It looked like the perfect setting for a feast and an orgy.

The christening was to take place two days after her return home, Freyja discovered, and it was to be a grand affair indeed. After the church service late in the morning, all the guests were to proceed to Alvesley Park, home of the Earl of Redfield-and of Kit, Viscount Ravensberg, too-for dinner and a party that would probably last into the evening.

Rannulf and Judith had come all the way from Grandmaison in Leicestershire, where they lived with the Bedwyns' ailing maternal grandmother, whose heir Ralf was-he and Kit had always been best friends. And Aidan and Eve and the children had come because they were not far away in Oxfordshire and because, according to Aidan, he had been away at the wars for so many years that he had missed a decade and more of family and neighborhood events.

It was all going to be a severe trial, Freyja decided. She dreaded the day even with the added security of a betrothed to take along with her. It was stupid to have allowed herself to be so discomposed by an ancient passion-it was four years since she had fallen desperately in love with Kit Butler, and it had lasted for precisely one month. But, of course, there had been the added bother of last year and all its hideous embarrassment. She had behaved badly. She had made an idiot of herself. She had ended up practically begging Kit to give up Lauren in order to marry her and then slamming her fist into poor Ralf's jaw, perhaps because Kit's had not been available at that precise moment.

She would think of tomorrow when tomorrow came, she decided the morning after she arrived home. And she would think of the problem of Josh after tomorrow was over. He was in her debt, she had decided, despite all the walks and rides in Bath. After all, he had enjoyed those walks and rides too. So he owed her his escort for tomorrow. After that she would find some way of drawing him into a ghastly, very public brawl, and she would break off the engagement. She had no intention of waiting until Christmas or later, as Wulfric had suggested. It would be unfair. And she might find it harder to do if she allowed more time to elapse. He was quite alarmingly attractive. That was in addition to his good looks, of course, which had not escaped notice among her family.

"You have been in Bath for a couple of weeks, Freyja," Morgan had said the night before when all the women had gathered briefly in Freyja's bedchamber, "and you have come home with a Greek god. All I will discover when I go to town in the spring for my come-out and exposure to the marriage mart is a whole gaggle of awkward-mannered, pimply youths. It is most provoking."

Both Judith and Eve had laughed.

"But you will wait for your prince to arrive, Morgan," Eve had said. "And he will, you know, just as Freyja's has."

"Freyja's prince just happens to be absolutely gorgeous," Judith had added, her right hand placed theatrically over her heart, her eyelids batting. "All that shining blond hair. Arghhh!"

"And those laughing blue eyes," Morgan had added mournfully. "How will I ever find any man to match him for myself?"

"But one's own particular prince always appears more splendid than any ordinary mortal, Morgan-or even any other extraordinary one," Eve had said kindly. "Aidan does to me, and I am certain Rannulf does to Judith."

Freyja had looked at them both, slightly envious.

She would feel no negative emotion today, though, she decided after getting out of bed early and looking out the window to note that the clouds were high and might even move off by midmorning to offer a sunny day. The air coming through her open window was cool but not cold. It was a fine morning for cricket. It was a fine day for all sorts of strenuous outdoor activities.

How wonderful it was to be away from the confining atmosphere of Bath.

They all joined in the game of cricket after breakfast-all except Wulfric, of course, who disappeared into his study. Even Eve and Judith decided to play, though Rannulf tried to talk Judith out of it, directing all sorts of significant glances across the table at her, all of which she ignored.

Gracious heavens! Freyja thought. Was Judith with child? How very interesting that would be if it were true. She and Ralf had been married no longer than a month. Was it possible . . . But that was absolutely none of her business.

Freyja and Joshua were on different teams-deliberately so. He was determined to bowl her out; she was equally determined to hit a six off him. She had Eve, Morgan, Rannulf, and Davy on her team. Joshua had Judith, Aidan, Alleyne, and Becky on his.

