If he had discovered one thing during his long and tedious travels of the previous few weeks, he had discovered that. He loved Jessica Moore.

"We will be home in ten minutes, sir," he said, turning to his silent traveling companion with a smile, "and I do believe we will have time for a rest before dinner. I am sure you could use one."

"Damn the rest," the marquess said. "A hot bath and a good stiff drink will go a much farther way to restoring me, Rutherford. I shall spend long enough in my bed, doubtless, in the coming years unless I have the good fortune to pop off suddenly."

11

Lady Hope was looking almost pretty, Jessica decided. And it was strange really, because that lady was not dressed up in any of the finery that she usually wore when Jessica saw her. She was wearing a warm woolen dress, which had obviously seen better days. And even that was not wholly visible behind a large paint-streaked bibbed apron. Her dark hair, usually schooled into a tidy and smooth chignon, was less than immaculate, stray wisps having escaped from their bonds all over her head. Her cheeks were glowing with color.

The two ladies were relaxing on the window bench of the nursery at Hendon Park, favorite country seat of the Duke of Middleburgh. Lady Hope had been on all fours on the floor, one shrieking nephew on her back, a cousin's infant yelling to be allowed up as well, when Jessica had come to visit. The game of horsy had come to an abrupt end despite Jessica's laughter and protests. Lady Hope had scrambled to her feet, apologizing for her loss of dignity, her less than immaculate appearance, and the paint that her young niece had daubed her with earlier as they had tried to reproduce the scene from the window.

And now she was trying to appear dignified as she perched beside Jessica, ignoring the pleas of niece and nephews and other young relatives to come and play.

"I daresay I would quickly tire of playing with the little dears if I had some of my own," she said. "Foolish, is it not, my dear Miss Moore, to enjoy romping with the youngsters at my age?"

"Not at all," Jessica assured her. "I am sure they all look forward vastly to seeing you, Lady Hope. I believe too many times children see all too little of their parents or other adult members of their family until they are old enough to join them at adult entertainments."

"Just look at that child!" Lady Hope said with an indulgent smile. "No, no, Robbie, my love, it is not gentlemanly to pull your sister's hair. You see? Now you have made her angry. Don't slap, dear. Yes, I know he pulled your hair, but it is not ladylike to retaliate. There. Robbie will apologize, will you not, my love?"

"Mm." Jessica drew in a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I do believe a person can smell those mince pies all over the house. Christmas does have a special smell all its own."

"I do wonder where Charles is," Lady Hope said. "Only two days to Christmas and not a word from him. Mama will be very upset if he does not come, not to mention the rest of us. We have never had Christmas without our all being present. I remember how empty it seemed the first year without Grandpapa, though I was a mere girl at the time."

"Perhaps he will come yet," Jessica said, schooling her voice to casualness. "Surely he would have let her grace know if he were not coming at all."

Lady Hope sighed. "I do wish Charles would marry soon," she said. "My youngest niece is four years old already, and I am quite sure that Faith does not intend to have any more. It is high time Charles set up his nursery. He will be thirty on his next birthday. He just does not seem to be interested in any of the young ladies of the ton. It is said-though I should not repeat such gossip to someone of your years, Miss Moore-that he is too busy with his high flyers to be interested in more refined ladies. I do hope someone of exceptional beauty and breeding will appear next spring. Someone to catch his eye."

Jessica said nothing. The thought of Lord Rutherford paying court to a lovely girl fresh from the schoolroom made her feel slightly ill.

"I suppose I could have had children of my own if I had not been so fussy," Lady Hope said rather wistfully.

Jessica looked her inquiry.

"I have loved, you see," Lady Hope said, flashing her rather nervous smile. "And love is not always good for a person, Miss Moore. It leaves one dissatisfied with lesser feelings. You would not dream to look at me now, would you, that I had numerous offers even up to my thirtieth year? Of course, I daresay most if not all of them came because of who I am. Anyone can see that I was never a beauty. Not like Faith. But some very eligible gentlemen offered, for all that. And I refused them all. I loved my Bevin even when it was useless to do so-he had been long dead. Sometimes one regrets the lost opportunities. I would have liked to have a child."

"Yet you are still not old," Jessica said gently.

Lady Hope seemed to come out of a reverie and laughed heartily. "Oh, my dear," she said, "I am very firmly on the shelf and gathering dust. Two and thirty years old, you know, and no beauty to begin with. No matter." She patted Jessica on the knee. "I take pleasure these days in watching other people make good matches and produce children for Aunt Hope to play with. I was so glad to see Sir Godfrey arrive yesterday. I was afraid that with Charles away, he would not come. Not that he had anywhere else to go, of course, with his father away in Scotland with his sister. I thought perhaps you would be out walking with him, my dear Miss Moore."

"It is snowing," Jessica reminded her.

"And so it is." Her companion turned to look out of the window. "I hope not too hard to block the roads. Then Charles will never be able to come. Someone has arrived, though." She leaned closer to the window. "The carriage has moved away. I could not see if it was familiar. Oh, I do hope it is Charles."

Jessica sat very quiet and tense, quite unable to decide if she shared Lady Hope's sentiment or if she should pray hard that the snow would form into twenty-foot drifts so that no horse or vehicle would be able to move for a month.

