“We've met before, Miss Lavinia,” said Trent, and over her head his hazel eyes met Sara's with a gamin amusement dancing in them. “Miss Tennant kindly called on me at Far End.”
“Oh, I didn't know.” Little Miss Lavinia gazed in a puzzled fashion from one to the other of her guests. “Sara, my dear, you never told me that you and Dr. Selwyn had called on Mr. Trent.”
Sara laughed outright.
“Dear Lavender Lady—we didn't. Neither of us would have dared to insult Mr. Trent by doing anything so conventional.” The black eyes flashed back defiance at the hazel ones. “I got caught in a storm on the Monk's Cliff, and Mr. Trent—much against his will, I'm certain”—maliciously—“offered me shelter.”
“Now that was kind of him. I'm sure Sara must have been most grateful to you.” And the kind old face smiled up into Trent's dark, bitter one so simply and sincerely that it seemed as though, for the moment, some of the bitterness melted away. Not even so confirmed a misanthrope as the hermit of Far End could have entirely resisted the Lavender Lady, with her serene aroma of an old-world courtesy and grace long since departed from these hurrying twentieth-century days.
She moved away to the tea-table, leaving Trent and Sara standing together in the bay of the window.
“So you are overcoming your distaste for visiting,” said Sara a little nervously. “I didn't expect to meet you here.”
His glance held hers.
“You wished it,” he answered gravely.
A sudden colour flamed up into the warm pallor of her skin.