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“At least you were able to enjoy a good brisk march, Maria,” Owen said. “If ever there has been a harder seat in any gig ever created, I would be vastly surprised. By the time we returned, my…well, a certain part of my anatomy was quite numb.”

“I would advise the ladies to press their hands over their ears,” Matthew said, “were it not for the fact that my warning would come too late.”

“Poor Margaret is going to have a raw heel for a while,” Peter said. “She tried very hard to be brave, but she is mortally afraid it will not heal in time for the village assembly next week.”

“The conversation revolved about the assembly for much of the walk there,” Adrian said. “It seems the young people at least are a mite excited about it. Do not forget, Owen, that the gig is still outside the door here, since the horse appears not quite bright enough to make its own way home.”

Owen groaned.

“I can go with you, Adrian,” Peter said.

“Never let it be said that I cannot take a little numbness in a good cause,” Owen said. “I will go.”

“Peter and I will squeeze in behind you,” Bertrand said.

But even as Viola was protesting that they really ought to stop for some tea before they set out, Abigail came into the room with Katy, who darted across the room to stand before Gil and Dirkson. She held out the sides of her dress and pirouetted before them.

“What do you think, Papa? What do you think, Grandfather?” she said, her voice high-pitched and excited, her eyes shining. She turned so they could see how her hair was up in an intricate cluster of tightly coiled braids.

“I think a stranger has walked into the house,” Gil said. “A very pretty stranger, it must be added.”

“That pretty young lady bears a remarkable resemblance to my granddaughter,” Dirkson said, making a production of raising his quizzing glass to his eye. “By Jove, Gil, she is Katy.”

“And so she is,” Gil said, starting with surprise and smiling at her. “Looking very grown up and elegant indeed. May I give you a hug, Katy, if I promise not to disturb your hair?”

She stepped toward him, beaming, and he stood and folded her in his arms, the large, almost sinister-looking former lieutenant colonel with his badly scarred face. And Bertrand’s heart melted. How he longed for children of his own.

“Lady Stephanie did it for me,” Katy said as she showed herself to everyone else in the room. “I want to look like her when I grow up, but she told me this is the way she had her hair done for a ball when she was even younger than I am now.”

“That must have been the Ravenswood ball during the summer fete,” the Dowager Countess of Stratton said. “Children are allowed to attend it until ten o’clock.”

“What do you think, Grandmama and Grandpapa?” Katy asked, turning to them. “And Grandmother.”

Viola and Aunt Matilda exclaimed with wonder.

“Katy has her hair dressed for some special occasion,” Bertrand’s father said, getting to his feet to make her a courtly bow that set her to giggling. “And I know just the special occasion. She must honor us with her presence at the dinner table tonight. Can it be arranged, Viola?”

“Absolutely,” Viola said while Katy stood in the middle of the room, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, no longer giggling. “Will you grace us with your company, Katy?”

“I will lead you in if I may, Katy,” Adrian said.

“Oh, will you, Uncle Adrian?” she said.

Stephanie certainly knew how to make children happy, Bertrand thought. And he remembered her sitting in the boat this morning, twirling her parasol and then trailing her hand in the water of the lake, seemingly quite unaware of what a pretty picture she made. He thought of her sitting beside him on the bank, listening intently to his story and of her hand beneath his own on the blanket between them and of how the warmth of it had somehow spread to his whole being. He remembered asking her, though he had not intended to speak the words out loud, if there was any hope. She had not answered directly. But her words had surely indicated that there was or might be. One day I will tell you my story.

Adrian got to his feet. “Right,” he said. “We had better be on our way with that gig, especially as we are going to have to walk back. I have an important engagement with a young lady this evening and I would not miss it for worlds.”

Bertrand had been looking forward to these few weeks spent at Redcliffe with three of his closest friends. So far he had not spent much time alone with them. He welcomed the chance now to return the gig to its owner, rickety and uncomfortable though it probably was. He would enjoy sharing a mug of ale with them at the inn before the long walk back. They had collectively rejected the idea of taking another conveyance with them for the return journey, though Viola had suggested it.

And enjoy themselves they did, talking nonstop and laughing a great deal. Bertrand even submitted cheerfully to a bit of merciless teasing over the fact that he had not joined the original walk because he had arranged to take Stephanie to the lake.

“Bert is actively looking for a leg shackle,” Owen told the others. “I had it from his own lips back in the spring. I just did not expect that he would have the good sense to choose Steph.”

“Ah,” Peter said. “But has Lady Stephanie also chosen Bert? It seems to me she is a particularly discriminating lady.”

“You could not get anywhere with her yourself at Christmas, Pete?” Adrian said.

“Not even one inch,” Peter said with an exaggerated sigh. “She is all sweetness and amiability and charm on the outside, but she has defenses like a granite fortress.”