“Yes, I blame you,” Sydnam had said. “But not in the way you think.”

It had not been worth pursuing.

“Do you think,” Kit had asked, “that I would not have taken all your suffering into my own body if I could? I wish it had been me. I wish I had made that choice. If you could be made whole again, do you not think I would give my life to make it happen?”

“I’m sure you would,” his brother had said. “I am quite certain you would, Kit.” But there had been no forgiveness in his voice. Only harsh bitterness. “I do not want to talk about this. It was my suffering and these are my deformities and this is my life. I ask nothing of you, nothing whatsoever.”

“Not even my love?” The words had been almost whispered against the windowpane.

“Not even that, Kit.”

“Well.” Kit had turned and smiled, feeling as if all the blood in his body were draining downward, making him rather light-headed. He had crossed the room toward the door with deliberately jaunty strides. He had let himself out and closed the door behind him before bowing his head, his eyes closed.

No, no one had been made happy by his return to Alvesley, least of all himself. He felt like a stranger in his own home—an uncomfortable, unwelcome stranger. He felt useless—he, who had always been active and brilliantly successful and highly respected in his career. His father had made no move to educate him in the duties of the heir or to include him in any activities of his daily routine. Perhaps he was waiting until after the house party and the return of normality to the household. And Kit too felt as if he were waiting for the next phase of his life to begin—yet the very next phase was to be a charade. A lie. Unless, that was, he could persuade her to marry him after all and redeem some of his honor by doing what was right by her.

He had not been sleeping well—again. And when he did nod off from sheer exhaustion, the old nightmare kept rearing its ugly head. Syd . . .

By the middle of the afternoon he found himself in the drawing room in company with both his mother and his father—who rarely spent his afternoons there—as well as his grandmother. The others sat in quiet conversation while Kit made no pretense of doing anything but standing at the window waiting, his eyes fixed on the point of the driveway just beyond the bridge at which a carriage would first come into sight. They were all waiting, of course, for the unwanted, unwelcome arrival of their guests—though none of them had been discourteous enough to put it quite that way.

Kit’s betrothal had caused an awkward rift with their neighbors at Lindsey Hall six miles away—the Duke of Bewcastle and the Bedwyns, his brothers and sisters. Kit had ridden over there on his first morning back and had asked to speak with his grace. Bewcastle must have assumed, of course, that the call was a courtesy one for the making of a formal offer for Freyja. Kit had been shown into the library almost immediately.

Wulfric Bedwyn, Duke of Bewcastle, was not the sort of man anyone in his right mind would deliberately cross. Tall, dark, rather thin, with piercing gray eyes in a narrow face, a great hooked nose, and thin lips, he bore himself with all the unconscious arrogance of his breed. He had been brought up from the cradle for his present position and so had always held himself somewhat aloof from his brothers and his brothers’ friends, even though he was only a little more than a year older than Kit. He was a cold, humorless man.

He had not exploded with wrath when informed about the betrothal. He had merely crossed one elegantly clad leg over the other, taken a sip from his glass—the very finest French brandy, of course—and spoken softly and pleasantly.

“Doubtless,” he had said, “you are about to explain.”

Kit had felt just as he used to feel during his boyhood years when hauled up before the headmaster at school for some mischief—caught out, in the wrong, on the defensive. He had prevented himself only just in time from acting accordingly.

“And you will explain,” he had replied just as pleasantly, “why you would negotiate a marriage contract for your sister with my father rather than with me, her proposed husband.”

He had found himself being regarded steadily from cold, inscrutable eyes for long, silent moments.

“You will excuse me,” his grace had said softly at last, “for not offering my felicitations on your betrothal, Ravensberg. You do, however, have my congratulations. You have a fine sense of revenge. Better than you used to have. Less brash, shall we say?”

He had been referring to three years before, of course, when after breaking Jerome’s nose Kit had galloped hell-for-leather over to Lindsey Hall and banged on the outer door for half an hour—it had been late at night—before Rannulf, Bewcastle’s brother and Kit’s particular friend, had opened it and told him not to make an ass of himself but to go on home. When Kit had demanded to hear the truth of her betrothal to Jerome from Freyja’s own lips, Rannulf had come outside and they had stripped down and engaged in ferocious fisticuffs for all of fifteen minutes before a burly footman and Alleyne, another brother, had dragged them apart, both bruised and bloodied, both snarling and struggling to continue. Bewcastle, standing outside the door silently observing the fight, had then advised Kit to take himself off back to the Peninsula, where his rage could be put to better use. Freyja had stood at his side, her head thrown proudly back, a smile of open contempt on her lips as she stared at Kit. She had not uttered a word.

