“They are a damn sight less trouble than taking a lady to wife,” Lowell said.

Flora turned back and looked at him. He sighed, and ran a hand over his hair again, then pushed a chair out from the table with his foot. Flora accepted the unspoken invitation to sit and Lowell poured her a beaker of ale, taking the seat next to her. After a moment she tried the ale. It tasted vile. She almost spat it out.

“I don’t make fruit juices,” Lowell said, “elderflower and blackcurrant and the like. My mother did.” He looked at Flora. “Perhaps she could give you some hints. Or perhaps not.” He sighed. “She has just taken the journey you want to do in reverse. She’s a lady now, thanks to my sister’s money and her grand marriage. She would never in a thousand years understand why a lady would want to be a farmer’s wife.”

“I’m not a lady,” Flora said. “My father made his money in trade and my grandfather was a walking-stick maker. Ladies look down on me.”

Lowell laughed. “Now that I do understand.” He sobered. “Even so, you have never had to work for a living.”

“It’s true that I have never had to work,” Flora said, “but I am willing to try.” Her heart was pounding, absolutely thundering in her ears, at the thought that Lowell might even be considering her proposition. It made her wonder whether she had assumed he would reject her and so she had never really been prepared for the shock of his acceptance.

Lowell took her hand and turned it over, his work-roughened fingers abrasive against the softness of her palm. “I can see that you’ve never worked,” he said as his fingers traced gentle circles over her skin.

Flora had a sudden overwhelming image of what his hands would feel like on the rest of her soft, pampered body and almost fainted. She took a gulp of ale to steady herself. It tasted slightly less vile this time.

“Is there someone else that you would rather wed?” she blurted out. “Lizzie Scarlet used to flirt with you, though she is married now. Today,” she added, in some surprise, for she had only just remembered that Lady Elizabeth and Nat Waterhouse had wed that very morning in the private chapel at Scarlet Park.

“Lizzie flirted with everyone,” Lowell said. “It meant nothing.” His tight expression eased a little. “I thought that might have been why you came to find me tonight,” he added. He glanced at her with his blue, blue eyes and Flora felt the cool shivers ripple over her skin again. Outside there was a sudden flash of lightning, livid against the hills. The crockery on the dresser rattled at the crash of thunder and the dogs woke up and barked until Lowell hushed them.

“Why…? What?” Flora had jumped, too, at the cacophony of noise. She felt confused. “What did you think I came here for?”

“For consolation,” Lowell said. He was still holding her hand. “Because Nat Waterhouse is married.”

“Oh,” Flora said, looking at their linked hands. “No.”

“Just no?” Lowell sounded amused. His thumb was rubbing gently over Flora’s palm in distracting strokes.

“I…um…” Flora blinked. A hot, heavy feeling was beating through her blood. “I like Lord Waterhouse,” she said, “but I didn’t choose to marry him the way I chose you.”

There was a moment’s stillness broken by another huge crash of thunder and a sudden engulfing downpour of rain, hammering on the roof of the farmhouse. Flora met Lowell’s eyes and saw that the amusement was still there, but behind it was something bright and intense and breathtaking. Flora found she was shaking. She withdrew her hand from Lowell’s rather quickly and took refuge in the beaker of ale.

“I am glad,” Lowell said. “It made me angry to think that you only sought me out for comfort.”

“I told you,” Flora said, “I want to marry you so that I don’t have to give Tom Fortune half my fifty thousand pounds.”

“Oh, yes.” Lowell was smiling. He stretched, muscles rippling, hands behind his head. “I remember.”

For some reason the panic that had filled Flora earlier now came back with a vengeance and she jumped to her feet. “I must go,” she said. “It is late and my parents think me abed and I cannot afford to be seen out alone at night.”

“You cannot go yet,” Lowell said. “You will be soaked before you go five paces. Wait until the rain stops,” he added, “and I will escort you back.”

“You can’t,” Flora said. “If someone saw us together-”

Lowell stood up. He was so close to her, his presence so strong and powerful, that Flora tried to take a step back and bumped into the dresser.

“You are not walking back on your own at night,” he said. He cupped her face between his hands. There was an expression in his eyes of tenderness and exasperation and it made Flora go weak at the knees.

“You could marry anyone you wanted,” Lowell whispered. “You are beautiful and rich and sweet and brave…” He closed his eyes for a moment. “Why me, Flora?”

