Free Lady Myddelton's Lover by Evangeline Holland

past him.
                  He smiled briefly, ironically, after the motorcar: what a shame it would be for him to survive the hellish trenches, only to be felled by a reckless London driver. The other irony of the situation was that he had escaped to the Army to avoid his arranged marriage to Leonore Feversham, and now he had returned to Blighty to do so. He paused at the corner of Kings Road and Beaufort Street to set down his valise and fumble for a cigarette and his lighter, wondering what she looked like, how she smelt, if her lips tasted like cold champagne, and if she would still be warm and soft in his arms. He had only a grainy picture torn from a copy of The Tatler to go by, as well as the scraps of information Morgan passed through her effusive letters, and felt surprisingly anxious to examine this specimen of gifted and prize-winning volunteer nurse his sister described in the flesh. He tucked his lighter back into his pocket and picked up the valise to turn right down Beaufort Street.
                  Beaufort Street was a long stretch of dull brown and slate-gray buildings, each surrounded by its own wrought-iron gate and a browning, but lush plot of grass and flowers. Huw waved away the haze of cigarette smoke as he hastened towards the third block of buildings, their numbered address only just apparent from the faint illumination from the lone street lamp permitted to cast its weak golden glow across the pavement. It was not home, but it would do for the present, and Huw retrieved the brass key from his pocket, ready to slide it into the lock of the gate. He turned with a start when a figure dashed out of the shadows, a hand stretched towards the lock and their own brass key catching the faint light.
                    They paused in an awkward tandem, keys pressed against the narrow shape of the lock, and to Huw's consternation, she—for it was a woman his brain quickly processed—did not remove her hand to permit the courtesy of unlocking and opening the gate for her. When he turned to issue the polite offer to allow him, he found he could stare her directly in the eye. In the dim light, he made out a wide, luscious mouth and glittering deep-set brown eyes above two slabs of high, creamy cheekbones on a face framed by a white Red Cross cap and set in familiar irritated lines.
                  Leonore.
    ***
                  "What an unexpected pleasure."
                  Leonore stared in horror at Viscount Towyn, his dark, magnificently molded handsomeness unmistakable even in the shadows. She quickly processed the three pips at his shoulder tabs and the double braid at his cuffs: Captain the Viscount Towyn.
                  He had risen quickly.
                  "Emphasis on the unexpected," She said coolly. "Now if you will excuse me…"
                  "Permit me," Something bright flashed in his hands.
                  "You have a key?"
                  "You needn't look as though I possessed the means to unlock a deep dark secret," Another flash, this time a grin, his teeth white and even beneath the mustache that did little to diminish his attractiveness. "Unless there is something you fear I will discover."
                  Leonore stiffened at the molten suggestiveness in his tone. It was a habit to men of his ilk. "I wouldn't think you'd care to discover anything at all about me, Captain Towyn."
                  "How well you know me,"
                  Was that a hint of sarcasm in his words? Leonore glanced at his face, so familiar and so…resented after all of these years. She had been the only one of her three sisters who did not wax rhapsodic over Huw Towyn's bright blue eyes, or his strong jaw, or the width of his shoulders, during their formative years.
                  She had been the only one never expected to wed