She sat on a clean pile of hay while he worked, her hood back, her hands clasped about her knees.

“That was some story,” she said.

“About you as skittish bride? I thought so too.” He grinned at her.

“The landlady is going to tidy our rooms herself and make sure fresh fires are laid in the hearth in both rooms,” she said. “It must be a great honor to have her personal services instead of those of the maid. It seems hardly fair so to deceive them, Ralph.”

“You would rather we told the truth, then?” he asked. His horse was looking none the worse for wear, though it was doing some restless snorting. It wanted to be out and moving.

“No,” she said. “That would not be fair either. It would lower the tone of their house.”

He raised his eyebrows but made no comment.

“What is your horse’s name?‘ she asked.

“Bucephalus,” he said.

“He is a beauty.”

“Yes.”

They were quiet then until he had finished brushing the horse down, forking the old hay out of the stall and spreading fresh, feeding and watering the animal. It was surprising really. Most women of his acquaintance liked to chatter, with the notable exception of his sister Freyja. But then Freyja was an exception to almost all rules. The silence was a comfortable one. He did not feel at all self-conscious at her quiet scrutiny.

“You love horses,” she said when he was finished and leaned back against a wooden beam and crossed his arms. “You have gentle hands.”

“Do I?” He half smiled at her. “You do not love horses?”

“I have not had much to do with them,” she admitted. “I believe I am a little afraid of them.”

But before they could become more deeply involved in conversation, a stable lad appeared to inform them that the innkeeper’s wife had a pot of chocolate awaiting them in the dining room, and they made their way back across the yard, running and dodging puddles again. The rain seemed to be easing somewhat.

They sat and talked for two hours until their midday meal was ready. They talked about books they had both read and about the wars, newly over now that Napoleon Bonaparte had been defeated and captured. He told her about his brothers and sisters without telling her exactly who they were. He told her about Wulfric, the eldest; about Aidan, the cavalry officer who had recently come home on leave, married, and decided to sell out; about Freyja, who had twice been almost betrothed to the same man but who had lost him to another woman last year and had been spitting mad ever since; about Alleyne, his handsome younger brother; and about Morgan, the youngest, the sister who bade fair to being lovelier than anyone had any right to be.

“Unless,” he added, “she were to have fire-gold red hair and green eyes and porcelain skin.” And the body of a goddess, he added silently. “Tell me about your family.”

She told him about her three sisters, Cassandra, older than herself, Pamela and Hilary younger, and about her younger brother, Branwell. Her parents were both still alive. Her father was a clergyman, a fact that explained why she was estranged from her family. What had impelled the daughter of a clergyman into a life of acting? He did not ask the question and she did not volunteer the information.

By the time they had finished the midday meal, the rain had eased to a light drizzle. If it were to stop within the next hour or so, the roads should be passable by tomorrow. The thought was somewhat depressing. The day seemed to be going far too fast.

“What is there to do for amusement in this town?” he asked the landlady when she came to remove their dishes— they had been deemed far too important for the services of the maid, it seemed. That wench was busy serving a few townsmen their ale in the adjoining taproom.

“There isn’t nothing much on a day like this,” she said, straightening up, setting her hands on her hips, and squinting in concentration. “It’s not market day. There is just the church, which isn’t nothing much as churches go.”

“Any shops?” he asked.

“Well, there is the general shop across the green,” she said, brightening, “and the milliner’s next to it and the blacksmith’s next to that. Not that you would have any need of his services.”

“We will try the general shop and the milliner’s,” he said.

“I have a mind to buy my wife a new bonnet since she ran away without one.”

Claire’s—the only one she had brought with her—had been lost inside the stagecoach, she had told him earlier.

“Oh, no!” she protested. “Really, you must not. I could not allow—”

“You take wotever he is offering, ducks,” the innkeeper’s wife said with a wink. “I daresay you earned it last night.”

“Besides which,” Rannulf said, “wives are not supposed to question how their husbands spend their money, are they?”

“Not so long as it is spent on them.” The woman laughed heartily and disappeared with the dishes.

