Lord Alleyne sat with pursed lips, his eyes alight with laughter, Lauren saw as she got to her feet to take her leave and the gentlemen followed suit.

“We will hope to see you all at Alvesley soon,” Kit said.

“It has been a pleasure, your grace,” Lauren said, addressing the duke. “Thank you for your kind hospitality.”

He inclined his head without taking his eyes from her. “The pleasure has been all mine, Miss Edgeworth,” he said.

Kit offered his arm and they walked the length of the drawing room again, both the silence and the eyes directed at their backs this time.


“A milk-and-water miss!” Lady Freyja said with unconcealed contempt almost before the drawing room doors had finished closing behind the departing guests. “Kit surely cannot be serious!”

Lord Alleyne chuckled. “But I believe the lady won the first round of hostilities, Free,” he said. “Quite resoundingly, in fact. She left you with your mouth gaping.”

“Nonsense!” she said crossly. “She will bore him silly within a month. Needlework, sketching, household accounts, French, Italian, singing—yawn, yawn! What can someone who looks as if she has just swallowed a prune and who sits oh-so-correctly, without touching the back of her chair, and who sips from her teacup as if she had never heard of such a thing as an honest-to-goodness thirst, and who converses on—on medieval screens, for the love of God—what can such a sorry creature have to offer Kit?”

“A word of advice, Freyja,” the duke said in the soft, pleasant voice that somehow succeeded in sending shivers of apprehension along the spines of most of the people who ever came within earshot of it. “It is always wise when one engages in any sport to look to one’s defenses and not set oneself up for an unnecessary hit.”

“I did not—” she began.

But even Lady Freyja was not proof against the haughtily raised eyebrows and steady silver gaze of his grace.

“And it is never worthy of a Bedwyn,” he concluded before vacating the fireplace and the room, “to wear the heart upon the sleeve.”

Freyja’s nostrils flared and her mouth opened. But she knew better than to fling defiance at her brother’s back. She waited until he had left before venting her fury upon a more vulnerable object.

“Do wipe that stupid grin off your face,” she commanded her younger brother, “or I may feel compelled to do it for you.”

Lord Alleyne presented her with an instant poker face that further incensed her.

“And you,” she said, stabbing a forefinger in the direction of her younger sister, “ought to be in the schoolroom. I cannot imagine what Wulf was thinking, to allow you down to receive visitors he ought not to have received at all.”

Miss Cowper rose to her feet in instant alarm.

“I daresay, Freyja,” Lady Morgan said placidly, not moving, “he expected to derive some satisfaction from watching Miss Edgeworth fall into a dither at the sight of so many sober, silent Bedwyns. I daresay he will be annoyed with Ralf for eluding the summons. But I do believe, with Alleyne and Wulf, that she is going to be a worthy foe. She did not collapse at all, did she? And Kit was laughing the whole while. I could see it in his eyes.”

“Lord Ravensberg to you,” Freyja said sharply.

“He told me,” Lady Morgan retorted, “when I was five years old and he carried me on his shoulders one day when I could not keep up to all of you, that I was to call him Kit. So you never mind, Freyja.”

She got to her feet and made a triumphant exit, Miss Cowper trotting along in her wake while Lord Alleyne chuckled again.

“Little spitfire,” he said. “She may outshine us all yet, Free.”

Chapter 11

Lady Freyja has been hurt,” Lauren said. “No.” Kit took her by the hand and drew her arm through his. “I think not. Her pride has been bruised, that is all.”

They zigzagged their way along the gravel paths of the formal parterres, the hem of Lauren’s light sprigged muslin dress brushing against the floral clusters that spilled over from the borders. They were headed toward the wilderness walk among the trees, from which Kit had emerged a mere five minutes before with Lady Kilbourne and Lady Muir. His grandmother had walked as far as the rose arbor with them and had then tried to insist that they all leave her there to enjoy the fragrant air while they continued their walk. But Lauren had insisted upon staying with her to keep her company.

There was a quiet kindness about Lauren Edgeworth that one might well not notice unless one was observing closely. Kit was observing.

“Are you sure that is all?” she asked now.

