The training of a lifetime nudged at Felicity's conscience, and she found herself wanting to apologize for shocking him. Except that she hadn't shocked him, not really, nor had she displeased him. In fact, he was enjoying her, just the way he had been enjoying her-her, the new Felicity, and not the "little girl" he had married-ever since her return. But still, she had a few doubts.

"Joshua, do you ever… do you ever wish you had that little girl back?" she asked, feeling a slight apprehension over what his answer might be. After all, he had chosen that girl to be his wife, and he had grown to love her. Perhaps he preferred her meekness.

Josh frowned, sensing her genuine concern. "I still have her," he said. "You aren't so very different than you were before. I didn't mean to make it sound that way."

Without realizing it, they had stopped dancing and stood still in the middle of the floor while the other couples swirled around them.

"Come on," Josh said, suddenly noticing that they were presenting an obstacle to the gaiety. He took her hand and led her away from the crowd to a more secluded spot on the other side of Blanche's house. When they were alone, with the sound of the party only a dull roar, Josh turned her to face him and gently placed his hands on her shoulders. "Is something wrong?" he asked, not liking the worried frown that marred her perfect features.

Felicity hesitated a moment, not even certain if she could put her concerns into words that he could understand. "I found out something in Philadelphia, something about my mother, that I didn't understand," she said at last.

"What was it?" Josh asked, suddenly alarmed. God knew, he had learned more about his own mother than any child should have to know. But surely there were no ugly secrets about Claire Maxwell Storm.

"I found out that she was… that she was very different than the way my father had always described her to me," Felicity began.

"You don't remember her at all?" he asked.

Felicity shook her head. "Only vaguely. She was good and kind and soft and she smelled nice, but that's all. I don't even remember her face. But Papa always told me that she was a perfect lady, that she never raised her voice or did anything unseemly or shocking. He made her sound like a saint, and he wanted me to be just like her. But Joshua," Felicity said, her eyes wide with wonder, "she wasn't like that at all."

"Then what was she like?" Josh asked, still unable to understand her concern.

"Aunt Isabel said she was wild, that she said whatever she thought and that she wasn't afraid of anything or anybody," Felicity explained.

Josh smiled, thinking that he was beginning to understand. "Maybe it just seemed that way to Isabel because she's such a frightened little mouse."

"No, that's what I thought, too, at first, but Grandfather said the same thing. If he thought she was outspoken and rebellious, she must have been. And don't forget, she had the courage to defy Henry Maxwell and run off with a penniless nobody. The woman my father described to me would never have done something like that! Why did my father lie to me, Joshua?"

Felicity watched his face as he considered the answer to her question, a question that had haunted her for months, ever since she had learned the truth about her mother.

"He told you that your mother was like Isabel," Josh murmured, thinking aloud. "And he wanted you to be just like her, and not like your mother… That's it! He wanted you to be like Isabel," he concluded.

"But why?" Felicity asked, more puzzled than ever.

"It's simple," Josh explained. "Twenty years ago, your mother defied her father and ran away, never to be seen again. Twenty years later, Isabel is still by her father's side. When your mother died, you were all your father had left, and he wanted to keep you. He saw that you were like your mother, or at least enough like her to frighten him, so he tried to change you, to mold you into the obedient daughter who would stay with him."

Felicity mulled this over. "And that's why he never wanted me to talk to strangers, especially young men," she realized.

"And why he made you dress like a child. At first even I didn't realize how old you were. Remember?"

Felicity nodded. "Oh, Joshua, how foolish of him! I would never have done what my mother did."

"But he couldn't have known that. And neither can you. Who's to say what anyone will do when they're desperate?" As if he also was desperate, Josh drew Felicity into his arms and held her tightly against his chest. Suddenly he realized that he might have been speaking of his own mother. Once she, too, had faced a situation with which she could no longer deal, and she had run away, leaving behind her husband and her son. Although he would never be able to forgive her that or the evil she had done since, he could at least understand.

Felicity clung to him, grateful for the security of his arms and for the way he had helped her understand this final mystery about her family. As she considered his words, she wondered what she herself would have done if she had met Joshua while her father was still alive. Would they have fallen in love? Would she have been forced to forsake her father for Joshua the way her mother had done for her father? Glad that she would never have to make that decision, she gave her husband one last hug and drew reluctantly away.

"We'd better get back before we're missed," she said with a smile. "We don't want people thinking we sneaked off alone together."

"No, we don't want that," Josh agreed, grinning. "How scandalized they'd all be, an old married couple like us. But we will sneak away later, after Asa and Blanche disappear," he warned, leaning over to give her a lingering kiss full of promise.

When he lifted his lips from hers, she gazed up at him, wide-eyed. "I thought it was too hot for you, Mr. Logan," she said with false innocence.

He gave her a comic leer. "If you think it's hot now, just wait until later."

As they wandered back toward the celebration, hand in hand, Felicity allowed herself a moment of pure bliss unmarred by the worry that had continued to plague her for the past weeks. Although the preparations for Blanche's wedding had taken up most of her time, she still found herself counting the days and the weeks and the months.

