“Marelda,” he said flatly, “it is Lierin.”

“No!” she railed, slashing a fist downward through the air. “She is just some slut who is trying to get your money!”

“Marelda!” His voice had hardened. “Lierin has no need of my wealth. Her father is a rich merchant in England, and she has properties of her own in New Orleans and Biloxi, left to her by her kin.”

“Oh, Ashton, please look at this objectively,” Marelda implored, deciding a change of tactics might influence him. She went to him and tried to slip her arms about him, but he set her from him impatiently. A small sob caught in her throat, and tears began to spill down her cheeks. “As sure as you are, Ashton, that this is Lierin, I am just as convinced that it’s not. If it were, what kept her away from you these past three years? Would you call her absence wifely devotion?”

“There’s really no need to discuss any of this,” he stated bluntly. “The matter will be settled when she wakes.”

“No, it won’t be settled, Ashton, for she will surely claim you are her husband, but it will be a lie, contrived by some money-hungry mind.”

“I would know Lierin anywhere.”

Dramatically Marelda straightened herself in the manner of one who faced the world alone. He was growing stubborn, and she needed time to think. “I’ll leave you now…with her…I shall go to my room, but I will not sleep. Remember, Ashton, how much I love you.”

A heroic martyr going gallantly to her doom could not have held her head as high as Marelda managed to do as she glided from the room. There was a brief but significant moment of suspense as she halted beyond the threshold, allowing Ashton to brace himself. Then the door slammed with a loud crash that was undoubtedly heard throughout the whole house. Ashton envisioned her flowing gracefully down the hall to her room, and he waited for the second thunderous closing of the door in the distance. He was not to be disappointed. The event sent a wave of noise echoing through the mansion and finally receded to be replaced by the rapid clatter of heels and the confused chatter of feminine voices in the hall. Ashton glanced up as the door was thrust open and could not subdue a smile as the startled pair of ancient siblings entered, gasping for breath.

“Good heavens, Ashton!” his grandmother exclaimed breathlessly. “What has taken hold of you? Why are you going about the house slamming all the doors?”

“Now, Amanda, don’t be harsh with him,” Aunt Jennifer coaxed. “With Dr. Page not coming until morning and with Ashton worried about the girl, you know he must be upset.” She looked to her nephew for affirmation. “Isn’t that true, dear?”

Amanda’s apprehensions were not to be set aside so easily. “I should have begged him not to take another trip downriver,” she fretted. “Something always happens when he goes to New Orleans. It’s almost like a bad omen.”

“Grand-mere, please calm yourself,” Ashton cajoled gently, taking her hands and drawing her to the hearth. “I have something to tell you that’s very important.”

She studied him with a dubious gaze. “First tell me why you were slamming the doors; then if your explanation seems reasonable, I’ll listen to the rest of what you have to say.”

Ashton chuckled and laid his arm about her narrow shoulders in an affectionate manner. “Would you believe me if I told you that it was Marelda who slammed the doors?”

“Marelda?” Amanda was astonished by his claim. “Whatever for, Ashton?”

“Because I told her that the injured girl is Lierin….”

“Lierin? Your wife Lierin?” Amanda questioned uncertainly. “But, Ashton…she’s dead.”

“She drowned, dear.” Aunt Jennifer patted his arm consolingly, sure that he had taken leave of his senses.

“No, she’s here. Alive! I cannot explain how she escaped from being drowned, but she’s here,” he insisted. “In this very room!”

Both women seemed stunned as they turned and went to the bed. Aunt Jennifer took the candle from the bedside table and held it where its tiny flame shone softly on the object of their perusal.

“She is pretty,” Aunt Jennifer observed.

“Exquisite,” Amanda corrected worriedly. She took a firm grip on herself, knowing that she must remain calm in the face of this latest event. Ashton had held to his grief so long, he might have unwittingly mistaken another of comparable looks for the woman he had loved so dearly. How could she be sure that he was not just fantasizing about his lost Lierin?

She glanced up as a thought struck her. There was a painting of Lierin hanging in Ashton’s chambers. Perhaps it would serve to confirm his claim or help present a denial. “Ashton, dear, I think the girl does bear a resemblance to Lierin’s portrait. Why don’t you get it and let’s make the comparison.”

Ashton complied with his grandmother’s wishes and returned at once to the guest room with the requested portrait in hand. One glimpse of the painting had reassured him there was cause to hope the girl and Lierin were one and the same.

In his short absence the two sisters had brought several lamps together around the bed and turned up the wicks to provide an abundance of light for a close study of their subject. Aunt Jennifer propped the painting against the headboard, then stood with her sister contemplating the comparison. The girl in the portrait wore a gown of yellow and had ribbons of the same hue coiled through her light auburn locks. Even on the flat surface of the canvas, the emerald eyes appeared to sparkle with a zest for life, yet for all of the similarity it bore to the one in the bed, there was still something lacking.

“The artist seems to have captured a certain warmth in his subject,” Amanda murmured, “but if this girl is Lierin, then the painting has failed to do her justice. The features in the portrait are not as refined and delicate.”

Ashton gave further study to the portrait, but the flaws seemed so small that he could only lay it to the inadequacy of the artist. Aunt Jennifer seemed to second his thoughts as she stated, “We can’t expect perfection in portraits, Amanda. Most of the time the best we can hope for is to have the right color eyes and hair.”

