“Tut, tut, Cousin,” Horace said. “After only a week.”

Judith should have been feeling relieved, even euphoric. She was going home? . But Papa would know all about the acting at Lady Beamish’s. And Hilary was going to have to come to take her place.

“If Judith goes, I will go too,” her grandmother said. “I will sell some of my jewels, Judith. They are worth a fortune, you know. We will buy a little cottage somewhere and be cozy together. We will take Tillie with us.”

Judith squeezed her hand again. “Come, Grandmama,” she said. “It is late and you are upset and tired.

I’ll help you up to your room. We will talk in the morning.”

“Mama?” Julianne wailed. “You are not paying any attention to me! You do not care about me either, I daresay. What am I going to do about Lord Rannulf? I must have him. He almost ignored me this evening and now he may find out that I am the granddaughter of an actress .”

“My dearest Julianne,” her mother said, “there is more than one way to catch a husband. You will be Lady Rannulf Bedwyn before the summer is out. Trust me.”

Horace smiled nastily at Judith as she passed his chair, her grandmother leaning heavily on her arm.

“Remember what I said, Cousin,” he said softly.

During the following week Rannulf spent his mornings, sometimes the afternoons too, with his grandmother’s steward, learning some of the intricacies of the workings of an estate. He was surprised to discover that he enjoyed poring over account books and other business papers quite as much as he did riding about the home farm and tenant farms, seeing for himself and talking with a number of the farmers and laborers. He was careful about one thing, though.

“I am not offending you, Grandmama?” he asked her at breakfast one morning, taking her thin hand with its almost translucent blue-veined skin in his own and holding it gently. “I am not giving the impression that I am taking over as if I were already master here? I wish, you know, that you would live another ten years or twenty or longer.”

“I am not sure I have the energy left with which to oblige you,” she told him. “But you are brightening my final days, Rannulf. I did not expect this, I must admit, though I did expect that you would learn quickly and do a creditable job here after my time. You are a Bedwyn after all, and Bedwyns have always taken their duty seriously no matter what else one might say about them.”

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.

“Now, if I could just see you well married,” she said, “I would be entirely content. But is Julianne Effingham right for you? I so hoped she would be. She is a neighbor, her grandmother is one of my dearest friends, and she is young and pretty. What do you think, Rannulf?”

He had been hoping she would change her mind about pressing the match on him. At the same time he knew she would be bitterly disappointed if he did not marry soon.

“I think I had better keep on going over to Harewood each day,” he said. “The house party will be over in another week. There is the ball still to come. I promised you I would seriously consider the girl, Grandmama, and I will.”

But the trouble was, he discovered as the week progressed, he could not like Miss Effingham any better on closer acquaintance. She still pouted whenever he neglected to dance attendance upon her every hour of every day and still tried to punish him by flirting with all the other gentlemen. She still prattled on about herself and her various accomplishments and conquests whenever he was in her company and tittered at his flatteries. She bored him silly. And of course her mother made every attempt in her power to throw them together. They always sat beside each other if he was at Harewood for dinner, as he was most evenings. They always rode together in a carriage whenever he joined any of the numerous excursions to places of interest. He was always called upon to turn the pages of her music.

Sometimes he thought that perhaps he continued to go to Harewood less for his grandmother’s sake than in the hope of having a private word with Judith Law. He feared that he might after all have made a dreadful mistake in maneuvering her into acting at Grandmaison. She had never been very visible at Harewood, but now she was even less so. She was never at the dinner table. Neither was the old lady.

She never joined any of the excursions or outdoor activities. On the few occasions she appeared in the drawing room of an evening, she behaved more than ever like a hired companion to Mrs. Law and retired early with her.

One thing quickly became clear to Rannulf. When Tanguay invited her to partner him in a card game, Lady Effingham informed him that her mother was indisposed and needed Miss Law to help her to her room and wait on her there. When Roy-Hill invited her to join the group about the pianoforte, Miss Effingham informed him that her cousin had no interest in anything musical. When they all decided to play charades one evening and Braithwaite chose her first to be on his team, Lady Effingham told him that Miss Law had a headache and was to be excused from remaining in the drawing room any longer.

