Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Copyright

“Why are you here?”

Lucy asked, her pulse speeding to double time.

“Not to claim my marital rights, if that’s what you presume.” Drake swept her a casual glance, a glint of amusement in his dark eyes. “If our marriage is to serve its purpose, everyone must believe I sired your child. En route to get here, five of the servants saw me, as well as lady Phyllipa—an unexpected bonus. With any luck, tales of my ardent regard for you will spread far and wide.”

“I see. But was it necessary to arrive in quite this state of undress?”

Drake leaned back on the chaise with an air of polite indifference that enraged her. “Merely useful costuming in our charade of a marriage. I did not want to take the chance of anyone mistaking my intentions.” One dark brow cocked expressively. “Why all this virginal prudery, my dear? Surely it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

Dear Reader,

‘Tis the season to be jolly, and Harlequin Historicals has four terrific books this month that will warm your heart and put a twinkle in your eye!

If you haven’t yet discovered Deborah Hale, you’re in for a treat with her second book, A Gentleman of Substance. Viscount Drake Strickland is just that—and so much more—in this juicy, three-hankie Regency-era tale. The taciturn viscount offers a marriage of convenience to the local vicar’s daughter, who is pregnant with his deceased brother’s child. Their unexpected yearning for each other eventually proves too strong to be denied!

Western lovers have two great books in store for them this month. In Jake Walker’s Wife by Loree Lough, a good-hearted, caretaking farmer’s daughter finally finds the man to cherish and take care of her—only, he’s running from the law. And in Heart and Home by Cassandra Austin, a young—and engaged—physician starts anew in a small Kansas town and finds himself falling for the beautiful owner of the boardinghouse next door.

And don’t miss our special 3-in-l medieval Christmas collection, One Christmas Night. Bestselling author Ruth Langan begins with a darling Cinderella story in “Highland Christmas,” Jacqueline Navin spins an emotional mistaken-identity tale in “A Wife for Christmas” and Lyn Stone follows with a charming story of Yuletide matchmaking in “Ian’s Gift.”

Enjoy! And come back again next month for four more choices of the best in historical romance.

Happy Holidays,

Tracy Farrell,

Senior Editor

Please address questions and book requests to:

Harlequin Reader Service

U.S.: 3010 Walden Ave., P.O. Box 1325, Buffalo, NY 14269

Canadian: P.O. Box 609, Fort Erie, Ont. L2A 5X3

A Gentleman of Substance
Deborah Hale

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DEBORAH HALE

After a decade of tracing her ancestors to their roots in Georgian-era Britain, Golden Heart winner Deborah Hale turned to historical-romance writing as a way to blend her love of the past with her desire to spin a good love story. Deborah lives in Nova Scotia, Canada, between the historic British garrison town of Halifax and the romantic Annapolis Valley of Longfellow’s Evangeline. With four children under ten (including twins), Deborah calls writing her “sanity retention mechanism.” On good days, she likes to think it’s working.

Deborah invites you to her one-of-a-kind web site to catch the flavor of eighteenth-century London, from a cup of the most decadent chocolate to scandalous tidbits of backstage gossip from the Green Room at Drury Lane. To get there, follow her author’s link on the Harlequin web site http://www.romance.net.

To Virginia Brown Taylor, romance author and midwife, who coached me through Lucy’s confinement.

Any anatomical impossibilities are my fault, not hers.

And to Dr. Michael E. Hale, my very own gentleman of substance.and style.

Chapter One

The Lake District, 1812

A clod of rain-soaked earth fell on the coffin, landing with a heavy, wet slap. From her place behind the lichened stone wall of Saint Mawe’s churchyard, Lucy Rushton felt that sound like a physical blow. A tiny whimper escaped her clenched lips, but the damp autumn wind snatched it up and carried it away. They were burying the earthly remains of Captain Jeremy Strickland, mortally wounded in a minor skirmish of Wellington’s peninsular campaign. That “minor skirmish,” Lucy reflected with bitter irony, had cast her into every woman’s worst nightmare.

Unwed and pregnant by a dead lover.

In vain, Lucy bit down on her lip, praying the pain would wake her from this horrible dream. She’d worshipped the handsome, dashing Jeremy Strickland from a distance for most of her twenty years. Suddenly taking notice of her, the captain had returned Lucy’s regard, wooing her with an urgency peculiar to young men off to war. Overlooking the waterfall at Amber Force, he begged the happiness of her hand in marriage. In a secluded glade on the banks of tranquil Mayeswater, he persuaded her to consummate the union of their hearts. He’d promised to return at the earliest opportunity, to wed her in a splendid ceremony.

Even knowing her condition would eventually expose her to censure and ostracism, Lucy could not bring herself to regret what she’d done. Far worse to stand here and watch them bury her dearest love, having denied him the joy of their communion. Without the memory of his ardent kiss and tender embrace to sustain her.

The meagre clutch of mourners at the graveside bowed their heads as Lucy’s father, the vicar of Saint Mawes, led them in a final prayer. One man towered above the others, a tall severe-looking person whose somber funeral habit was little different from his normal attire. Lucy fixed the formidable Drake Strickland, Viscount Silverthorne, with a baleful glare.

The viscount had selfishly decreed his half brother’s funeral a private affair, closed to all but family. Otherwise, Saint Mawe’s would have overflowed with tenants and villagers, sincerely mourning the gallant, agreeable young officer. Rather than skulking behind the wall, Lucy might have taken her place among the throng, free to vent her grief in public.

As if drawn by the animosity of her gaze, Lord Silverthorne suddenly turned his dark, inscrutable eyes upon Lucy. She met his stare without flinching, channeling all her resentment into an answering glare.

How dare you bar me from him on this of all days? her look challenged Drake Strickland. It is your fault Jeremy enlisted in the army in the first place. Always trying to live up to your impossibly high standards and never succeeding. Always trying to make his own mark. Always trying to emerge from beneath your shadow. If not for you, he would be alive today.

At that moment, Vicar Rushton intoned the benediction. “Earth to earth. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.”

Rising tears quenched the passionate rage in Lucy’s eyes. Looking away from the hateful Lord Silverthorne, she pressed her arms protectively over her fiat belly, where Jeremy’s child had just begun to grow within her. This was what her love and her dreams had finally come to-ashes and dust.

The Dowager Marchioness of Cranbrook peered down the length of Silverthorne’s formal dining table. Her wrinkled mouth puckered in distaste. Though she regretted the death of her favorite grandson, her ladyship was not unduly distressed. In seventy-five years she had buried three husbands, five sons and four grandsons. Losing loved ones was an inevitable part of life—no sense railing against events one could not change. Plenty of other circumstances were amenable to her influence. It was upon those the marchioness chose to focus her attention.

“Drake, what is this dish?” Suspiciously, she sifted her spoon through an unfamiliar variety of stew, heavy in cabbage. “It’s barely palatable. And black bread? My servants dine better than this. You must come to London with me, if only to secure the services of a proper cook.”

From the moment of her arrival, the marchioness had lost no opportunity of urging her grandson to come to London in search of a wife. At the head of the table, Viscount Silverthorne rolled his eyes, heaving an impatient sigh that was audible above the tattoo of rain drumming on the windows.

Impudent cub! Her ladyship bridled. Did he think her eyesight and hearing too feeble to mark his insulting behaviour?

“I regret our cuisine is not to your taste, Grandmother,” Drake replied with tight-jawed civility. “We are not accustomed to such exalted company.” He inclined his head to her and to his other guests-his cousin, the Honorable Neville Strickland, and Lady Phyllipa Strickland, widow of yet another cousin.

Acknowledging Drake’s nod with a dyspeptic smile, Phyllipa picked daintily at her meal. A bland, sallow creature, her cloying solicitude set the marchioness’s teeth on edge. Neglecting the food altogether, Neville concentrated on his wine.

“Personally,” Drake continued, “I find Mrs. Maberley’s cooking both toothsome and nourishing. I wouldn’t trade her Lancashire hot pot for all the glazed pheasant and oyster puddings in London. I’m a plain man. I prefer plain clothes, plain food.”

“But not plain women, I’ll wager,” Neville quipped, twirling his quizzing glass by its string.

The marchioness held her breath, waiting to hear Drake’s reply. Neville was either very drunk or very stupid to be baiting his cousin in such a way. More than once Drake had discharged the young dandy’s mounting debts with no more than an ominous grumble about the sin of profligacy.

“Speaking of women.” Phyllipa broke her meek silence. “Who was that young lady watching us at Jeremy’s funeral this afternoon? She looked positively distraught.”

Drake appeared confounded by the question. “Young lady? Oh, that was just Lucy…Miss Rushton. The vicar’s daughter.”

“Indeed.” Neville grinned broadly. “Does she hang about looking picturesquely mournful for all the burials?”

“If Miss Rushton looked mournful, she has every right. She’s known Jeremy since childhood.” For a moment Drake fell into a pensive silence. Recovering himself, he continued brusquely, “Besides, you know girls that age. They have an exaggerated sense of tragedy-particularly about young men dying gallantly for their country. Too many people nowadays have romantic notions of war.”

“You don’t consider Jeremy’s death a tragedy?” challenged Neville.

“I consider it a waste.” A sharp crack of thunder from the storm punctuated Drake’s pronouncement. “Jeremy had no business gadding off to Spain, as though the army were an amusing diversion. He had responsibilities. To me. To our people.”

“Your people?” Neville chuckled. “My dear fellow, you talk as though your tenants were your subjects.”

Her ladyship had followed the volley of conversation between her grandsons like a match of battledore and shuttlecock, looking from one to the other. Now she stared expectantly at Drake, waiting for a crushing return.

She felt distinctly disappointed when he took a deep breath and replied forbearingly. “It is a question of duty, Neville. If such a concept is not altogether foreign to you. My tenants and employees depend on me. The mines, the mills, the tannery—when they turn a profit, families can feed their children and send them to school. They patronize the local shops and keep money from draining away to Liverpool or Manchester.”

“Fah, Cuz. You sound like a merchant, not a viscount. Gentlemen aren’t meant to grub for guineas in dreary factories and counting houses. That’s what tradesmen are for.”

“You think it vulgar to possess a comfortable fortune, rather than living off the gaming tables or the charity of relatives?” His restrained, quiet tone told the marchioness Drake was growing more vexed by the minute. Neville was twice a fool to mistake his cousin’s cold, contained wrath for weakness.

Neville ignored the warning signs. “Old fellow, you are too modest. A comfortable fortune?” He gestured about the dining room, recently restored to its former glory. “Why, you have one of the vastest fortunes in England. You’re prudent to stay clear of London, though. Prinny might try to touch you for a loan.”

The marchioness glowered in Neville’s direction, but he took no notice. “Of course, it isn’t vulgar to possess a fortune—only to have earned it.” He laughed immoderately at his own jest. No one else joined him. “I can’t think why you went to all the trouble, when you might have married an ugly little heiress with an uncouth tradesman for a father.”

“By all means, feel free to pursue that course yourself, Neville.” Drake’s tone sharpened. “I prefer to build something beneficial and lasting, by my own initiative.”

“I fear I am not temperamentally suited to such earnest labor. I am one of society’s lilies of the field. I sew not. Neither do I spin. Yet King Solomon in all his glory had not so richly embroidered a waistcoat as mine.” Neville sprawled back on his chair, displaying an expanse of that waistcoat.

The marchioness thought it in rather questionable taste for mourning. Still, she was not altogether displeased with Neville. He’d provided her with excellent leverage to use on his cousin.

“There sits the heir to all your hard-won wealth, Drake.” She waved scornfully in Neville’s direction. “How long will take him to run through your fortune? Six months? A year?”

“I expect to live a long, healthy life, Grandmother.” Drake’s words sounded clipped and precise, his voice menacingly soft in volume, like the first rumblings of thunder.

“What my cousin means, Grandmama, is that he expects me to be worm food when he is enjoying a vigorous old age. Staggering about the countryside. Minding his mills and mines. Wolfing down heaping bowls of boiled cabbage and tripe. And celibate—is that not also part of your regimen, Cuz?”

“For pity’s sake, Neville, stop plaguing the poor man,” snapped Phyllipa.

The marchioness looked at Clarence’s widow with a faint glimmer of interest. She hadn’t thought the vapid creature capable of snapping.

“Drake is our host,” Phyllipa continued primly. “He has just lost his only brother. Besides, your bickering will upset poor dear Grandmama.”

“Fiddlesticks!” exclaimed the marchioness, when no pithier oath came readily to mind. “There’s nothing I like better than a good family row. It’s obligatory to quarrel after a funeral. Keeps everyone from dwelling on morbid thoughts of mortality.”

Neville raised his glass to her. “What a philosopher you are, Grandmama.”

“Save your oily tongue, coxcomb! I’ve been flattered by men more skilled in proper subtlety than you’ll ever be.”

