“Good morning, Jude.” He set one hand on her shoulder and kissed her cheek. “Up early as usual, are you? You had better get some beauty rest this afternoon, then. All the fellows want to dance with you tonight and have been asking me to persuade you, as if I am the one who has been forbidding you to participate in anything for the past two weeks. I suppose it is Aunt Louisa,” he said, darting a glance about him and lowering his voice. “But really, you know, it is demeaning to have my own sister treated as if she were some kind of servant just because Papa is a clergyman and Uncle George is some sort of nabob.”

“I am not really interested in dancing, Bran,” she lied.

“Poppycock!” he said. “All you girls have always loved the assemblies. Listen, Jude, as soon as I have paid off all these pesky and impudent tradesmen, I am going to settle to some career and make my fortune that way. And then you will be able to go back home and you and my other sisters can find yourselves respectable husbands and all will be well.”

Judith had not told her brother that she was going back home—in disgrace—or that Hilary was going to have to come to Harewood in her place.

“But how are you going to pay your debts, Bran?” she asked unwillingly. She had been trying all week not to think about them. She had even for one ignominious moment thought of asking Grandmama ...

His cheerful expression faltered for a moment, but then he was smiling and apparently carefree again.

“Something will turn up,” he said. “I have every confidence. You must not worry your head about it.

Think of the ball instead. Promise me you will come, Jude?”

“Oh, very well,” she said impulsively before continuing on her way upstairs. “I’ll come.”

“Splendid!” he called after her.

There was one more free thing she would do before returning home, then, she decided. She would go to the ball. And she would go as herself, not as the poor relation who was hidden from public view as effectively as any nun. She would dance with any gentleman who cared to ask. If she was not asked, then she would sit with her grandmother and enjoy the evening anyway. If Julianne’s betrothal was announced... Her boldness faltered for a moment as her hand rested on the door handle of her room. If Julianne’s betrothal to Lord Rannulf was announced, then she would lift her chin and smile and clothe herself in all the ladylike dignity she could muster.

Why was it, she wondered as she let herself into her room, that a brief kiss on the lips yesterday could have stirred her emotions just as powerfully as full sexual contact had done a few weeks ago at the inn by the market green? Perhaps because then it had been only sexual congress, whereas yesterday it had been... what? Not love. Tenderness, then? He had called her beautiful and then kissed her. But not with desire, though perhaps there had been something of that in it too, for both of them. There had been more than desire. There had been ... yes, it must have been tenderness.

Perhaps after all, she thought, once she was back home and had blocked her mind to the image of him married to Julianne, she would be able to recover her stolen dream and live on it through the years ahead.

“My first thought when I heard of the ball at Harewood,” Lady Beamish said to her grandson, “was that it would be the perfect setting for the announcement of your betrothal to Julianne Effingham. Has the thought crossed your mind, Rannulf?”

“Yes, it has,” he said quite truthfully.

“And?” She was seated opposite him in the downstairs sitting room, looking tinier and more birdlike than ever, though her back was ramrod straight, he could see, not supported by the back of her chair.

“Is it still your dearest wish?” he asked her.

She looked consideringly at him before answering. “My dearest wish?” she repeated. “No, Rannulf, that would be to see you happy. Even if the single state is what makes you happiest.”

She had set him free ... and laid on him the burden of love.

“No,” he said. “I do not believe I will remain single, Grandmama. As soon as one becomes involved with the land, one understands and appreciates the eternal cycle of birth and death and renewal and reproduction. Just as you need the assurance that this land will pass to me and my descendants, so I need the assurance that it will pass to a son of mine after my passing—or perhaps to a daughter or a grandchild. I will certainly marry.”

He had not even formulated the thoughts clearly for himself until this moment, but he knew they were the truth.

“Julianne Effingham?” she asked him.

He gazed back at her, but even love should not be made to encroach upon the very essence of who he was.

“Not Miss Effingham,” he said gently. “I am sorry, Grandmama. Not only do I feel no affection for her, but I also feel a definite aversion.”

“I am relieved to know it,” she surprised him by saying. “It was a foolish notion of mine, born of a selfish desire to see you married soon, before it is too late.”

