His eyes were on her mouth. Uncomfortable feelings were churning Jessica's insides, completely distracting her mind from the throbbing lip. She felt no better at all when he looked up into her eyes and grinned.

"Do you have any other injuries?" he asked. "Two scraped knees, for example?"

"No!" Jessica said very firmly. "I am quite all right, I do assure you, my lord. This is all very humiliating."

"And certainly not the memory to leave with the whole houseful of guests," he agreed. "Come. You will skate with me."

"No," she said sharply. "No, I think I have entertained everyone quite sufficiently for one day, my lord. I shall go back to the house. I wish to talk to my grandfather."

"If you leave now, Jess," he said, "you will never find the courage to return to the ice, you know."

"I do not feel I shall consider the lack the great tragedy of my life," she said.

"Coward!" he accused, grinning. "You were doing quite nicely with Aubrey. Godfrey, of course, is a careless creature who probably became so absorbed in conversation that he forgot he was your sole prop and staff. Trust me. I will not let you fall."

It was the charge of cowardice that did it, probably. Jessica rose to the challenge even as she realized that the word had been deliberately thrown out to goad her. She got to her feet and wobbled slightly even before he jumped up and drew one arm firmly through his.

"Try this," he said when he had lifted her down to the ice. A few lone skaters were twirling around. The main bulk of children and some of the adults were in a dense and noisy group at the far end of the ice, the race presumably over. "We will pretend we are waltzing. You may put your hand firmly on my shoulder. Grasp one of my capes if you will feel safer. Your other hand quite firmly in mine. And my other hand at your waist like this. Now, have you ever felt safer in your life?"

Many, many times, Jessica thought, her face upturned to his, drowning in his eyes. Oh yes, at almost any other moment of her life that anyone would care to name she had felt considerably safer than she did at this moment.

"One problem," he said. "We cannot possibly waltz without music, can we? I would hum a tune, Jess, but I am afraid you would not even recognize my efforts as music. You will have to do it."

"Hum a tune?" she asked, incredulous.

"A waltz tune," he said. "Any one, Jess. Anything that goes one, two, three, one, two, three."

"How foolish!" she said, glad of her cold-reddened cheeks that must mask the blush she could feel hiding beneath.

"Coward, Jess?" he asked with one eyebrow raised, and she found herself humming a waltz tune that she remembered from Lord Chalmers's ball.

"Mm, lovely," he said, smiling down at her and skating slowly backward in time to the music, drawing her with him. "But we will have to make one adjustment for your safety. Clasp both hands around my neck, Jess, and I shall set one on either side of your waist. Ah, much better, is it not? The music again, please, ma'am."

She wanted to cry. How very stupid to want to cry. She felt so safe. It w:as her hold of him and his of her that kept her on her feet, of course, but she felt light, as if she skimmed over the ice of her own volition. They moved very slowly, but the hissing of their skates on the ice gave an impression of speed. His eyes held hers as she hummed her tune almost without realizing that she still did so. For the space of perhaps two minutes nothing and no one existed outside the circle of their arms.

And finally the music trailed away. The lump in her throat that made her want to cry had also made the music wobble.

"Out of breath already?" he asked, tightening his hands at her waist and bringing them to a stop. "But you did very well, Jess. If you just had the confidence, you could skate on your own, you know. But not today. Your lip looks sore. My mother will have some salve for it, doubtless. Come, I will help you off with your skates."

He lifted her effortlessly and set her feet on the bank.

"You played a cruel trick on me, Jess Moore," he said as he knelt before her, despite her protests, to remove her skates.

"Did I?" she asked.

"Did I?" he mimicked. "Why did you not tell me? I should have known right from the start, you know."

"Would it have made a difference?" she asked.

He looked at her intently as he straightened up and tossed her skates into one of the boxes. "Of course it would have made a difference," he said.

"I was afraid you would say that," she said.

"It is Christmas, Jess," he said, smiling and passing one hand briefly beneath her upturned chin. "For today and tomorrow let us not quarrel. I should not have referred to the matter at all. I am sorry. We will do battle again the next day if we must. Agreed?"

"I have nothing to battle with you about, my lord," she said.

"Agreed, Jess?" he insisted.

"Agreed," she said grudgingly.


It was not until the following day, the afternoon of Christmas Day, that Jessica finally succeeded in being alone with her grandfather. The morning had been taken up with all the excitement of watching the children open their gifts in the morning room, as was traditional, exchanging gifts with one's immediate family, and entertaining the servants to cider and cakes while they too were presented with gifts by the duke and duchess.

Her grandfather was tired, Jessica could see when luncheon was over. He readily agreed to her suggestion that she accompany him to his sitting room so that they might talk quietly. She resisted Lady Hope's invitation to join a smaller group than the day before for skating.

"You really should give Sir Godfrey a chance to redeem himself, you know, my dear Miss Moore," she had said. "I believe he is dreadfully upset for allowing you to fall yesterday. And I must say, my dear, that I was most vexed that Charles rushed to your assistance the way he did. I am sure Sir Godfrey would have been only too glad to help you to your feet and spend more time in your company. Sometimes I suspect that Charles lacks all sensibility."

"Well, Jessica," the marquess said, lowering himself heavily into a chair beside the fire in his sitting room, "are you happy, my love?"