The gentlemen of the house party had clearly awoken to Judith Law’s existence. And Lady Effingham was punishing her for that very fact. Yet he, Rannulf realized, was the one responsible for the unhappy situation. He had done the wrong thing. He had made her life worse, not better. And so he made no attempt to speak to her himself when her aunt or cousin might have noticed. He did not want to make matters even worse for her. He bided his time.

On the day before the ball everyone, including Lady Effingham, went into the town again since most of them needed to make some purchases for the occasion. Rannulf had declined their invitation to join them.

His grandmother decided to take the opportunity to call upon Mrs. Law while she could expect to find a quiet house. Rannulf escorted her there even though she assured him that it was not necessary.

“I’ll not intrude upon your visit, Grandmama,” he told her. “I’ll go for a walk after paying my respects to Mrs. Law.”

He was hoping to be able to invite Judith Law to join him on that walk, but she was not present in the drawing room.

“She is in her room writing letters to her sisters, I believe,” Mrs. Law told him when he asked after her granddaughter’s health. “Though why it is necessary when she will see them very soon, I do not know.”

“Miss Law’s sisters are coming to Harewood?” Lady Beamish asked. “That will be very pleasant for her.”

Mrs. Law sighed. “One of them will,” she said. “Judith is to go home.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” Lady Beamish said. “You will miss her, Gertrude.”

“I will,” Mrs. Law admitted. “Dreadfully.”

“She is an amiable young lady,” Lady Beamish said. “And when she acted for us a few evenings ago, I realized too how extraordinarily lovely she is. And how very talented. She gets that from you, of course.”

Rannulf excused himself and went back outside. It was a cool, cloudy day, but it was not actually raining. He made his way to the hill at the back of the house. He did not expect to see Judith Law there, but he could hardly just go up to her room and knock on the door.

She was down at the lake again, not swimming this time, but sitting in front of the willow tree, her hands clasped about her updrawn knees, staring into the water. Her head was bare, her hair braided in neat coils at the back of her head, her own bonnet—the one he had bought for her—on the grass beside her.

There was no sign of a cap. She was wearing a long-sleeved pelisse over her dress.

He descended the hill slowly, not even trying to mask his progress. He did not want to startle or frighten her. She heard him when he was halfway down and looked back over her shoulder for a moment before resuming her former posture.

“It would seem,” he said, “that I owe you an apology. Though my guess is that a simple apology is quite inadequate.” He stood behind her and propped one shoulder against the tree trunk.

“You owe me nothing,” she told him.

“You are being sent home,” he said.

“That is hardly a punishment, is it?” she asked.

“And one of your sisters is to take your place here.” Even in the shade of the tree and with only dull clouds overhead the hair over the crown of her head gleamed gold and red.

“Yes.” She bowed her head forward until her forehead rested on her knees, a posture he was beginning to recognize as characteristic of her.

“I ought not to have meddled,” he said—an understatement if ever he had spoken one. “I knew that the most talented person in the room had not yet performed, and I could not resist enticing you to do so.”

“You have nothing to feel sorry about,” she said. “I am glad it happened. I had been sitting there dreaming of doing just what I did do when you and Lady Beamish coaxed me into contributing something of my own to the entertainment. It was the first free thing I had done since arriving here. It made me realize how very abject I had been. I have been happier during the past few days, though perhaps that has not been apparent to you the few times you have seen me. Grandmama and I have decided, you see, that it is best for me to behave as I am expected to behave when we must put in an appearance before the company, but we do that as little as we can. When we are together we talk more than ever and laugh and have fun. She . . .” She lifted her head and chuckled quietly. “She likes to brush my hair for half an hour or more at a time. She says it is good for her hands... and her heart. I think I help take her mind off all her imaginary illnesses. She is more animated, more cheerful than when I arrived.”