His grandmother caught Drake in the ghost of a smile. She had no intention of letting him get complacent. “Your cousin has a point, Drake. No one cheats death forever. What becomes of your fine enterprises when you’re gone? You need sons to inherit your title and carry on your work. Come back to London with me and take your pick from this season’s marriage market.”

“I’d sooner swim in a cesspit.” Drake wrinkled his aquiline nose expressively.

“Exasperating cub!” The marchioness was not used to being flouted. “Were you counting on Jeremy to supply you with heirs? Now you’ll have to do the deed yourself, my boy.”

Drake rose abruptly from his chair. The “boy” cut quite an imposing figure these days, his grandmother grudgingly admitted. Though his long, angular face gave him a gaunt look by times, he had the lean muscularity of his late grandfather. A far cry from the sickly child whose life the family had despaired of.

“Consider this discussion closed, Grandmother. I am not a child you can cane into submission. Now, if you will excuse me, I mean to go for a ride before I retire.”

“Oh, Drake, you can’t be serious!” Phyllipa gestured toward the room’s large windows, each composed of over a hundred small panes. Judging by the force with which the rain thrashed against them, it was being driven by a fierce westerly. “Hear that wind. It’s raining fit to sink Noah’s Ark.”

Already halfway to the door, Drake shrugged his wide shoulders. “Never fear, Phyllipa. I have yet to dissolve in water. Besides, I prefer the impersonal hostility of nature to Grandmother’s cherished family quarrels. Good night, everyone. I trust the lack of company won’t spoil your enjoyment of my port, Neville.”

He closed the door quietly, but firmly, behind him.

Tipping his chair back, Neville hoisted his feet up to rest on the edge of the highly polished mahogany table. “Not in the least, my dear fellow,” he chuckled in reply to his absent cousin. “Not in the least.”

For twopence, the Dowager Marchioness of Cranbrook would have garrotted her grandson with the string of his own monocle.

Drake was well soaked by the time he reached the stables. The chill rain had not cooled his smoldering temper, though.

“Evening yer lordship.” One of the stablemen touched his cap in greeting, surveying his master with obvious puzzlement. “Is there aught I can do for you tonight, milord?”

Compared with Silverthorne’s dining room, the stables looked invitingly tranquil. Drake inhaled the soothing aroma of leather, horses and sweet dry hay.

“I fancy a ride before bed. Saddle up the Spaniard.”

The big black stallion strained eagerly to get out into the storm. Pointing his mount toward an expanse of open countryside, Drake rode into the darkness. Gusts of wind drove the rain into his face, taking his breath away. Rivulets of water ran down his cheeks like tears. Abandoning a lifetime of painstaking civility, he gave himself up to the savagery of the storm. Fury and anguish warred within him, as he allowed himself the luxury of experiencing raw emotion for the first time since receiving word of his young half brother’s death.

For fifteen years he had striven with might and main to resurrect Silverthorne from the ashes of his late father’s ruin. To what end? For Neville to mortgage it to the hilt and gamble it all away? For Phyllipa’s nasty little Reginald, to do who knew what? Whatever else his grandmother might be, Drake admitted she was no fool. He had been relying on Jeremy to provide him with an heir. Now, if he hoped to salvage his life’s work for the future, he would have to perform that odious chore for himself.

He’d gone to London once before, in a flush of youthful naiveté, and there been so abominably used as to sour him on the idea of matrimony ever since. Why could Jeremy not have taken a wife before rushing off to fight Napoleon’s armies? What had possessed him to take up a commission in the first place? Heedless. Imprudent. Unreliable.

Suddenly, Drake pulled his mount up short and headed back home. He’d let his self-control slip quite enough for one night. He had no intention of handing everything to Neville on a silver platter by catching his death of ague. Before he returned to a warm bed and a scalding cup of Mrs. Maberley’s cambric tea, however, Drake had one stop to make.

A faint light flickered in the old stone sanctuary of Saint Mawe’s. Drake tethered his horse by the eastern wall, sheltered from the wind. It was foolish of him to come here, he supposed. However, since he’d already indulged in an orgy of foolishness by riding out on so wild a night, he might as well purge it from his system. Something compelled him to kneel by Jeremy’s grave and ask, Brother, why did you desert me?

Cautiously, Drake picked his way through the old graveyard, following a winding route around the haphazardly arranged tombstones. So loud was the wind and so fiercely was he concentrating to avoid a fall, that he scarcely heard the sound of weeping until he was almost on top of the source. His leg brushed against a small figure huddled beside Jeremy’s grave.

What was a child doing loose in a graveyard, on such a night? If Drake had a weakness, it was for the lost and the helpless, anyone in need of his aid. Abandoning his plan to commune with his brother’s ghost, he hoisted the little stray into his arms and carefully wended his way back to the church. Finding the vestry door unlocked, he pushed it open with his shoulder. Only when he had settled into a pew and relinquished his burden, did he recognize Lucy Rushton.

“What the…? Miss Rushton, what are you doing here?”

Though admittedly not the most perceptive of men, where women were concerned, Drake could tell the girl was fighting to master turbulent emotions. Distractedly, she pushed the rain-soaked hair out of her eyes. The wetness made it look quite brown. Ordinarily, it curled in delicate tendrils around her face, a warm shade of dark honey.

“Forgive me, your lordship.” Her words sounded muffled, as though by a head cold, but the tone was icily formal. “I know you endow my father’s living, but I had no idea you counted the graveyard as your personal property. Excuse me for trespassing.”

For some reason, her haughty reply made Drake want to smile with admiration. She looked so forlorn-drenched and dripping, eyes and nose ruddy from crying, face pale and pinched. Yet there was a spark in Lucy Rushton that no amount of rain or misfortune could quench.

“You know very well I don’t own the graveyard.” Fishing in his pocket for a handkerchief, he handed it to her in a conciliatory gesture. After all, he had no more quarrel with her than she could reasonably have with him. “Even if I did, you’d be welcome to come and go as you pleased.”

Many a time, on rides about his estate, he’d come upon Lucy Rushton sitting under a tree or perched on a stile. An open book spread over her uptucked knees and a plump apple half-eaten in one hand. Engrossed in her reading or her daydreams, she seldom noticed him. Yet, from those brief encounters, he’d absorbed a measure of her contentment, going on his way in a strangely lightened mood.

Lucy scrubbed at her eyes, which only succeeded in making them redder. “Would I be welcome? I wasn’t welcome this afternoon when you buried Captain Strickland.”

She made a thorough job of blowing her nose. Loud and wet, it sounded intentionally rude.

“Not welcome?” Drake looked at her in frank astonishment. “What nonsense, I…”

“It was very badly done, barring everyone but family. Who were those people, anyway? That ridiculous creature with the garish waistcoat and quizzing glass. He didn’t appear the least bit grieved. I’d swear he was gloating.”

“Cousin Neville, the son of my father’s brother.” Drake didn’t try to deny Lucy’s opinion of his cousin.

“I recognized your grandmother, but who was the younger lady? I’ve never seen her at Silverthorne before.”

“Lady Phyllipa Strickland, widow of my cousin Clarence.” If asked, Drake could not have said why he answered her peremptory interrogation so readily.

“Oh.” His account of Phyllipa’s identity appeared to confound her for a moment. Her inexplicable indignation rapidly gathered strength again. “Those people may be Captain Strickland’s relatives. But I doubt if they knew him or cared for him as well as many of his old friends.…”

Her words trailed off as fresh tears sprang into her wide-set brown eyes. Drake reached out to take her hand, but she pushed him away. In the split second they were in contact, he could feel her trembling.

“You must be freezing. I’d offer you my coat, but I fear it would do little good, sodden as it is.”

“F-f-father…” She was shivering in earnest now, her teeth chattering rhythmically. “F-f-father keeps a s-s-spare surplice in the v-v-vestry.”

Rising from the pew, Drake strode down the side aisle to fetch the vicar’s spare surplice. He wrapped it around her as best he could.

“Believe me, Miss Rushton, it was never my intent to slight you. I only wanted to spare my tenants any obligation to attend the funeral. If you’d spoken to me beforehand, I would have welcomed you to join the family. Jeremy was very fond of you.”

In the perverse, puzzling manner of women, Lucy greeted his attempt at kindness with a fresh effusion of tears.

“Dash it all, what’s the matter now? You always struck me as a sensible person. I must say, I find your reaction to Jeremy’s death exaggerated quite out of proportion. Just because you didn’t get a front row seat for his funeral is no cause to go courting consumption by keeping a graveside vigil in the pouring rain.”

Bluster had no better effect than solicitude. Lucy Rushton bent her head practically into her lap, weeping in loud sobs that racked her delicate frame.

“There, there.” Drake patted her shoulder in an awkward gesture of sympathy. He was beginning to wish he’d stayed back at Silverthorne. “Don’t take on so. I’m sorry if I said anything to offend you.” He tried to recall what he’d said that might have caused this outburst. “You must stop. Otherwise you’ll make yourself ill.”

Then, as though she considered his warning an invitation, Lucy Rushton vomited all over the flagstone floor, the kneeling bench, and Drake’s Hessians. Fortunately for the boots, she had little on her stomach but broth.

Afterward, Drake wondered what had prompted his uncharacteristic flash of insight. Grasping Lucy Rushton by the shoulders, he looked her straight in the eye. “You’re carrying my brother’s child,” he said with complete conviction.

Her chin trembled, but she did not flinch from his look. With only the barest nod, she confirmed Drake’s preposterous charge. His hands slipped from her shoulders, limp with shock.

Lucy unwadded his handkerchief and daubed at the mess on the chapel floor. “Go ahead. Say what you’re thinking.

I’m a harlot—a wanton. I deserve everything that’s coming to me.”

Suddenly the stock around Drake’s throat felt very tight. He had a powerful urge to dig up Jeremy’s corpse so he could have the satisfaction of strangling his brother. Damn him! With his golden good looks and ingratiating manner, Jeremy’d always had more women than he knew what to do with. Drake hadn’t cared how much of his allowance the young fool spent on trinkets for actresses and barmaids. But to take advantage of an innocent like Lucy Rushton was utterly insupportable!

“Wanton?” His lips twitched involuntarily at using such a word to describe her. “Nonsense. My dear child, you could not behave in a wanton manner if you tried.”

He scarcely knew what to make of it when she flared up, “I am not a child! I am every day of twenty. I have been to Bath.”

Signifying what, exactly? Drake wondered. He opened his mouth to explain he’d meant no offense, quite the contrary.

She cut him off. “How do you know what I’m capable of? You know nothing about me. Just go away and leave me alone.”

“Perhaps I would rather stay and commiserate. It appears Jeremy’s death has put us both in a spot of bother.”

“Bother?” Sharp and shrill, the word echoed off the chapel’s stone walls. “Is that what you call it? When my condition becomes known, I will be a social outcast. My child will be farmed out to strangers or to the harsh mercy of a foundlings’ hospital. What bother of yours can compare with that?”

“Only that I shall have to marry, against my inclination, to provide myself with heirs. Otherwise that foppish cousin of mine stands to inherit Silverthorne.”

“Forced to marry? Poor man. You make it sound as appealing as a hanging. Jeremy did not shy from it as you do. He planned to marry me on his next leave.”

Drake wished he could believe that as sincerely as she appeared to.

“A pity be did not marry you before he went away. It would have spared us both considerable distress.”

Her anger collapsed on itself, like a punctured bubble. “Forgive me, your lordship. I have abused your patience inexcusably this evening. I must get back to the vicarage before father misses me. I trust you’ll keep my secret for as long as need be.” She rose to leave.

“How far along are you?” Drake called after her.

His abrupt question stopped Lucy. “I beg your pardon?”

“How long…since you conceived the child?”

She answered without hesitation. “Six weeks.” Musing softly, she added, “We only made love once. The day before he left.”

Drake drew a deep breath. He was about to dive headlong into murky, uncharted waters. Unfortunately, his bothersome conscience would let him do no less. He must speak now, before she hurried away again, or before he lost his nerve.

“In that case…I propose…a mutually beneficial solution to our problems.”

Chapter Two

“Married? Drake you can’t mean it.” A morsel of egg slid from his grandmother’s spoon and fell quivering onto her saucer.

Neville and Phyllipa exchanged a glance, two pairs of eyebrows raised in surprise and consternation. Drake felt a rush of satisfaction at having ambushed his family so neatly. This was their payback for last night’s dinner.

“I assure you, Grandmother, I am quite in earnest” Drake cheerfully tucked into his breakfast.

“To the vicar’s daughter?” Phyllipa blinked her bulging eyes. “But you are a gentleman of substance, Drake.”

“All the more reason I can dispense with the bothersome task of pursuing an heiress,” he replied with exaggerated good humor.

