"The Reverend David Gower, it would seem," Algernon said.

Celia stared. "She is my closest friend," she said eventually. "How is it that I have not noticed?"

"I think perhaps because she has been trying to hide the fact even from herself," Algernon said. "I was taken totally by surprise too, and usually I know what is going on in Rache's mind. We are close friends."

"Are they to marry?" Celia asked.

"When I asked the same question, she told me merely that David will be leaving here soon after all the guests have gone," Algernon said. "I take it there is to be no marriage."

"No, they would not suit," Celia said. Then Algernon watched as a frown drew her brows together. She stared down at her hands, not speaking for a long while. "What a foolish thing to say," she continued. "Of course. But of course. He is what has been missing from Rachel's life for as long as I have known her. Rachel has always needed a cause, you know. Yes, Mr. Gower is just the sort of man to whom she would attach herself. With great devotion. And for life. But they are not to marry?"

Algernon shook his head, though he did not know if she could see the gesture, as he was sitting totally in shadow, his back to the door. She looked at him for a while and then simultaneously with a flash of lightning her head jerked downward. There was not enough light for him to see if she had changed color.

"Did you just recall the rest of what I said?" he asked.

She did not answer. But she did not ask him to explain his meaning.

"I love Rache," Algernon said quietly, "and had she not spoken tonight, I would perhaps have felt honor-bound to contract a betrothal with her soon. If that had happened, I would have devoted most of the energies of my life to seeing her happy and protected. But I would always have known that I had wished to pursue the acquaintance of the woman with whom I might have been happy for the rest of my life."

Celia looked up, an agony of embarrassment in her face. "My lord?" she said.

"Algernon."

"Algernon." She lost her courage suddenly, looked down, and jerked to her feet. "I must return to the ballroom," she said. "It will not look good if I am missed."

Algernon too got to his feet. "It seems almost in bad taste, does it not," he said, "to pay my addresses to a lady a mere few hours after another has released me from a sort of promise? But you are to leave the day after tomorrow, Celia, and who knows if there will be any opportunity tomorrow to have a private word with you? I must speak now."

"No." Celia looked at him again, her eyes not quite steady on his face. "It is just that you are naturally disappointed over Rachel. And you must know that I like you and admire you, my lord. That is all it is."

"Algernon," he corrected. "And that is not all it is, Celia. You have such a poor opinion of yourself, do you not? You cannot imagine that a man could love you and want you for his wife?"

"Not you," she said. "Oh, not you, my 1...Algernon. You are so very… handsome. You… Oh, no, you could not possibly love me."

"But I do," he said. Her hands were like two blocks of ice when he took them in his own. "I have known for some time that you are the lady I would want for my wife if I were entirely free to choose. You are quiet and gentle and sensible, Celia. And quite lovely. I find you lovely. I want you, in every way it is possible to want a woman. And now I am quite free to tell you so. Will you have me, my dear?"

"Oh," she said, and her hands moved convulsively against his, "I shall wake up in a moment and find that this is all a dream. And I shall laugh at my own foolishness."

"Shall I pinch you?" he asked, smiling down gently at her. "I love you, Celia, and I want you to be my wife. My baroness. Lady Rivers. I want you as my companion, my confidante, my lover. Will you?"

"Oh," she said again. It sounded more like a wail than an exclamation. "I have loved you so very much. I have been so envious of Rachel. I never dreamed that you could feel the same way about me. You love me? You really love me?"

Algernon clucked his tongue with mock exasperation and jerked on her hands suddenly. "I must kiss you," he said. "Ever since I kissed you in the rose garden I have been obsessed by the need to do so again. And to hold you close to me, Celia. Ah, yes, I knew you would feel like this. So slender and so beautiful. Will you let me kiss you?"

"Algernon." She whispered his name and looked up at him in wonder. She made no attempt to push away from him. Her breasts pressed against his satin evening coat, her thighs against his.

He kissed her lips tentatively and raised his head again to look down at her. "How could I not have known I loved you the first moment I saw you?" he said in wonder.

But he did not wait for her answer. He was too busy kissing her hungrily, his heart singing with the almost instant realization that he had been right about her inner passion. She was molten beneath the pressure of his hands, arched into his body, taut with the desire to be taken closer. There was nothing of the shrinking, timid virgin in her response to him. He opened his mouth over hers, nibbling at her lips with his teeth, ready to resume a more chaste kiss if she took alarm. But she moaned, wrapped her arms around his neck, and parted her lips beneath his. Algernon relaxed his control and responded to her surrender. Only the almost subconscious knowledge that the library door was wide open behind him kept the embrace from progressing completely beyond the bounds of propriety.

"There," he said against her hair a few minutes later. It smelled clean and fragrant. "Now you will have to marry me, Celia. Your honor has been quite hopelessly compromised. And would be much more so if only I had had the good sense to close the door when we came in here. God, how I want you."

"Algernon." She buried her face against the high starched collar of his shirt. "I am the most fortunate of women. I will always try to make you happy."

"There will be nothing easier, my love," he said. "You will not even have to try. But tell me: how are you planning to make me happy-as my wife? Is it too much to hope?"

"Oh." She jerked back her head and looked up at him. "I have not answered you, have I? The answer seems so obvious to me that it hardly needs to be stated. Yes, Algernon, of course I will marry you. Oh, of course I will. And what a wonderful dream this is. Usually one awakens just before the really good part."