They had spoken very little on the way back from Lindsey Hall, as if by mutual consent they had decided to keep their impressions to themselves until they had properly digested them. But now they had been thrown together again by his grandmother, who had insisted they stroll for a time while the other ladies accompanied her back to the house.

“We shared a brief romance three years ago, Lauren,” he said. “It was very brief after a lifetime of being simply friends and playmates. Then she betrothed herself to Jerome, I made an ass of myself by fighting both him and Ralf, and I went off back to the Peninsula, where I belonged. It would be absurd to imagine that she has worn the willow for me ever since. That simply is not Freyja’s way.”

“Is it yours?” They stepped beyond the parterres to cross the narrow stretch of lawn to the little humpbacked bridge spanning the stream that gurgled its way down over a stone-studded bed to join the river.

“Have I harbored a secret passion for her all this time, do you mean?” he asked. “No, of course not. It was briefly conceived, soon forgotten. Besides, Lauren, I would hardly admit to stronger emotions for her in your presence, would I? It would be in execrable taste.”

“Why?” she asked. “Our betrothal is only a temporary thing, after all. There is no need to hide the truth from me out of tact. Did you love her? Do you?”

His boots clattered over the boards of the bridge in contrast to her lighter footfall. Had he loved Freyja? He had called it love at the time, though he remembered his feelings now more as a desperate hunger to lose himself in the body of a woman who could perhaps bring him a moment’s forgetfulness. Not that their passion had ever been consummated, of course. She had more than once allowed him to come close, only to whisk herself away with laughter at the last possible moment. He had not thought of her as a tease at the time, but looking back now, he wondered if she had ever taken his attentions seriously.

“It is impossible,” he said, “to put a label upon remembered feelings. They are colored too much by all our subsequent experiences. I was desperate to marry her, to carry her off to the Peninsula with me. But I was a desperate young man in many ways that summer. And it all seems a long time ago. How could I love her now? She was unpardonably rude to you.”

He turned north with her in the direction that would take them uphill on a route that curved beside and behind the house. He had taken her aunt and cousin in the opposite direction earlier, on the shorter, easier route that ended at the riverbank.

“I was not offended,” she said. “I understood her motivation, having felt it myself. Though I was never able to bring myself to be that blatantly rude to Lily.”

But she had wanted to be? Because Kilbourne had hurt her?

“Were you offended,” he asked, “when I did not rush to your rescue this afternoon? I did rather cast you to the wolves, did I not? But if you cannot stand up to the Bedwyns on your very first encounter with them, you see, they will make a meal of you at every encounter thereafter. You acquitted yourself magnificently, by the way. And if you did not notice, you won the respect of Ralf even before we went upstairs, and of Bewcastle, Alleyne, and Morgan after we did.”

“She rides and swims and shoots and does all those things she asked me about, does she not?” Lauren asked. “She knows how to enjoy herself, how to have fun. She knows how to face life with vitality and passion. She is your perfect counterpart, Kit. I think perhaps you should use this time while I am here to consider your future carefully. It might be unwise to reject the idea of marriage with her just because you bear a grudge from three years ago.”

They were walking along a narrow, fragrant alleyway, whose walls were high rhododendron bushes. Tall trees beyond them on both sides offered a canopy overhead as shade from the late-afternoon sun. She had left her parasol in the rose arbor. She was gazing straight ahead up the path, Kit saw when he dipped his head to look into her face. Sometimes he almost forgot that theirs was not a real betrothal.

“Perhaps I should use the time wisely,” he said. “Perhaps I should woo you into making it a real betrothal.”

“No.” She shook her head. “We would not suit in any way at all. You must see that. No, Kit, I am going to be free when all this is over. Wonderfully free at last.”

It was rather humbling to realize that even if he employed all his very best skills to charm her, even if he should come to the point of really wishing to wed her, even if he should fall in love with her, she might truly prefer a solitary spinster existence to marriage with him. Freedom, as she called it. Well, it was hardly surprising, perhaps. Women had precious little freedom. And he was not such a prize.

“I think perhaps you misunderstood your father earlier this year,” she said. “You believe that he promoted a match between you and Lady Freyja purely for dynastic reasons, that he was demonstrating his power and showing no concern whatsoever for your happiness. But perhaps he thought to make you a peace offering with his plan, Kit. Perhaps he thought you would be very pleased indeed.”