"Yes, I am," she said, perching on the arm of his chair and smoothing back some wisps of his white hair, "now that you are here, Grandpapa. You cannot know how lonely Christmas can be without any members of one's family present."

"Can I not?" he said gruffly. "Each year you have been without me, I have also been without you, you know."

"Yes, that is true," she said, bending to kiss the top of his head briefly. "How foolish we have been, have we not?"

"We?" he said ominously.

Jessica laughed. "Come now, Grandpapa," she said, "admit the truth. You can be every bit as stubborn as I can at times. I believe both of us place pride before love far more than we should."

"Well," he said, patting one of her knees with a gnarled hand, "since it is Christmas, I shall agree with you, girl. We cannot quarrel at this season, can we?"

"Absolutely not," she agreed. "And perhaps we can make every day Christmas from now on. I do love you, Grandpapa. I do not know if I have ever told you that."

"I am glad you have come to your senses finally, anyway, Jessica," the marquess said. "The dowager duchess was a particular friend of your grandmother's, you know. The connection with her grandson will be even more eligible than I could have hoped for you."

Jessica's hand, which had been playing with his hair, became very still. "My connection with the Earl of Rutherford?" she said.

"You are fortunate, my love," he said. "Rank and wealth on the one hand seldom go together with looks and character. I shall be delighted to see you well settled before I meet my end."

"There is to be no connection between the Earl of Rutherford and me, Grandpapa," Jessica said. She found that her voice was shaking.

"Of course there is," he said. "I gather you have refused him already, Jessica. It is never a bad idea to do that once, you know. Your grandmother did it to me. It merely piques a man's interest. But you must have Rutherford, of course. There is no question about that."

"I beg your pardon, sir," Jessica said, sitting upright on the arm of the chair, "but I believe there is every question about the matter."

"Sometimes you can be very exasperating, Jessica," the marquess said. "What possible objection could there be to Rutherford? He is an earl and heir to a dukedom. He has property, wealth, character."

"He is a rake!" Jessica said.

"Jessica," her grandfather said, making an effort to sound patient, "if you are looking to find yourself a husband who has never kept a mistress or a high flyer, my girl, you are likely to be looking until your dying day. Besides, it don't mean he will continue the same habits. You are pretty and lively enough to keep his interest if you set your mind to it. I was never unfaithful to your grandmother, you know, after our marriage."

"When I refused the Earl of Rutherford," Jessica said, "I meant my refusal for all time. I was not hoping to entice him to renew his attentions with increased ardor. I do not want him as a husband, and I will not have him." She was on her feet by this time, her hands clenched at her sides.

"You have no choice, foolish girl." The marquess had abandoned his attempts to deal patiently and rationally with the situation. "You have been compromised. That employer of yours-Beattie? Bering?-saw the two of you in his library. You spent the night at the same inn together. To his credit, of course, Rutherford did not know who you were on either occasion, but it will not do for the granddaughter of the Marquess of Heddingly. Not at all. Marry the man you must, Jessica, and quickly too, whether you like him or not."

"What?" Jessica said, hands on hips. "I am to marry a man I despise, spend the rest of my life with him, become his possession, all because he mistook me for a servant and treated me accordingly? Besides, Grandpapa, who is to know of those incidents if neither you nor the Earl of Rutherford tells anyone? Of course I will not marry him. And I think it highly unlikely anyway that he will renew his offer."

"Of course he will renew his offer," the marquess barked. "He already has my permission to do so, Jessica. We have already agreed on a marriage settlement."

"Oh!" Jessica moved toward him, her hands still on her hips, her eyes blazing. "So I have become an object of barter between you and Lord Rutherford, have I? Not at all a person with feelings and opinions to be consulted. Merchandise merely. If you have offered a large dowry, Grandpapa, you are remarkably foolish. The Earl of Rutherford would have paid you to get me into his bed. He offered twice, you know. Did he tell you that?"

"He thought you a servant," the marquess said. "Of course he told me. All the more reason why you must accept him. And enough of this nonsense, Jessica. I will hear no more on the matter. This time, my girl, we will have your future all tied up right and tight. You have had your flight of rebellion. Time now to settle down."

"Do you know?" Jessica said. She had turned away from him and crossed the room to the window, where she stood drumming her fingers on the windowsill. "I thought things were different this time. I really thought you had grown to love me. I thought I mattered to you as a person."

"Tush, girl!" her grandfather said impatiently. "Since when does a grandfather's concern to marry his girl well and secure her future and her reputation show lack of love? Of course I love you, girl. Would I be here otherwise?"

"Then don't," she said, turning back to him to reveal eyes brimming with tears. "Don't do this to me, Grandpapa. Please. I have been of age for several years and have the right to make my own choice of a future. I hoped to spend some of that future with you. I have even planned to allow you to order my life and find a husband for me if you wish. But not the Earl of Rutherford. Please, anyone but him. I cannot agree to it. Yet I don't want to quarrel with you. I need your love so much, Grandpapa. Please!"

"There," he blustered, patting the arm of the chair beside him. "Come back here, girl, and stop your silliness. Of course I love you. Always have. There have been three women very precious to my life, Jessica, and you are the only one left. Now don't go trying my patience when I am tired and irritable after a busy morning. Have you ever heard such a whooping and screeching of children in all your life?"