“A certain look!” He frowned at her. “One of foolish infatuation, do you mean? I feel no such thing.”

And yet he wanted her to argue the point, to encourage him, to persuade him that the connection would be eligible.

“No,” she said. “Had it been merely a silly male look, I would have disregarded it, though I might have felt it my duty to remind you that she is a lady and the niece of Sir George Effingham and the granddaughter of my dearest friend.”

He felt horribly guilty then .. . again!

“Bewcastle would never countenance such a match,” he said.

“And yet,” she reminded him, “Aidan has just married a coal miner’s daughter, and Bewcastle not only received her but even arranged for her presentation to the queen and gave a ball for her at Bedwyn House.”

“Bewcastle was presented with a fait accompli in Aidan’s case,” he said. “He has made the best of what he doubtless considers a disaster.”

“You will give me your arm while I go up to my rooms in a moment,” she said. “But I will say this first, Rannulf. If you allow pride and shame to mask more tender feelings and thus lose a chance for a marriage that would provide all your needs, including those of the heart, then it would be churlish of you to lay the blame at Bewcastle’s door.”

“I am not ashamed of her,” he said. “Quite the contrary. I am—” He clamped his mouth shut and hurried toward her as she got to her feet.

“I believe the correct expression may be in love ,” she said, setting her hand lightly on his sleeve. “But no self-respecting grandson of mine could admit to that foolish sentiment, could he?”

It was not true, he thought. He was, to his shame, still in lust with Judith Law. He liked her. He was drawn to her, found himself thinking about her almost constantly while he was conscious and dreaming of her when he was asleep. He found that he could talk to her as he had never been able to talk to any other woman, with the possible exception of Freyja. But even with his sister there was an attitude of bored cynicism to be maintained. He could not imagine talking with enthusiasm about farming and estate management with Freyja. With Judith Law he could relax and be himself, though he had the feeling that it was only in the past two weeks that he had begun to discover who that self was.

His grandmother had, to all intents and purposes, given her blessing to his courtship of Judith Law.

Bewcastle ... Well, Bewcastle was not his keeper.

He wondered if Judith intended to appear at the ball tonight. Of course, she had refused him once and that only two weeks ago. But perhaps he could persuade her to change her mind. He must be very careful, of course, not openly to humiliate Miss Effingham. Silly and vain as the chit was, she did not deserve that.

Judith worked diligently with her needle all morning, guessing that she might be kept busy all afternoon with preparations for the ball. She was not mistaken. Her aunt kept her running almost every minute, bearing messages and orders to the housekeeper or the butler, neither of whom was ever in the place they were supposed to be. She was given the monumental task of arranging the flowers that had been cut for the ballroom and setting them up in just the right places and in pleasing combination with potted plants. It was a job she enjoyed, but once she was in the ballroom she found that servants were forever consulting her with all their problems, however minor.

Then she was sent into the village to buy a length of ribbon for Julianne’s hair, the ribbon she had bought in town the day before having been declared quite wrong in both width and color now that it had been paid for and brought home. It was a longish walk there and back. Judith would normally have welcomed the chance to be out in the fresh air, even if it was a cloudy day. But she had hoped for a chance to wash her hair and rest before it was time to dress for the evening. She hurried through the errand so that there would still be some little time for herself.

The door to Julianne’s dressing room was slightly ajar when she returned. Judith lifted her hand to knock but stopped herself when she heard Horace’s laugh from within. He had not openly bothered her during the past week, though he never lost the opportunity to say something nasty or sarcastic for her ears only.

She avoided him whenever she could. She would wait, she decided. Or she would take the ribbon to Aunt Effingham’s room and pretend she had forgotten that she was to take it directly to Julianne’s.

“I simply must have him, that is all,” Julianne was saying on a familiar theme, her voice petulant. “I will be mortified beyond words if he does not offer for me before everyone leaves Harewood. Everyone knows that he has been courting me. Everyone knows I have discouraged the advances of all my other admirers—even Lord Braithwaite’s—because Lord Rannulf is about to offer for me.”

Judith turned to leave.

“And you will have him too, you silly goose,” Horace said. “Did you not hear what your mama just said?

He must be made to offer for you. All you have to do is make sure you are found in a compromising situation with him. He will do the decent thing. I know men like Bedwyn. Being a gentle‘ man means more to them than life itself.”

By then Judith could not stop herself from listening.

“Horace is right, dearest,” Aunt Effingham said. “And it is only proper that he should marry you after deliberately toying with your sensibilities.”

“But how am I to do that?” Julianne asked.

“Lord,” Horace said, sounding bored, “have you no imagination, Julianne? You have to tell him you are faint or warm or cold or something and lure him to a private place. Make it the library. No one ever goes there except Father, and even he will not be there tonight but will feel it his duty to remain in the ballroom.

Close the door behind the two of you. Get close to him. Get him to put his arms about you and kiss you.

Then I’ll walk in on you there—Father and I will. Your betrothal will be announced before the ball is over.”

“How are you going to persuade Papa to go to the library with you?” Julianne asked.

“If I cannot devise a way of dragging him to his favorite place in the world I’ll eat my hat,” Horace said.