“Grandmama—”

She held up a hand.

“Do you feel an affection for Miss Law?” she asked him.

He stared at her and then cleared his throat.

“Miss Law?”

“She is many things her cousin is not,” she said.

“She is poor,” he said curtly, getting to his feet and walking toward the French windows, which were closed this morning against the continuation of yesterday’s chilly, cloudy weather. “That ne’er-do-well of a brother of hers is likely to bring total ruin on the family soon, if my guess is correct. The father is a gentleman with a former actress for a mother, daughter of a draper. The mother is probably a lady, though equally probably she was no one of fortune or social prominence before her marriage to the Reverend Law.”

“Ah,” his grandmother said, “you are ashamed of her.”

“Ashamed?” He glared out at the fountain, his brows drawn together in a harsh frown. “I would have to have some personal feelings for her before I could be ashamed.”

“And you do not?” she asked him.

It had been his impetuous plan yesterday to make her aware of Judith Law and a possible connection between him and her. But she had said nothing during their journey home or for the rest of the day. He looked back over his shoulder at her now.

“Grandmama,” he said, “I walked in the formal gardens here with her two weeks ago at your request. I encouraged her to entertain us here a week ago when almost all your other guests had done so except her. I met her outdoors at Harewood yesterday and walked and conversed with her for an hour. Why would I have personal feelings for her?”

“It would be strange if you did not,” she said. “She is an extraordinarily beautiful woman once her disguise has been penetrated, and I know you well enough to understand that you admire beautiful women. But she is more than beautiful. She has a mind. So do you when you care to use it, as you have done since coming here this time. Besides all of which, Rannulf, there was a certain look on your face when you returned from your walk yesterday.”

“A certain look!” He frowned at her. “One of foolish infatuation, do you mean? I feel no such thing.”

And yet he wanted her to argue the point, to encourage him, to persuade him that the connection would be eligible.

“No,” she said. “Had it been merely a silly male look, I would have disregarded it, though I might have felt it my duty to remind you that she is a lady and the niece of Sir George Effingham and the granddaughter of my dearest friend.”

He felt horribly guilty then .. . again!

“Bewcastle would never countenance such a match,” he said.

“And yet,” she reminded him, “Aidan has just married a coal miner’s daughter, and Bewcastle not only received her but even arranged for her presentation to the queen and gave a ball for her at Bedwyn House.”

“Bewcastle was presented with a fait accompli in Aidan’s case,” he said. “He has made the best of what he doubtless considers a disaster.”

“You will give me your arm while I go up to my rooms in a moment,” she said. “But I will say this first, Rannulf. If you allow pride and shame to mask more tender feelings and thus lose a chance for a marriage that would provide all your needs, including those of the heart, then it would be churlish of you to lay the blame at Bewcastle’s door.”

“I am not ashamed of her,” he said. “Quite the contrary. I am—” He clamped his mouth shut and hurried toward her as she got to her feet.

“I believe the correct expression may be in love ,” she said, setting her hand lightly on his sleeve. “But no self-respecting grandson of mine could admit to that foolish sentiment, could he?”

It was not true, he thought. He was, to his shame, still in lust with Judith Law. He liked her. He was drawn to her, found himself thinking about her almost constantly while he was conscious and dreaming of her when he was asleep. He found that he could talk to her as he had never been able to talk to any other woman, with the possible exception of Freyja. But even with his sister there was an attitude of bored cynicism to be maintained. He could not imagine talking with enthusiasm about farming and estate management with Freyja. With Judith Law he could relax and be himself, though he had the feeling that it was only in the past two weeks that he had begun to discover who that self was.

His grandmother had, to all intents and purposes, given her blessing to his courtship of Judith Law.

Bewcastle ... Well, Bewcastle was not his keeper.

He wondered if Judith intended to appear at the ball tonight. Of course, she had refused him once and that only two weeks ago. But perhaps he could persuade her to change her mind. He must be very careful, of course, not openly to humiliate Miss Effingham. Silly and vain as the chit was, she did not deserve that.