She looked into his eyes, and pleasure, warm and seductive, filled her. She smiled. “I like waltzing with you, too.”

“I know. And I like that, too.” He had to look up to steer them through the other whirling couples. When he looked down again he trapped her eyes. “So you see, there wasn’t anything the least extravagant in what I said. It was the truth as I know it.”

He was utterly serious; Madeline felt her heart stutter, felt the glow within spread. But…

“They’re from London, and rather maliciously inclined. You’ll be returning there in autumn to look for your bride-they could-”

“You needn’t concern yourself with that.” The sudden edge in his voice, almost a snap, was a reminder that that subject-his bride-was not one any gentleman would discuss with his…lover.

Despite the sudden lurch of her heart, she kept her expression mild and inclined her head. “Very well.”

She looked over his shoulder, and tried to recapture the magic of the waltz, but even though she was revolving in his arms, the soothing pleasure now eluded her.

Her mention of his bride had doused it. Had created a gulf between them, one that remained for the rest of the evening even though he stayed by her side throughout. They chatted with their neighbors and others from the district, outwardly so assured that no one would have guessed that inside, they were both mentally elsewhere, both thinking.

About the same thing.

They didn’t speak or even allude to it again, but when the ball was drawing to a close, and ahead of the rush Gervase escorted her and Muriel to their carriage, after helping Muriel up, he turned to her. Her hand in his, he studied her face, her shadowed eyes, then bent his head and whispered, “Come to the boathouse. Meet me there tonight.”

He straightened and looked at her-waited for her response.

She nodded. “Yes. All right.”

Relief seemed to wash through him, but it was so faint, so fleeting, she couldn’t convince herself she’d truly seen it.

He helped her into the carriage, then shut the door and stood back. He raised a hand as it rocked forward.

She stared out of the window-stared at him as long as she could-then, with a sigh, she sat back. Closed her eyes. And started to plan how she would get to the boathouse.


On the terrace flanking Felgate Priory’s ballroom, Lady Hardesty strolled on the arm of her occasional lover-who had finally deigned to be seen socially with her. She’d noticed him in the crowd, chatting amiably with numerous locals, from which she’d deduced that his tale of an elderly relative might just be true. He had to be staying with some recognized family in the district to have received one of Lady Felgate’s summonses.

He’d stopped by her side earlier, cutting her out so they’d been alone amid the throng, but only to give her his latest instructions. Although she knew why she obeyed him, the necessity still irked. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the slightest bit susceptible to her wiles. Even more unfortunately, that was part of his allure.

“So what did you learn?” he demanded, the instant they were sufficiently distant from the other couples taking the air. The night was unusually hot; the suggestion of a storm hung in the air.

She sighed. “I had to send Gertrude to ask-she wasn’t with us earlier, when Crowhurst was so vicious. Whoever would have imagined he’d defend Miss Gascoigne so fiercely? Amazing though it seems, he must be bedding her-it’s the only possibility that makes sense.”

“I don’t care about Crowhurst or which woman he elects to tumble. I want to know about that brooch.”

Menace and violence ran beneath the precisely enunciated words. His fingers bit into her arm. She spoke quickly, “Indeed, and for that you have both me and Gertrude to thank. She had to hide the fact she was one of us and pretend she was some lady visiting the district-she did an excellent job following my directions.”

“And?”

“Miss Gascoigne said she received the brooch for her birthday.”

“From whom?”

“Her brothers. And yes, Gertrude asked-according to Miss Gascoigne they bought it from one of the traveling traders at the festival.” She paused, glanced at his face. “You must have missed it when you looked.”

His eyes had narrowed. “I didn’t miss it.”

He sounded beyond certain. She frowned. Eventually she ventured, “So the boys lied?”

“Oh, yes. They lied-a perfectly believable lie in the circumstances. And the only reason they would lie is…”

She waited. When his gaze remained distant, locked on the dark gardens, and he said nothing more, she prompted, “What? Why did they lie?”

His lips curled in a snarl. “Because the buggers have found my treasure, and they don’t want anyone else-even their sister-to know.”


Madeline left her room half an hour after returning to it. She’d let Ada help her remove her new hair ornament and gown, then had sent the sleepy maid to her bed.

