If I Fall by Kate Noble

she refused to give in to people’s expectations of her, the easier it was. Until no one looked upon her with pity, or concern, or worry, ever again.
    Except of course … for Jackson Fletcher.
    It was difficult to pinpoint what, in the past week, had set Sarah’s back up so much when it came to Jack. It wasn’t when he scolded her over breakfast. No, it had begun before. From the moment of their first meeting, in the foyer, just beyond those same library doors.
    She had been as cordial as one could expect to be, when surprised by an old friend. Indeed, when he first arrived, and she saw Amanda wrapped around him—practically in the way she had as a child, embracing his leg and sitting on his foot as he walked—and her mother’s shocked and happy expression, as well as Bridget’s … well, Sarah could not help but feel the warmth he brought with him.
    It was also something of a shock to see him so tall, and … masculine. His hair streaked blond, a smattering of beard along his jaw. Whenever they had received a letter from Jack, all the Forresters gathered around Lady Forrester and listened raptly as she reported his adventures—but in Sarah’s mind’s eye, he was always as she last saw him: sixteen, thin, and justbecoming handsome in his ill-fitting uniform. In her mind, he was still a boy.
    Then, in the foyer, surrounded by her family, he’d looked at her.
    At first she thought he found something offensive in her costume. But he couldn’t—it was her Madame LeTrois lemon walking costume with a gold thread pattern at the cuffs and hem, after all. And then she thought, briefly, that he didn’t recognize her—it had been nine years since he had laid eyes on her—and nine formative years, at that. Formative for him, too, she could easily note, as he filled out his lieutenant’s uniform now, with no small amount of dash.
    But the look in his eyes was admonishing. Judging. It was the same look he gave her over breakfast the next morning.
    It was … expectation.
    And if there was one thing she had learned from Phillippa, it was to defy expectations.
    From that moment on, there had been a frostiness between them that had never been present in their youthful endeavors of playing pirates and sneaking the paper to read stories of the Blue Raven.
    But no, she told herself, stopping her brows from coming down before anyone would see the dark thoughts crossing her face, she would not let the burr that had been living in her side (and her house) for nearly a week take away from the fact that the evening was going so very, very well.
    But then again, everything always went very well these days. But no, it was going particularly well, not only because they were practically holding court at one of the foremost events of the Season—the Whitford banquet was after all a massive feast where the decorations were decidedly patriotic and the food entirely exotic, and absolutely nobody who was anybody would miss it—but because of whom they were holding court with.
    Sarah felt a strong warm hand fall gently on her left arm. She turned, smiling, her eyes being met by the dark depths of the Comte de Le Bon. She gave him that smile that Phillippa told her to reserve only for those men who had her whole attention.
    “I do believe, Mademoiselle, that your eyes are greener today than yesterday.”
    “Are they?” she returned coyly, making certain that her greener-than-yesterday eyes did not waver from his dark-as-pitch ones.
    “Perhaps they are envious,” the Comte mused.
    “Envious? Why?” Sarah asked, her brow coming down in a scowl.
    “Envious of the fact that yesterday, your eyes were seen in daylight, sparkling in the sun. Now their beauty is shrouded in mere candlelight. They darken, you see, with their jealousy.”
    Oh yes, the Comte had her attention.
    She liked to think she was getting used to it when some poor young lad fresh out of school composed a sonnet to her green eyes. That she was becoming jaded by the