"You might be wise," Aidan said, "to wait for her to walk off any lingering indignation and return to the house in her own good time."

"Ah," Joshua said, "but no one has ever been able to accuse me of excessive wisdom."

"There is a wilderness walk out behind the house," Morgan said. "She usually goes there when she wishes to be alone. And if I had quarreled with my betrothed, Aidan, I would want him to come after me even if I had told everyone that I wished to be left alone and even if I had warned him not to follow me."

"Eve is still in the process of teaching me how to understand women," Aidan said. "I spent too many years in the military, it seems."

It was not that they had quarreled exactly, of course, Joshua thought as he strode off beyond the stables half an hour later to where the wilderness walk began. And she had not been in a towering rage over the wink-only hotly indignant. He had made a kissing gesture with his lips and called her sweetheart when she had scolded him, and had watched her nostrils flare, and then they had been in the carriage with her brother and sister and he had deliberately drawn her hand through his arm.

No, they had not quarreled. But last evening they had had conjugal relations and everything had changed between them. What had begun as a light flirtation to alleviate the boredom of being stuck in Bath for a week had escalated into an impulsive and very temporary betrothal to stave off his aunt's dastardly entrapment scheme and then into something rather more lengthy with his grandmother's decision to give them a betrothal party. And then Bewcastle had arrived in Bath and quickly discerned the truth, and that had led to this prolonging of the connection. He had known the danger. He had prepared himself for it, steeled himself against it, for both her sake and his own. But now look what had happened. They were in dire peril of having their temporary lark transformed into a lifelong commitment. If it so happened that she was with child, they would have no choice at all. And even if she was not . . .

Good Lord, she was Lady Freyja Bedwyn.

Last night she had seemed not to realize the seriousness of what had happened. Or perhaps she had, but had simply refused to admit it. This morning, if his guess was correct, she had faced reality and found it disturbing indeed.

The wilderness walk began with a series of wide, earthen steps with wooden borders leading up between rhododendron bushes to larger trees farther up the hill. Then a well-worn, shaded path turned sharply to the right to weave among the trees and give the walker an impression of total seclusion, of being miles from any habitation. It was fragrant with vegetation even though the height of summer was past, and loud with birdsong.

So had he-faced reality this morning, that was-or last night, to be more accurate. He was Hallmere now, whether he wanted to be or not. The wars were over with Napoléon Bonaparte imprisoned on the island of Elba. His job was done. He was twenty-eight years old. It was true that he had no intention of returning to Penhallow-ever. But he was a peer of the realm. He was going to have to take his seat in the House of Lords one of these days. He was going to have to acquire a permanent home somewhere-probably in London. He was going to have to settle down-those dreaded words.

Though why he should think them with dread he did not know. He had settled down once before, years ago, when he had learned and practiced the trade of carpenter. He had expected to live his life out there in the village of Lydmere. He had even been starting to look about him at some of the village girls.

Perhaps it was time he married. And if he must marry, why not Freyja? Socially he could not do better. He would never be bored with her. He found her attractive. He had discovered last evening that she was quite as explosively passionate in bed as he had expected. He would certainly enjoy the opportunity of bedding her under less frantic circumstances in order to discover if her nature was as sensual as it was passionate-he would wager it was.

Why not Freyja?

Perhaps because he had never set out to woo her. Perhaps because she had never shown any inclination to be wooed. Perhaps because his nature was still too restless or because her feelings were still too tied up with a thwarted passion for Ravensberg.

But perhaps now they had no more choice in the matter, he thought, striding along the path and peering into the occasional grove or folly set aside for rests along the way. There was no sign of Freyja. It was possible, of course, that she had not come this way at all. Or, if she had, she might have returned to the house another way by now.