“Decided to dive into the cesspit after all, have you Cuz?” Neville weighed in with his contribution. “I marvel at how rapidly your scruples deserted you.”

“If you’ll recall…” Drake could not keep the muscles of his jaw from tensing. “I was speaking of that matrimonial cattle market they call The Season, not of marriage in general. Were you too drunk to mark the difference?”

Breathing on his quizzing glass, Neville made a show of rubbing it clean with his napkin. “My dear fellow, you underestimate my capacity for good port.”

“And you underestimate my reluctance to have you inherit Silverthorne. Taking Grandmother’s warning to heart, I followed her advice and secured a wife with the utmost dispatch.”

“But it’s so unromantic!” Phyllipa wailed.

“Which suits me admirably, for I am the least romantic of men. I find nothing disagreeable about this arrangement. It is honest, practical and expeditious.”

They all looked so dumbfounded, he could not help warming to his subject. “Just think if I’d gone about it the usual way. I’d have had to abandon my business concerns for weeks on end to attend a lot of tiresome routs and balls in London. There, I would have stayed up later than is good for me; eaten food that disagreed with me and drank an intemperate quantity of spirits.” He cast a pointed glance at Neville.

“I would have strained to hold my gorge while a pack of silly girls preened for my inspection. I would have pranced through a succession of tedious terpsichorean exercises, whose sole purpose is to provide an immoderate living for mincing dancing masters.”

After pausing for a sip of coffee, Drake continued. “Having fixed on my choice—the least objectionable female desperate enough to consider me for a husband—I would pay the lady my addresses. Which is to say, a compound of meaningless pleasantries and insincere flattery. My proposal accepted, I would commence negotiations with her father, resulting in a marriage contract. The driest batch of legal quibble ever penned by a lawyer’s clerk, a monument to cold-blooded self-interest. The whole operation is so exceedingly romantic, it fair takes my breath away!”

Such a long speech, all in one go, did leave him rather winded. Still, Drake felt a tremendous sense of relief to have had his say on a subject that had long vexed him.

“When is the wedding?” Phyllipa finally squeaked.

Drake beamed as though she had wished him warm congratulations. “Day after tomorrow. I have to speak with the vicar and obtain a special license. I trust you’ll all stay on for the nuptial festivities. We will need witnesses.”

The Dowager Marchioness rose from her place. She had a majestic presence for so small and ancient a person. Grasping her walking stick, she stalked toward the door. “No doubt the funeral meats will coldly furnish forth the wedding table.” She quoted from Hamlet.

Drake almost grinned. Touché, Grandmother.

“I, for one, will not condone this farce with my presence.” With that malediction, she marched from the room and quit Silverthorne within the hour.

In a pool of pale autumn sunshine, on the stoop of a modest thatched cottage, Lucy Rushton sat reading aloud from Milton’s Comus. On the bench beside her sat Widow Sowerby, tenant of the cottage, a pair of knitting needles clattering busily in her tiny nimble hands. Never once did she look down at her work, but gazed unseeing on the pastoral beauty of Mayeswater.

For years it had been Lucy’s habit to, drop by Mrs. Sowerby’s cottage and read or talk while she knitted. Preoccupied with her grief for Jeremy and her fears for the future, she had recently neglected her self-imposed duty. Today, in spite of her new misgivings, or perhaps because of them, she had sought comfort in doing for others.

“Come now, lass, out with it. What’s troubling you?” The tempo of Mrs. Sowerby’s knitting slowed.

Lucy glanced up from her book. “Troubling me? No…I mean, nothing. Nothing is troubling me. I am quite well. Whatever makes you think that?” Fortunately, Mrs. Sowerby’s cataracts prevented her from noticing the blush that smarted in Lucy’s cheeks.

The old woman chuckled. “Just because my eyes don’t work no more, doesn’t mean I can’t see what’s plain. I’ve counted seven times you’ve sighed since you last turned the page, and four times you’ve lost your place. Don’t try to fool Old Fanny that you haven’t got some’ut weighing on your mind.”

Lucy sighed for the eighth time. “I might as well tell you, Mrs. Sowerby. Everyone in Nicholthwait will know by tomorrow night. I’m getting married.”

“Is that so?” Mrs. Sowerby nodded over this information, and perhaps the marked lack of enthusiasm in Lucy’s announcement. “Anyone I know?”

Lucy nodded, then remembered her friend couldn’t see her. “Everyone knows him. I am to marry Viscount Silverthorne.”

Mrs. Sowerby’s knitting needles froze in midstitch. “His lordship? This is unexpected news. Most lasses would be singing it to the rooftops—a match like that.”

“It is a great honor.” Not to mention a great burden, sharing her life with the man she held responsible for Jeremy’s death. If she could have seen any other way to provide decently for her child, she would have taken pleasure in refusing Lord Silverthorne’s proposal.

“Oh, aye. A big estate. A title. A large fortune. Most lasses could ask naught more from a marriage.” The two women, sat silent for a moment. “Then again, you aren’t most lasses, Miss Lucy. I think you want more from a husband than his brass or his family name. You’d fancy a man with a ready smile and a way of saying your name that makes your heart beat faster.”

Lucy thought of Jeremy Strickland, his eyes as blue as the summer sky reflected in the glassy surface of Mayeswater, his golden hair ruffled by the upland wind. As her eyes began to water, she felt a pang of exasperation. She had always been of a sunny, optimistic nature. A sensible person, as the viscount so plainly put it. Lately it took nothing to make her weep. She hated having her emotions so out of control.

“Your description does not sound very much like Viscount Silverthorne, does it?” Lucy hoped Mrs. Sowerby would mistake the break in her voice for a chuckle.

“I suppose not. Nothing glib about his lordship, poor lad.”

“Nothing poor about his lordship either,” Lucy reminded her friend tartly. “They say he has the Midas touch.”

Mrs. Sowerby felt at her knitting to find where she’d left off. “As I recall, the golden touch didn’t make that Midas fellow any too happy.”

“You’re hinting at something, so you might as well tell me plainly. Why do you call Lord Silverthorne a ‘poor lad’?”

Now it was Fanny Sowerby’s turn to sigh. “Perhaps you should ask him, my dear. Let’s just say he had a childhood I’d not envy any lad.”

Something in Mrs. Sowerby’s tone gave Lucy a pang as she thought of her own idyllic girlhood, full of books and dreams and the small beauties of nature. The only passing shadows on those years had been the deaths of an infant brother and sister. Deprived of other children, her parents had lavished all their love on her.

Just then, Lucy noticed the long shadow cast by Mrs. Sowerby’s crab apple tree. Though she was curious to hear more about Lord Silverthorne’s unenviable childhood, she’d promised to meet him at the vicarage within the hour.

“I’m afraid I must be getting back home, Mrs. Sowerby. I’m sorry I was so distracted, and spoiled the reading for you.”

“Never you mind about that. I’m grateful for the company. Not many lasses would bother with a blind old woman.”

“That would be their loss.” Lucy stooped to bestow a gentle kiss on the woman’s weathered cheek.

Mrs. Sowerby dropped her knitting and caught Lucy’s hand. “I wish you and his lordship every happiness. He’s a fine man, for all he don’t say much. Once a month, like clockwork, I’ll hear him ride up to my gate. Never says a word, just checks to see how I’m getting on. Once he came by when it was raining, and my roof was leaking like a sieve. The next day a crew shows up from the big house with orders to rethatch it.”

Lucy could not think what to reply. Mrs. Sowerby’s story contradicted her lifelong perception of the stern autocrat.

“He needs a bit of happiness in his life,” Mrs Sowerby added. “Deserves it, too, with all he’s done for folks round here. If there’s a woman can make him happy, I fancy it’s you.”

“I’ll try, Mrs. Sowerby.”

The old woman waved Lucy on her way. Then, perhaps thinking her out of earshot, Mrs. Sowerby mused aloud, “And you might just be surprised at how happy he can make you, my dear.”

Lucy turned away, sighing for the ninth time that afternoon. She doubted it was in the power of any woman to make his lordship happy. And she was certain any chance of her own happiness had died on a Spanish battlefield with Jeremy Strickland.

At a wary distance from the vicarage, Drake sat on his horse trying to screw up his nerve for an interview with Vicar Rushton. He had made his initial marriage offer to Lucy in a momentary surge of moral obligation. Jeremy had used her abominably, and Drake felt it his duty to rectify the situation. He relished breaking the news to his family. Their opposition had only strengthened his resolve. During his ride to the vicarage, a host of doubts had risen to assail him.

Could he manage to put up with a wife underfoot all the time? He’d lived a solitary existence, apart from his years in school—years he’d hated. Ragged and bullied by highborn louts with no interests beyond their own pleasure, he’d fought hard for the simple right to be left alone. It went against his grain to surrender his hard-won privacy.

He wasn’t thinking only of himself, either. What kind of life would it be for Lucy and the child—mewed up at Silverthorne with a man temperamentally unsuited to marriage and fatherhood? Desperately as he wanted an heir to supplant Neville, he could not consign Jeremy’s son to a bleak, joyless childhood like he had suffered.

“It’s no good,” Drake muttered through clenched teeth.

“Do you not think so?” Lucy suddenly emerged from a wooded path nearby. “Most people would call this a fine day, after that dreadful storm. Or were you referring to the view?”

Drake looked down the lane to Saint Mawes vicarage, a cosy stone house, green with ivy and hemmed in by an inviting miscellany of trees and shrubs. Not merely a house, the vicarage looked like a home. The sight of it stirred a long-buried wistfulness in Drake Strickland’s practical, impervious heart.

“No, indeed.” He strove to sound impassive. “The view is very well.”

Planting herself squarely in front of his horse, Lucy looked up at him, a challenge glittering incongruously in the depths of her wide, soft eyes. “Then I must assume you are having second thoughts about marrying me?”

He fixed his gaze on a point just above the crest of her bonnet. “By no means, Miss Rushton.” Drake surprised himself with the ease by which he delivered this bold-faced lie. “I see clearly where my duty rests.” At least that part was true.

“How priggish you sound. As your wife, will I be subjected to daily sermons at the breakfast table?” Drake felt the sting of her rebuke. This was not the Lucy Rushton who had won his distant regard—the generous, unpretentious girl who read to Widow Sowerby and wandered the countryside with a book under her arm. That winter in Bath of which she boasted, had spoiled her completely. Turned her into one of those tart-tongued brittle creatures he despised.

“I can assure you, madam, I will subject you to as little of my objectionable discourse as appearances permit.”

“If that’s how you feel, perhaps we should call off this ridiculous charade.” With those bold words, her face went white and she swayed as though buffeted by a strong wind. Drake vaulted from his saddle, sending his startled horse skittering sideways. He caught Lucy just before she hit the ground.

It took a moment for her to recover, a moment during which Drake found himself torn by conflicting emotions. Part of him protested that it was most indecorous for the scion of Silverthorne to be kneeling in a country lane with a half-conscious woman in his arms. Even if she was his intended bride. Another part felt a passing qualm of guilt that he had subjected Lucy to an unpleasant exchange, in her delicate condition. An overwhelming sense of protectiveness conquered all other feelings.

So small and childlike in his arms, she needed him as much as any of his tenants or employees. But she was not a child—she was a woman. Through the light fabric of her dress, he could feel her delicious feminine curves. This whole arrangement would work better if he did not find her so dangerously attractive. All the same, Lucy and her baby were his responsibility. Though it might prove the most difficult undertaking of his life, he must do right by them.

“Where am I?” Her eyelids fluttered. “What happened?” She struggled to sit up.

“Easy now.” Drake gently restrained her. “Do let me know the next time you feel faint. You gave me quite a turn.”

She quit trying to get away from him, but her whole body stiffened, reluctant to yield. “I seem to make a habit of discommoding you, my lord. It’s a habit I am eager to break, I assure you.”

What a prickly temper! Drake frowned. Making any overture toward Lucy Rushton was like trying to engage a hedgehog. Were all expectant mothers like this? he wondered.

As he slackened his hold, Lucy pulled free of his arms. Jumping to her feet, she slapped the dust from her pale-blue dress. “Forget what I told you last night. I absolve you from any moral obligation to me.”

Drake unfolded his tall frame from the crouched posture in which he’d held Lucy. “That is the trouble with moral obligations—one can never quite absolve one’s self.” He tried to smile, to show he was partly in jest and hopefully to ease some of the tension between them. The muscles of his face didn’t seem to understand what he was asking of them. They could only manage a lopsided grimace.

“If you wish to reconsider your decision to marry me, that is your right. In fact, I urge you to weigh your options carefully before choosing the course that will best serve you.and your child,” he added almost under his breath, in case anyone should be within earshot of their conversation.

“Options?” She gave a bitter little laugh. “I have no options, Lord Silverthorne, as you are well aware.”