“I cannot let you—” Claire began.

He leaned across the table and set a hand over hers. “It is altogether possible,” he said, “that every hat in the shop is an abomination. But we will go and see. I want to buy you a gift. There is no question of your having earned it. A gift is simply a gift.”

“But I do not have enough money with me to buy you one,” she said.

He raised one eyebrow and got to his feet. She was a proud woman indeed. She would drive a large number of potential protectors to madness if she were ever to descend upon any of the green rooms in London.

All the bonnets on the display at the milliner’s shop were indeed abominations. But any hope Judith had entertained about avoiding the embarrassment of having a gift bought for her was dashed when Miss Norton disappeared into the back of the shop and came out with another bonnet lifted on the back of her hand.

“This,” she said with an assessing glance at Ralph, “I have been keeping for a special customer.”

Judith fell in love with it on sight. It was a straw bonnet with a small brim and russet ribbons. About the upper side of the brim, where it joined the rest of the bonnet, was a band of silk flowers in the rich colors of autumn. It was not a fussy bonnet, nevertheless. Its simplicity was its main appeal.

“It suits madam’s coloring,” Miss Norton observed.

“Try it on,” Ralph said.

“Oh, but—”

“Try it on.”

She did so, helped by the fluttering hands of Miss Norton, who tied the wide ribbons for her to the left side of her chin and then produced a hand mirror so that Judith could see herself.

Ah, it was so very pretty. She could see her hair beneath it, both at the front and at the back. Every bonnet she had ever owned had been deliberately chosen by Mama— though with her full acquiescence—to hide as much of her carroty hair as possible.

“We will take it,” Ralph said.

“Oh, but—” She whirled around to face him.

“You will not regret it, sir,” Miss Norton said. “It complements madam’s beauty to perfection.”

“It does,” he agreed, taking a fat-looking purse out of a pocket inside his cloak. “We will take it. She will wear it.”

Judith swallowed awkwardly. A lady was simply not permitted to accept a gift from a gentleman who was not her betrothed. And even then ...

How absurd! How utterly absurd after last night to be thinking of what a lady would do. And the bonnet was prettier than anything she had owned before in her life.

“Thank you,” she said and then noticed just how many bills he was handing to Miss Norton. Judith closed her eyes, appalled, and then felt all the contradictory pleasure of being the owner of something new and expensive and lovely.

“Thank you,” she said again as they left the shop and he hoisted over their heads the large, ancient black umbrella the landlord had insisted upon lending them for their sortie across the rather boggy green between the inn and the shops. “It is terribly pretty.”

“Though quite overshadowed by its wearer,” he said. “Shall we see what the general shop has to offer?”

It had a little bit of almost everything to offer, most of the wares cheap and garish and in execrable taste.

But they looked at everything, their heads bent together, stifling their laughter at a few of the more hideous items. Then the shopkeeper engaged Rannulf in a discussion of the weather, which was beginning to clear up at last. The sun would be shining by the morning, the shopkeeper predicted.

Judith took her purse out of her reticule and hastily counted up her coins. Yes, there was just enough.

She would have to hope that the stagecoach tomorrow would get her to her aunt’s without any more delays, for there would be nothing left for any refreshments. But she did not care about that. She picked a small snuffbox off a shelf and took it to the counter. They had laughed at it because it had a particularly ugly carving of a pig’s head on the lid. She paid for it while Ralph was wrestling the umbrella tightly closed since they would have no need of it on the return journey across the green.

She gave him the gift outside the shop doors, and he opened the paper that had been wrapped around it and laughed.

“This is the measure of your esteem for me?” he asked her.

“May you remember me every time you enjoy a good sneeze,” she said.

“Oh,” he said, opening his cloak and placing the snuffbox carefully into his pocket, “I will remember you, Claire. But I will treasure your gift. Did you spend your very last coin on it?”

“No, of course not,” she assured him.

“Liar.” He drew her arm through his. “It is halfway through the afternoon, and boredom has not yet driven us to bed. But I believe it is about to. Will we find our time there tedious, do you suppose? ”