The path had been climbing steadily upward from the beginning, though not with any steep gradient. He was about to move over the crest of the hill, Joshua realized, and begin the gradual, curving descent to the end of the walk. A stone tower, artfully built to look romantically ruined, had been built on the crest. If there was a winding stairway inside the narrow doorway with its Gothic arch-and he rather believed there must be-the energetic walker could get up to the crenellated battlements and have a magnificent view out over the treetops to the surrounding countryside.

He looked up-and grinned.

Her hands were resting on the battlements. Her face was raised to the sun and more than half turned from the path on which he stood. If she had been wearing a hat for her ride earlier, there was no sign of it now. Or of any hairpins. Her hair was billowing out loose behind her in the breeze.

Once more he was reminded of Viking maidens or Saxon warrior women. Or perhaps this morning she looked more like the medieval lady of the castle, holding it against all assailants while her lord was away in battle.

She had told him once that she sometimes felt she had been born in the wrong era.

"If I come closer," he called, cupping his hands on either side of his mouth, "will I be greeted with boiling oil and poisoned arrows raining down on my head?"

She turned and looked down at him, raising her hands to hold her hair back from her face.

"No," she called back. "I thought I would give myself the more personal pleasure of pitching you over the battlements. Come on up."

She favored him with one of her feline smiles.


CHAPTER XIV


Look," she said after he had come up the spiral stairs inside the tower and joined her at the top. She gestured about her with a wide sweep of her arm. "Is there a view more lovely anywhere, do you suppose?"

There was a view for miles in all directions. The house was back behind her, but she preferred to look into the wind the other way, over the trees, over the back part of the park, and on out over farmland and farm buildings and hedgerows and winding lanes. The tower was one of her favorite places in the world-wild and secluded, dwarfing her little problems and heartaches, blowing them away in the wind.

She did not like sharing it with anyone, but it would have been petty to send Josh away. She wished she could have done so, though. Hearing his voice calling unexpectedly from below and then looking down and seeing him had turned her knees to jelly and sent her stomach somersaulting and taken her breath away for an unguarded moment. She was terribly aware of him physically, more so now that he had come up beside her, tall and virile in his riding clothes-and hatless.

She did not like the feeling one little bit. Passion had been all very well four years ago when she had also fancied herself in love and headed toward a happily-ever-after-how young she had been in those days. But now it suggested only a loss of control, a fear that she could somehow lose her hard-won sense of strong independence. She was not in love with Josh, but she was certainly and ignominiously in lust with him. She did not like it. She did not choose to be either in love or in lust-especially not with a man who found everything in life amusing and rarely seemed to entertain a serious thought.

Joshua Moore, Marquess of Hallmere, was not worthy of her love, even if she was prepared to offer it. She was not.

"Not that I have seen in any of my travels," he said in answer to her question, looking about appreciatively at the view. "The fields have all been harvested and some of the trees are beginning to turn color. In another few weeks they are going to look more glorious yet. Ah, pardon me." He turned his head to look down at her. "You do not like autumn, do you?"

"Only because winter comes so close behind it," she said. "Winter always reminds me of-" She shivered.

"Your mortality?" he suggested. "Have you read Gulliver's Travels?"

"Of course I have," she said.

"Do you remember those characters who were doomed to live forever?" he asked her. "I cannot remember which part of the book they were in, but they were born with a mark on their foreheads that meant they could never ever die. Instead of being envied, they were the most pitied members of their race. It was a terrible fate to be born with such a mark. Jonathan Swift was wiser than most of us, it seems, and understood how undesirable it would be to live forever. And if we live always in constant dread, Free, how can we enjoy the time that is allotted to us?"

"I do not live in constant dread," she told him.

"Only in winter?" he said, smiling at her. "And in autumn because winter comes next? Half of every year?"

She shook her head. "This is foolish talk," she said. "Who told you that you would find me here?"

"Were you hiding from me?" he asked her.

"I never hide from anyone," she said crossly-she had, of course, been doing just that, or at least postponing seeing him as long as she could this morning. "I think it is time we quarreled, Josh. It is time I set you free and sent you on your way. It is time to end this farce."