"The evening is going well," David said. "You must be pleased, Lady Rachel. And very happy, I would guess."

"I always enjoy parties," Rachel said gaily. "They are my reason for living, I declare."

"Are they?" he asked gently. "You certainly shine in such a setting."

Silence fell between them. Rachel was feeling very conscious of her two acquaintances still standing there, not themselves talking. They would hear almost every word she exchanged with David if they continued to walk up and down. She drew to a halt as they reached the end of the balcony and leaned her arms along the balustrade. She looked out into the darkness and breathed in the smell of summer flowers.

"Have you settled in at the vicarage?" she asked as her companion stopped beside her. "Do you find that you have enough to occupy your time?"

He laughed softly. "The vicarage is a comfortable home," he said, "and I have Mrs. Saunders to fuss over me like a mother hen. And I find that there are not enough hours in the day to accomplish all I wish to do."

She looked up at him with raised eyebrows and then turned hastily away again. "What do you find to do?" she asked. "Both Algie and Papa have expressed surprise that you have not come visiting each day."

"I have been trying to become personally acquainted with each of my parishioners," he said. "I believe that I am succeeding, though it is a time-consuming task. Most old people especially love to talk, and the children too love to prattle and tell all their innermost secrets. Once one has penetrated their natural reserve, that is. Even the working men and women become surprisingly talkative once they know that one has not come merely for cakes and ale and social chatter or moralizing."

Rachel frowned into the darkness. "I would not have expected you to make all that effort," she said. "Vicar Ferney did not do it. I thought a vicar's duties consisted of sick-visiting, saying matins and evensong, and writing Sunday sermons."

"I am afraid I demand a great deal more of myself," he said with a laugh. "Being vicar here is not a job to me, you know, though of course I must work in order to earn my living. It is a way of life. My very life itself."

Rachel looked at him, forgetting for the moment both her distrust of the man and her embarrassment. "You mean you enjoy spending your time with the lower classes?" she asked. "It is most unusual to do so. You have been brought up to a different social class entirely."

His eyes were smiling. She must not look at his eyes, she told herself. She dropped her gaze to his mouth, curved at the corners. "I am a servant," he said. "And I can do no better than my Master. I remember explaining to you once before that Jesus spent by far the greater part of His time with the poor."

"That was different," Rachel said. "He grew up as one of them."

"That is true," he said. "But it makes no real difference. I have been happy during the past week, you see."

"Have you?" Rachel forgot her resolve and looked up into his eyes again. "And you are not happy here tonight, are you? And you were not comfortable in London."

"When I was younger," he said, "I was bitter in the knowledge that I would have to go out and earn my own way in the world. I thought I would be happy if I only had the money to give me an independence. I thought my restlessness was due to my unfortunate circumstances. And then I found that that was not true at all. My restlessness was due to the fact that I had found no meaning or useful purpose to my life. But I am one of the most fortunate of men. I have found both at a relatively early age."

"I have not," Rachel said, her eyes looking troubled as they gazed into his. She looked abruptly away again. "I should say I had not. I believe I am going to marry Algie soon, and then I shall have a reason for living. He will keep me safe."

David hesitated. "Algie is a good man," he said. "He will make you a kind husband."

"I know that!" Rachel turned on him, suddenly fierce. "I know he is a good man. Do you mean that I am not worthy of him? I know that too."

David winced as if she had slapped him. "I did not mean that at all," he said. "I… I wish for your happiness. I cannot forget what happened between us little more than a week ago, and my mind is weighted down by guilt."

"It need not be!" Rachel said tartly. "It was nonsense, sir. I have forgotten it already."

"No," he said quietly, "I think you have not. I hope you have not because forgetfulness of such an incident would denote a careless heart and an undeveloped conscience. But I hope you can forgive both yourself and me. What is most on my conscience is the fact that I lied to you. Yet we all have the right to know the truth in matters that concern us. I told you that when I embraced you I had been merely wanting…" He drew a somewhat unsteady breath. "I said that it had been a purely physical thing. It was not. It was more than that."

"What do you mean by 'more than that'?" Rachel's eyes were huge as she stared up at him.

"You are a beautiful and a vibrant woman," he said carefully, "and you add to both qualities an awareness of the mystery of life and a yearning to do more than merely exist. It is difficult not to be attracted to your character. And I would not wish to deny that attraction. Unfortunately, the circumstances under which we met that night invited a physical response, which was quite inappropriate to what I felt. Forgive me, please, and forgive yourself for what I am sure you must be seeing as indecorous and quite impulsive behavior. I am not at all the man you should be feeling any attraction for."

"I want to hate you," she whispered. "It is safer to hate you."

"No." His eyes smiled back into hers. "You do not hate me, I think. You are afraid merely, as I am, because we like and respect each other and because we understand each other. We both demand a great deal of life and of ourselves. We both demand meaning. But it is never good to hide from ourselves or to lie to ourselves, Rachel. Safe, perhaps, but not good. We have to risk loving. You and I are afraid to love each other because we might end up loving in the wrong way. But you love Algie, I believe, in the way a wife should love her husband. And I hope that soon I will have a wife whom I can love in the same way. You and I must not hate each other. We must love, and have faith that ours will be the love of deep friendship."