“The new beaver one.”

“Mama?”

“It will do very well,” Aunt Effingham said briskly. “You know, my dearest, that once you are Lady Rannulf Bedwyn you may devote yourself entirely to making Lord Rannulf realize that it was all for the best. And meanwhile you will have the fortune and the position.”

“And Grandmaison after Lady Beamish dies,” Julianne said, “and a house in London, I daresay. I will persuade him to buy one there. And I will be sister-in-law to the Duke of Bewcastle and will be on visiting terms at Bedwyn House. Indeed, perhaps we will live there while in town instead of buying our own house. I daresay we will spend summers in the country at Lindsey Hall. I will—”

Judith lifted her hand and knocked firmly before pushing the door open and handing the ribbon to Julianne.

“I hope this will suit you,” she said. “It was the only shade of pink in the shop, but it is a lovely shade, I think, deeper and more suited to your coloring than the other.”

Julianne unwound the ribbon, looked carelessly at it, and then tossed it onto the dressing table behind her.

“I believe I like the other better,” she said. “You took awfully long, Judith. I think you might have hurried when the errand was for your own cousin.”

“Perhaps, Cousin,” Horace said, “you might wear whichever ribbon Julianne decides not to wear. Ah, but how tactless of me. Pink does not suit your coloring, does it? Does anything?”

“Judith will doubtless be more comfortable remaining in her own room this evening,” Aunt Effingham said. “Let us compare these ribbons more carefully, dearest. You would not want to—”

Judith left the room and hurried to her own.

Was it true, then, that he was unlikely to propose marriage to Julianne, left to his own devices? And could Julianne and Aunt Effingham be so desperate to net him as a husband that they were prepared to use trickery, to trap him into an apparently compromising situation? Horace was right, she thought. Lord Rannulf Bedwyn was a gentleman and would offer marriage if he believed he had compromised a lady.

She had had personal proof of that herself.

Her heart was pounding by the time she had closed her door behind her. That he would marry Julianne of his own accord had been a hard enough prospect to bear. But that he should be tricked into it...

Judith had had a quiet dinner with her grandmother in the latter’s private sitting room, both of them being disinclined to dine with the houseguests. Then they went their separate ways to dress for the ball.

Judith was more nervous than she cared to admit. She had worn her cream and gold silk to a dozen assemblies at home. It had never been in the first stare of fashion or fussily adorned. And of course Mama and Papa had always been strict about modesty, especially with her. But at least it had always been an elegant garment that fit her well. She had always liked it, until Aunt Louisa’s maid had let panels into the sides of it and lined the neckline.

Judith had removed all the additions during the morning. She had restored the dress to its former self except that it had a new peach-colored sash of wide silk ribbon that her grandmother had given her a few days ago because she knew she would never use it herself and it suited Judith’s coloring so well. There was enough ribbon that the ends of it fluttered almost to the floor after it had been tied neatly at the front of the high waist.

There was no maid to help her dress. But she had rarely had the services of the one maid at the rectory, there being Mama and her other three sisters all with their demands on the girl’s limited time. Judith was accustomed to dressing her own hair, even for elegant occasions. She had had time to both wash and dry it. It had the healthy sheen of clean hair as she brushed it all back from her face, plaited it into two braids, and coiled and looped them into a pleasing design at the back of her head. She used a hand mirror to check it while she sat in front of her dressing table mirror.

The style looked elegant, she thought. Carefully, so as not to ruin the whole painstakingly constructed coiffure, she teased two long strands free at the sides and curled the brush about them. There was enough curl in her hair that they waved in soft tendrils over her ears. She teased out two more curls at her temples.

She did not put on a cap, not even the pretty lacy one she had always worn to assemblies or other evening gatherings.

I have never ever seen any woman whose beauty comes even close to matching yours .

She gazed at her image, standing up so that she could see herself full length. She tried to see herself through the eyes of a man who could speak those words in all honesty. She had trusted his honesty. He had meant what he said.

She was beautiful.

I am beautiful .

For the first time she could look at herself and believe that there must be some truth in the preposterous-seeming claim.

I am beautiful .

She whisked herself off to her grandmother’s room before she could lose her courage. She knocked lightly on the dressing room door and let herself in.

Her grandmother was still seated at her dressing table, Tillie behind her, fixing three tall plumes into her elaborately piled gray hair. She was wearing an evening gown of a deep ruby red, but it was completely outshone by all the heavy jewelry that sparkled and glittered at her neck and bosom, on both plump wrists, on every finger of both hands except the thumbs, and at her ears. There was even a large, ornate brooch pinned to her gown beneath one shoulder. On the dressing table was a jeweled lorgnette.

Two circles of rouge had been painted high on her cheeks.

But Judith was not given more than a moment or two in which to digest her grandmother’s appearance.

The old lady looked at her in the mirror, swiveled about on her stool with unusual agility while Tillie stifled an exclamation and scurried around with her, clutching the plumes, and clasped her hands together with a distinct metallic clink.

“Judith!” she exclaimed. “Oh, my dearest love, you look ... Tillie, what is the word I am looking for?”