And of course /that /thought, the thought of Hedley, sent her running up to her bedchamber and rummaging through her large trunk, which had been brought over from Warren Hall but not yet unpacked because it was to go to London tomorrow. Just where she had placed it with her own hands after carefully wrapping it, she found the object she had almost decided to leave behind. It was only at the last moment that she had slid it down the left front corner.

She sat down on a love seat and opened back the velvet cloth that kept the treasure safe from damage. And she gazed down at the framed miniature of Hedley that Lady Dew had given her after his death.

It had been painted when he was twenty, two years before Vanessa married him, and just before it became obvious that he was really very ill indeed.

Though the signs were apparent even then.

She ran one finger about the oval frame.

His eyes were large, his face thin. It would have been pale too if the painter had not added color to his cheeks.

But even then he had been beautiful, as he had to the end. His had been a delicate beauty. He had never been robust. He had never been able to participate in the more boisterous games of the other children in the neighborhood. Though strangely he had never been teased or victimized by them. He had been widely loved. /She /had loved him.

She would have died in his place if it could have been done.

Those large, luminous eyes gazed back at her now from the portrait. So full of intelligence and hope. /Hope/. He had not given it up until close to the end, and when he had finally let it go, it had been with grace and dignity. "Hedley," she whispered.

She touched a fingertip to his lips.

And she realized something. Apart from one fleeting memory on her wedding night, she had not thought of him at all during the three days at the lake. /Of course /she had not. It would have been dreadful if she had. She had been there with her new husband, to whom she owed her undivided loyalty.

But even so…

Until very recently it had seemed inconceivable that a single day could ever go by without her thinking of him at least a hundred times.

Now three days had slipped by.

Three days in which she had been blissfully happy with a man who did not even love her. Whom she did not even love.

Not as she had loved Hedley anyway. It was impossible to love any other man as she had loved her first husband.

But she had never been able to know with Hedley the sort of sensual happiness she had just experienced with Elliott. By the time of their marriage his illness had rendered him all but impotent. It had been a terrible frustration for him, though she had learned ways to soothe and satisfy him.

And now she had found sexual satisfaction with another man.

She had not thought of Hedley for three whole days - no, four by now.

Would she eventually forget him altogether?

Would it be to her as if he had never existed?

She felt a deep welling of grief and a sharp pang of guilt, which was all the worse for the fact that it was quite unreasonable. Why should she feel guilty about putting behind her memories of her first husband when she was married to a second? Why should she feel as if she were cheating on a dead man? Why should she feel as if she were hurting him?

She felt all of those things. /You must go on with your life, Nessie, /he had told her during the final few days of his life while she held his hand and dabbed at his feverish face with a cool cloth. /You must love again and be happy again. You must marry and have children. You must. Promise me?/ She had called him a goose and an idiot and flatly refused to make any promises. /Oh, not a goose, please, Nessie, /he had said. /A gander if anything, but not a goose./ They had both laughed. /Keep on laughing at the very least, /he had said. /Promise me you will always laugh./ /Always when something is funny, /she had promised and had held his hand against her lips while he fell into an exhausted half-sleep.

She had laughed a few more times in the next few days but not for a long time after that. "Hedley," she whispered again now and realized she could no longer see the portrait clearly. She blinked the tears from her eyes. "Forgive me." For doing what he had begged her to do - for living again and being happy.

For marrying again. For laughing again.

And for forgetting him for almost four whole days.

She thought of the vigor of Elliott's lovemaking and circled her palm over the miniature. Somewhere she had crossed over a border between depression and something more painful, something that tightened her chest and made breathing difficult.

If Hedley had just once been able…

She closed her eyes and rocked backward and forward. "Hedley," she said again.

She sniffed as the tears flowed, tried to dry them with the heels of her hands, and then felt around for a handkerchief. She had none yet was feeling too inert to get up to fetch one.

She gave in to a terrible self-pitying despair.

Finally she sniffed again, swiped at her nose with the back of her hand, and decided that she must get up, find a handkerchief, give her nose a good blow, and then wash her face in cold water to obliterate the signs that she had been weeping.

How awful if Elliott were to see them! Whatever would he think?

But just after she had set the miniature down on the cushion beside her a large handkerchief appeared over the back of the seat, held in a large masculine hand.

Elliott's.

He must have come through his dressing room and hers - the door was behind her back.

For a moment she froze. But there was nothing else to do for now than take the handkerchief, dry her eyes with it, blow her nose, and then think of some plausible explanation.

But even as she took the handkerchief from his hand she was very aware of the miniature lying faceup on the seat beside her.

There was really very little that needed doing. Elliott had worked hard to get everything done before his wedding, knowing that soon after he would be leaving for London and staying there for a few months.

He was finished in less than an hour, and the courtesy call he then decided to make on a tenant who was also something of a friend of his had to be cut very short when he discovered the man and his wife were not at home.

He was quite contented to return to the house much sooner than expected.

Thus far he was pleased with his marriage. Indeed, he had been surprisingly reluctant to leave the dower house this morning. He had felt absurdly as if some spell were about to be broken.

There was no spell to break, of course, and no magic involved in anything that had happened. He had had a regular bed partner for three days and four nights and the sex had been surprisingly good. A woman's body did not have to be voluptuous in order to be desirable, he had discovered.

It had not been just the sex, though. His wife had decided not to quarrel with him during those three days, and he had found her company congenial.

Good Lord, he had allowed her to row one of the boats - with him in it - even though it was obvious she had no skill whatsoever at the oars.

He had allowed her to murder his ears with shrieks of laughter when by sheer accident she had sent a stone skipping three times across the lake. And he had - heaven help him - gathered more daffodils than he had known were in existence anywhere in the world and had then run and fetched for her as she filled the dower house with them a mere few hours before they were to leave there.

He was ever so slightly charmed by her, he realized.

And there was no reason that things should change drastically for the worse now that they were back at the main house and on their way to town tomorrow.

Perhaps after all they could enjoy a decent marriage.

And so instead of just coming home early, he actually /hurried /home, ignoring the inner voice that told him there were other tenants upon whom he might have called.

They had had sex yesterday among the daffodils, he and Vanessa. If the weather had just held they might have gone back there today - to gather daffodils for the main house. As it was, there was the bed in her bedchamber to try out for the first time, and what better time to do that than a rainy afternoon when neither of them had anything better to do?

She was not in any of the downstairs rooms. She must be in her bedchamber already. Perhaps she was lying down, catching up on some missed sleep.

Elliott took the stairs two at a time, though he did go into his own dressing room first to dry his hair and haul off his boots without stopping to ring for his valet. Vanessa's dressing room adjoined his own. He crossed through it, treading quietly in case she was asleep - though it was going to give him great pleasure to wake her in a few minutes.

The door into her bedchamber was slightly ajar. He opened it slowly without knocking.

She was not in bed. She was sitting on the love seat, her back to him, her head bent forward. Reading? He contemplated tiptoeing up to her and setting his lips against the nape of her neck.

How would she react? With a shriek? With laughter? With shrugged shoulders and a sensual sigh?

She sniffed.

A wet sniff.

And then it was perfectly obvious that she was weeping. She did it with deep, grief-stricken sobs.

Elliott froze in place. His first instinct was to stride forward to scoop her up into his arms while demanding to know what had happened to upset her so. But he had never been much good at embroiling himself in female emotions. What he actually did was move forward more slowly and quietly. He was making no attempt to hide his presence, but she was too preoccupied to notice him.