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Bertrand stayed in London for a few more weeks even though he was no longer looking for a bride. He felt as though a huge load had been lifted from his shoulders when Viola told him Stephanie had accepted the invitation to Redcliffe. Not that he was at all sure what his ultimate goal concerning her was when he got her there. Just proving a point? Courtship? Marriage? And he was definitely not sure she would react kindly to either of those last two options. It was only the first she had agreed to at Vauxhall. But for now that was enough. It released him from the need to pursue any new courtship in London this spring.

He stayed in London because he was enjoying himself. He liked having numerous family members close by as well as friends he rarely saw anywhere else.

He did see Stephanie again before she returned home to Ravenswood a week or so after Adrian’s birthday. He called upon her and Winifred with Owen one afternoon.

The women were in the garden when they arrived, clipping wilted blooms and pulling weeds from one large flower bed even though Nicholas employed gardeners to do the bulk of the work. They were rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed and slightly disheveled from the wind.

Winifred hugged her brother-in-law and Bertrand. “You wretch,” she said to Owen. “You might have warned us you were coming. Just look at us.”

“But why would I?” Owen asked. “Warn you, that is. Neither of you would look half so pretty if you had had the chance to spruce up and be awaiting us demurely in the sitting room.”

“Oh really,” Winifred said, wrinkling her nose while Stephanie hugged her brother. “You should steer away from making lavish compliments, Owen. Especially with that patently false smirk on your face.”

Bertrand, acknowledging Stephanie with a slight inclination of the head, tended to agree with Owen, though. She had a smudge of dirt across one cheek, and he had to resist the urge to brush it off.

Winifred took them about the large garden while Stephanie stayed back to gather up their gardening tools and carry them away with the basket of weeds. Then Winifred showed Bertrand around the cottage, which was tastefully furnished and decorated. She seemed particularly pleased with the windows, all of which were large enough to afford varying views over the garden, the village, and the surrounding countryside.

“I would not be able to bear a house with tiny windows or none at all,” she said. “Or windows all covered with netting or curtains. Some people do like to shut out the world, you know. What a waste of all that natural light and beauty.”

Bertrand thought back to the plain, oversolemn, rather self-righteous, insecure little girl Winifred had been when he first knew her, just after his father’s marriage to her grandmother and not long after Camille and Joel adopted her and showered her with their particular brand of unconditional love. The transformation was astonishing, though her actual looks had not changed a great deal.

“You know, do you not, Bertrand, that I am increasing?” she said when they returned to the sitting room and Stephanie was pouring the tea the housekeeper had carried in. “Owen and Stephanie will be uncle and aunt. That is easy. But I have been puzzling over what exactly you will be to the baby. Great-stepuncle? Step-great-uncle? Both sound a bit peculiar.”

She sounded like the old Winifred, needing to name everything and set it in its rightful place in her world.

Stephanie was laughing.

“Perhaps just great-uncle?” Bertrand said. “Maybe it is time to end all reference to the step nature of our relationship, Winnie.”

“That is just how Mama and Papa feel about references to adopted daughters and adopted sons,” Winifred said. “They insist that we are all just sons and daughters. Mama even says that sometimes she has to think hard to remember which of us falls into which category, though I think that must be a bit of a bouncer.”

“So,” Stephanie said as she handed Bertrand his cup of tea and looked directly at him as she rarely used to do. “Does this mean you are going to call the Marchioness of Dorchester Mama instead of Viola?”

“After so many years, I believe we would both find it rather awkward,” he said, laughing. “Do you call your mother’s husband Papa?”

“He has you there, Steph,” Owen said.

But her smile had faded. “I have only one papa,” she said curtly before Owen cleared his throat and changed the subject.

He had hit upon a nerve, Bertrand thought. He did not know much about the late Earl of Stratton except that Nicholas apparently resembled him to a remarkable degree in both looks and nature and natural charm. Oh, and that Ben Ellis, who had grown up at Ravenswood as one of the family and seemed well loved by them all, was the late earl’s natural son from a liaison with a mistress prior to his marriage.

An interesting fact, that.

The men took their leave not long afterward. Bertrand hugged Winifred again and offered his hand to Stephanie after Owen had released her from a bear hug and asked her to give his love to their mother and everyone else at home.

“I look forward to seeing you at Redcliffe in the summer,” Bertrand said softly.

“It was kind of the marchioness to invite me,” she said.

Viola had told him Stephanie had not been deceived for one moment. She had known that the invitation really came from him. Viola had also told her that the aunts would be at Redcliffe too. But she had accepted the invitation anyway. She had some courage.

He raised her hand to his lips before releasing it.

In a few days’ time she was to return home to Ravenswood. But he would see her again within a couple of months. And she had agreed at Vauxhall to allow him to persuade her that there were no real barriers between them. He was not sure it was possible. Her idea that he was some sort of superior being while she was not seemed deeply ingrained in her. She had raised that barrier almost a decade ago and had kept it firmly in place ever since. It might well be insurmountable.

He refused to believe that. There had been the evening at Vauxhall, after all. And their kiss. She had responded to it. By God she had. And she had agreed to let him try to persuade her that she was wrong about him—and herself. She had agreed to go to Redcliffe.