“Of course, you do. You must. If you choose not to marry me, I’ll still provide for you.both. I’ll give you money to go away until the child is born. If you choose not to keep him, I’ll secure him a good home.”

“That is very generous of you.”

“It is my duty.”

“Ah yes, that irksome word again.”

Drake was tempted to launch into a lecture on the importance of ideals like duty and honor, but he restrained himself. “Bear in mind, if you choose to go your own way, I will never be able to acknowledge Jeremy’s son as my heir.”

“I understand.”

“However, it would leave you free to forget the past and, one day, make a marriage more to your liking.”

“I will never forget Jeremy.” She declared it as a fundamental truth. “And I will never love any other man. It would be wrong of me to marry a man I could not love.”

“What if the man knew you could not love him?” Drake asked quietly. “What if he did not want your love?”

“I suppose…” Lucy looked over at the spire of Saint Mawes, rising from behind the vicarage. “Won’t it be a sin to speak marriage vows we have no intention of keeping?”

“I doubt we will be the first couple to do so.” Drake scuffed the grass with the toe of his Hessians. “Or the last.”

Lucy made no reply. Assuming she must be weighing her options, Drake held himself still and silent. He’d had his say, whether or not she’d listened to him. In the end it all came down to her life and her child’s. She must be free to choose, without pressure from him. Yet, as the minutes passed with no sound but the occasional swish of the horse’s tail, Drake found himself earnestly hoping Lucy would not change her mind. Perhaps her doubts had tempered his resolve. Or perhaps he wanted a son of Jeremy’s to call his own.

Finally she spoke. “Very well, sir. I will marry you.”

Drake suddenly realized he had been holding his breath. “I must speak to your father.” He gasped out the words. “Then I must hunt up Squire Lewes and have him issue us a special license. Is tomorrow too soon?”

“For the wedding?” A faint blush mantled Lucy’s cheeks. “Considering our reason for marrying—the sooner, the better. First.” She laid a hand on his coat sleeve. “Can we make a private vow, truthfully, with only God as our witness?”

“What a clever idea.” Drake found himself smiling. “Like in business—a prior contract. What did you have in mind?”

Her hand slid slowly down his sleeve, and after a moment’s hesitation, clasped his hand. “I, Lucy Rushton, promise to raise my child, with you as his father. I vow to treat you with the respect due to a husband. I will never burden you with unwanted affection or be jealous of your interest in other women.”

That summed up the whole situation quite well. Drake cleared his throat. He liked the feel of her hand in his-too much so, perhaps. “I, Drake Strickland, promise to raise your child as my own and treat you with the respect due to a wife. I’ll never…”

“Burden,” Lucy prompted him.

“Oh, yes. Never burden you with unwanted affection or be jealous of your interest in other men.” For some reason, he had trouble saying that last sentence with conviction.

Lucy let go of his hand. “You needn’t have added that last part. I told you, I will never care for any man but Jeremy.”

“And I have no interest in any woman.” Though he stressed the words most emphatically, Drake could not forget the way she’d felt in his arms. “I believe that sets us even. Now, shall we go break the news to your father?”

Chapter Three

All things considered, her father had taken the news quite well, Lucy reflected as she sat before her dressing table preparing for bed the following night. Though the best of men and the kindest of fathers, Vicar Rushton had a vague, preoccupied air, that had deepened over the years since the death of his cheerful, practical wife. Lucy often had the feeling he was only half listening when she spoke to him.

When Lord Silverthorne…Drake, had formally asked for her hand, her father only shook his head and chuckled, “Well, well, well. Bless my soul!” Perhaps he thought they’d been courting for ages under his nose, but couldn’t bring himself to admit he hadn’t noticed. He raised no objection when Drake requested a hasty wedding, without benefit of banns, blithely agreeing to conduct the ceremony himself.

The ceremony. If their union lasted fifty years, Lucy knew she would always cringe at the thought of her wedding—brief, awkward and decidedly unfestive. As she spoke her vows to love and honor her husband, forsaking all others, her thoughts resonated with earlier promises to do nothing of the kind.

“Will you be needing anything else, your ladyship?” asked the serving girl who had just finished unpacking her trunk.

The silver hairbrush slipped from Lucy’s fingers, but made scarcely a sound as it landed on the thick pile of the carpet. Glancing around her bedchamber in alarm, she wondered if Lady Phyllipa had managed to enter without her noticing. Then she realized the girl was addressing her.

“Excuse me…Mary, is it? I’m afraid it will take me some time to become accustomed to my new title. As a matter of fact, plain ‘ma’am’ is good enough for everyday use.”

She retrieved her brush from the floor and checked it over for dents. Such luxuries would take some getting used to.

“Let’s see?” She surveyed the spacious, elegantly appointed room. The very style of it emphasized that she was far out of her social depth. “The fire’s been lit. You’ve turned down the bed and given it a pass with the warming pan. You’ve unpacked my clothes. I doubt I’ll require anything further tonight.” Back home at the vicarage, she’d have tended to those chores herself. Would she ever get used to ordering a houseful of servants?

The girl curtsied. “Very good ma’am. I hope you rest well your first night at Silverthorne.”

Feeling a blush begin to prickle in her cheeks, Lucy turned back to her dressing table. If young Mary was privy to the gossip buzzing around Nicholthwait about Lord Silverthorne’s hasty marriage, she probably doubted her mistress would get any sleep at all on her wedding night.

“Thank you. I’m sure I shall.” Lucy tried to sound more certain than she felt.

She heard the door of her bedchamber open, and Mary let out a squeal of surprise.

“Excuse me, your lordship,” the girl gasped. “I was just on my way out.”

Lucy jumped from the stool in front of her dressing table. Her hairbrush tumbled to the floor for the second time. She heard her bridegroom reply heartily, “How convenient, Mary. I was just on my way in. By the way, tell Talbot I said not to be stingy with the champagne below stairs tonight.”

Drake’s long lean frame filled the doorway as he stood there bidding Mary good-night. His dark hair clung to his head in damp curls, leading Lucy to guess he had bathed in the short interval since dinner. A pair of bare feet and firm bare calves showed below the hem of his lordship’s olive green dressing gown. Was he wearing anything beneath that dressing gown? Lucy wondered, her throat constricting.

They’d politely danced around the subject in their discussions, but she thought she’d made plain her reluctance to share his lordship’s bed. Unwanted affection, indeed. She had loved Jeremy in a way she could never love again. It would be like the worst kind of infidelity to give herself to another man with her beloved barely cold in his grave. But what if her new husband insisted? She hadn’t the strength to resist him physically. To call for help would mean the end of her marriage and the exposure of her secret.

In the few seconds it took for Lord Silverthorne to close the door behind him, Lucy’s pulse sped to double time. She took a step back. “Why are you here?”

He swept her a casual glance, a glint of amusement in his dark eyes. “Not to claim my marital rights, if that’s what you presume.” As though to prove his innocent intentions, he sauntered over to the velvet-upholstered chaise before the hearth. “I merely wish to convince our household that I am an attentive husband.” He lowered himself onto the chaise. “If our marriage is to serve its purpose, everyone must believe I sired your child. I took a rather circuitous route to get here. By my count, five of the servants saw me, as well as Lady Phyllipa—an unexpected bonus. With any luck, tales of my ardent regard for you will spread far and wide.”

“I see.” Lucy’s heartbeat slowed again. Something made her ask, “Was it necessary to arrive in quite this state of undress?”

She could see a wedge of his tanned chest, lightly matted with dark curly hair. How different Drake Strickland was from his brother. Jeremy had been of an elegant, compact build. With his fair complexion and blond hair, he’d made Lucy think of gold and ivory. Spare and rangy, with a fiercely masculine presence, Jeremy’s brother was a creature of bronze and sable.

Drake leaned back on the chaise with an air of polite indifference that enraged her. “Merely useful costuming in our charade of a marriage. I did not want anyone mistaking my intentions.” One dark brow cocked expressively. “Why all this virginal prudery, my dear? Surely it’s nothing you haven’t seen before.”

The cruelty of his words smote Lucy. Had Lord Silverthorne taken her to wive purely for the pleasure of humiliating her? A passionate rage overcame her. She fairly flew the distance between them, striking his cheek with her hand. “Never speak to me that way again, do you hear?”

She gasped with pain as Drake clutched her wrist. “Keep your voice down, woman, or the whole house will hear you. If you’re so afraid of seeing something improper, get into bed and draw the hangings.” None too gently, he pushed her toward the bed. “I will see myself out after a suitable interval.”

Part of Lucy could not believe she’d dared to strike Viscount Silverthorne, a man she had looked on with awe and more than a little fear for most of her life. Would anything cure her of such reckless impulsiveness? Another part was glad she had slapped him, would slap him again if need be. Insufferable creature!

“I will retire to bed when I am ready, sir. Not when you command.” She sat down on the stool and began pulling the bristles through her golden brown curls. Her hands trembled.

In the looking glass, she saw Drake shrug his wide shoulders. “I did not command. I merely suggested.”

Lucy could see the red mark on his cheek where she had slapped him. Coupled with her other contradictory emotions, she felt a sudden pang of shame. More disturbing still, she felt an inexplicable desire to anoint that tiny welt with a kiss.

“I’m sorry I slapped you.” She tossed the words carelessly over her shoulder.

He chuckled faintly. “This?” He pointed to his cheek. “I hardly felt it, I assure you.” Then his expression turned gravely earnest. “I apologize for my flippant observation. It was uncalled for.”

Lucy could not bring herself to utter false assurances of forgiveness. Deliberately, she laid the hairbrush on her dressing table, and rose from the stool. “I believe I will retire now. I have not slept well of late.”

Drake made no reply, but she could feel his eyes upon her. Suddenly, she was conscious of her swollen, tender breasts, pushing against the light fabric of her nightgown, and a warm tingling sensation below her womb. What other unsettling symptoms had pregnancy in store for her? Lucy scowled to mask her embarrassment.

Perhaps he marked her expression and thought it was directed at him. “I’m your ally, not your adversary,” he said quietly.

“I know.” Snuffing her candle, Lucy climbed into bed and drew the covers up to her chin. “It’s just that…” She hesitated, unable to put her feelings into benign, neutral words.

He appeared to understand. “…you can’t help thinking how different this night would be if you were Jeremy’s bride?” He had his back turned to her, hunched forward on the chaise. “Perhaps you even wish I were lying in the churchyard in his place?”

Lucy shut her eyes and forced her breath to a slow steady rhythm. If Drake looked to see why she hadn’t answered, he might believe she had fallen asleep. For several long minutes, she heard nothing but the soft crackle of the fire. Then he spoke again, his voice almost too low for her to hear.

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did. But the die is cast now. What we cannot change, we must endure.”

He sounded so bereft. It suddenly occurred to her that Drake had lost a beloved brother. At the same time, her pride smarted from his implication that their marriage was an ordeal he must endure. She hated these overwrought, contradictory feelings he constantly provoked in her.

Neville Strickland drained the last drop of port from his glass with a sigh of appreciation. When one had to abide a sojourn in the godforsaken wilds of Cumbria, one must needs take advantage of minor consolations. He fancied a drop more, but the decanter sat on a sideboard clear across the room. He could not work up the ambition to go after it. Perhaps a servant would happen by soon, to extinguish the dying fire. With a discreet belch, Neville slouched further in the thickly upholstered armchair and let his heavy eyelids slide shut.

He heard the door open, and footsteps enter the room. Presuming it must be a servant, he roused himself to order another drink. Then he heard the welcome clink of a heavy stopper being lifted from the mouth of the decanter. Say what you liked about old Drake—the man did have his servants well trained.

Neville coaxed one eye open in time to see Phyllipa emptying the last drop of port into a tall dipper.

“Greedy little pig,” he grunted.

With a muted shriek, she rose several inches off the floor, sending the port stopper crashing onto a silver salver. “Good Lord, Neville, you frightened me near to death! I thought you’d gone to bed.”

“Tsk, tsk, Phyllipa, do you know nothing of logic? There is port in the decanter—at least there was—ergo, I must be on hand to drink it. Besides, my bedroom is only two doors down from the bridal chamber. How would I get any sleep with the floorboards creaking under my cousin’s strenuous performance of his conjugal duties?”

Phyllipa shot him a withering look. “How crude you are, Neville. You must be drunk.”

“You sound exactly like Grandmama.” He pried his other eye open. “You make it sound as though people lie or talk nonsense when they’re drunk. In my experience, it is quite the contrary.”

“And we all know you have vast experience of being drunk.” Phyllipa took a long draft of her port.

“Do I detect a hint of malice? Nurture it, by all means. It might save your character from being thoroughly insipid.”

She responded in the most provocative way possible-by ignoring him. Pretending she hadn’t heard a word he’d said, Phyllipa seated herself opposite him and took another drink, smacking her lips with enjoyment. Such deliberate aggravation was not to be borne.