Fortunately, Rannulf was a decent bowler. Although he went easy on Judith and very easy indeed on Becky, making sure that she hit a number of balls and scored a total of eight runs while all the fielders became remarkably clumsy and simply could not throw her out, Aidan hit one six and a couple of fours off him before Freyja caught him out close to the boundary, and Joshua hung in for a total of twenty runs. Alleyne went out ignominiously to the very first ball bowled at him-it shattered the wickets behind him while Davy went wild with glee.

Freyja's team needed fifty-two runs to win when they came up to bat. Rannulf scored fifteen before being caught out. Eve scored sixteen and Morgan eleven, both with very lenient bowling from Josh, who looked distractingly virile and handsome without his coat or waistcoat and with his shirtsleeves rolled halfway to his elbows. Davy, also the recipient of friendly bowling, was at nine runs when Morgan finally went out and Freyja came in.

Joshua's first ball came hurtling down between the wickets, a wicked spin making its course almost impossible to judge. Freyja could do nothing better with it than fiercely protect her wickets and then glare at a grinning bowler.

"Can't you do any better than that?" she yelled, and flexed her wrists and made a few showy air shots with the bat.

He could.

The next ball hopped awkwardly just in front of her, sending up a shower of grass and dust and almost taking her front teeth out as it whizzed past her face.

"Can't you do any better than that?" he yelled, while his team catcalled and Freyja's clapped their hands and called out encouraging words to her.

She watched the next ball every inch of the way, saw it as if it were coming at half speed, judged the spin with clear, unhurried mind, adjusted the bat, gripped it tightly, and hit the ball with a satisfying crack. She watched it as it soared over the lawn in a beautiful arc and cleared Aidan's head at the boundary by a good three feet. Then she ran between the wickets, her bat in one hand, her skirts caught up in the other, laughing as she went, passing a wildly whooping Davy halfway down.

The game had been won by Freyja's team.

"I believe," she said, when she had finished running, stopping not far from Joshua, panting, her hands on her hips, her hair in wild disarray about her shoulders-she had pulled out the last of the pins long ago, "I have proved a point."

"You have," he said, with a look of abject dejection belied by his laughing eyes. "You have won our wager, Free. I had better pay the penalty."

And there, before her brothers and sister and sisters-in-law and the two children, he took two long strides forward, tangled his hand in her hair so that he was cupping the back of her head, tipped back her head, and kissed her with lingering thoroughness on the lips.

She was glad she had been running, she thought, when he finally lifted his head and she found herself the interested object of her relatives' grinning attention. It would account for her hot cheeks. It would be just too lowering to be seen to blush.

"I must be suffering from memory loss," she said. "I do not recall any wager."

"I will never again be able to hold up my head among my cricket-playing peers," Joshua said. "I must confess that game was quite fairly won. I had no intention of allowing you to get a hit off me."

"I know." She smiled dazzlingly at him.

"What are we going to do next?" Davy was jumping up and down in his excitement and addressing them all in a piping yell. "You said we would find something else strenuous to do, Uncle Aidan. Can we go riding or play hide-and-seek or climb trees or-"

Aidan caught him up and suspended him by his ankles.

"What we will do next," he said, while Davy squealed and giggled and demanded to be put down, "is have luncheon. And then we will see." He set the boy gently down on the grass and tickled him with the toe of his boot.

"Uncle Aidan?" Joshua asked, as they walked back to the house, taking Freyja's hand in his and lacing his fingers with hers.

"Becky and Davy were Eve's foster children when Aidan met her earlier this year," she explained. "Their parents were dead and none of their relatives were willing to take them in. More recently Eve and Aidan have been given legal custody of them. Becky calls them Mama and Papa. Davy calls them Uncle and Aunt. Eve has told me that they are careful not to try to take their parents' place or to encourage the children to forget their parents. I could never have imagined Aidan with children. But, as you can see, he is as fond of those two as any father."

"He has been a military man?" Joshua asked.

"For twelve years," she said. "From the age of eighteen to a few months ago, after he married Eve." She glanced down at their hands. "Did I give you permission to hold my hand, Josh-and in quite so intimate a manner?"

He looked down too and then up into her face before laughing at her.

"No," he said. "But we have a masquerade to maintain. Apparently you and Bewcastle agreed between you that our betrothal is to appear real to your family. I am merely doing my part."