Breckenridge perforce rose, too. As he set down his glass, Catriona continued, “It’ll be dinnertime soon. All else can wait until later.”

She somehow succeeded in shooing both him and Richard from the room. In the hall, she instructed Richard to find Breckenridge some clothes and dispatched her husband up one turret stair, then she handed Breckenridge into the care of Henderson, to be led up another winding stone stairway to his room and an awaiting bath.

Hands on her hips, Catriona stood at the bottom of the spiral stairs and watched Breckenridge ascend. When he passed beyond her sight, she continued to stare, then she slowly smiled, shook her head, and with that faintly patronizing smile still flirting about her lips, swanned off to attend to her other duties.

Returning from Breckenridge’s room, having escorted thereto and introduced Worboys, his terribly correct gentleman’s gentleman, who naturally had insisted that only he could adequately clothe a gentleman of Breckenridge’s caliber and had therefore usurped the task of selecting and carrying a selection of garments drawn from Richard’s wardrobe to Breckenridge, Richard reentered the large chamber he shared with his witchy wife to discover her already gowned for dinner. Seated before her dressing table, she was brushing out her long hair.

Firelight danced along the gilded red strands.

Dragging his eyes from a sight he still found mesmerizing, he closed the door, shook off the distraction, and remembered what he’d meant to ask. Catching her eyes in the mirror, he let a frown color his. “What was all that about?”

He didn’t need to elaborate — she knew what he meant. Her “all else” that was to wait until later. He wasn’t at all sure what tack she was taking, but he was perfectly clear on where he stood.

At least, he thought he was.

She refocused on the lock of hair through which she was drawing her brush. “Did you notice how eager Heather was, how intent she was, on ensuring you, I, and, by extension, the family, understood that Breckenridge was in no way to blame for the length of time she’s been away?”

Halting behind her, watching her face in the mirror, Richard slid his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Understandable enough. She’s never been one for lying, or even gilding the truth, so she’d feel horrendously guilty if we rained fury on Breckenridge’s head for an outcome that was, in fact, her fault.”

“It was in no way her fault.” Catriona’s tone didn’t materially change, but he heard the censure nonetheless. “Any fault in this lies at the feet of the kidnappers, and more, on the head of this mysterious laird.”

Richard tipped his head. “All perfectly true, but that’s not how society will see it.”

“Perhaps not, but we’ve strayed from the point.” Setting down her brush, she raised her hands and swept back her hair, preparatory to winding it into her usual neat knot that never remained neat for long. “What I found most interesting in the tale of their adventure was firstly Heather’s efforts to make it clear that the outcome was entirely due to her decisions, not Breckenridge’s, and that he, patently, had not just accepted those decisions of hers, accepted her right to make them, but had then supported her, selflessly and largely, it seems, without complaint. That, I find most interesting, don’t you?”

Richard frowned, considering. After a moment he replied, “I really can’t see what else he could have done. This is Heather, after all. Much as none of us like it, she’s a Cynster to her toes, and with a threat against her sisters and possibly Henrietta and Mary, too, in the wind, she would have been like a terrier with a bone — impossible to detach and lead away.”

Catriona held his gaze for a moment, smiling fondly in a way that told him he’d missed some utterly obvious point, then she softly said, “Tell me — what is Breckenridge?”

Not who, he noted, but what.

He knew what she meant, could follow her argument, but. . he pulled a face. “We can’t tell what really went on — how much argument there actually was — but I still believe that, no matter what he did, Breckenridge wouldn’t have been able to turn Heather from her path.”

It was Catriona’s turn to lightly shrug. “Perhaps not. I suspect we’ll never know, and I’m not sure it’s relevant, not anymore.”

She started to slip pins into her topknot.

Richard studied her face. She wasn’t wearing her “Lady” mask, the serene assurance she could project even in the face of disaster, yet she was happy, genuinely pleased with the situation.

Frowning, uncertain over just what she in fact saw, what she was expecting — what it was in all this that she saw and he didn’t — he ventured, “You do realize, don’t you, that they’ll have to marry?”

Her smile widened. “You do realize, don’t you, why the Lady steered them here?”

Richard straightened. “The Lady?” His witchy wife did not invoke her deity without good cause, and he’d learned to be wary when she did. “She’s involved in this?”

“Well, of course. Where else would she send a pair of lovers who need to sort themselves out?” Hair anchored to her satisfaction, Catriona swiveled on her dressing stool and leaned back to look up at him. “You of all people ought to know that the Vale is a place for lovers who fail to see the obvious to realize what is meant to be.”

Richard hesitated, but had to ask, “They’re meant to be?”

Catriona shook her head at him. “You really need to pay more attention. Even I knew they were meant to be, and I’ve only seen them together twice before.” She spread her hands. “And now here they are, and all is plain.”

“It is?”

“Of course! So our role is to encourage them to remain here until they see it, too.” Rising, she undid the wrapper she’d worn over her alabaster shoulders, largely bared by the wide neckline of her dinner gown. “I doubt it’ll take too long — Heather’s never been blind, and I rather doubt Breckenridge is either. Indeed, his reputation would suggest that when it comes to women, he sees more than most.”