Now, three years later, Kit had been framing an answer to the duke’s words when the library door behind him was suddenly flung back against the bookshelves and his grace’s eyes had gone beyond Kit’s shoulder, his eyebrows rising haughtily.

“I fail to recall,” he had said, “inviting you to join me here, Freyja.”

But she had stridden into the room regardless and approached Kit’s chair, ignoring her brother. Kit had risen to make her a bow.

“You have certainly taken your time about leaving the pleasures of London behind,” she had said, tapping a riding whip against her skirt. “I am on my way out for a ride with Alleyne. If you wish to call upon me, Lord Ravensberg, you may make an appointment with Wulf and I will see if I am free that day.” She had turned to leave without waiting for his answer.

She had not changed in three years. Of slightly below medium height but generously endowed, she carried herself with proud grace. No one, even in her infancy, had ever called Freyja pretty. She was one of the fair Bedwyns and wore her thick golden hair as she had always liked to wear it, quite unfashionably, in long, loose waves down her back. Like the other fair Bedwyns, she had startlingly dark eyebrows and a dark-toned complexion. And the family nose. As a child she had been ugly to the point of freakishness. Then she had blossomed into young womanhood, and ugliness had been transformed into a startling handsomeness. She had always, from infancy on, been a spitfire.

“Lady Freyja,” Kit had murmured.

“If you had simply gone riding, Freyja,” her brother had said, still in his soft, pleasant voice, “instead of feeling constrained to announce in person your intention of not receiving Viscount Ravensberg, you might have been spared having to learn thus publicly what he has come here to inform me. He has recently become betrothed to Miss Lauren Edgeworth of Newbury. She will be coming to Alvesley within the next week or two.”

Freyja was not his sister and a Bedwyn for nothing. After a moment’s silence, she had turned her head back over her shoulder to smile at Kit—a baring of the teeth that bore a resemblance to a smile, anyway.

“Oh, well done, Kit,” she had said softly. “Well done indeed. You have learned subtleties you used not to know.”

She had left the room without another word.

Three years before, Kit had conceived a sudden, all-consuming passion for the woman who had been his playmate all through their childhood—she had always flatly refused to be excluded by her brothers and their friends even from their wildest exploits. She had seemed to return his sentiments in full measure. He had talked of marrying her and taking her back to the Peninsula with him to follow the drum. She had said nothing to discourage him. He had believed that summer that he would willingly die for her. And then, when Jerome had suddenly, without warning, announced his betrothal to her, Kit had thought he might well die of her betrayal. But that had been three years ago. Much water had passed beneath the proverbial bridge since then.

“Ah,” he said now, his mind back in his father’s drawing room, his eyes on that point just beyond the bridge where the deer forest ended, “here it comes.”

A carriage, unmistakably grand, drawn by four perfectly matched horses and escorted by outriders, had come into sight. There was no possibility that it was merely a neighbor come to call on his mother or grandmother.

Everyone was rising, he saw when he turned toward the door, even his grandmother with the aid of her cane. But of course. They would all do what was proper and come down to welcome the unwelcome guests with formal hospitality. He wished suddenly that it was a real betrothal, that it was a love match, that at last he would be able to convince his family—and keep them convinced—that he had done something that was right and responsible and good for the whole family when he had chosen the Honorable Miss Lauren Edgeworth to be his viscountess.

He would have offered his grandmother his arm, but his father was before him. He gave it to his mother instead, and they descended the stairs, walked through the echoing hall, and went out onto the steps together, without exchanging a word. He had always been the most troublesome of her three sons. If ever there were mischief to be got into—and there always had been—he had invariably been at the center of it, the instigator and main participant. But she had always loved him anyway. Sometimes she had even shed a tear over him after his father had finished with him in the study. Since his return—except for her first warm hug—he was not sure she loved him at all any longer.