“Drowning your sorrows?” he sniped. “How long do you think before that toothsome little vicar’s daughter drops a dozen Silverthorne brats to supplant young Reggie?”

Phyllipa’s eyes bulged to a gratifying degree. If she’d been any closer, Neville was sure she’d have spit on him. “Damn you, Neville! You can sit back and laugh. You’ll never live long enough to see a ha’penny from Silverthorne. But darling Reggie…it is too bad!”

Having goaded her into such an outburst put Neville in a better humor. “There, there, old girl, I share a measure of your disappointment. True, I didn’t expect to outlive Drake with his monastic regimen, but I could have lived like a king on my expectations.”

The port in Phyllipa’s glass gleamed like liquid rubies in the flickering firelight She tipped it toward him in a mock toast. “Here’s to the death of expectations.”

“Don’t bury the corpse unless you’re certain it’s past revival,” quipped Neville.

The glass to her lips, Phylipa hesitated. “What drunken foolishness are you talking now?”

He’d managed to stop her from consuming the last of the port. Neville congratulated himself. “What if the bride is barren? She didn’t look robustly healthy to me. What if she miscarries? Stillbirth? Maybe she’ll bear him a daughter?”

“Even a fool like you wouldn’t pin your hopes on that.” Phyllipa gave him a sour look. “There hasn’t been a female born in the Silverthorne line since the Norman Conquest. Clarence reminded me of the fact every day while I was carrying Reggie.”

“Must you be so literal?” Neville smelled that last drop of port luring him from the bottom of her glass. “I’m only saying—a lot can go wrong.”

“Yes?” Phyllipa stared at him with intense expectancy.

“I’m sure if we put our heads together, we can shipwreck this ‘honest business arrangement’ of Drake’s before it produces any troublesome progeny.”

A hopeful smile spread across her long, pasty face. The port in Neville’s stomach sloshed around menacingly. Gad, the woman looked positively gruesome when she smiled.

“What must I do?” she asked eagerly.

Neville marshaled his wits for several moments of intense concentration. He hadn’t had an actual plan in mind, but surely he could devise one. After all, mischief was on his list of favorite pastimes, second only to drinking.

“You must stay on at Silverthorne and ingratiate yourself with the bride.”

Phyllipa’s thin upper lip curled in distaste.

“It won’t be so difficult,” said Neville. “You’ve been ingratiating yourself with somebody or other for as long as I’ve known you. And this is in a worthy cause. Sow seeds of discord between the newlyweds and get them to come down to London.”

“London? Whatever for? What is your part in all this?”

“Patience, my dear.” Neville beamed in admiration of his own genius. “While you are chipping away at the foundations of Drake’s marriage, like a good little sapper, I shall be mounting a marvelous ambush to topple it completely.”

“What sort of ambush?” Phyllipa sounded dubious.

Neville fumbled for his monocle, then screwed it up to his eye. He thought it gave his face a look of wisdom and mystery. “Never you mind. Suffice it to say, it will send our disaffected young bride bolting for the Continent like a hare with a greyhound on its tail.”

Phyllipa let out a high-pitched giggle that sent shivers down his spine. The port was obviously working on her. “Then if Drake wants to remarry, he’ll have to endure the public disgrace of a divorce. After that, no respectable woman will have him. Oh, Neville, you are too clever!”

He gave a wan smile in return. Her flirtatious glance made him distinctly nervous. He desperately needed another drink. “Shall we toast our alliance, then?”

“By all means.” Weaving over to Neville’s chair, she dribbled a generous splash of her remaining port into his glass.

“Here’s to the restoration of my expectations and Reggie’s inheritance.” Neville savored the rich body of the port on his tongue for a reverent moment before swallowing. Phyllipa settled on the floor beside him and rested her head against his knee. As he recalled a saying about necessity making strange bedfellows, Neville felt the wine in his stomach begin to curdle.

The fire in Lucy’s bedchamber had subsided into a handful of glowing embers. By the sound of her deep, even breathing, Drake judged her to be sound asleep at last. He had one final prop to plant in their little charade. With any luck it would fuel all the right sort of rumours, so no one would be suspicious when Lucy’s baby arrived “early.”

By rights he should have done it before she got into bed, but he hadn’t been anxious for her to strike him again. Drake reached up and touched his cheek gingerly. Contrary to his earlier protestations, it stung like the very devil. The little spitfire could muster considerable strength when roused.

Not that he could blame her, after his churlish remark. Drake had no idea what had compelled him to say such a thing, or why he hadn’t warned Lucy he would be coming here tonight. This whole marriage business had propelled him into territory he’d never expected or wanted to tread. Deliberately throwing her off balance helped him to regain some of his own equilibrium. Drake refused to consider that he might have provoked Lucy in the hope that he would feel her touch, however untender.

From his dressing gown pocket, he drew a small flask and uncorked it. Stealthily he approached the bed, reaching under the blankets to deposit the flask’s contents. Warm from the heat of his body, she would probably not even notice it. Until tomorrow morning, at which time he hoped she would play along with the ruse. Drake felt his hand brush her flesh.

Before he had an instant to savor the sensation, she sat bolt upright, throwing off the bedclothes and letting out a piercing scream. Dropping the flask, he managed to arrest her hand within inches of his face.

“Once a night is my limit for that kind of abuse, madam.”

“You deserve it for frightening me near to death. What are you doing? As if I need ask.”

Drake released her hand. He trembled with the effort to suppress his raging urges. He smelled her hair and the faint tantalizing musk of a woman’s body roused from sleep. For the first time in his life, Drake felt overwhelmed by powerful impulses beyond his control. It scared the hell out of him.

“Get it through your head, woman, that I am not racked with lust for the dubious pleasures of your body,” he lied, in what he desperately hoped was a convincing manner.

“Eeeuu! What have you got all over the sheets and my nightgown?”

“Keep your voice down,” Drake snapped. “It’s a few drops of pig’s blood. To convince the servants that I have relieved you of your virginity.”

“Oh. I hadn’t thought of that.”

Drake rescued the flask and shoved it back in his pocket. “I have learned to pay attention to details.” Retaining a tenuous grip on his self-control, he backed away from the bed. “The way you have splashed it about will likely cause talk of my enthusiastic performance.”

“You might have warned me and done the deed before I lapsed into a sound sleep.” Lucy pulled the bedclothes up around her.

“Let’s just say I was not eager to feel the sting of your wrath again so soon.” Drake prayed she would attribute the breathlessness of his voice to anger.

“Have you any other nasty surprises in store for me tonight, your lordship?”

“None.” Drake did not trust himself to say more.

“In that case, I’ll thank you to leave.”

“With pleasure.” He stalked from the room.

In the gallery he could hear the muted sounds of celebration rising from the butler’s pantry. At least someone was getting a bit of pleasure out of his benighted marriage.

Back in his dressing room, Drake found the bathtub still set up and full of water, long since gone cold. Perhaps eager to take part in the festivities below stairs, his valet had neglected to drain it. Letting his dressing gown fall around his ankles, Drake stepped into the narrow tub. As he sat down in the chilly water, he half expected a hissing cloud of steam to rise from his fevered body.

What in heaven’s name had he let himself in for?

Chapter Four

As the footman set breakfast before her, Lucy smiled wanly. In the weeks since her wedding, she had come to dread the morning meal. In the first place, her persistent nausea was always at its worst before noon.

She glanced down at her plate, mounded with food. Eggs, bacon, hotcakes, kippered herring, broiled veal kidneys in quantities fit to sustain a grown man at field labour. Lucy averted her eyes, before the sight made her vomit. What she would have given for a modest saucer of dry toast and a cup of weak tea! Somehow she could not bring herself to dictate special requests to Lord Silverthorne’s cook. His cousin kept the kitchen in a constant hop as it was.

“Not indisposed are you, my dear?” asked Lady Phyllipa as Lucy toyed with her breakfast.

“Not at all.” Lucy shoved a forkful of eggs beneath the veal kidney. “I fear my appetite is not equal to Mrs. Maberley’s generous portions.”

“Yes.” Phyllipa laughed. A high-pitched tinkling sound, like a spoon tapping wildly on a wineglass, it often sounded in danger of shattering, “Drake’s cook does consider it her mission in life to fatten everyone up.” She cast her cousin a teasing look. “I doubt she’ll ever succeed with him.”

Drake responded with a derisive grunt as he bolted mouthful after mouthful of his breakfast. Simply watching him made Lucy’s gorge rise.

Pushing her plate away, she tried to work up a smile. “You must find the food and the society here very dull after what you’ve been used to in London, Cousin Phyllipa.”

From the other end of the breakfast table, she marked the black frown Drake directed her way. No doubt he was angry with her for daring to insinuate that his cousins should leave Silverthorne. Well, too bad about him. If he had told her his marriage proposal included a honeymoon with Lady Phyllipa Strickland, she never would have accepted.

“I find nothing wanting in your society, Lucinda dear,” Phyllipa replied in her usual patronizing tone. Evidently, she had not recognized the broad hint. “Though I’ll own I have been pining for London of late. There are so many merry doings in the autumn, particularly if one is as well connected as Drake.”

Lord Silverthorne’s frown deepened into an outright scowl. Obviously, he could not abide -the notion of his boon companion, Lady Phyllipa, departing for the south.

More than once in the past weeks, Lucy had broached the subject. Phyllipa’s answer was always the same.

“I spoke to Drake about my returning home, but he would not hear of it. Protested that you could not spare me so soon. He is counting on me to help mold you into a proper viscountess, and I cannot let him down.after all the dear man has done for me since my poor Clarence died.”

A spark of resentment deep within Lucy began to smolder. She was heartily sick of constant sermons on aristocratic protocol and proper ladylike deportment. As interpreted by Lord Silverthorne and proclaimed by Lady Phyllipa, this consisted of doing a great deal of nothing. At least nothing enjoyable, stimulating or improving. Riding was for hoydens. Reading was for “blue stockings.” Tramping the countryside was entirely beyond the pale. Small wonder Jeremy had joined the army to escape his overbearing brother.

An awkward, expectant silence in the breakfast room recalled Lucy from her musings. Both Drake and Phyllipa were staring at her, waiting. She desperately tried to recall what Phyllipa had been talking about. Evidently she’d been asked a question, but she had no idea what.

“Don’t you agree, my dear?” Phyllipa prompted her.

If they expected her agreement, Lucy was sure it was something she would naturally oppose. Still, she must do her best to conform to their ways. For the sake of her child—the reason she had wed Drake in the first place.

“Of course. I do.” She made every effort to sound sincere, but sincere about what?

Lady Phyllipa spread her thin lips into a tight smile. “You see, Drake? Lucy is as anxious to get down to London as I am.”

Silently Lucy cursed herself. With Drake glowering at her, how could she retract her agreement and explain that she simply hadn’t been paying attention?

“What a welcome you would receive, my dear.” Phyllipa gushed. “Everyone would be avid to meet the new Lady Silverthorne.”

That, thought Lucy, was precisely her fear. She knew just what sort of welcome she would receive at the hands of the ton. Like some pitiful curiosity at the fairground—a dwarf donkey or a three-legged chicken. The vicar’s daughter masquerading as a viscountess. They would watch her like a flock of vultures, ready to rend her to pieces at the first misstep.

Abruptly, Drake rose from his place, hurling down his napkin. “We have been over this before.” He glared at Lucy, his tone icily formal. “I have pressing business matters to attend. I’ve recently bought a mining operation at High Head. The place has been losing money for years, and lately I’ve heard tell of dangerous conditions. I need to get to the bottom of the trouble and set things to—”

“I fear Neville is right about you, Drake.” Phyllipa looked surprised to hear herself agreeing with Neville about anything. “You are overburdened with a sense of ‘noblesse oblige.’ Do you mean to say this great hole in the ground is of more importance than your own wife?”

“Enough!” Though Phyllipa had been speaking, Drake addressed himself to Lucy, with cold loathing in his eyes. “I have business to attend, if you will excuse me. I may not be back in time for dinner this evening.”

Though she struggled to suppress them, tears welled in Lucy’s eyes. She had borne his grim censure for the past four weeks. Together with Phyllipa’s constant carping and her own unrelenting biliousness, she could bear it no longer. The sight of her distress did nothing to soften her austere, exacting husband. With a final look of glacial disdain, he strode from the breakfast room.

“My poor Lucinda.” Phyllipa caught her hand.

For an instant Lucy regretted her resentment of Drake’s cousin. Despite her nagging and condescending airs, at least Phyllipa tried to be sympathetic.

“Don’t worry your head about it. I’ll go talk to Drake.” She set off after him.

He had not gone far when Phyllipa caught up with him.

