He was thirty. So was she. The first flush of youth had passed them both by, ending abruptly for him just before his twenty-fifth birthday, leached gradually out of her after the death of her father and the departure of her lover and his ultimate faithlessness.

They had both given up on romance.

There was no scene more romantic than this. The evening air was cool but not by any means cold. He could smell the flowers and hear the water gurgling beneath the bridge. And he was in company with a beautiful woman who was his lover as well as his life's companion. "Turn your face to me," he said.

She did so, and they gazed into each other's eyes for a while until they both smiled.

He bent forward and rubbed his nose against hers before kissing her softly on the lips. "I think," he said, "it is possible to start again, don't you? Life, I mean. It cannot possibly be intended that we simply acquire experience upon experience like a lot of excess baggage to carry about with us until we stagger into middle age and old age beneath the impossible weight of it all. We must, as we grow older and wiser, be able to allow all the … all the pain to seep out of our bones and our souls so that we can start again. Do you think?" "I thought it was a matter of will and discipline," she said. "I thought the past was gone – off my shoulders, out of my life, until I had a letter from Lady Dew a few months ago telling me that Crispin was a widower and that he was back in England with his daughter and asking about me and wanting to see me again. I have used my will again since then, and discipline." "But to no avail?" he asked. "I married you," she said. "I did it for a number of reasons, none of them consciously to do with Crispin. But he was one of the reasons. I wanted to forget once and for all. I wanted to stop loving him – or rather, I wanted to stop fearing that I would love him again. I don't want to. I want the pain to go away. I want to start again. I want to love you. Oh, Duncan, I already do. But I want…" "The magic," he said. "Yes." He took one of her hands in his, laced his fingers with hers, and crossed to the other side of the bridge with her. They strolled along the avenue in silence, and it seemed to Duncan that she did not feel the awkwardness she had felt last evening. He felt that together they were allowing the cool quiet of the night, the moonlight and the shadows, to pour into their souls and heal them.

After a few minutes he released her hand and wrapped one arm about her waist. A moment later she wrapped her arm about his. Inevitably, her head came to rest on his shoulder.

Desire for her hummed pleasantly in his veins.

He was at peace, he realized. "Duncan," she said without raising her head, "I have just realized that I am happier than I have been in years." "Are you?" he said. "I am here in this lovely place," she said, "and it is where I belong.

And I am with a man I like and admire and with whom I have … pleasure. A man with whom I am embarking upon a courtship, a romance." "There is a summer house at the end of the avenue," he said. "Yes," she said. "I can see it." "Be prepared," he told her. "I intend to kiss you silly when we reach it." She laughed and lifted her head to look into his face, her eyes shining with merriment. "I would think the less of you if you did not," she said. "But be warned. I intend to give as good as I get." And he laughed too, throwing his head back, and felt more carefree than he remembered feeling in years.

They released their hold on each other and joined hands, their fingers laced.

He had intended lighting the lamp that he hoped was still kept ready in the summer house as it had always used to be. But there was enough moonlight streaming through the windows on all five sides of the structure that artificial light was unnecessary.

There was a leather sofa there as well as two upholstered chairs and a round table in the center. They sat together in one of the chairs, she on his lap, her arms about his neck, his about her waist. "This is what every girl dreams of," she said, "being taken somewhere lovely and moonlit and quite private by a handsome gentleman." "Girls dream such wicked dreams?" he said, rubbing his nose across hers. "Oh, not wicked," she said. "/Romantic/. Girls dream of kisses to make their hearts beat faster and their toes curl up inside their slippers.

They dream of heaven blossoming like a perfect rose in the center of their world." She laughed softly. "Do they?" he said, nibbling on her bottom lip. "Yes." She pressed her lips softly to his. "I am still a girl at heart, Duncan. And I still dream." "I am a handsome gentleman, then?" he asked her.

She laughed again, the sound coming from somewhere deep in her throat. "I think you must be," she said. "Certainly my heart is all aflutter, and my toes are curling up in my slippers. Now there is only that certain heaven to travel to, Duncan." "May I come too?" he whispered against her lips, and deepened the kiss. "Mmm," she said on a long sigh.

Duncan was not sure he did not respond with an answering sigh.

They kissed long and deep, murmuring to each other when they came up for air, returning over and over again to the feast. And yet they kissed without any urgent sexual passion. That would come later, when they returned home to their bed. This was not about sex. It was about romance. It was about falling in love.

It was all very strange – and it was all strangely enticing.

Romance more enticing than sex?

He was not even sure he could not smell a perfect rose.

Margaret spent almost the whole of the following morning with Mrs.

