She looked around her with a smile, preparing to introduce herself to the children's nurse. She found herself smiling instead at David Gower. He was standing at the opposite side of the room by one of the long windows. He held a baby in his arms. An older child stood on the window seat before him looking out through the window.

"Oh," Rachel said foolishly, "I am sorry. I did not know you were here."

"Hello, Rachel," David said. His eyes were smiling at her in that way that made her feel weak at the knees. "Do come inside. Did you come to meet my nephews? I am very proud of them, you know, and quite delighted to have someone to whom to show them off. It is more than six months since I saw them last. This little one, in particular, was a very small baby then."

"Where is their nurse?" Rachel asked.

He grinned. "I sent her to have tea with the housekeeper," he said. "Little Simon here was running her off her feet. Once one sets his legs to the floor, he believes that they should be in continuous motion. And he moves at a run, destroying everything in his path. I have enabled myself to have something of a rest by the simple expedient of picking him up. Right, cherub?" He pinched the stomach of the baby, who chuckled with delight.

"They are lovely," Rachel said. "The older one looks like your brother and you." She smiled at the little boy, who had turned from the window to stare at her. She held out a hand. "May I present myself? I am Lady Rachel Palmer. I do not know your name, sir."

The boy placed a small hand in hers. "Rufus Gower, ma'am," he said, bobbing his head in a swift bow.

"Ah," she said. "You share your papa's name. I am pleased to meet you, sir." She curtsied.

"When I sent the nurse away twenty minutes ago," David said, "it was with the promise that I would try to get these boys to bed. They usually sleep for an hour immediately after luncheon, but the upheaval of the journey for more than two days and the strange house at the end of it all has upset their routine. I had them almost persuaded when you arrived. Shall we try, boys? Lady Rachel is an expert storyteller. If you go to bed immediately and settle down quietly, perhaps she can be persuaded to tell you a story."

Rachel looked at him in alarm, to find that his eyes were twinkling. "Well, I know some of Aesop's fables," she said.

"Uncle David, carry me," Rufus begged, directing large blue eyes his uncle's way.

"Uncle David's arms are already full," Rachel said. "Will I do?"

"Here," David said, "you take Simon. But please do not set his feet anywhere close to the floor or we will spend another twenty minutes chasing him."

The baby's arms closed around her neck. His cheek as it brushed hers was hot, she felt. He was clearly tired and holding himself awake by sheer willpower.

The scene in the children's bedchamber seemed an incredibly domestic one to Rachel. She tucked the baby into one bed while David did the same with the older child in the other. The baby immediately gathered the silk border of the blanket into his fist, put a thumb in his mouth, and addressed himself to sleep. Rufus watched her wide-eyed as she sat on the edge of his bed and told him fables. It was not until she was halfway through the third one that his eyelids began to droop. She finished the story, kissed his forehead, and rose to leave. Simon was already asleep. David was standing at the foot of the beds.

"Have you always loved children?" he asked Rachel as they stepped back out into the nursery and he closed the door behind them. "You certainly have a gift for holding their attention."

"Yes, I have always enjoyed playing with children," she admitted. "Papa says it is because I have never grown up myself. I think the local children should be taught to read, David. Do you think I would be able to teach them? And would there be any real point? I mean, I know there would be a point, but would their parents and everyone else see that? I am not at all sure. I have never really thought about it before." She was staring eagerly at him, the old Rachel he remembered from London.

"I suppose you can only ask," he said. "But yes, if you really wished to do that, Rachel, I think you would do it successfully. You have a great deal of energy and enthusiasm. It would be a great commitment of time, though. Are you sure you will have the time to spare?"

"Oh, yes." Rachel gazed earnestly back. "I will have a great deal of time. My whole life." She flushed suddenly.

He smiled and changed the subject. "I should have come downstairs when I saw your barouche arrive earlier," he said. "Did no one think to tell you I was here?"

"No," Rachel said. "I would not have come up had I known. You must stay until the nurse returns, must you not? I shall go back downstairs."

