It was dark again by the time they finally reached the estate. As the carriage turned in at the gate, his heart was pounding and he realized he was clenching Cassie’s hand. Summerhill, Summerhill, Summerhill!

The long, tree-lined drive up to the house wordlessly declared the long history of Costain wealth and power. He took comfort in the thought that he was merely one slightly bent twig on an otherwise healthy family tree.

As the carriage halted under the porte cochere on the east side of the house, Grey said tersely, “This house is fairly new, less than a hundred years old. Far more comfortable than the rambling original building.”

“I’ll take comfort over historic drafts any day,” Cassie said lightly as he helped her from the carriage. He felt tension in her gloved hand, but she concealed it well.

Now that she wanted to look fashionable, she had the superb French sense of style. She looked every inch the sort of aristocratic beauty a man like him would be expected to marry. Yet she was so much more.

“Courage, mon enfant,” she whispered in French under her breath.

“And you also, mon petit chou,” he whispered back. “At least here our lives aren’t threatened. Only our pride and sanity.”

Her face brightened with suppressed laughter. “Since you put it like that …” She took his arm and they walked to the door, where he wielded the massive brass knocker. It was shaped like a dolphin, a sign of the sea that lay on the other side of the hill.

There was a long wait and Grey knocked again, all too aware that the death of the master of the house would cause this kind of disruption. Finally, the door was opened by a flushed young housemaid. Her gaze passed over the visitors with no recognition beyond seeing that they were obviously well born. She bobbed a somewhat ragged curtsy. “Are you expected, sir? Madame?”

“We are,” Grey replied. “Lady Costain has been notified of our visit. Please tell her we have arrived.”

“Very good, sir. If you’ll wait in the small salon just over here, I’ll inform her ladyship.” The girl bobbed another quick curtsy and darted off without asking his name.

The salon was cold and ill lit. Too restless to sit, Grey took the tinderbox from the mantel and started a fire. “Housekeeping standards have slipped,” he said. “That child has not been well trained.”

“Obviously receiving guests is not her usual job.” Reassuringly composed, Cassie settled on a brocade-covered chair.

He straightened as the fire caught and small flames appeared. “Do you think that means my father has …” His throat closed and he couldn’t continue.

“There is no reason to believe he’s gone,” she said swiftly. “And no point in worrying. We’ll find out soon enough.”

Another wait. Grey was tempted to go in search of his mother, but before the last of his patience vanished, the door swung open and he heard her voice saying, “You should have taken their names, child!”

Lady Costain swept into the room, followed by the maid. She was still tall, blond, and beautiful though she looked strained, as if she’d been carrying too many burdens.

Grey had believed he’d never see her again, and the fact that she was here, now, paralyzed him. Half afraid she was a dream and would disappear, he managed to whisper, “Mother?”

She said brusquely, “My apologies for …” Her gaze reached Grey and she stopped dead in her tracks. Color drained from her face. “No, it’s not possible!” she whispered. Then she crumpled to the floor in a dead faint.

“Mother!” Horrified, Grey rushed to her side and dropped to his knees, cradling her in his arms. “Mother, it really is me, not a ghost!”

“Bring smelling salts quickly,” Cassie ordered the housemaid. “Are there any other members of the family available?”

“Lord Wyndham is here,” the girl replied.

Lord Wyndham? Peter must have assumed the title when Grey had been given up for dead. Grey snapped, “Send him here immediately. Tell him his mother is ill.”

Tenderly he carefully lifted his mother onto the sofa, then spread a knitted knee robe over her. She looked so tired, with lines in her face that hadn’t been there ten years before. But it really was her. His wry, patient, loving mother. He blinked back tears.

Lady Costain’s eyes fluttered open to see Grey bent over. She made a choked sound and raised a shaking hand to touch his cheek. “You … you’re real?”

He caught her hand and held it. “I am.” A pulse beat hard in his throat. “Didn’t you get the message Lord Kirkland sent yesterday? I wanted to avoid shocking everyone like this.”

Her gaze searched his face, as hungry as his. “A message arrived, but I didn’t bother to open it. He writes now and then to say he has found no information about you, but continues to search. With your father ill, I couldn’t be bothered to read that.”

“So much for my good intentions,” he said ruefully as he helped her sit up. “I’m sorry, I wanted to spare you this.”