“You received the portrait after Lierin drowned?” Amanda made an inquiry of the statement and waited until she had received Ashton’s verifying nod before continuing her query. “But where did it come from?”

“Her grandfather left instructions in his will for it to be delivered to me. I never saw it until after his death, but I understand it was one of a pair and that the other was a likeness of her sister, Lenore. Both of them were given to Judge Cassidy when the Somerton family came to visit him from England shortly before I met Lierin.”

“It was really too bad you never had a chance to meet the rest of the family, Ashton,” Aunt Jennifer commented sadly.

“I thought it was terrible that I never got to meet Lierin,” Amanda declared. “How often did I stress to him that it was his duty to beget heirs for the continuance of the family name, and for so many years it seemed that Ashton wanted his liberty more than a family. When he finally did marry, he nearly caused my heart to fail by the suddenness of it, and then…poof!” Amanda snapped her fingers in the air. “He came home, wounded and…a widower.”

“You must be patient, Amanda,” Aunt Jennifer gently chided. “Ashton isn’t getting any younger, true, but at four and thirty he’s not exactly past his prime.”

“He might as well be,” Amanda quipped. “His mind seems set more toward building an empire than a family.”

“Ladies, you are picking me apart like a pair of hens squabbling over a cricket,” Ashton protested with a chuckle. “Have mercy!”

“Mercy, he says!” His grandmother gave him a sidelong stare, which was softened by a smile. “I should be the one begging for it.”

Ashton secured the house after the last guest had departed, or at least gone to bed, and made his way to his own chambers. A glowing lamp aided his passage through his study and sitting room, and a warming fire greeted him in his bedchamber. Willis had anticipated his need and prepared a hot bath in the adjoining room, a small space that had been set aside specifically for his grooming needs. He doffed his clothes and, lowering himself into the steaming liquid, leaned back to soak and think. The ash of a long, black cheroot grew lengthy as he mulled over the happenings of the day, and absently he flicked the gray flakes into a porcelain dish that resided, alongside a crystal decanter and various jars, on a table near the tub. Leaning his head back against the high rim, he watched the smoke drift lazily toward the ceiling, while a train of long-suppressed impressions flitted through his mind. It seemed almost strange to savor and enjoy them without the tormenting feeling of loss.

He vividly remembered the morning when he first saw Lierin. She had been with an older woman on a street in New Orleans where shops for frilly, feminine things abounded. So completely did she take his eye, he had ignored a pressing appointment and followed them at a distance for six blocks or more. She had seemed unaware of him until she paused in front of a millinery shop and, from beneath a silk parasol, gave him stare for stare with a coquettishly raised brow of question. Much to his disappointment, a barouche had stopped alongside, giving him no time to press for an introduction, and the two women were whisked from sight, leaving him without even the tiniest prospect of ever seeing her again.

His hopes dashed, he had finally turned to the issue of his appointment and hailed a livery to convey him to the man’s address. It had not promised to be a cordial meeting, and he had prepared himself for a heated debate, determined to protest the seizure of his steamboat and the arrest of its crew until he achieved satisfactory results. A charge of piracy had been brought against them, and the action was purportedly substantiated by proof, although a short time later the evidence was found to be falsified.

Arriving at Judge Cassidy’s residence, he was shown into the man’s chambers and was in the process of giving the honorable magistrate a piece of his mind when, from an adjoining room, an enraged and decidedly feminine shriek had brought him to an abrupt halt. No one had forewarned him that the aging magistrate was entertaining his granddaughter from England and that she was the very same one he had eyed so closely that afternoon. His anger had dissipated when she stormed into the room, and he had marveled at his good fortune at finding the young lady again. As for Lierin, she had suffered a momentary twinge of surprise when she saw him, but having a proper credit of Irish blood from her mother’s side and being well fired with indignation, she had soundly berated him on his undisciplined conduct before an official of the law.

Ashton had been more than happy to accept the chastening. From the first moment he had found himself staring into the darkly lashed, blazing green eyes of Lierin Somerton, he had known that his life would be lacking a most important substance without her in it. With the opportunity to evaluate her at closer range, he had quickly concluded that she was an exceptionally beauteous young woman. The flashing eyes, the slim, pert nose, and the soft, expressive mouth had been structured with a delicate stroke of perfection that had captured his total interest. Thoroughly intrigued, he had stared so long that Lierin had finally become flustered beneath his openly admiring stare. She had later confided that she had never seen such a bold light come into a man’s eyes, for they had fairly gleamed with warmth.

In a more decorous manner Ashton had offered a polite apology to her grandfather and went on to explain in careful detail the reason for his visit. Judge Cassidy had been amused by his infatuation with Lierin and extended an invitation for dinner on the premise that he wanted to review the case in more detail. Actually he had had more devious motives in mind, which he admitted to later, and they were to see one of his granddaughters settle down in close proximity to him so he could enjoy the companionship of his kin more freely than if they were wed to one of those English foreigners such as their mother had married. With the judge’s favor bestowed upon him, Ashton had courted Lierin with a carefully controlled zeal.

Ashton rose from his bath and rubbed a towel over his matted chest and muscular ribs as his mind continued to flit through his memories of Lierin. He donned a long velvet robe, poured a drink, and, taking the cheroot, went out onto the balcony. The cool night air was laced with the fresh, pungent smell of a nearby pine, and he inhaled its fragrance as one of the pleasures of being home. He rested a thigh on the rail and leaned back against a post as he lost himself again in his memories.