Algernon chuckled. "I am afraid it is time to wake up for now," he said, "much as I regret having to do so. I seem to recall signing Miss Higgins' card for a set sometime after supper. And I have only just realized that the storm is still raging. What an unusually long time it is lasting."

"I had not noticed either," Celia said. "How safe I feel here with you, Algernon."

He hugged her to him once more. "Shall we keep our secret for a while?" he suggested. "Perhaps it would even be a good idea for you to return home as planned in two days' time. I shall follow after you within a few days so that I may talk with your father, as is only proper. Will he approve of me, do you think?"

"Oh, yes," she said. "Papa will love you." She giggled suddenly. "He will approve, anyway."

"I am going to work on making you laugh more often, Celia," Algernon said, lifting her hand and placing it formally on his sleeve before leading her back into the main hall. "You are quite hopelessly adorable when you do so. Not that I have an easy time resisting you even when you are as serious as a judge, mind you."


***

The wind was howling outside the cottage. Lightning was flashing and thunder crashing almost incessantly. At any moment the rain was going to lash down. Mr. Perkins and the children had come in from outside and had disappeared into the inner room, where the youngest children had been sleeping for some time. Mr. Perkins had hovered in the main room, it was true, looking down at his wife in acute distress, but when she tensed again against pain, he turned and almost staggered into the room with his mother and children. Only the two older daughters remained with David to tend their mother as best they could.

David was scarcely aware of any of these happenings. His starched collar had been shed long ago. The top button of his shirt was undone. His damp hair had been pushed back from his forehead so many times that it was thoroughly disheveled. His shirt and knee breeches, so carefully tended for the past few years so that they might last, were creased and stained.

He was sponging off Mrs. Perkins' hot face yet again with gentle hands. He was smiling down into her tired eyes.

"It should not be long now, should it?" he said. "Your mother-in-law has said that it is usually not long after the water has broken."

Thank goodness for that quavering and constant voice from the inner room, David thought. Without its direction he would not have even known about the breaking of the water before birth. He certainly would not have prepared for it by settling layers of rags over the mattress.

"It has never been this long, Reverend," Mrs. Perkins said. "I am sorry. I don't seem able to do anything to help you." And then she shut her eyes tightly and arched her back against yet another onslaught of pain.

Thank God it was this long, David thought, feeling a pang of guilt over wishing an extension to the agony of the poor woman before him. Would the midwife never come?

The swift knocking on the door that ensued seemed an answer to his prayer. David felt his shoulders sag with relief as one of the girls ran to open the door. Rain lashed against the window at the same moment, almost as if a giant hand had hurled a mammoth pailful of water against the cottage. But he did not turn. He was still clasping Mrs. Perkins' hand and murmuring soothing words to her, waiting for the now familiar signs of the subsiding of the pain.

"Oh," a breathless voice said from behind him, "just in time. I am so glad there was a light in your house still, Tess. I hope you do not mind my coming in."

David turned sharply, and his eyes met the startled glance of Rachel. She was dressed for the ball, with no cloak or bonnet. Her hair was blown into wild disarray.

"David?" she said. "What is it? Is someone sick? Oh. It is Mrs. Perkins' time?"

The voice of old Mrs. Perkins came from the inner room. "Is that you, my lady?" she called. "You had best come in here. That is no place for a young lady to be. I am afraid we are crowded, but you must have the chair."

"Where is the midwife?" Rachel asked, ignoring the voice. "Has she not been sent for?"

"She has been busy all day attending another birth," David said. "She is supposed to come as soon as she is able."

"But she will not come now," Rachel said. "Listen to that rain, David. And the wind. Travel will be impossible for several hours at least."

"Go into the other room, my lady," Mrs. Perkins said weakly. "Oh, Reverend, I'm so sorry." She began to gasp again, and David turned back to her.

"Please to go inside, my lady." Mr. Perkins had emerged from the inner room, looking rather like a ghost, Rachel thought. "I shall go and see to your horse."

Rachel stared guiltily as he opened the door and had it almost whipped from his hand. He disappeared outside. "David, do you have any experience in this?" Rachel asked when he had finished talking to Mrs. Perkins and was dabbing at her face with a cloth.

His soft laughter sounded genuinely amused. "It is not part of the training of a clergyman," he said, "though perhaps it should be. Go on into the other room now, Rachel."

"No," she said. "You need help. Let me do that, David."

She reached out a hand for the cloth, but he dropped it hurriedly into the bowl in order to take the hand of Mrs. Perkins, who, to Rachel's horror, turned rigid and even redder in the face. She began to moan and bite on her lower lip, which was already looking swollen and bruised.

"Let the sound out if you must," David was saying to her. "Scream if it will help. We will endure it, and the children have company."

Mr. Perkins had just come back in from outside, looking drenched to the skin.

Rachel dipped a finger into the bowl, found that the water was tepid, and hurried over with it to the pail that stood beside the door. By the time Mrs. Perkins had again relaxed, Rachel was back at her side with fresh cold water. She knelt and began to sponge off the hot, tired face and neck. She turned her head and smiled at the two young girls, who were hovering at the foot of the mattress, their eyes wide with tiredness and fright.