Dowling. She inspected the china and glassware and silverware and linen and sat poring over the account books and the order books with her. She was taken belowstairs to inspect the kitchen and pantries and storehouses, and stayed to drink a cup of tea and sample some sweet biscuits fresh out of the oven while she discussed menus and meal times with Mrs. Kettering, the cook.

She met a number of the servants and thoroughly enjoyed the morning. She was very aware, as she had never been at Warren Hall, that this was /her/ home, that these were /her/ servants.

She felt consciously happy. And though she remembered the night with pleasure – they had made love twice, once when they went to bed and once before Ducan got up for an early morning ride – it was last evening she remembered with a warm glow about the heart.

They had kissed each other out in the summer house with a deepening affection and a promise of passion when they went home – but with something that went beyond affection or passion. They had talked between kisses and had even been silent for a longish spell, her head on his shoulder, his fingers playing lightly with her hair. And they had laughed.

Their shared laughter had caused her to slide closer to falling in love with him. She had not heard him laugh often, and almost never with total lightheartedness at some silliness that was probably not really funny at all. And she could not remember laughing herself in quite so carefree a manner for a long time.

There was mutual trust in shared laughter.

She trusted his unexpected commitment to making a love match of their union. He had been open and frank with her. She had to trust him. She /needed/ to.

Duncan was busy too. He had taken breakfast with Toby in the nursery, but he was spending the rest of the morning with Mr. Lamb, his steward.

They had gone out on horseback just after breakfast, probably to tour the home farm.

Honeymoons were wonderful things, Margaret decided, but it felt equally good to be settling to what would be the routine of daily life whenever they were in the country. And that, she supposed, would be most of the time, at least for the next several years, with Toby so young. And perhaps soon there would be another infant in the nursery.

Oh, she /hoped/ so.

Duncan was to spend the afternoon with Toby. Margaret told herself that she did not mind. He had said from the start that the child must come first with him, and he had arrived here just yesterday. He needed to spend time with his father.

However, just before luncheon, when Margaret was in her dressing room changing her clothes, there was a knock at the door. Ellen opened it.

Toby was standing there, Duncan behind him. "There you are," the child said to Margaret. "We looked in the big room downstairs, but you were not there. You are to tell me today if you will be my friend." "Oh," Margaret said, looking briefly up at Duncan and finding that for some reason her knees felt suddenly weak, "I have been busy and have not given the matter a great deal of thought. But I think I might like to be your friend, Toby. Indeed, I am certain I would be. Shall we shake on it?" She stepped closer to the door and held out a hand for his.

He pumped her hand up and down. "Good," he said. "We are going out after I have eaten. We are going to play cricket. Papa is going to bowl to me and I am going to hit the ball. You can catch it. If you want to, that is. I'll let you bat some of the time." "That is kind of you," she said. "And then," he said, "we are going to the lake, and Papa is going to let me swim if I have been a good boy." " /Is/ there a lake?" She looked at Duncan with raised eyebrows. "At the foot of the west lawn," he said. "It is out of sight from the house behind the trees." "Splendid," she said, looking at Toby. "What shall I call you?" he asked her. "I won't call you Mama." "That would be absurd anyway," she said, "since I am /not/ your mother.

Let me see. Papa calls me Maggie. Everyone else in my family calls me Meg. How about Aunt Meg, even though I am not really your aunt either?" "Aunt Meg," he said. "You had better be ready after luncheon or Papa will go without you. He said so." "I was talking to /you/, imp," Duncan said. "Off you go now. Mrs. Harris is waiting for you in the nursery. Can you find your own way?" "I can," the child said, darting off. "Of course I can. I am four years old." "Going on forty," Duncan said when he was out of earshot. He stepped inside the dressing room – Ellen had already left. "I am sorry about this, Maggie. Playing cricket with a child who has not yet learned to swing his bat on a collision course with the ball is probably not your idea of an enjoyable way to spend a sunny afternoon." "On the contrary," she said. "I always did find fielding the ball the most dreary part of playing cricket. Now I can claim a different role and teach Toby how to hit a ball. If he will grant me the favor, that is, as his newest friend." They both laughed – and locked eyes. "This evening," he said, "will be just for us. And for romance." "Yes." She reached up and cupped his face with both hands. She kissed him lightly and briefly on the lips. "I really do not know," he said, "how I could have imagined even for a moment that I would be able to find a bride, marry her in haste, and then settle her somewhere on the outer periphery of my life." "You have accomplished two out of the three," she said, "and that is not a bad average. However, you must have imagined all that before you met me or got to know me at all well. I do not function at all well when balanced on peripheries." He laughed and returned her kiss just as briefly. "If we do not go down and eat immediately," he said, "I daresay Toby will go without us and we will be doomed to an afternoon with nothing to do but entertain each other." "Oh goodness," she said, "whatever would we find to do?" She laughed when he merely waggled his eyebrows.