That won’t save him. Richard kept the words to himself.

Laying the wrapper aside, Catriona shook out and resettled her gown, then swung around and presented him with her back. “Lace me up — and then you’d better change, too. The gong will ring at any moment, and we should be in the drawing room when they arrive — I want to see their faces.”

Having no real quibble with that plan, Richard put aside his confusion along with his misgivings, set his long fingers to her laces, and complied.

He didn’t truly care if the Lady was involved, just as long as Heather and Breckenridge fronted the altar. Ensuring that happened was his duty to the family, but how it came about. . no one would care.

Tying off Catriona’s laces, then turning to doff his clothes and don the garments Worboys had left out for him, the words he’d uttered to Breckenridge replayed in his mind. He didn’t think of himself as prescient, yet it seemed his words had been a warning.

Cynsters married for love.

If he was interpreting the Lady’s interest in Heather and Breckenridge correctly, and he was fairly certain he was, then it seemed he’d have the honor and the unmitigated delight of welcoming Breckenridge — Breckenridge of all men, the ton’s foremost and favorite rake — to their club.

Grinning to himself, he shrugged on his evening coat, settled the sleeves, then followed Catriona to the door.

Chapter Fourteen

Hours later, arms crossed behind his head, Breckenridge stretched full length beneath crisp linen sheets, luxuriating in once again being in a bed that could properly accommodate his length. Relaxing with a sigh, he waited for Morpheus to make an appearance.

His mind drifted back over the recent dinner, taken with the rest of the household in a great hall that seemed to have changed little over the centuries, with the family and guests gathered about the high table, raised on a dais at one end, and the rest of the household, chattering and cheerful, spread about tables on the floor of the hall.

Revisiting the scene, he found himself smiling, remembering the warmth, the affection, the sharing of life that had flowed so effortlessly around and about the high table, about the hall in general, effervescent streams of ephemeral connection glimmering with laughter and smiles. Even he, an unknown entity, had felt included, bathed in the glow.

His own family, the Brunswick household, interacted in a manner that he recognized as similar, but here in the Vale, the joy and the simple pleasure of family were more easily perceived, more openly expressed.

It had been an interesting evening.

In more ways than one.

His mind ranging further, he sifted through the myriad conversations, examining the undercurrents, both over the dinner table and in the two hours they’d later spent in the drawing room. While he wasn’t surprised by Richard’s standing down, as it were, what he now sensed from his host was. . something more akin to sympathy.

Which seemed strange. Richard feeling sorry for him because he was being forced to trade his rakish freedoms for marriage to a Cynster female simply wouldn’t wash. All male Cynsters viewed their female cousins as akin to princesses of the house; Richard and the others would see any man who married one of the girls, no matter the circumstances, as being honored, rather than being an object of pity.

Richard eyeing him with sympathy made him uneasy.

Contributing to that underlying unease was Catriona’s confident, embracing acceptance. She knew that he and Heather would have to marry, yet he’d detected no disapproval of such a socially dictated union.

Catriona had been Richard’s wife, and thus within the Cynster fold, for more than nine years; it was difficult to believe that she hadn’t yet been infected with the “Cynsters only marry for love” creed.

Especially given her connection to her mysterious “Lady.”

What had rung more true was Catriona’s veiled warning that, once Heather was reminded of the social reality, of what society would expect and demand, she might jib.

Just the thought. . he felt his muscles tensing, tried to relax them again.

Tried to push the disturbing notion away, tried to bury it, but the prospect of having to let her go rose like a specter — and hardened his resistance. He didn’t want to let her go — couldn’t imagine how he could live with such an outcome. How he could meet her and pretend nothing had changed. He could prevaricate with the best of them, but that would be beyond him. The idea of him retreating to his previous distance — of allowing her to once again view him as an uncle — was laughable.

He shook himself, then resettled in the bed. In the interests of finding sleep that night, he focused on the positive — of what would come once they married. They’d use Brunswick House when in London, but other than the obligatory times when they would be looked for in the capital, he rather thought they’d spend their days at Baraclough. His father would like that, and so would he.

The truth was he’d like a chance to build a home — not just the house but the family to inhabit it — along the lines of what Richard had here. Richard was patently at peace, and if this life suited Richard, it would suit him. Would satisfy and fulfill him.

He hadn’t thought of it before, but that was what he wanted. What he wanted to achieve — the road he wished to follow for the rest of his life.

The only hurdle, it seemed, was getting Heather to accept that she had to marry him in the absence of any protestations of love. Luckily, in that he would for once have society, and the grandes dames in general, on his side.

Lips curving, he closed his eyes, composed his mind — and tried to find slumber.

It should have been easy; the bed was more than comfortable, and with the stone walls so thick, no sounds disturbed him.

He tossed. And turned.

Sat up, thumped the pillow, lay down again.

In the end he lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling. He was tempted to get up, find his fob-watch, and see how long he’d been lying there, but while it felt like hours and hours, by the distance the moonbeams had traveled across the room, it hadn’t been more than one.

He knew of one activity guaranteed to lead to sleep, but the convoluted tenets of gentlemanly honor forbade him to seek Heather’s bed, not while under Richard’s roof.