“Frequently. There was no estrangement. We are very good friends, except when we are sworn foes! Indeed, he is my Trustee.”

“Your Trustee!” he said, looking as though he found the information shocking. “I knew how much attached to him Lord Spenborough was, but that he should have placed you in a position of such embarrassment—Forgive me! I should not be speaking to you so!”

“You mistake: I don’t find it embarrassing! To be sure, I was in such a passion when I first discovered how it was to be—But there were circumstances enough to enrage me! Never mind that! As for meeting Ivo, in the old way, neither of us has been aware of any awkwardness. It is the popular notion that I should be cast into blushes in Ivo’s presence, but either that’s a great piece of nonsense, or I am a creature sadly lacking in sensibility! I can’t be shy of a man I’ve known all my life! Since my father’s death, too, he seems sometimes to me like a link with—” She broke off. “But, come!—We have talked enough of me! Tell me of yourself! I long to hear of all your doings in Spain!”

“I don’t think I could ever hear enough of you,” he said seriously. “Nothing of any consequence has befallen me. Nothing until today! When I saw you, it was as though these six years and more had never been!”

“Oh, hush! I too was conscious of just that feeling, but it is nonsensical! Much has happened to both of us!”

“To you! I know well how great a tragedy your father’s death must have been to you. To have written to you would have been presumption: I could only wish that I had the right to comfort you!”

As always, she was rendered uncomfortable by spoken sympathy. She said: “Thank you. The shock was severe, and the sense of loss must remain with me for long and long, but you must not think me borne down by it, or out of spirits. I go on very well.”

“I know your indomitable courage!”

Her impulse was to check him. She subdued it, afraid of wounding him, and walked on beside him with downcast eyes while he continued talking of her father. That he truly understood the extent of her loss, and most sincerely entered into her feelings, she could not doubt. He spoke well, and with great tenderness: she would rather he had been silent.

He seemed to realize it, and broke off, saying: “It is painful for you to talk of it. I will say no more: what I feel—all that I cannot express—you must know!”

“Yes, I—You are very good, very kind! How glad I am I should have chosen to go to Duffield’s this very morning! Do you make a long stay in Bath?”

“I came to visit my mother, and arrived only yesterday. There are no calls upon my time, and I had meant to remain with her for a few weeks. Since my father’s death, she has resided here. The climate agrees with her constitution, and she derives benefit from the baths. She is a sad invalid, and seldom goes out, or—But are you living here too, Serena?”

“For a few months only, with my mother-in-law.”

“Ah! I knew that Lord Spenborough had married again, and feared that you must have been made unhappy.”

“No, indeed!”

“You live with Lady Spenborough? You like her? She is kind to you?” he said anxiously.

“Very!”

“I am very much relieved to hear you say so. I was afraid it might not be so. To have had a mama thrust upon you at your age cannot have been agreeable. Too often one hears of mamas-in-law domineering over the children of a previous marriage! But if she is truly motherly to you I can believe that you may be glad now that the marriage took place. Her protection must be a comfort to you.”

Her eyes began to dance, but she said demurely: “Very true! I look forward to presenting you to her. I hope you will not think her very formidable!”

“Will you let me call on you?” he said eagerly. “She will not object to it?”

“I am sure she will receive you most graciously!”

“There is something quelling in the very word!” he said, smiling. “As for dowager, that conjures up such a picture as might terrify the boldest! If she should wear a turban, I shall shake in my shoes, for it will remind me of a great-aunt of whom, as a boy, I lived in dread! When may I call on her? Where is your direction?”

“In Laura Place.” She looked round her suddenly, and burst out laughing. “Good God, do you know how far we have walked? Unless my eyes deceive me, we have reached nearly to the end of Great Pulteney Street! If I have at least led you in the right way it must have been by instinct! I have no recollection even of crossing the bridge!”

“Nor I,” he admitted, turning, and beginning to retrace his steps beside her. “I have been walking in a dream, I think. I could wish we were at the other end of the town, so that I need not part from you so soon. My fear is that when you leave me I shall wake up.”

“Major Kirkby, I begin to think you are turned into an accomplished flirt!”