“Drake Strickland, how could you? We all know you married Lucy for one reason only, but must you flaunt the fact by paying her so little mind? Could you not see how crushed she was by your refusal to take her to London?”

Trying manfully to control his temper, Drake felt his back teeth grinding. The situation was intolerable. Other men had wives who nagged them. His wife enlisted an expert to nag him on her behalf.

“Lucy and I are staying at Silverthorne. If you are so anxious to get home, Phyllipa, by all means, go.” Drake reminded himself that by home, he meant his own town house in London. He had put the place at her disposal after the death of his cousin Clarence.

Phyllipa sighed. “Much as I would love to get back to London, I know my duty, Drake. Lucy is so very attached to me. She depends on me to steer her through these early days in her new position. I could not think of deserting the poor child.”

“My wife is not a child.” She was very much a woman, and Drake wished to heaven he could ignore the fact. “Sooner or later she must learn to manage on her own.”

Phyllipa blinked her eyes in a look of mild reproof. “Only yesterday I mentioned to her how I should like to get back to London before the snow flies. If you could have seen the tears in her eyes as she pleaded with me to stay another fortnight, you would not be so unsympathetic, Drake.”

Another fortnight in the company of Phyllipa and her odious little Reggie? Drake wondered how he would bear it. Mentally he added another item to his tally of grievances against his wife.

“Of course Lucy couldn’t object to my leaving if the two of you came along with us for a visit. That is why I broached the subject. Didn’t you hear how eagerly she greeted the idea? She has never been there, you know, but I can tell how she longs for it. She gets such a sweet wistful look when she talks about spending last winter with her aunt in Bath. Why, only the other day she said to me, ‘Phyllipa, do you suppose Drake is too ashamed to take me out in society?’’’

To cover his acute discomfort, Drake made a few derisive noises deep in his throat. Ashamed? What nonsense!

“It quite broke my heart to hear her,” continued Phyllipa. “I hastened to assure her that nothing could be further from the truth. However, when she learns of your latest answer on the subject, I fear she will take the news very hard.”

Drake suspected his cousin Clarence might have been glad to die and escape this woman’s fretting and badgering.

“Nonetheless, I have made my decision.”

Shaking her head dolorously as she started back for the breakfast room, Phyllipa cast him a reproachful look. Drake chose to ignore it. Beneath the frigid surface of his composure, resentment seethed. If Lucy had cause to complain of their marriage, why did she not speak to him directly, instead of setting her bosom companion, Phyllipa, to hound him?

He gained the entry hall with a mixture of relief and exasperation. Relieved to be making his escape for another day. Exasperated at how his wife and her crony had made him a fugitive from his own home.

“Begging your pardon, sir.”

Drake spun around to find the cook waiting on him, neat as a pin in her starched apron and cap, with every grey hair smoothed into place. A tiny scrap of a woman, somewhat plump from sampling her own good cooking, she’d been the only motherly influence in his life. Drake smiled in spite of himself.

“I am at your service, Mrs. Maberley. What can I do for you this morning?”

“Well, your lordship.” She addressed Drake’s knees, a purplish flush creeping up above her high collar. “I’d be most obliged if you’d start interviewing for a new cook.”

Drake didn’t think he’d heard right. “Surely you’re not giving notice, Mrs. Maberley.” The very idea! “Did I forget to mention how much I enjoyed your seedcake the other night?”

The cook shifted from one foot to another. “Very kind of you to say so, I’m sure, milord. I am giving notice, as soon as you can find a replacement.”

“I couldn’t possibly replace you, Mrs. Maberley. At best I’d get someone to prepare our meals. You have been the heart of Silverthorne for as long as I can recall. How often I used to steal down the back stairs, when I was a little fellow, to find a bit of seedcake or gingerbread for bedtime tuck.”

A nostalgic smile momentarily lit Mrs. Maberley’s motherly features. “You were such a spindly little shaver in them days, Master Drake. A body couldn’t help wanting to fatten you up. You still want filling out,” she added tartly.

“So you won’t desert me…I mean us.” He had a devil of a time over that collective pronoun, Drake mused. Try as he might, he could not think of himself as part of a couple.

Mrs. Maberley shook her head. “It’s been many a year since you were a lad scavenging for a bite at bedtime, Master Drake. And likely you thought me an old woman back then…”

If only Jeremy was here, Drake thought. His charming half brother had always known exactly what people wanted to hear. What’s more, he’d been able to deliver it with an air of candid charm that ensured he always got his way. Though a trenchant observation or a mordant jest slipped easily enough from his own tongue, Drake had never mastered the skill of putting his deepest feelings into words.

“Never,” he protested. “Well, perhaps a little…”

Mrs. Maberley nodded knowingly. “I am getting on in years. Thanks to the handsome wages you pay me, I’ve been able to save a little nest egg to retire on. You need some fresh blood around Silverthorne, to do everything up proper for your new missus.”

Suddenly Drake understood. “Has my wife been giving you any trouble, Mrs. Maberley? Is that why you want to leave?”

“Oh, no, your lordship, not at all. Her ladyship’s a lovely girl.”

“But…?” Drake prompted. He could sense it coming. What airs was the vicar’s daughter giving herself as mistress of Silverthorne?

The cook looked torn between a desire to avoid trouble and a need to voice long-stifled complaints. “It’s just that her ladyship isn’t partial to my cooking. Her plate always comes back to the kitchen hardly touched.”

Drake opened his mouth to explain Lucy’s lack of appetite. Then he shut it again. Was it too early for the symptoms of pregnancy to be appearing, if Lucy had conceived on their wedding night, as they wanted everyone to believe? If it had been a case of equine gestation, he would have known instantly.

“I promise I will speak to her ladyship, Mrs. Maberley. I doubt she meant any intentional insult. Do say you’ll stay on. If you feel the workload is becoming too much, I’ll engage you a battalion of scullery maids.”

“It’s not just her ladyship, milord. There’s Lady Phyllipa and Master Reginald. Always pestering me for special dishes and trays sent up to her room. Complains the boy won’t eat what I give him. Then I catch the young rascal stealing my fresh jam buns out of the pantry. I wouldn’t mind it if he et his supper like a good boy. He don’t need no fattening up, I can tell you.”

“They won’t be staying much longer, Mrs. Maberley,” Drake assured her. One way or the other, he’d have them out by the end of the week. If his wife couldn’t manage without her friend, she could go off to London with them and good riddance.

“I’m sure I don’t want to leave if I don’t have to.”

“And I…that is, we…don’t want you to go. So it’s all settled. If anyone gives you trouble, do as you like with them. Tell Lady Phyllipa to go whistle for her tray. Give Reggie a good smack if you catch him in the pantry. I’ll stand behind you completely.” Drake hoped his cook would mortally offend Phyllipa into leaving Silverthorne posthaste.

The pedestal clock in the entry hall chimed nine. Drake bowed to Mrs. Maberley. “If you will excuse me, I must be off now. Thank you for bringing these matters to my attention.”

Minutes later as he rode away from Silverthorne, Drake added yet another black mark against his wife to the rapidly growing list.

“That man!” Phyllipa chuckled as she reentered the breakfast room. “You mustn’t mind him, Lucinda. He’s been too long a bachelor—that’s his trouble. I can tell what you are thinking, my dear, but it simply isn’t true. Drake is not the least bit ashamed of you. You mustn’t on any account think that is why he refuses to take you to London. What matter your humble origins or your rustic manners? Your beauty and sweetness of temper more than compensate for those deficiencies.”

Ashamed of her? Lucy felt the blood drain from her face, leaving behind a frigid mask. For weeks now, she had tried to follow Lady Phyllipa’s advice and mold herself into the kind of wife a man in his position needed. For her baby’s sake, she owed Lord Silverthorne that much. Had he offered a word of encouragement? Recognized and applauded her efforts?

Hardly. The more strenuously she tried, the more quietly antagonistic he became. She had grown to detest his frosty politeness and his look of silent censure. Now to discover he was ashamed of her. If her husband had returned to the breakfast room at that moment, Lucy would have throttled him!

If she stayed a moment longer, she feared she might throttie Lady Phyllipa in her cousin’s place. “Please excuse me, Cousin Phyllipa.” Lucy pushed away from the table. “I feel the urgent need of fresh air. I believe 1 will take a walk.”

“Not to visit those common people in the village, I hope,” Phyllipa cautioned. “What would the viscount think of his wife consorting with those so far below her new station?”

Of all the strictures imposed by her position, this rankled Lucy the worst. She longed to stop by Mrs. Sowerby’s cottage for a talk or drop in for tea at the vicarage. Apart from Sunday matins, she’d scarcely seen her father since her marriage. She’d invited him to Silverthorne of course, but Phyllipa made them both feel so ill at ease. In recent weeks, he’d begun to turn down her invitations on various pretexts. Perhaps it was just as well, thought Lucy. Though she didn’t want her father to worry on her account, she was hardpressed to keep up the pretense that all was well in her new life.

“I don’t plan on going into Nicholthwait.” Lucy strained to keep her tone civil. “I only mean to stroll in the garden and sit under the great elm.”

Phyllipa squinted in the direction of the windows. “The weather does look unusually clement. Perhaps I shall join you in the garden this morning. Get a taste of this fresh air and see if I can fathom why you and Drake are so addicted to it…”

Lucy heard no more, for she was out the door before Lady Phyllipa finished speaking.

Returning to her bedchamber to fetch a shawl, Lucy deliberately took a roundabout route. In the main gallery of the east wing, she paused for a moment beneath a portrait of Jeremy Strickland, aged sixteen. Even then, his features had shown the promise of manly beauty. The artist had managed to capture that engaging light in his eyes. Lucy almost fancied he was looking out at her from the painting, knowing she was carrying his child, understanding how much she still loved him.

How hopeless her love had seemed when he was a poised and handsome young man of sixteen and she, a timid, graceless adolescent adoring him from a worshipful distance. She had lived for his school holidays, gazing raptly at him in church every Sunday morning, prowling the fringes of the estate praying for a glimpse of him. Year after year.

Then one day, long after she had stopped hoping for it, the miracle had happened. She had not even heard he was home. Hurrying back to the vicarage from picking wildflowers, she’d collided with Captain Strickland on a wooded path by the lake. He had called her by name, and for the first time, he had truly looked at her.

“There you are, ma’am.” The housemaid’s voice shattered Lucy’s bittersweet reverie. “Lady Phyllipa’s looking for you.”

Lucy touched a finger to her lips. “You haven’t seen hide nor hair of me, Mary. Is that clear?”

The girl raised her eyebrows knowingly. “Odd. Could’ve sworn I saw her ladyship. Must’ve been a shadow.” She glanced up at the portrait of Jeremy. “What an awful shame about poor Captain Strickland. We so miss his high spirits around here.”

Feeling her eyes begin to sting in an ominous fashion, Lucy turned away without another word. She now understood why Jeremy had chafed under the tyranny of his formidable brother. She must stand up to this unfeeling despot and she must do it now. Otherwise she and her child might never know a moment’s unfettered happiness.

Chapter Five

He had not been at High Head colliery for more than half an hour, when Drake scented something foul in the wind. And it was not the miners. Oh, they weren’t a promising lot by any means, shifty and evasive in answering his questions. Irritatingly servile, yet obviously mistrustful of his intentions as the new owner.

Only the mine’s overseer, an affable fellow named Janus Crook, appeared ready to be the least bit forthcoming.

“This here could be a real going concern, your lordship, if you don’t mind my saying so. That’s a good vein we’ve tapped.”

Drake cocked an eyebrow. “The previous owners assured me of that as well, Mr. Crook. However, through my inquiries I’ve discovered High Head has been steadily losing money for some years. How do you account for that?”

The overseer’s rather prominent ears turned scarlet. “Not my place to criticize my betters, your lordship, seeing as the previous owners was gentlemen like yourself.”

“Save your breath, man.” Drake did not try to hide his exasperation. He knew what the fellow was hinting at, for he’d seen it often enough in his other business ventures. Scions of indebted noble houses trying to raise some capital by dabbling in business ventures they knew nothing about. Arrogantly refusing to take the advice of smart young chaps like Janus Crook, whom they considered their social inferiors. Drake didn’t care a tinker’s damn for those pompous fools. What he regretted was the damage done to the local people.

“You’ll soon discover I run a much tighter ship, Mr. Crook. I won’t tolerate waste or corruption. I demand loyalty and an honest day’s work, but I believe in paying for it.”

Grinning with indulgent tolerance at his new employer, the overseer shook his head. “A noble goal, your lordship, but if you don’t mind my saying so, I think you’re wasting your concern on these louts.” He jerked his head toward the office window, and the miners milling about outside. “As shiftless and surly a lot as you’d ever want to meet. They stole the last owners blind. If you ask me, I’d say sack the lot and bring in a new crew.”

