"Oh, no," Cassandra said. "Her mother is my housekeeper, cook, maid – my everything."

"She is Belinda," the countess said, "and I see that she is wearing her smart new shoes. How do you do, Lady Paget? It looks as if you have a new baby, Belinda. May I see her? /Is/ she a girl?"

Belinda nodded and moved the blanket back from the doll's face.

"Oh, she is lovely," the countess said. "And she looks warm and contented. Does she have a name?"

"Beth," Belinda said.

"That is pretty," the countess said. "Beth is usually short for Elizabeth. Did you know that? But Elizabeth is far too big a name for such a tiny baby. You are wise to call her Beth."

"Margaret and I are on our way to the bakery for a cup of tea," Lady Carling said. "Will you join us, Lady Paget? I am sure there will be at least one cake there to take Belinda's fancy. And surely they serve lemonade."

Cassandra's first instinct was to say no. But it could do her no harm to be seen in public with such ladies. If she could become gradually more and more accepted in society, perhaps eventually she would be able to find some elderly or sickly lady who needed a companion and would trust her enough to employ her. It was not a happy prospect, and she did not know what would happen to Alice and Mary when the time came, but…

Well, it did no harm to accept any olive branch that was freely extended to her.

"Thank you," she said. "Belinda, would you like a cake?"

Belinda, saucer-eyed again, nodded and then remembered her manners.

"Yes, please, my lady," she said.

The ladies sat talking for almost an hour while Belinda sat quietly at the table, first eating the white cake with the pink icing that she had chosen with meticulous care, then holding her cup with both hands to drink the lemonade, and finally wiping her mouth and hands carefully with her linen napkin so that she could rock her doll again. She murmured to it and kissed it as the ladies talked.

"It is a lovely day for your picnic in Richmond," the countess said.

"A picnic?" Lady Carling looked at Cassandra with interest. "How lovely for you. There is no better way to spend a summer afternoon, is there?"

"My former governess, who lives with me, is only forty-two years old,"

Cassandra said. "Far too young to go as far as Richmond for a picnic alone with a gentleman of the same age – or so she believes. When Mr.

Golding came calling yesterday afternoon to ask her to go, she hesitated, though she clearly wanted to say yes. And so Lord Merton offered his services and mine as chaperones."

They all laughed – at the very moment when the Earl of Merton himself and Mr. Huxtable, angel and devil, walked past the bakery window.

Cassandra's heart or stomach – or /something/ – turned over. There was a very young lady on Lord Merton's arm, the one with whom he had danced the opening set at his sister's ball, and his head was bent to listen to what she said. He was smiling down at her.

A young woman who must be her maid was walking a few steps behind them.

It was not jealousy Cassandra felt. It was… Oh, it was the knowledge that she was nominally his mistress, that she had spent two nights with him in her bed, that she had enjoyed the experience far more than she cared to admit, that she had both seen and felt his gorgeous body against hers.

They were thoughts that had no business leaping to mind like this.

He wanted to be her friend.

It was with someone like that very young lady that he belonged. She was laughing at something he said, and he was laughing back at her.

It was with her he belonged. Not with Cassandra. He was youthful and carefree and charming and filled with light.

She ought not to have allowed him to try to turn their failed affair into friendship.

Ah, but he was so…

He was so /lovely/.

"Oh, there are Stephen and Constantine," Lady Sheringford said, and at the same moment Mr. Huxtable saw them and said something to the other two, and they all looked through the window and smiled. Lord Merton raised one hand to wave.

He said something to the young lady, but she shook her head and after another moment or two took her leave and continued on her way, her maid closing the distance to walk beside her. The two gentlemen came into the bakery and approached the table.

"Is /this/ how ladies stay so slender?" Mr. Huxtable asked, one eyebrow cocked in irony.

"No, of course not," Lady Carling said. "It is walking about shopping that does that, Mr. Huxtable. Besides, it is only Belinda who has had a cake. The rest of us have been very good and very selfdenying. Lady Paget, I noticed, did not even put sugar in her tea and only the merest splash of milk. Do pull up two chairs and join us."

