“Oh, yes,” Julianne agreed. “I might have married Mr. Beulah, who is a bore, or Sir Jasper Haynes, who is not even handsome. I may not marry Lord Rannulf Bedwyn, either. I will see how I like him. He is rather old.”

Judith was sent upstairs at that point to return her grandmother’s jeweled earrings to her jewelry box because they were pinching her earlobes as they always did if she wore them for longer than an hour at a time, and to bring down the heart-shaped ruby ones instead.

Hearts! Her own was heavy indeed, Judith thought as she trudged up the stairs. She had been released mercifully soon from her worst anxiety—her courses had begun the day after her arrival at Harewood.

But nothing, she suspected, was going to release her from deep depression for a long time to come. She could think of nothing but her day and a half and two nights with Ralph Bedard, reliving every moment, every word, every touch and sensation, unwilling to let go of the memories for a single moment lest they fade away entirely, wondering if it would not be kinder to herself to let them do just that.

Sometimes she felt that her heart would surely break. But she knew that hearts did not literally break merely because their owners were unhappy—and foolish. How dreadfully foolish she had been. Yet she clung to the memories as to a lifeline.

Late on the morning of the day before the houseguests arrived, while Tillie was curling her grandmother’s gray hair into its usual elaborate style and Judith was mixing her morning medicine, the one that ensured her ankles did not puff up too badly, Julianne burst into the dressing room, fairly bubbling with excitement.

“He is come, Grandmama, Judith,” she announced. “He arrived a few days ago and is to call here this afternoon to pay his respects.” She clasped her hands to her bosom and pirouetted on the carpet.

“That will be delightful,” Grandmama said. “A little higher on the left, I believe, Tillie. Who is coming?”

“Lord Rannulf Bedwyn,” Julianne said impatiently. “Lady Beamish sent word this morning announcing her intention of calling on us this afternoon for the purpose of presenting Lord Rannulf. Eight and twenty is not so very old, is it? Do you suppose he is handsome, Grandmama? I do so hope he is not downright ugly. You can have him if he is, Judith.” She laughed merrily.

“I daresay that if he is a duke’s son he will look distinguished at the very least,” Grandmama said. “They usually do, or did in my day, anyway. Ah, thank you, Judith, my love. I am feeling rather short of breath this morning, a sure sign that my legs are going to swell up.”

“We must all be sure to be in the drawing room, wearing our very best,” Julianne said. “Oh, Grandmama—a duke’s son.” She bent her head to kiss her grandmother’s cheek and darted lightly back across the room to leave. But she stopped with her hand on the doorknob. “Oh, Judith, I nearly forgot.

Mama says you must be sure to wear the bonnet cap she gave you. You had better not let her see you bareheaded like that.”

“Do hand me the bonbons, Judith, if you will be so good,” Grandmama said after Julianne had left. “I never can abide the taste of that medicine. Louisa must have windmills in her head, insisting that you wear caps when you are a mere child. But I daresay she does not want your hair outshining Julianne’s blond curls. She need not worry. The girl is pretty enough to turn any foolish male head. What shall I wear this afternoon, Tillie?”

A short while later Judith changed into her pale green muslin dress, one of her favorites, though it now hung loose and almost waistless about her person, and tied the narrow strings of the bonnet cap beneath her chin. Goodness, she looked like someone’s spinster aunt, she thought with a grimace before turning firmly away from the mirror. No one was going to be interested in looking at her this afternoon anyway.

She wondered if Julianne would have Lord Rannulf Bedwyn even if he turned out to be a three-foot-tall hunchback with a gargoyle face. Her guess was that her cousin would not be able to resist the lure of becoming Lady Rannulf Bedwyn no matter how he looked or behaved.

Rannulf had spent the whole of his first day at Grandmaison in his grandmother’s company, talking with her, strolling with her in the formal gardens, where she refused the support of his arm, telling her more about the recent activities of his brothers and sisters, sharing his first impressions of Eve, Lady Aidan, his new sister-in-law, answering all her questions.

He noticed that she was slower than she had been, that she seemed tired much of the time, but that pride and dignity held her upright and active so that she did not once complain or accept his suggestion that she retire to rest.