Flora braced herself against the dresser and looked up into his face. No more prevarication, she thought, no more pride, no more excuses.

“When you found me that day,” she said, “the day I canceled my wedding, I felt as though I had been given a second chance. Up until then I had not really lived. Oh, I had gone to balls and parties and gone shopping and paid visits and given the servants orders and done a hundred and one things that ladies-” she emphasized the word “-of my age and class have done before me, but I had not done a single thing that had made me glad to be alive.” She swallowed hard. “I do not wish to sound ungrateful,” she said. “The possession of money is an enormous blessing, but I do not wish to live off my fortune forever, doing something and nothing, sitting in my drawing room, entertaining my friends and wondering when my life is going to start until I have the vapors out of sheer frustration.” She looked at Lowell. His eyes were moving over her face as though he was committing her to heart.

“And then I saw you,” she said. “The day that I was given a second chance.” She cleared her throat. “I had seen you before, of course, at the assemblies and in the village, but I thought…” She paused. She could hear her voice trembling and she knew she had humbled her pride and the rest of her words came out in a rush before she lost her nerve. “I thought you had so much life and vitality and passion and I wanted that. I wanted that passion so much I was prepared to come here today to pretend to buy you with my fifty thousand pounds-” She stopped. One look at Lowell’s face told her there was no point in continuing. And the strange thing was that she knew it was not because he pitied her, as he had claimed when she had first arrived. He wanted her. She could see it in his face and feel it, even though he was not touching her. But…

“I’m sorry, Flora,” he said, and his eyes were full of pain. “I cannot marry you. You think that you would be able to adapt to life as a farmer’s wife but you have no real idea of what that means. I know you would not be happy. It would be too different and in the end it would tear you-and us-apart.”

Flora drew back. She felt sick and tired to have tried and failed, but more than anything, she felt disappointed.

I will not cry, she thought. He does not deserve me.

“At least I was willing to try,” she said huskily. “I was wrong about you, Lowell Lister. I thought that you had courage as well as passion, but in the end you were not even prepared to take a risk.”

And she turned away and walked out of the house and into the storm without a backward glance.

LIZZIE SAT BY THE WINDOW and looked out at the rain-swept street. It was late and the village was deserted, as silent as the grave. Lizzie had never lived in Fortune’s Folly itself and she had thought at first that she might enjoy having the bustle and activity of the village all around her but this silent night seemed dark and quelling. Nat had taken a short-term lease on a town house called Chevrons that was let by a lawyer who had gone to Bath for the winter and had decided to remain there. The Duke and Duchess of Cole had rented the property when they had been trying to find a suitor for Lydia the previous year. That had ended badly, Lizzie thought, and now her marriage had barely got off on a better footing.

Lizzie had no idea how long Nat planned to stay in Fortune’s Folly, because he had not discussed it with her. As she had sat alone that evening she had come to realize, slowly and a little painfully, that she and Nat had talked about nothing of significance at all and she had no idea about any of his thoughts and plans. In fact, Lizzie thought bitterly, they had barely seen each other during the two weeks of their formal betrothal. The morning after Tom’s orgy, Nat had taken her to Drum Castle to stay, most respectably, with Miles and Alice. Nat had also arranged Sir Montague’s funeral, which had been a miserable affair with very few mourners. Tom had failed to turn up and even the servants had had to be bribed.

And then Nat had left Fortune’s Folly for London, to make whatever arrangements were required for the wedding. Lizzie, left behind and fretting over all the uncertainties in her future, had spent the time exactly as she had spent the rest of her life up until that point: riding out on the hills, visiting her friends, shopping in Fortune’s Folly and avoiding Alice’s perceptive questions on how she felt about her impending nuptials. In some ways it had felt as though nothing had changed at all but in other ways it was a terrifying time as she had waited, her life seemingly suspended, for Nat to return.

She and Nat had married that morning in the chapel at Scarlet Park with her cousin Gregory, the Earl of Scarlet, as one witness and some official from the Chancery as the other. The match had been rushed through as a favor to Nat and to her cousin, who had considerable political influence, and Lizzie had felt completely ignored in the process. None of her friends had been invited to attend and when Lizzie had protested about this Nat had told her that her cousin the Earl had requested a private ceremony and, as they were trespassing on his hospitality, she could have no say in the arrangements. Lizzie had felt as though Gregory Scarlet had hushed the whole thing up because he was ashamed of her-as indeed he might well be.