Drake could scarcely believe what he was hearing. “Where can these people go if we dismiss them?”

“Not your lookout, is it governor? Leeds. Sheffield. Who cares, eh? Long as they’re not being a drain on your operation.”

Drake drew himself up to his full impressive height. “Much as I appreciate your advice, Mr. Crook, that is not how I do business. My policy is to keep Westmoreland folk at home. Pay a man a fair wage, treat him with respect and he will be your ally in the quest for success. Another point on which I won’t compromise is safety. I’ve heard rumors of dangerous conditions at High Head.”

The overseer looked genuinely shocked. “Can’t think who’d be spreading malicious lies like that, your lordship. High Head colliery is as safe as any in Britain.”

No great boast, Drake mused. He’d heard of atrocities in the Welsh mines that made his hair stand on end. “If it’s all the same to you, Mr. Crook, I’ll judge that for myself.”

“As you wish, your lordship. Always at your service.”

To his surprise, Drake found little fault with the operation. Some of the equipment was not in top repair, but otherwise he was fairly well pleased at the end of his tour. The morose silence of the miners made him uneasy, though. They went about their work listlessly, almost tentatively, as though used to getting away with doing as little as possible. Perhaps Janus Crook was right about the people of High Head after all.

Late in the afternoon, following a brief inspection of the accounts, Drake took his leave, promising to return for a more thorough scrutiny later in the week. He rode back to Nicholthwait, preoccupied with plans for putting High Head on a more profitable footing. Remembering his intention not to return to Silverthorne for dinner, he stopped to eat at a small inn outside Eastmere.

As he ate, Drake contemplated his mistake in marrying Lucy Rushton. Alienating his servants, clinging to the detestable Phyllipa, angling for an excursion to London-she was no longer the sweet, unspoiled creature he’d once thought her. Perhaps she never had been. With a shudder of distaste, Drake ordered another tankard of ale.

What he resented most was the mysterious, potent power she exerted over him. Though he’d tried to shut her out during the past weeks, Lucy drew his eyes at every opportunity, intruded upon his private thoughts, and boldly invaded his dreams. How dare she hold his body and his emotions in such thrall, when she obviously held his most cherished ideals in contempt!

Darkness had fallen by the time Drake reached Nicholthwait. He rode silently through the village, aware of hearth light shining through chinks in the window shutters, hearing snippets of talk and laughter. Thinking of what awaited him back at Silverthorne manor, his hackles raised in a chill of aversion.

Absently drawing the brush through her unbound hair, Lucy sat by her bedroom window watching the well-lit drive for some sign of her husband’s return. After pondering her choices all day, she had finally come to a decision. She would take her trip to London, like a dose of castor oil—unpleasant, but necessary to purge Lady Phyllipa from Silverthorne.

Ever since dinner she had been nerving herself to broach the subject with Drake. The wait for his return from High Head was becoming intolerable. Just as Lucy was beginning to fear the brush had rubbed her scalp raw, she caught a glimpse of a tall erect figure riding up the drive. As Drake passed beneath her window, illuminated by the bright lamps of the main entry, she saw his mouth grimly set Somehow he looked weary, too. And sad. Perhaps a few weeks’ diversion in London would be just the tonic for him. An opportunity to forget about business and indulge in a little enjoyment for a change.

As she waited by her chamber door, held open a crack, listening for the sound of Drake’s brisk step, Lucy rehearsed her speech. Her nerves had worked themselves up to a tense pitch by the time she finally heard him approaching.

“Your lordship…” She swung the door wide to block his path, but affected mild surprise at seeing him. “I am pleased to see you home at last. I was hoping to have a word with you.”

He said nothing, but swept her with a scornful glance. Lucy wondered if she had neglected something in her evening toilette.

“Will you…that is…won’t you come in?”

She stepped back into the room and Drake followed her just past the threshold. He drew the door closed behind him, but not tightly enough to latch.

“Do I take it this is an official invitation into your bedchamber, madam?” he asked coolly. “To what do I owe this unexpected honor?”

His tone stung Lucy like gust of cold wind. Just once she wanted to put him on the defensive. “I thought it wise, your lordship. I fear your servants might grow suspicious of an infant bred from a single act.”

“I have your word that my brother got you with child on his first try.”

Lucy flinched as though he had struck her.

“Was there anything else you required of me, your ladyship?”

She grasped for one of her rehearsed speeches, but her mind was suddenly a blank. “London,” she blurted out. “It would do us both a power of good to make the journey to London.”

A spark of antagonism blazed in the depths of Drake’s dark eyes. “London again?” he growled. “I grow tired of hearing about your longing for London. I have urgent business that keeps me here. Let me hear no more talk of London.”

“So, it is true. You are too ashamed of your wife to introduce her in society.”

Drake’s lip curled in disdain. “You can quit this pity mongering, woman. I assure you my heart is quite impervious.”

His words and his manner fanned a month’s worth of smoldering resentment in Lucy. It flared into a blistering blaze. “If you have a heart, Drake Strickland, I do not doubt it is impervious to any tender emotion.” She trembled in an effort to contain the power of her rage. “I don’t care if you are ashamed of me. I am who I am, and I will not change—least of all for you.”

“When have I ever asked you to change?” In response to the heat of her anger, Drake became colder and more restrained. His voice sounded menacingly quiet, his words clipped and precise.

There he stood, as hard and uncaring as an effigy of cold black marble. It goaded Lucy beyond bearing that he should provoke her to such a pitch of turbulent rage, while remaining so aloof and impregnable himself. She longed to throw herself at him, pounding on his chest, battering him into some answering flicker of feeling.

“You needn’t condescend to ask.” Her voice sounded ragged and breathless. “You have others to issue your edicts. Besides, your lordship underestimates what he can convey with a haughty look. I know just what you would mold me into.”

“If you are so aware of my displeasure, I wonder that you made no effort to win my approval.” All that displeasure and more was etched plainly on his arrogant features.

“No effort!” Lucy fairly shrieked. “You have no idea of the effort I have made, without receiving the least sign of encouragement or appreciation from you.”

Drake’s black brows knit in a frown of cold vexation. He folded his arms across his chest. “If you think I mean to encourage your recent behavior, madam, you are mistaken.”

Years of ingrained propriety fell before Lucy’s consuming anger. “Then to hell with you! I don’t care twopence what you think of me.” She snapped her fingers beneath his nose.

His hand shot up, gripping her wrist in a hold that brought tears of pain and rage to her eyes. “Remember your promise, my dear,” he urged her in a grating whisper. “You vowed to treat me with the respect and honor due a husband.”

A thrill of victory blossomed momentarily in Lucy’s heart. As he crushed her arm in his forceful hold, she could feel the answering waves of wrath pulse through Drake. His nostrils flared as his breath came fast and shallow. He wanted to toss her over his knee and thrash her within an inch of her life, and she had the satisfaction of knowing it. She’d lured him out of the fastness of his granite citadel into open combat.

“For a time, I thought I might have been mistaken about your character, Viscount Silverthorne.” She willed her voice not to break. “Now I see I was right in the first place.”

Abruptly, he loosed her wrist, casting it from him as if it were some loathsome form of reptile life. “I thought I knew your true character, madam,” he replied stonily, retreating once again into his icy fortress. “Now I see I was entirely deceived.”

Beneath his scornful words, Lucy heard a note of genuine disillusionment. Why should she care for the opinion of this insufferable tyrant? Though Lucy insisted to herself that she cared not one whit, she knew in her heart that she did want Drake’s approval. What sort of life stretched before her if she did not have his regard at least? What sort of family life could she hope to make for her child? She turned away, determined not to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

“You drove Jeremy to his death trying to escape your domination.” She hurled the indictment over her shoulder. “I serve you notice here and now that I will not allow you to grind me or my child beneath your heel.”

She heard a sharp hiss of indrawn breath. Her missile must have found its mark. After a moment’s silence Drake spoke again, his tone betraying no sign that she’d inflicted a wound.

“Much as I would like to stay and continue this charming tete-à-tete,” he mocked her with biting sarcasm, “I have had a busy day. And I fully expect to have several more before the week is out. If you will excuse me, madam, I believe I will retire for the night.”

Not trusting herself to speak or to face him, Lucy waved her hand in what she hoped he would take for a gesture of indifferent dismissal. She held herself in expectant stillness waiting for the sound of his departure.

“Do give me some warning before you next invite me to your boudoir.” Drake casually leveled his parting shot. “I will take the precaution of wearing armor.”

Lucy heard her bedroom door close with quiet finality. Only when Drake’s footsteps had died away in the distance did she bolt for her bed. There she pummeled her innocent pillow into a tattered heap of cotton and feathers.

Chapter Six

It took Lucy several hours to calm herself sufficiently to get to sleep. Tossing and turning in her bed, she thought of all the scathing remarks she wished she’d hurled at Drake. Worst of all, she knew with galling certainty that he had marched off to his own bed for a peaceful, untroubled night.

She woke late the next morning, having scarcely slept at all. In a particularly rebellious mood, she dressed in a serviceable old gown she’d brought to Silverthorne from the vicarage. Phyllipa or no Phyllipa, she intended to pay some calls on her friends in Nicholthwait today.

Descending the stairs, she looked forward to a quiet breakfast without the company of her husband and his cousin.

She nodded to the butler. “Mr. Talbot? Since I’ve come late to breakfast, tell Mrs. Maberley not to bother with a full meal for me. Tea and bread will be quite sufficient.”

“Are you certain, ma’am? It would be no trouble.”

“Quite certain, Mr. Talbot. In fact you may tell Mrs. Maberley that from now on I will take tea and bread for my breakfast.”

As the butler set off for the kitchen, Lucy let out a long, shaky breath. There, that hadn’t been so difficult. Her stomach felt less upset already.

Slipping into the quiet breakfast room, she startled at the sight of Drake sitting at the head of the table. He acknowledged her with a cool nod. She replied in kind. For a wild instant, Lucy found herself wishing Phyllipa had been there to ease the tension with her prattle.

As she took her seat, she noticed the rise and fall of Drake’s fork picking up tempo. As rapidly as humanly possible, he consumed his breakfast. Evidently, he was as eager to get away from her as she was to see him go. With a flush of vindictive satisfaction, Lucy noted the dark shadows beneath his eyes. Perhaps he hadn’t slept as soundly as she’d assumed.

She was beginning to fidget and wonder how soon Talbot would bring her tea, when she heard the muted sounds of a commotion in the entry. Drake must have heard it, too, for he looked toward the door. At first Lucy could make nothing of the words, except their tone of anger and urgency. Then, quite clearly, she heard mine and cave-in. Dropping his cutlery in midbite, Drake rose from his chair and strode out of the room. Lucy followed.

In the entry hall stood Talbot, Silverthorne’s normally phlegmatic butler, engaged in a shouting match with a stranger—by far the dirtiest individual Lucy had ever seen. Spying Drake, he tried to shoulder his way past Talbot.

When Drake approached, the stranger lunged forward, clutching the lapels of his coat. “Cave-in at High Head, sir! A whole shift of men trapped!”

Drake responded immediately. Grabbing the stranger by the arm he propelled him out the door. Lucy presumed they were headed for the stables. As she stood there, momentarily stunned by the turn of events, Talbot brushed off his coat where the stranger had laid hands on it.

“Why did you not show the man in at once, Mr. Talbot?”

“As I informed the caller, ma’am—” he thrust back his shoulders and drew himself into a severely straight posture “—a few minutes either way wasn’t going to matter. His lordship slept poorly last night, and I felt he should be able to enjoy his breakfast in peace.”

“His lordship slept poorly?” Lucy savored the taste of those words. Innocently, she asked, “What was the trouble?”

“His lordship did not choose to confide that information.”

Hearing the clatter of hooves in the forecourt, she looked outside just in time to see Drake and the messenger riding off at full gallop. With a pang of shame, Lucy remembered the cave-in at High Head, the trapped miners and their families. She had no business gloating over a minor victory in her running battle with Drake when there might be something she could do to help.

Immediately an idea came to her. It would mean issuing orders to the Silverthorne servants—particularly the formidable Mr. Talbot and the cook, who wore a constant frown of disapproval. In the end she would likely receive a stern lecture from Drake as well, for breaking any number of edicts on the proper conduct of a viscountess.

Both considerations gave her pause. Life at Silverthorne had been intolerable enough for the past month. Did she need to make it worse? On the other hand, who else had the means and the authority to bring relief to the people of High Head?

Swallowing a lump in her throat and wiping moist palms on the skirt of her gown, Lucy gave her first true order as Mistress Silverthorne. “Mr. Talbot, kindly inform the hostlers I want a sturdy wagon and a good strong team. Have them harness up the little tilbury as well. In the meantime, I want the household staff to round up supplies for me.”

