“Your hands are the same,” she whispered-warm, encompassing, and safe as they always had been. As she had remembered every night aboard ship that first month and for so many nights after, dreaming of home and wondering if her papa would come after her. Then Fionn told her they all thought her dead, and she ceased dreaming. Dreams might suit Serena, but not an adventuresome girl like her. Not the girl her papa believed her to be. He would wish her to be brave.

And so she had been brave. But now she trembled like a ten-year-old again.

“You are a beauty, so much like your mother.” His face, careworn and aged as she had never imagined it, creased into a gentle smile. “My little girl. My Viola. How I grieved for loss of you.”

Perhaps she saw in his eyes the extent of that grief. Perhaps she only felt it in her heart. But she could not withstand his affection, even were she to again lose it, Serena’s, and the affections of all whom she had striven so hard to forget.

“I missed you too,” she said on a catch in her throat. “Papa.”

His hands tightened around hers and Serena choked on a laughing sob.

After that there was much conversation and many, many reassurances.

“Vi, they are here!” Serena stood in the kitchen doorway on the balls of her feet.

“They?” Viola laid down a sprig of rosemary and drew off her apron.

“Alex. And friends. There are four carriages coming along the drive.”

Her heart did a strange little jig. Four carriages. With four carriages-even one-it was possible that…

She should not be so eager. She cast a quick glance at the herbs spread over drying pans. It was the most innocuous ladylike task she had accomplished yet, and her favorite so far. But it could wait.

She hated herself for hoping. But she could hate herself and still dash after her sister toward the front of the house where servants already were hauling in portmanteaus and traveling cases. They reached the foyer lined with maids and footmen as a gentleman came through the door. Tall, strapping, and remarkably attractive, with walnut-colored hair, an elegant air, and the smile of a man who knew his worth, he announced in a bold voice, “Where is my lady wife?”

“I am here, my lord.”

Viola had never heard Serena’s voice thus, low and touchingly sweet. Lord Savege’s regard alighted upon her, and his face relaxed into a raffish grin.

“She is there, indeed.” He came to her, took up her hand, and pressed quite a lengthy kiss onto the back of it. Then onto the palm. Viola’s toes curled watching it. Her gaze darted toward the door.

“How are you, my lady,” the earl said, “and how is our daughter?”

“Quite well, both of us. She is napping now.” Serena slipped her arm through his. “Alex, allow me to present to you my sister, Viola.”

“Miss Carlyle.” He bowed. “Welcome home.”

Three ladies and a gentleman entered the foyer then, none of them known to Viola. The footman closed the door behind them and her heart fell. Silently she berated herself.

In the next minutes she found it entirely believable that her sister had fallen in love with the Earl of Savege. He was not what she imagined an earl should be, stuffy and proper. He tended rather toward an open manner and enormous charm.

“My sister, Kitty, Lady Blackwood, wishes to meet you,” he said, “but remains in town with her little one in the hopes that we will all return there shortly. She has however sent her bosom companions with me as temporary replacements.”

A willow of a girl with tumbling silken brown locks and dark eyes curtsied. “I am Fiona Blackwood,” she said upon a gentle Scottish lilt. “Lord Savege’s sister, Kitty, is married to my brother and she is my very great friend. And you are ever so pretty.”

“But does she have two sticks to rub together in her head, is more to the point.” Behind gold wire spectacles framed by short flaxen locks, green eyes studied her. “How do you do, Miss Carlyle? I am Emily Vale but I would prefer you call me Lysistrata.”

“You have changed it again, my lady?” Mr. Yale drawled as he entered the foyer. “You must have wearied of Boadicea.”

“Boadicea was Emily’s chosen name before Lysistrata,” Lady Fiona whispered into Viola’s ear.

“I did not weary of it,” Lady Emily replied to Mr. Yale. “But I am already weary of you and I have only seen you for ten seconds.” She paused. “Now it is fifteen and I am still weary.”

Mr. Yale chuckled.

“Pay no attention to ma petite Emilie, chère mademoiselle.” An elegant lady of black, white, and red contrasts pecked Viola on either cheek in a waft of Parisian perfume. “She does not like the long carriages, you see.”

“This is Madame Roche, Miss Carlyle,” Lady Fiona said, dimples denting her alabaster cheeks. “She is Lady Emily’s companion and positively diverting.” Her gaze followed Mr. Yale. “But I see you are already enjoying diverting company.”

