to have her. I do not know how he can bear to leave her, but I will be selfish, and say I am pleased he did so, for he brought you here.'
Miles looked at her, and after a while smiled, an intimate smile deep into her eyes. With an effort she broke her gaze away from his, and laughed a little breathlessly.
'I hope you will come here again, when Robert has deserted us to return to Jane. He never remains long enough in London. But you will be welcome here. Do you stay long?'
Miles shrugged. 'I have made no definite plans as yet.' He smiled again. 'But I will most decidedly accept your kind invitation and visit you again.'
After a few more general remarks, Mistress Weston left and passed on to others of her guests, leaving Miles to chat with some of the younger men Robert had introduced him to. It was growing late, and soon the guests began to make their farewells.
The older people went first, apart from Faithful Denham, who lingered until only a few others remained. Then, seeming to despair of his vigil, he left in a great hurry, sparing his hostess but a few words as he went.
Robert and Miles were almost the last to go, with another pair of young men. Ashford was still there, but shook his head slightly when Robert asked if they were going in the same direction, and was rising from the settle where he had been sitting only as the others left the room.
Mistress Weston bade them all farewell, and laughingly declared she expected them to be at her next gathering a few days hence. It came to Miles' turn to speak with her.
'When shall I come back?' he asked softly.
She looked quickly across at Ashford, then smiled brightly.
'I shall be here tomorrow evening, if that is not too soon for you to come again,' she answered quietly. 'It has been my pleasure to meet you,' she went on in a louder voice, and Miles nodded, then turned away.
Later that evening Cherry tossed restlessly in bed, unable to sleep. The face she had been refusing to see in her thoughts was now allowed to emerge from whatever regions it had been banished to, but it was overlaid by another face, that of the newcomer to her house, Miles Talbot.
She struggled with her confused thoughts, her memories, and her present and past feelings. This man was so very like that old, long-lost love of hers, that her emotions on seeing him had distracted her all the evening and now most of the night. Even while Dick had been with her she had thought of them both, the young Harry and the older Miles confused in her thoughts.
She forced herself to compare them calmly. This man was much taller than Harry, almost half a head so. And his eyebrows, with a slight quirk that gave him a laughing expression, were not the same as Harry's straight thick ones. They had the same vivid blue eyes, but Harry's face was rounder. It was after all a superficial resemblance. Why then, had the man Talbot brought back the memory of Harry so intensely? She had not thought of him romantically for many years now. Why should she be so bedevilled by thoughts of him now, induced by a stranger?
She wondered who the stranger was. Not a country friend of Robert Peyton's, that she was certain of. But he had not seemed to know any of the other people there. Why had he come? And why had he made such immediate use of the invitation she had extended to him? It could simply be that he was attracted by her beauty. Or he might be an adventurer searching for a rich widow. She had met many of both kinds. Yet some instinct told her there was some deeper reason. She determined to make enquiries about him.
Having decided on this, her thoughts drifted back to Harry, and the time, nearly ten years ago, when they had been so happy together planning their lives. It was a long time since she had railed against the cruel fate that had parted them when her parents had refused to consider him, despite his knighthood, and preferred the rich James Weston instead. If only she had been allowed to marry him, she would have been leading such a vastly different life now.
Giving way to one of her rare moods of despondency, she reviewed her life, and wondered what there was still in store for her. At length, as the dawn crept through the cracks in the shutters, she fell asleep, tears on the long lashes, and the images of Harry and Miles in her mind.