"David…" she whispered, and she closed her eyes and lowered her head. "David, I cannot take the risk. I cannot. It is far too late already."

"No, it is not," he said, laying a hand lightly over hers where it rested on the balustrade. "I have seen you and Algie together, Rachel. I have seen you tonight, sparkling when he is in your sight. You could not feign that response. You must trust your feelings for him. I am a latecomer, someone who came across you on two occasions when you were alone and relaxed and dreaming. I am only a part of your daydreams. In reality I am a dull, impoverished clergyman, my dear, who has pledged his life and all his energies to the poor. I am not the sort of man who could aspire to the hand of Lady Rachel Palmer."

Rachel said nothing. She kept her eyes tightly closed and her head lowered. His hand burned through the flesh of hers. He lifted his hand after a while and put it beneath her chin to lift her face.

"Oh, don't cry," he said, his voice suddenly distressed. "Don't cry, Rachel." He brushed at a tear with his thumb. "I cannot even take you into my arms to comfort you. We are in an appallingly public place. Rachel. Please."

Rachel swallowed, every nerve in her body tensed to try to control the humiliation of her tears. She wanted to cast herself into his arms and bury her face against his chest and howl out her misery. But there were light, noise, and music coming from the open French doors a few feet away. Someone might step through them at any moment. Her mind vaguely registered the fact that Mr. Robertson and Clara had left the balcony.

"I can't bear to see you cry," David said. "You were made for happiness and laughter. Don't cry." He had taken a linen handkerchief from his pocket and was dabbing gently at her cheeks.

Rachel laughed shakily. "What a goose I am," she said, taking the handkerchief from him and blotting her face resolutely. "You should have stayed away from me tonight, David, and let me continue avoiding you. I was quite happy doing so, you know. I don't like taking risks. And that was the theme of your sermon last Sunday, was it not? We have to risk giving of ourselves, you said. It is not enough to give alms or to give help or to give of our time and talents. We have to give ourselves. I don't think I can do it. I have to keep some of me for myself. Your idea is terrifying. But, there. Perhaps it is as well we have spoken this evening. It is embarrassing to avoid someone one has to meet frequently, is it not? We will not have to avoid each other now, will we? We will be friends?"

"Friends," he agreed. "And I am amazed that you heard any of my sermon. You did not raise your eyes from your psalter all through the service, I swear. Give me the handkerchief. Yes, I know it is wet, but I have a pocket, you see, and you do not. Now, let us talk about trivialities for a few minutes so that your eyes can recover before we have to return to the ballroom. What are you planning to do with your guests for the remainder of their stay?"

"Oh, I have lots of plans," Rachel said, depositing the crumpled handkerchief in his hand. "Picnics, walks, rides. No one will be bored, I can assure you. I shall be so busy enjoying myself that I shall not have a single spare moment in which to think."

David smiled. "I feel exhausted just looking at the energy in your face," he said, and they both laughed.


***

Only a few of the gentlemen were up when Rachel left the house the following morning. She had left them in the breakfast room without telling them that she was going out. She did not want company. Later perhaps, but not during the morning.

She should be still in bed like all the other ladies. She had not gone to bed until nearly dawn. But she had never been able to sleep until noon and waste the best part of the day. She had always loved the morning, she supposed because it was the least structured part of the day. Or at least it had been since she had left the schoolroom. There was very often an obligation to do something in the afternoon and evening, but one was usually free to do what one wished to do during the morning.

And Rachel had decided that it was time for her life to return to normal. Or as near normal as it was possible for it to be with a houseful of guests waiting to be entertained for the next couple of weeks. She had looked forward for so long, it seemed, to going to London and being presented at court and meeting other members of the ton that it was difficult now to adjust her mind to the fact that she had been there and done those things. And she was back home again, the same person she had been before.

Except that she was not the same person. She had met a large number of people, had been successful in her come-out, had been offered for by one of the most eligible bachelors in the country. She had come home still excited and intent on filling her days with social activity. She had jumped at the chance to have house-guests when Mama and Papa had suggested it to her. She was still feeling the restlessness that had driven her when she was in town. If she was less than happy, she had told herself all through the Season, it must be because she was not active enough. She must be happy. This was what life for a young lady of the ton was all about. Her life up until then had been childhood. Now she was a woman and must behave as a woman behaves.

Her conversation with David Gower the evening before, however, had changed her outlook somewhat. He was undoubtedly not a child. He was beginning his adult work, his life's work as he had described it, and he seemed to be a person who knew very well what he wanted of life. She had seen right from the start that he was a happy man. And he was happy working with the poor. In fact, he was happier with them than he was with people of his own class. He was not comfortable at ton events. She had seen that in London.

He did not think it necessary, then, to mix exclusively with his own class, to put behind him lesser activities that he enjoyed. In fact, he seemed to think it right to do as he did. If it was right for him, then why not for her? Why should she feel that it was no longer acceptable to spend time alone enjoying nature and her own thoughts? And why should she feel that it was immature to want to be with her friends? Her friends included Algie and several other members of the gentry in the neighborhood, as well as several of their houseguests. But they also included many of her father's tenants of all ages.