Serena drew forward a lean, fair-haired man with bright blue eyes. “Viola, meet our stepbrother, Sir Tracy Lucas.”

“You must call me only Tracy, I hope.” He bowed and gave her an attractive smile. “And I will be honored to call you sister.”

“This is a lovely party, isn’t it, Miss Carlyle?” Lady Fiona’s smile lit up her face. She was taller even than Serena, lithe maidenly perfection in white muslin. “It will be quite splendid coming to know you, and I know Lady Emily-rather Lysistrata-will like it too once she has thrown off the discomforts of travel.” She darted another glance at Mr. Yale, this time sly and not in the least bit innocent. “Do you think we may have dancing?”

Viola lifted her brows. “I do not know how to dance, actually.”

The girl’s face brightened. “How perfectly splendid! We shall give you lessons.”

The house abruptly became quite merry. Accustomed to living among many people in close quarters, Viola did not mind the activity. These people from London, however, were not like her sister and the baron, rather a bit more like Mr. Yale-clever, fashionable, and very gracious to her. Still, Viola found herself stealing away to the coastal path over the bluff where far below waves bathed the narrow beach in froth and gulls’ cries could be heard more stridently. She sucked in the briny air, the sun warmed her cheeks, and she was nearly happy, except for the empty, twisted space in her middle that would not seem to go away.

Mr. Yale remained kindly attentive. But his pleasure in his visit to Savege Park seemed to have paled.

“Lady Fiona admires you.” She slid her gaze to the pretty girl perched at the pianoforte playing a lilting tune, her voice sweet as nothing at sea ever was, rather more like the songbirds in Serena’s terraced gardens on the inland side of the house.

“Yes, well.” He swallowed a mouthful of port. “If I were to pursue that admiration her brother would have my neck in a noose.”

“I thought you and Lord Blackwood were quite good friends.”

“Precisely.”

She studied his silvery eyes, not a bit misty with drink although she had watched him consume at least three glasses of wine with dinner.

“You have no interest in her, do you?”

“She is all that is lovely.” He sipped again.

“But-”

“Miss Carlyle, I find that I am unable to pursue this particular avenue of conversation. Pray, forgive me.”

“Mr. Yale, after three weeks in my company, you have not yet come to understand the measure of me?”

His mouth slipped into a grin. “Ah. I have mistaken myself.” He looked at her directly. “I shall put it differently: I haven’t any interest in girls barely out of the schoolroom.”

“And yet you tease Lady Emily nearly every occasion offered to you. She cannot be more than twenty.”

His silvery eyes sparkled. “She is quite another sort.”

“She thinks you are an indolent fop. Are you?”

“Naturally you must make your own judgment.”

“I have very little upon which to base a comparative judgment. Only Lord Savege, Sir Tracy, and Lord Carlyle, really.”

“You omit our mutual friend from that short list. Is he not a gentleman, Miss Carlyle?”

Her cheeks warmed. “I don’t know what you can mean.”

A grin split across his face. “Why, you have done it! You have truly become the lady you sought a month ago.”

She did not know whether to laugh with him or to cry. Had the world she had inhabited for fifteen years truly disappeared in a matter of weeks? If she donned again breeches and sash, would the calluses on her palms renew themselves swiftly, or slowly as when she had first trained her hands to labor?

The skirts of a white dress flittered into her sight like the wings of gulls about a topsail.

“Mr. Yale,” Lady Fiona said, her long lashes dipping over pretty brown eyes. “If I play tomorrow, will you teach Miss Carlyle how to dance? Lady Savege says we are to have a party at week’s end, with the neighbors from all about. But Miss Carlyle insists she cannot dance and I will not have her sitting on the side while the rest of us enjoy ourselves. She is far too pretty for that.” She grasped Viola’s fingers and pressed them warmly. “Our host is an exceptional dancer as well. With your assistance, Mr. Yale, I am certain Miss Carlyle will be more than prepared to take the floor for the party. Will you, sir?”

“It would be my honor. Miss Carlyle?”

“Well, why not?” She could not possibly acquit herself worse at dancing than at painting and the harp.

She did. Considerably worse.

“Oh! I am sorry.”

“No need for apologies, my dear. I am no doubt at fault.” Lord Savege’s grin glimmered.

Viola narrowed her eyes skeptically and tripped over the earl’s feet again.

“This is hopeless.”

“Ladies do not mutter on the dance floor.” Mr. Yale winked as he took her hand from the earl’s.