"Must you?" he asked with a smile. "Come and sit with me by the window for a while. It is a great shame that there must be an awkwardness between us, Rachel. We could be very dear friends, could we not, if there were not the other to make it painful to be in each other's presence?"

Rachel came and sat at one end of the long window seat. He sat at the other. "Yes," she said, "I believe we could." Her eyes rested on his face. She smiled.

"Why do you do what you do?" he asked. "Why do you spend your mornings with the poor?"

"For very selfish reasons," she said. "It makes me happy. The mornings are the happiest time of my days."

"It is not because of me?" he asked. "It is not that I have made you feel you ought?"

"You reminded me perhaps," she said, "of the way things were before my attention was completely taken up with London and the Season. And I think I wanted to win your respect, and even admiration. But it is not just for you, David. Not by any means. I shall continue after you are gone. All my life."

"Do you do it at all for God?" he asked curiously. "I do not know much about the state of your faith, Rachel. I know that you know a great deal of the Bible, of course."

Rachel was silent for several moments, staring across at him. "I am not quite sure," she said. "Religion seems so restrictive. It makes people sober and unhappy. It is full of things one must not do. I want to be happy. I want joy in my life. I want to run and dance and be free. I don't think I am a very good member of your flock, David."

His eyes smiled deeply into hers and his mouth was curved up at the corners. "Oh, I think that perhaps you are far closer to God than many of my other sheep, Rachel," he said. "The type of religion you fear is best suited to those who wish to create their own God. It is a human tendency to stress the negative, to emphasize what one should not do rather than what one should. It is not God's way. God gives us only two commandments: to love Him and to love one another. They are very positive commands. And you are beginning to live them already. If you will learn to accept that it is what God wants you to do, I think you will be able to sing and dance and be incredibly happy. You should be happy, Rachel. You were made for joy."

"My own private sermon," she said. "And it is not even Sunday."

"Pardon me," he said. "I did not mean to preach. It is just that I feel an enormous responsibility for you. Not just the responsibility of vicar to parishioner, but that of lover to beloved. I know I have hurt you. And I believe that the hurt I have inflicted may be deep enough to wound you for a lifetime. But you need not be unhappy, Rachel. That seems like a paradox, does it not? But I believe it. You can be happy if you realize that you need not depend on a poor weak human for your joy. I could bring you only unhappiness ultimately, you know."

Rachel smiled rather wearily and stared out through the window.

"With Algie you will live the life you are suited to," he said. "With religious faith you will also be able to live a rich life. I will be quite superfluous to your life, you see."

"David." Rachel turned back to look full at him. "Whom are you trying to persuade? Do you not think I have sense enough to have told myself all these things and more in the last week? I have already adjusted my mind to the type of future I am facing. And I am not going to marry Algie, you know."

His face paled noticeably. "Not marry Algie?" he said. "But your betrothal has been planned, Rachel. And you love him."

"Yes, I do," she said. "Far too dearly to use him as a refuge from a bruised heart. He deserves to have all of the woman he will marry. I could offer him only a part of myself."

David closed his eyes and drew a deep breath. "Does he know?" he asked."

"No," she said. "I do not wish to broach the topic while your brother is here and while our guests are still at Oakland. When they have all left I shall tell him. You see, I can be as courageous as you, David."

David got to his feet and stood with his back to the window. "I am sorry," he said finally. "I am truly, sorry, Rachel."

"You need not be," she said. "I think you have saved both Algie and me from a bad marriage. It is only recently, you see, that I have realized that we do not love each other as a husband and wife should. Perhaps Algie already knows that. I am not sure. He has been the one to advise caution, to insist that we wait until autumn before making our betrothal official. But I have now realized it. I admire Algie, and even love him, for his placid good nature. I suppose I have always felt that I would take on some of that nature if I married him. I thought I would be safe with Algie. But of course that was nonsense. I have grown up a great deal in the past few weeks. I would still be me if I married Algie a thousand times. I would still be restless and frightened."