The fatigue she had suffered no longer bothered her. In fact, she now felt better than she had in months. Even Blanche had commented on how well she looked when she had arrived to help dress the bride this morning. And Joshua had commented just last night that she seemed to be gaining weight… in all the right places.

Had his gray eyes been clouded with an unasked question? Did he share her suspicions, her fears? And if he did, why hadn't he said something to her? Probably for the same reason she had said nothing to him either. They were afraid. They were both afraid of even asking that question, as if to voice it might make it true.

But it couldn't be true, she reminded herself. She and Joshua had been so careful, following Dr. Strong's instructions to the letter.

"What are you thinking about?" Joshua asked, interrupting her thoughts. His handsome face reflected the concern in his voice.

Did her fear show? Could he sense it? She forced a smile to her lips. "I was just thinking about the heat," she lied.


"What do you hear from Philadelphia?" Asa asked Felicity one Sunday afternoon six weeks later. He and Blanche had just returned from their honeymoon and had come to tell the Logans all about their trip. The newlyweds exuded the unmistakable aura of two people who had discovered complete happiness at last.

Had she and Joshua once looked like that? Of course they had, she reminded herself, and not so very long ago, either. But in the weeks since Blanche's wedding, their relationship had grown gradually more strained as the weight of Felicity's secret seemed to crush her heart. She found herself short-tempered with Joshua as her fears threatened to overwhelm her.

Felicity felt like wincing when she saw the private, bedroom smiles that Asa and Blanche shared, smiles that no longer passed between her and Joshua. Now he rarely smiled at her at all. His gray eyes simply watched her in silent accusation.

"Felicity?" Josh prompted, frowning. "Asa asked you a question."

"What?" she said, momentarily flustered.

Asa smiled apologetically. They were all seated in the cool dimness of the parlor, which was shuttered against the late August heat. "I asked if you had heard from your grandfather lately."

"Oh yes," she hastily replied. "He writes to me quite often."

"He wants to be sure she knows how much attention her photographs are getting at the Exposition," Josh said, and Felicity thought she heard an accusation in his voice, too.

"It's only because I'm a woman," she explained, as much to Joshua as to Blanche and Asa. "There are thousands of photographs on display that are much better than mine, I'm sure."

"Don't be so modest, Felicity," Blanche chided. "You're a very talented photographer. Those pictures you took at our wedding are wonderful!"

"Her grandfather thinks she should return to Philadelphia and set up a studio," Joshua reported grimly. "People are clamoring to have their portraits made by her."

Asa and Blanche exchanged a look, silently informing each other that they now understood the reason for the tension they both sensed between their two friends. Josh must be disturbed over this invitation. Probably they had even argued over it.

Josh saw the look and decided it was just as well they thought that. He didn't want them to know the real reason he was so troubled. He didn't even want to know that reason himself.

Alarmed by all the undercurrents swarming in the room, Felicity rose abruptly. "Would you care for something cool to drink?" she asked.

"I'll help you," Blanche offered, rising also and following Felicity from the room.

Josh watched them go, studying Felicity's slender figure, a figure that was not as slender as it had been just a few weeks earlier. He knew she was pregnant, and the knowledge chilled his soul even as the twin maggots of guilt and fear ate away at him.

But what disturbed him even more was the fact that she hadn't told him. How long was she going to wait? Did she think he was bund? Or stupid? She hadn't bled once in the three months since she had been back. Soon even total strangers would be able to tell her condition just by looking at her. And he had given her plenty of opportunities, commenting on the changes in her figure, inquiring about her health. But she had ignored them all and kept her secret.

Why? The question was like a canker in his heart, because he could think of only one answer. There was something suspicious about the pregnancy. He had tried not to believe it, tried to deny even the possibility, but the evidence was too real to ignore. She must have conceived the child in Philadelphia for her to be so far along. That much was certain. He also knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that something had happened between Felicity and Richard, something she did not want to discuss or even think about.

At first her letters had been full of Richard this and Richard that. Then her letters had stopped entirely. Since she had come home, she hardly even spoke her cousin's name, and when Josh brought him up, she changed the subject, unable to hide her distress over discussing him.

Could the son of a bitch have raped her? Josh found that difficult to believe. Richard was not a man to resort to force. No, more likely he would have used seduction. The thought infuriated Josh beyond all reason, especially when he realized how he had paved the way for such an act by not writing to his wife while they were separated. Had she been seduced? Was that why she was ashamed? Was that why she hid her pregnancy, because the fatherhood was in doubt?

"Josh? Is something wrong?" Asa asked.

Josh jerked his attention back to the present, surprised to find that his hands were clenched into fists, fists that ached to choke the life out of Richard Winthrop. "No, of course not," Josh replied, forcing his body to relax. "What were you saying?"

"I was just asking if you'd heard anything more about that Mexican, Ortega?"

"No, no, I haven't," Josh replied, glad for a subject to take his mind off Felicity. "The last word was that he'd gone back to Mexico."

Out in the kitchen, Felicity gave Blanche a cup of lemonade to taste. "Is that sweet enough?"

Blanche tasted the golden liquid and nodded. "Just fine," she said with a beatific smile.