“I? Ah, you are quizzing me! I never flirted, I think, in my life.”

“Good gracious, will you tell me that there is not one beautiful Spaniard left mourning your departure?”

He shook his head. “Not one, upon my honour!”

“I had no notion life was so dull in Spain!”

“I never saw one whom I thought beautiful,” he said simply.

They walked on, and were soon in Laura Place again. He parted from her at her door, lingering, with her hand in his, to say: Tell me when I may call on you!”

“When you wish,” she replied, smiling at him.

His clasp on her hand tightened; he bent to kiss it: and at last released it, and went striding away, as though he dared not trust himself to look back.

A minute later, Fanny was greeting Serena with relief. “Oh, I am so glad you are come in! I feared some accident had befallen, for you have been away this age and more! Good God, dearest! What has happened? You look as if a fortune had dropped on you from the sky!”

“Not a fortune!” Serena said, her eyes very bright and sparkling, and a smile hovering about her mouth. “Better than that, and by far more unexpected! I have met—an old acquaintance!”

“That would not make you look so! Now, be serious, love, I do beg of you!”

“Oh, I cannot be! You must hold me excused! Did you ever feel yourself a girl again, in your first season? It is the most delightful thing imaginable! I have told him he may call on us: pray be so obliging as to like him! It will be a study to see his face when I present him to you: he pictures you in a turban, Fanny!”

Fanny let her embroidery frame drop. “He?” Her face brightened suddenly. “Not—Oh, Serena, you don’t mean you have met that young man again? the man you told me you had loved—the only man you had loved?”

“Did I tell you so? Yes, it is he!”

“Oh, Serena!” sighed Fanny ecstatically. “How very glad I am! It is exactly like a romance! At least—Is he still single, dearest?”

“Yes, of course he is! That is to say, I never asked him! But there is no doubt! I wonder how soon he will think it proper to call on us? I fancy it will not be long!”

It was not long. Major Kirkby, in fact, paid his visit of ceremony upon the following day, arriving in Laura Place on the heels of a heavy thunderstorm. Lybster, relieving him of his dripping cloak and hat, sent Fanny’s page running to fetch a leather to rub over the Major’s smart Hessians, and permitted himself to scrutinize with unusual interest this visitor who was not deterred by inclement weather from paying morning visits. He had been informed that her ladyship was expecting a Major Kirkby to call sometime, but no suspicion had been aroused in his mind that the unknown Major might prove to be a visitor quite out of the common. If he had thought about the matter at all, the picture in his mind’s eye would have been of some middle-aged Bath resident; and when he opened the door to a tall, handsome gentleman, nattily attired, and not a day above thirty, if as old, he suffered a severe shock, and instantly drew his own perfectly correct conclusions. While the page wiped the mud from those well-cut boots, and the Major straightened his starched neckcloth, Lybster took a rapid and expert survey, contriving in a matter of seconds to ascertain that the long-tailed blue coat of superfine had come from the hands of one of the first tailors, that the Major had a nice taste in waistcoats, and knew how to arrange a neckcloth with modish precision. He had a fine pair of shoulders on him, and an excellent leg for a skin-tight pantaloon. His countenance, a relatively unimportant matter, came in for no more than a cursory glance, but the butler noted with approval that the features were regular, and the Major’s air distinguished. He led the way upstairs to the drawing-room, the Major following him in happy ignorance of the ferment of conjecture his appearance had set up.

A door was opened, his name announced, and he trod into an elegantly furnished apartment, whose sole occupant was a slender little lady, dressed all in black, and seated at the writing-table.

Taken by surprise, Fanny looked up quickly, the pen still held between her fingers. The Major checked on the threshold, staring at her. He beheld a charming countenance, with very large, soft blue eyes, and a mouth trembling into a shy smile, golden ringlets peeping from under a lace cap, and a general air of youth and fragility. Wild thoughts of having entered the wrong house crossed his mind; considerably disconcerted, he stammered: “I beg your pardon! I thought—I came—I must have mistaken the direction! But I asked your butler if Lady Spenborough—and he led me upstairs!”

Fanny laid the pen down, and rose to her feet, and came forward, blushing and laughing. “I am Lady Spenborough. How do you do?”