“When I saw you here, I … I had the horrible superstitious thought that you were a ghost come to guide your father to heaven.” She pulled him into a hug as tears ran down her cheeks. “Of all the times to ignore a message! Oh, Grey, Grey!”

Pounding feet could be heard and a distraught young man burst into the room. “Mother, are you all right?”

Grey straightened and saw … himself at twenty. Or close enough. Peter had reached his brother’s height and was blond and heartbreakingly handsome. His face looked designed for laughter—he’d always been a cheerful child—but he was haggard, worried now for his mother as well as his father.

Peter skidded to a halt, his astonished gaze going from his mother to his long-lost brother. “Grey?” he asked incredulously. Disbelief on his face, he stalked closer, his gaze searching. “You must be an imposter! My brother has been dead these ten years.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Peter,” Grey said with a twisted smile. “I would have written to disabuse you of the notion, but the prison where I resided was shockingly short of amenities such as paper and pen.”

“My God,” Peter breathed as he studied Grey’s face. “That scar on your left eyebrow, from that time you fell on broken stones and cut yourself. It really is you!”

Grey touched the faint mark. “The scar I acquired when you shoved me down at the pond, if I recall correctly.”

They’d been playing by the water on a hot summer day and Peter had gleefully caught his older brother off balance, only to be horrified when the cut Grey received had bled copiously. In retrospect, it was a happy, playful memory. Grey offered his hand hesitantly. “You apologized for days.”

“I’ll apologize again if you like.” Peter caught his hand with both of his and pumped enthusiastically. “Prison, you say?”

Grey started to explain, then couldn’t. His return home had released a torrent of raw emotion. If he tried to explain Castle Durand, he’d fall apart entirely. He managed, “For ten years. Later, I’ll tell you more, but not tonight. Please, tell me about Father! What happened? How ill is he?”

His mother joined her sons, composed again. “Costain fell when he was hunting and his horse balked at a high fence. He broke a bone or two, but the real danger is a head injury. He … he’s been unconscious since the accident.”

Several days then. That was bad, very bad. Grey closed his eyes for long moments as he battled despair that he might have arrived too late. “Can I see him?”

“Of course. Your sister is with him now. We’ve been taking turns sitting with him.” Lady Costain’s eyes narrowed as she registered Cassie’s presence for the first time. “Please introduce your friend to me, Grey.”

He turned to Cassie, who had stayed tactfully in the background. Taking her hand, he drew her forward. “Allow me to present my affianced wife, Miss Catherine St. Ives.” He whispered a silent “Thank you” that his family couldn’t see. “Cassie, my mother, Lady Costain, and my brother, Peter Sommers.”

His mother’s gaze intensified as she studied Cassie. “St. Ives. Are you one of the Norfolk St. Ives?”

Cassie’s fingers tensed, but she said with the confident calm of a born aristocrat, “I am, Lady Costain. But I met Lord Wyndham in France.”

“Where she saved my life.” As Grey spoke, he saw a shadow flicker across Peter’s face. He’d been happy to find that his brother was alive, but now he was recognizing that the title and inheritance he’d come to regard as his own had been snatched away. It was a complication Grey hadn’t considered, but should have. Peter was no longer a child, but a man. He’d not welcome being superseded.

Grey buried the thought for later since he could handle no more anxiety. Not tonight. Taking Cassie’s arm, he said, “I assume Lord Costain is in his usual rooms?”

When his mother nodded, he set off, grateful to have Cassie at his side to keep his nerves steady. Bad enough that his family was staring at him, but servants were peering from behind doors and around corners. The attention made him twitch, but he couldn’t let that show. This was home. He must appear sane, no matter how difficult it was.

There was something deeply unreal about striding the familiar corridors, climbing the marble steps with one hand on the polished railing he used to slide down. Yet at the same time, Summerhill seemed eternal, the ten years in France scarcely more than a bad dream. This disorientation must be one of the reasons he’d been reluctant to return. If not for Cassie, it would be easy to drown in the depths of his own mind.

His parents had a massive suite of rooms in the center of the house. Grey entered his father’s bedroom with Cassie beside him. Lamps cast soft light on his father’s still form. The earl looked lost in the large bed, his powerful figure diminished.