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Had he?

He was not in love with her now.

Was he?

To that second possibility at least he could say a firm no. If he never saw Lady Stephanie Ware again, it would be too soon. And yes, sometimes clichés said it all.

In the weeks since then, he had grown angrier. She had humiliated him for no good reason. She had behaved badly. Would it have hurt her to dance with him? It was not as if he had asked her to marry him. There would have been countless other sets to be danced with men whose company she did not abhor.

Far from loving her, he actively disliked her.

So here he was at home alone, living with the prolonged solitude he had always imagined would be paradise. Until he had it, that was. Then the loneliness, unnoticed and unbidden, had crept in to tarnish the dream.

The solution was not to be found out there, however, either outside this home or outside his person. And paying extended visits to family and friends or seeking company among his neighbors, though he did both with some frequency and pleasure, would not erase his essential loneliness. Nor would brooding or endless introspection. Or reading a Greek tragedy—in Greek.

He needed—damn it all to hell!—he needed a wife. A companion and friend, a bed partner, a mother for his children. He needed a family, a noisy, boisterous group of children, both boys and girls, to make him long for peace and solitude again. And to gladden his heart.

Oh, God, he needed love.

Both given and received.

The sudden, desperate wanting left him a bit shaken.

He did not want much, did he? Just the sun and the moon and all the stars to go with them. He chuckled mirthlessly into the blazing fire.

But Estelle had found love. His father had found it, though his children had been almost grown up at the time. Even his stepniece Winifred Cunningham had found it.

But that thought brought no great comfort, delighted as he was for Winnie herself. She was going to marry Colonel Nicholas Ware, Owen’s elder brother, just before Christmas in Bath, and everyone from both families was invited and would undoubtedly be there, since celebrating landmark events together seemed to be a trait shared by both the Wares and Winnie’s larger family, the Westcotts. And he, God help him, had been embraced by the Westcotts as one of their own as soon as his father married Viola. She had once been married to the head of the family—until, that was, her husband had been exposed after his death as a bigamist and Viola’s marriage had been rendered null and void, her children illegitimate. The Westcotts had flatly refused to disown her.

Bertrand would attend the wedding, of course, because his father and Viola were going, and so were Estelle and Justin. He could hardly not go without attracting unwanted attention and dooming himself to spend Christmas here alone.

And yes, that was the worst detail of all. Camille had organized her daughter’s wedding close enough to Christmas that the family could stay in Bath and celebrate Christmas together too. But the family to Camille now included that of her soon-to-be son-in-law as well as the Westcotts. The Wares would stay for Christmas too. It was a mad idea by any standard. Camille and Joel’s house in the hills above Bath would be bursting at the seams. And two of its occupants during what was usually a joyful occasion would be Bertrand and Lady Stephanie Ware.

Her words to him on the day of that fete had implied that she hated him as much as he now hated her. Though that was a disturbing word. He did not deal in hatred. Or never had before this year.

And they were to spend Christmas together, that festival of peace and light and joy and goodwill.

Bertrand sighed and set his book down on the table beside him.

Perhaps he would have better luck with sleep than he had had with reading this evening.

Chapter Two

Stephanie Ware was spending a few weeks of the autumn with her half brother, Ben Ellis, at Penallen, the home near the sea he had purchased from their brother Devlin. She always loved staying here. Ben was the son of a former mistress of their father’s and three years older than Devlin, but he had grown up at Ravenswood with the rest of them and was beloved by them all.

He was married to the former Lady Jennifer Arden, sister of the Duke of Wilby, who was Stephanie’s sister Philippa’s husband. Jennifer was confined to a wheelchair most of the time as the result of a childhood illness that had left her with one severely misshapen leg and foot, but she was one of the most cheerful persons one could hope to meet. One of the most determined too. She forced herself to walk for part of each day, using a special cane and boot Ben had had made for her. Stephanie adored their children too—Joy, Ben’s ten-year-old daughter from a previous marriage, and Robert and Belinda. And she was fond of Miss Delmont, Ben’s aunt, his mother’s sister, who lived with them and insisted that Stephanie call her Aunt Edith.

Stephanie loved the seaside and strolling on the golden sands of the beach. She loved building sand castles with the children and pushing Jennifer’s wheelchair down closer to the water after Ben or Bruce, Jennifer’s personal servant, had taken it down the steep path from the house. She liked Ben’s neighbors, who always welcomed her visits.

There was nothing she did not love about Penallen, in fact, though Ravenswood was home, with Devlin and Gwyneth and their children, while her mother lived a mere stone’s throw away in her thatched cottage by the river. Stephanie was happy there.

Indeed, she thought one morning as she leaned her arms on the windowsill of her front-facing bedchamber at Penallen and breathed in the salt air that blew in on a healthy breeze, she was in an altogether happy place in her life. She had wasted years hating herself because she was overweight and plain to the point of ugliness while everyone else seemed to be slender and beautiful, and believing no one but her immediate family could possibly ever love her or want her. It was only in the last couple of years that she had opened up her eyes and realized that in reality there were very few physically perfect people, while there were countless numbers who were too fat or too thin or too plain or tall or short, or whose noses were too long or whose mouths were too small or too large or whose hair was too curly or too straight or the wrong color. The list could go on and on. Most people were too something.

With that realization had come a wholly new way of looking at the people around her, at all the wondrous variety of human types, in appearance and manner and character. She was not, in fact, any uglier than the masses. Did it matter that she was not as beautiful as the few? Or as slender? She had a great deal to offer the world. She had a cheerful disposition and seemed generally to be liked; she made music; she adored children and seemed to have a bit of a gift with them; she was fit and carried herself well. She had always favored loose, rather shapeless clothes in the hope of hiding her bulk. More recently, she had given greater attention to the flow of those clothes so they flattered her figure. She even had a few dresses, especially for evening wear, that were more formfitting to show off her shape. She was no longer ashamed of it.

She was as she was, and really, she thought as she looked up at two seagulls flying free overhead and making a great deal of noise about it, she rather liked herself. In fact, there was no rather about it. She liked herself. And she was happy. She was twenty-five years old and still unmarried, it was true, though she wanted to be married. But she was not panicking or even slightly worried.

She had prospects, however vague.