“Supplies, ma’am?” The butler looked bewildered.

“Lord Silverthorne has set off for High Head and I mean to follow. I’ll need blankets, cotton for bandages. Food, of course. I’ll speak to Mrs. Maberley about that. Well, Talbot, don’t just stand there. We have work to do.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The butler acknowledged her with a twitch of his head. Then he blew a shrill whistle that brought several young footmen scurrying.

For the next hour the elegant halls of Silverthorne echoed with footsteps proceeding far more quickly than their usual sedate pace. From her headquarters in the front entry hall, Lucy marshaled her supplies, diverted only briefly to don her gloves, her bonnet and a thick shawl. The wagon appeared without delay and was soon piled high with commandeered food and other supplies.

“One more thing, Mr. Talbot.” Lucy stood on the tips of her toes and whispered in his ear.

The butler’s face went white. “B-b-but your 1-1-ladyship,” he sputtered. “That’s the last of his lordship’s French stock. God knows when we shall see decent brandy again as long as Boney’s got a stranglehold on the Continent.”

Lucy put her hands on her hips. “I have every confidence in General Wellington, Mr. Talbot. Now, go and get me that brandy. I will take full responsibility for disposing of it.”

Talbot trudged away with the air of a man ordered to present his children for ritual sacrifice. Lucy turned her attention back to the wagon.

“What a fine idea,” she commended the two footmen who covered her load with a heavy sheet of canvas.

When she ordered the driver off the tilbury gig, the man gave her a puzzled look. “Who’s to drive you, ma’am?”

“I shall drive myself, of course.” Lucy tried her best to look confident—and taller. “I’m very good with horses.”

“I must protest, madam.” Mr. Talbot reappeared with a small wooden crate lovingly cradled in his arms. “That’s no journey for a lady to make by herself. I feel certain his lordship would not approve.”

Lucy felt equally certain, but she had no intention of letting that stop her. There were people in trouble who needed her help. For the first time in weeks, she felt strong, confident and alive. “As you see, Mr. Talbot, his lordship is not on hand to consult.”

The butler began to sputter again. Lucy relieved him of the crate of brandy, tucking it under the driver’s seat of the gig. “If it will put your mind at rest, Talbot, I do not intend to go all the way to High Head by myself.”

The butler’s craggy features betrayed visible relief.

“No indeed.” Lucy accepted a hand up into driver’s seat. “I’ll stay close to the supply wagon at all times. I also mean to stop at the vicarage and enlist my father to accompany me.”

“What is all this to-do? Where is Viscount Silverthorne? Will someone kindly tell me what is going on?” Phyllipa emerged from the entry hall. She stared at the supply wagon and Lucy’s gig, as though the whole scene were some kind of apparition.

Talbot briefly explained the situation.

“This is ridiculous! Lucinda, come down at once. Rest assured I would never have let you get this far if I had known what was going on. I was in the nursery with Reggie. The poor child has suffered a dreadful bilious attack.”

Undoubtedly brought on by eating too many stolen sweet buns, Lucy thought. She wished Phyllipa would be quiet for a minute so she could get a word in.

“I’ve finally got him settled,” Phyllipa continued with no foreseeable break, “only to discover that in my absence Silverthorne has been turned upside down and the lady of the house is preparing to drive off to some dreadful mine. Really, Lucinda, you must remember your new station. It is out of the question for a viscountess to undertake such a madcap escapade. Whatever will his lordship say when he finds out?”

She finally paused for breath.

“He can say what he likes,” replied Lucy. “I’m going and that’s all there is to it. As you are so fond of reminding me, Phyllipa, I am Lady Silverthorne, now. Short of throwing ing yourself in front of my horse, there isn’t much you can do to stop me.”

With that, Lucy twitched the reins against the rump of the bay gelding, who set off smartly. Unfortunately, Lady Phyllipa did not accept the invitation to hurl herself into its path.

It was well into the afternoon by the time Lucy and her father reached High Head. The wind felt chillier at this altitude than down in the valley around Mayeswater. It had blown in a bank of fat, dark-bottomed clouds that were beginning to spit heavy drops of rain.

A crowd had collected some distance from the mouth of the mine—a shaft cut horizontally into the side of a steep hill, now choked with fallen earth and rock. Lucy could see boys running back and forth with barrows and handcarts, tipping what debris the digging crews had unearthed. The rescuers must have made a good start, for they had managed to tunnel their way out of sight.

“Excuse me,” Lucy called to a man on the fringe of the crowd. It was obvious why he had not joined in the rescue effort, for one of his shirt sleeves hung empty below the elbow. “I have food and supplies. Is there anywhere I can set up to get these people out of the rain?”

“Aye, miss. There’s the overseer’s office. Though I don’t imagine he’d care for folks crowding in there.”

“Where is he? I shall ask him myself.”

An old man in the crowd cackled, “We ain’t seen aught of Mr. Crook since last night. Skinned out for parts unknown if you ask me. Didn’t want the new owner breathing down his neck. Still, you’d best not take over his office without permission, lass.”

“The lass is Lady Silverthorne,” barked the driver of the supply wagon. “Her husband owns this mine.”

The old man exchanged a glance with the one-armed fellow. He shrugged. “If you’re t’new owner’s wife, lass, I reckon you can go wherever you please. Can we show you the way and give you a hand getting set up?”

“By all means. Thank you.” Lucy uttered a silent prayer that she would not find Drake in possession of the overseer’s office. He would surely pack her off back to Silverthorne before she had a chance to climb down from the gig.

In fact, the building was eerily empty. Lucy could see her breath in the still, cold air. The five-room dwelling, which evidently served as both office headquarters and residence for the overseer, had certainly been vacant all day.

“Let’s get some fires going.” Lucy issued her first order. “This being a colliery, we’ll have no shortage of fuel.”

Her two drafted helpers looked at each other for a moment, then turned on Lucy with eager smiles. “Right, ma’am. Fires. Unload the wagon. See to the horses.”

“A commendable set of priorities, gentlemen. I will be along to help you in few minutes.” Lucy turned to her father. “I need you to go out to the crowd and bring back anyone who has relatives trapped in the mine. It will be a while before I can do much for them, but you can be of help immediately. Besides, filling this building with bodies might help to warm it up.”

“What’s that you say, my dear? Oh, the people outside.” Vicar Rushton looked altogether confounded by the flood tide of events that had overtaken him. “We must get them out of the weather, by all means.” At the door he hesitated, looking back at Lucy. “Do you think I’ll be able to make myself heard over that wind?”

Lucy dropped a fond kiss on her father’s cheek. His fluffy white side-whiskers tickled her nose. “Use your lectionary delivery.”

“Of course.” The vicar’s ruddy countenance blossomed with a confident smile. “Reading from the gospel according to Saint John.” he declared in tones of clerical resonance.

“That’s the way.” Lucy patted his shoulder. “Now go round them up. If they’re nervous about coming, tell them it’s all been approved by the new owner.”

“Has it, indeed?” The Reverend Rushton gave Lucy a shrewd questioning look. Perhaps he understood more of what was going on around him than he cared to let on.

Lucy held her head high. “Once his lordship hears what we are doing, I believe he will endorse the idea.” Everything but her own part in it, she silently reminded herself.

The vicar nodded. His long fringe of white hair danced wildly around his red face. “I expect you’re right. I’ve known few men with so genuine a concern for the working people.”

Lucy scarcely looked up from her work for the next several hours. When she finally had a moment to do so, she glanced around the room with a flush of pride and satisfaction. Kettles of coffee, tea and soup steamed away on the hob of every hearth. Relatives of the trapped miners sat huddled in small groups, talking amongst themselves in tones of quiet encouragement. A short time ago she had dispatched baskets of cake and sandwiches to the rescue crew, along with three bottles of Drake’s French brandy. Lucy hoped the men she had sent with those provisions would return soon with heartening news of the rescue effort.

As she wended her way through the crowded rooms of the building with a fresh tray of sandwiches, Lucy noticed one young woman sitting off by herself. Her thin fingers clenched around a mug, the woman stared listlessly out the window. Even her high-waisted dress did not conceal her bulging belly. Lucy’s heart immediately went out to her.

Sinking down onto a stool beside the woman, she held out her tray. “Would you care for a sandwich? They aren’t very dainty I’m afraid, but they’re good and nourishing. You’ll need to keep your strength up.”

The woman set her cup down on the wide window ledge beside her. She took a sandwich from the plate and nibbled at one corner of it.

“I’m Mrs. Strickland. The vicar who brought you in here is my father. I hope we won’t have to wait much longer for good news of your husband.”

The woman gave Lucy a queer look. “My name is Alice Leadbitter, ma’am. And it ain’t my husband who’s down the mine. In fact, he’s helping them dig. Only wish I could. It’s so hard to wait and not be able to do anything. My boy’s down in that mine, Mrs. Strickland. Poor little mite. He’ll be that scared.” Her lower lip began to quiver, and Lucy could see Alice Leadbitter’s eyes misting with tears.

“Your son? Mrs. Leadbitter, you can’t be any older than I am. How could you have a son working in a coal mine?”

“I’m twenty-four. My Geordie is eight years old. He only started working last month.”

A boy of eight employed at such dangerous, backbreaking work. Lucy could hardly believe her ears. She’d heard tales of child labor in the big industrial cities to the south, but here in the Penines? Drake would soon put a stop to that practice. But where was Drake? She’d seen him ride out for High Head at a furious speed. All afternoon she’d kept glancing over her shoulder, expecting him to blaze down on her with a stern lecture about her conduct.

“I didn’t want him to go.” Mrs. Leadbitter wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “I told John the lad was too young to be working. John said he’d started working on his pa’s farm when he was a good bit younger than our Geordie. We needed the money, with another mouth to feed soon.

“So there was nothing for it but to put Geordie to work. Then this happened. How long will their air last? What if the gas builds up and explodes? I’ll never forgive myself if…if…”

Lucy reached for the woman’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

“Beg your pardon, ma’am.”

Lucy glanced up to see Anthony Brown returned from delivering food to the rescuers. “The fellows up to the mine shaft nearly tore me to pieces getting at that grub. They said could you send more?”

“That we shall, Anthony. But first, what is the news? Mrs. Leadbitter’s boy is in the mine, so she’s naturally anxious to know how soon he’ll be out.”

The man flashed Alice Leadbitter an apologetic glance. “Fraid I wouldn’t know that, ma’am. Don’t know as the chaps doing the digging have any notion how soon they’ll break through. They’ve shifted a pile of earth and rock, though, I can tell you. There’s one fellow there—a stranger. Big tall man, digging for all he’s worth.”

“My husband,” Lucy cried, barely aware of the pride in her voice.

“Oh, that explains it,” said Anthony. “I offered him a drink from one of them bottles. Well sir, he takes a swig and then he says, ‘Best use this brandy’s ever been put to.’ Another swig and a sandwich and he was right back to shoveling again.”

Lucy nodded. “Go ask the women over at that table to refill your basket, Anthony. I’ll be with you directly.” She turned to Mrs. Leadbitter. “You heard what Anthony said. My husband is personally leading the dig. He’s a very determined man, Mrs. Leadbitter. He’ll get your Geordie out safe and sound.”

Alice Leadbitter’s reply was drowned out by a low, rumbling sound in the distance.

Someone cried, “There’s been another rock slide!”

A furor erupted in the overseer’s office as anxious women rushed to the windows. Lucy sat rooted to her chair. Drake was out there now, burrowing toward the trapped miners. What if he was now entombed, himself? Or crushed by a falling boulder? With a start Lucy came to herself again. She and Mrs. Leadbitter were holding each other’s hands so tightly, their knuckles had gone white.

Chapter Seven

The first of the injured rescue crew arrived at Lucy’s makeshift aid station within minutes. She pushed down her paralyzing fear for Drake’s safety by concentrating on her duties.

“Bring him this way. Put him on the bed. Shift that settee into this room as well. Has anyone seen my basket of bandages?”

Peering closely at her first patient, Lucy recognized him as the stranger who had appeared at Silverthorne that morning. Had it been this very day? Lucy felt as though she’d been at High Head for a week at least. The man’s leg was distended at a painful-looking angle below the knee. Fortunately the fractured bone had not pierced the flesh of his leg.

Lucy glanced around, hoping to spy the doctor she had sent for. She did not feel confident to set a broken bone. The man’s other injury, a gash on the forehead, she immediately tended with a clean cloth and hot water.

“Will he be all right, Mrs. Strickland?”

Lucy looked into the anxious face of Mrs. Leadbitter, who now held the man’s hand as tightly as she’d recently held Lucy’s.

“It could have been much worse, Alice. Once the doctor gets here, he can set your husband’s leg.” Lucy handed over her cloth and water basin. “Since you’re here, I’ll leave you to wash and bandage his forehead while I see to the others.”

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