But Cassandra was feeling inexplicably breathless. She did not belong in this family group. Besides, it was time to take Belinda home. Mary would be worrying.

"You may have our chairs," she said, standing. "Belinda and I must be going."

Belinda got obediently to her feet, looking up at the Earl of Merton as she did so.

"I got a new doll," she said.

"Is it a doll?" he said, looking astonished. He went down on his haunches beside her. "I thought it was a baby. May I see it?"

"It is a her," she said, drawing the blanket away from the doll's face.

"She is Beth. Elizabeth really, but that is too big a name."

"Beth suits her better," he agreed, touching the side of one finger to the doll's cheek. "She must be very cozy in that blanket with you to rock her. She is fast asleep."

"Yes," she said as he smiled at her.

Cassandra swallowed awkwardly and was convinced that everyone must have heard. There was a look of open tenderness on his face, yet he was an aristocrat looking at a servant's child. Her illegitimate child. It would be /very/ easy indeed to come to care for him, to come to trust him when experience had taught her to trust no man, especially the gentle ones.

Nigel had been gentle…

Lord Merton got to his feet.

"Allow me to walk the two of you home," he said, looking at Cassandra.

How could she say no without causing something of a scene before the interested gaze of Lady Carling and his relatives?

"That is not necessary," she said. "But thank you."

"Do enjoy the picnic this afternoon," the countess said.

"Picnic?" Mr. Huxtable said, his dark gaze locking on Cassandra's. "Am I missing something?"

"Lady Paget's companion is going on a picnic to Richmond with a gentleman friend, Constantine," the countess explained, "and Stephen and Lady Paget are going with them as chaperones."

"Fascinating," he said, his eyes still on Cassandra, his eyebrows raised. "/Chaperones/?"

Cassandra bent to help Belinda wrap the doll more tightly in the blanket. She kissed the child on the cheek and took her free hand in hers. But when they were outside, Belinda stopped, handed the doll to Lord Merton without a by-your-leave, and took his free hand so that she walked between them, attached to each.

He carried the doll in the crook of his arm, meeting the glances of several passersby with a look of sheepish amusement.

It all seemed horribly domestic to Cassandra, almost as if the doll was real and both it and Belinda were her children – or theirs.

Was he genuine after all?

Ah, but how could one possibly know?

Were there such pure beings as angels?

And what was she doing consorting with one if there were?

Alice was excited about this afternoon, though she would not have admitted it even if she were stretched on the rack. Alice had always been a mother figure to Cassandra, more than just a governess and companion. She had always been an emotional rock of stability. During the past ten years she had perhaps kept Cassandra from losing her sanity. But now Cassandra felt guilty over the fact that she had never really thought of Alice as a woman. Alice had been very young – not even twenty – when she first came to live with them. Even when Cassandra married, Alice was only in her early thirties. And yet all these years she had never had a beau, never had a chance for marriage or personal happiness.

Had she loved Mr. Golding all those years ago? Had she had hopes then?

Had she thought of him at all, dreamed of him, perhaps, in the intervening years? Had meeting him again two days ago been a momentous occasion in her life? Was hope now being reborn? Perhaps painfully?

Cassandra felt deeply ashamed that she did not know the answers to any of the questions. But she would do all in her power to see to it that a relationship had a chance to develop now if both parties wanted it and if there was anything she could do to facilitate it short of shamelessly matchmaking.

She looked forward to the picnic for Alice's sake.

Oh, and for her own sake too, she admitted reluctantly as Belinda told Lord Merton that she had a new bonnet and he declared that he had not seen anything more fetching for a long, long time. She ought /not/ to be looking forward to it. She ought not to allow him to befriend her when it was with young ladies like the one he had been with earlier that he belonged. Young ladies without the emotional baggage she dragged along with her.

But since she was committed now to spending the afternoon in his company, she was simply going to enjoy herself.

It seemed an age since she had last done that.

Had she /ever/ done it? Simply enjoyed herself?

He had promised her joy. He had promised her that there was such a thing as joy.