He dressed with care for the visit to Harewood Grange, allowing his valet to heft him into his tightest, most fashionable blue coat with its large brass buttons, and to create one of his elaborately folded neckcloths. He wore his buff, form-fitting pantaloons and his white-topped Hessian boots. Since his hair was too long for a fashionable Brutus or any other style currently in vogue, he had it tied back at the nape of his neck with a narrow black ribbon, ignoring his valet’s pained comment that he looked like something escaped out of a family portrait from two generations ago.

He was going courting. He winced at the mental admission. He was going to view his prospective bride.

And he did not see how he was going to get out of it this time. He had promised his grandmother. She was definitely ill—it was no trick she was playing on him. Besides, she had asked him to promise only that he would consider the girl, not that he would marry her. She had been as fair to him as she could be.

But he knew he was trapped. Trapped by his own sense of honor and his love for her. He would give her the sun and moon if she wanted them, he had told her. But all she wanted was to see him eligibly married before she died, perhaps with a child in his wife’s womb or even in the cradle. He would not be looking at the girl just to see if she might suit him. He would be courting her. Marrying her before the summer was out if she would have him. There was not much doubt in his mind that she would. He had no illusions about his eligibility, especially to the daughter of a mere baronet of impeccable lineage and sizable fortune.

He rode in an open barouche to Harewood Grange beside his grandmother, wishing for once in his life that she had not passed over Aidan as her heir simply because Aidan had had a well-established career in the cavalry. But the main problem, he knew, was that he loved her. And she was dying.

And to think that he had almost delayed his arrival here by a week or more. If Claire Campbell had not deserted him, he would be in York with her now, indulging in a hot affair with her, while his grandmother waited, every day bringing her closer to the end. He still could not think of Claire without anger and humiliation and guilt. How could he not have noticed...

But he turned his thoughts firmly away from her. She had been part of a very slight incident in his past.

And as it had turned out, she had done him a favor by running away as she had.

“Here we are,” his grandmother said as the barouche drew free of dark trees overhanging a long, winding driveway. “You will like her, Rannulf. I promise you you will.”

He took her hand in his and raised it to his lips. “I fully expect to do so, Grandmama,” he said. “I am already half in love with her merely because you recommend her.”

“Foolish boy!” she said briskly.

A few minutes later they had entered a spacious, marbled hall, had climbed an elegant, winding staircase, and were being announced at the drawing room doors by a stiff, sour-faced butler.

There were five people in the room, but it was not at all difficult to pick out the only one who really mattered. While Rannulf bowed and murmured politely to Sir George and Lady Effingham and to Mrs.

Law, Lady Effingham’s mother, he noted with some relief that the only young lady present, to whom he was introduced last, was indeed exquisitely lovely. She was tiny—he doubted the top of her head reached even to his shoulder—and slender, blond, blue-eyed, and rosy-complexioned. She smiled and curtsied when her mother presented her, and Rannulf bowed and looked fully and appreciatively at her.

It was a strange feeling to know with some certainty that he was looking at his future bride—and not too far in the future either.

Damn it. Damn it all !

There followed a flurry of laughter and bright conversation, during the course of which Mrs. Law presented both him and his grandmother to her companion, whom he had not even noticed until she did so—Miss Law, presumably a relative, a plump, shapeless woman of indeterminate age, who hung her head and repositioned her chair slightly behind that of the old lady when they all sat down.

Mrs. Law invited Lady Beamish to sit near her on a sofa so that they could indulge in a comfortable coze together, as she phrased it, and Rannulf was offered the seat beside his grandmother. Miss Effingham took her place strategically close on an adjacent love seat, the tea tray was carried in, and the visit began in earnest. Lady Effingham did most of the talking, but whenever she invited her daughter to tell Lord Rannulf about some event she had attended in London during the Season, the girl obliged, her manner neither too forward nor too shrinking. She spoke fluently in a low, sweet voice, her smile always at the ready.

She was quite agreeable to having him, Rannulf could see before ten minutes had passed. So was the mother. He must represent the catch of a lifetime to them, of course. He smiled and conversed amiably and felt the shackle close about his leg. Effingham, he noticed, made almost no contribution to the conversation.