"Oh, delightful, Annie!" Lady Hope exclaimed. "You have written your name, dear, and not a letter missing. How very clever you are. And now you are going to write 'Mama'? Indeed, dear, are you able to do that? Yes, certainly I will watch you."

Jessica held her breath. Had it been Lord Rutherford arriving? How soon would they know?

She had not long to wait. A mere few minutes later the door to the nursery opened to admit the animated figure of Lady Bradley.

"Oh, here you are, Miss Moore," she said. "So exciting, my dear. Grandmama is quite beside herself. Guess who has arrived?" She did not wait for an answer. "The Marquess of Heddingly. Your grandpapa! And we had no idea. Why did you not tell us? Aubrey has had the honor of meeting him once before. Such a distinguished gentleman. And he has traveled all this way to see you, Miss Moore, and to spend Christmas with us. But just listen to me prattle on. Go down immediately. He is in the blue salon with Grandmama. Oh, I am so excited for you, my dear." She caught Jessica as the latter reached the door and hugged her warmly.

Jessica's mind was in a daze. She had been half expecting a reply to her hostess's letter some time over Christmas. Indeed, until a week or so ago, she had been wondering if her grandfather would make the journey to Hendon Park for Christmas. But only now did she realize how very unprepared she was to meet him again.

More than two years had passed since they had met last, and that parting had been a bitter one.

She did not stop to go to her room to tidy herself. She passed her hand over her hair as she ran lightly down the stairs to make sure that her curls were not too wayward, and smoothed out the creases of her dress. She would be cool. Affectionate but cool. She would show him that she loved him but could live very well without him.

Jessica paused outside the doors leading into the salon, schooled her features into bright welcome, took a deep breath, and nodded to the liveried footman who was waiting to open the door for her.

The first person she saw when she entered the room was the Earl of Rutherford, standing with his back to the fire, his hands clasped behind his back, looking grim and surely more handsome than she remembered him to be. She could feel the color draining from her face. There has been some mistake, she thought, some trick.

But at almost the same moment she was aware of her grandfather rising from a winged chair, the dowager beside him, smiling with benevolent triumph. Her grandfather looked very familiar though she had not seen him for so long. A little more stooped, perhaps. But Grandpapa nevertheless. Her very own. The only relative of her very own.

"Grandpapa," she said, holding on to her dignity, smiling politely, and advancing on him with both hands outstretched.

"Well, Jessica," he said gruffly, "you have led me a merry dance, my girl. I was beginning to think I would not see you again this side of the grave."

"Oh, Grandpapa," she said, her outstretched hands reaching up suddenly to encircle his neck as she hurled herself against him, wondering for one startled moment who it was that was sobbing so loudly.


It was a humbling experience, the Earl of Rutherford considered, to find himself so totally ignored. He had been away from her for three weeks, living and breathing Jess Moore, scarce able to live through the days until he would see her again, until he could try once more to persuade her to be his wife. And it looked for all the world as if she in the meanwhile had forgotten his very existence.

There had been that moment, of course, when she had entered the blue salon and seen only him. There had been no unawareness of his existence, no indifference in her face for that brief spell. He had been about to start forward to catch her before she swooned. But it had lasted only a moment. She had soon been distracted. And there had been nothing like that first look in the whole day since. And who could say now what it had meant? Acute embarrassment at coming face to face with him again most probably.

He watched her now covertly from across the drawing room, sitting close beside Heddingly, her arm linked through his, her cheeks flushed, her eyes bright with happiness. They were in conversation with Faith and Aubrey. It was impossible to hear the topic on which they talked. The room was crowded to overflowing with his own family and aunts, uncles, cousins, and cousins' children galore, in addition to special guests like the marquess, Jess, and Godfrey. The week of Christmas was the one time of the year when the nursery brood were allowed to spill downstairs on numerous occasions. No one minded. It all added to that special atmosphere of the season.

He was happy for her. Remembering how she had appeared to him during that week at Lord Barrie's, he could imagine how very lonely her life had been for the past two years with no family of her own around her. It was hard for him to picture life without family. His was always there to exasperate him, to criticize him, to interfere in his affairs, to love him. Above all, he supposed, to give him a sense of his own identity. Jess had been without that for more than two years.

The scene in the blue salon had been very affecting. It was the only time he had ever seen Jess completely out of control of herself. Her face had crumpled as she hurled herself into old Heddingly's arms, and she had sobbed there loud and long before the marquess had given over kissing her hair, patting her back, and blinking his eyes fiercely and had drawn a large square of linen from a pocket and put it into one of her hands.

His grandmother had also been blowing her nose, Rutherford recalled, her face severe, muttering about the drafts at Hendon that always succeeded in giving her a cold over Christmas. And he had had to clasp his hands behind his back until his knuckles almost cracked and regard his boots with particular concentration to keep from showing his own emotion.

She had stopped eventually and availed herself of the handkerchief. And she had sat on a sofa beside Heddingly, as she did now, his hand firmly clasped in hers, her eyes wide on his face, almost as if she believed that if she lost touch with him and stopped seeing him he would disappear again.

Not a look in his direction.

"We have Charles to thank for your grandpapa's arrival, my dear Jessica," his grandmother had said during the conversation that ensued. "The marquess had decided that he did not own a traveling carriage fit for the journey. A letter would have had to suffice until the weather grew warmer. But Charles brought him."