Ignoring her own, she’d dressed in her riding skirt and drawers, opting in the circumstances to dispense with her trousers; who, after all, would see? Aside from all else, the night was unusually warm, heat lying like a blanket over the land, still and unmoving. Slipping through the dark house, silent as a ghost, she made her way to the side door, let herself out, then headed for the stables.

Artur was happy to see her, and even happier when she placed the saddle on his back. A ride, be it by moonlight or sunlight, was all the same to the big chestnut. Any opportunity to stretch his powerful legs was his idea of Heaven.

He carried her swiftly along the cliff path. The castle loomed on the horizon before her, the battlements and towers silhouetted against the starry sky. There was little moon but the sky was clear; the radiance of the stars washed silver over the fields, over the waves, and glowed brightly phosphorescent in the surf gently rolling in to bathe the sands below.

Madeline saw the beauty, absorbed it, but tonight it failed to distract her from her thoughts. The same thoughts that had haunted her since that moment on the Priory’s dance floor.

The unexpected, unprecedented clash with Lady Hardesty and her guests had forced to the forefront of her mind a number of facts she’d been ignoring. She wasn’t a glamorous London lady, the sort the ton would see as a suitable consort for Gervase; it had been easy to ignore that point and its ramifications while they’d had only locals around them.

Lady Hardesty and her friends had brought home the fact that she could never compete with them and their peers-their unmarried sisters from whom Gervase would choose his bride. But she’d always known that, had accepted it from the first.

What she’d allowed herself to forget-had willfully let slip from her mind-was that he would, indeed, at some point, return to London to choose his bride. Accepting that, acknowledging that, keeping it in mind made her own position crystal clear.

She was his temporary lover, nothing more. A lover for this summer; when autumn came, he would leave, and she would again be alone.

She’d thought she’d accepted that, understood it, but now…now she’d unwisely allowed her heart to become involved, it ached at the thought. It hurt to think their time would soon be over.

Bad enough. It ached even more to think of him with another.

Lying with another. Kissing another. Joining with another.

That was the other thing the clash had brought to light-not, as she’d first imagined, her Gascoigne temper, but something rather more explicit.

She’d been jealous, and not just mildly so. When Lady Hardesty had moved to engage Gervase, her fingers had curled into claws. At least in her mind. But what had shocked her even more than her reaction-one she had no real right to feel-was the violence behind it.

Given her Gascoigne temperament, that didn’t bode well. While in the main her family were even-tempered, good-natured, that streak of recklessness that affected them all made indulging emotions such as real anger and violent jealousy a very bad idea. People who could, and would, in the heat of a moment risk just about anything had to be careful.

Which raised a question she’d never thought to ask: How on earth would she, could she, interact with the lady Gervase would ultimately make his wife?

She couldn’t imagine the answer. No matter how much she lectured herself, she’d always be that poor lady’s worst enemy.

She would have to…what? Go into a nunnery? How could she possibly live at Treleaver Park and not stumble constantly across the poor unsuspecting woman?

The thought, the possibilities, and the scenarios her imagination, now awakened to the notion, supplied were simply too horrendous to contemplate. When she reached the top of the path to Castle Cove, she had the beginnings of a headache, but no clue how best to proceed. She reined Artur in, then started him slowly down, letting him pick his way in the poor light.

She knew why she was there-because Gervase had asked her. Because he’d held out the prospect of another night in his arms-and if she was going to have him, be able to be with him and indulge her feelings-those it would have been wiser not to allow to bloom and grow, let alone blossom-only until he left to find his bride, then she would take all he offered, every last interlude.

She hadn’t asked for this, hadn’t been searching for it, but fate had sent him to her, and she, a Gascoigne to her soul, had recklessly fallen in love. So she’d embrace it, let the bud bloom for as long as possible before what had grown between them was forced to die.

Time enough to face that horror when it came.

Her emotions felt raw, too close to her surface, when she turned onto the ledge and saw Gervase waiting by the side of the boathouse. He caught Artur’s head; when she slid down from the high back he led the gelding behind the building and tied him alongside his big gray.