“It won’t be enough, Ellen,” he said. “And all the money and superior schooling I will be able to offer will not alter the fact that in the eyes of the world the child will be my by-blow.”

She closed her eyes.

“Marry me, Ellen,” he said. “If you love our child, marry me.”

“We will grow to hate each other,” she said. “There is only one good reason for marriage, Dominic, and in our case it does not exist.”

“Then we must make the best of what we have,” he said. “We don’t hate each other now, Ellen. We like each other. You admitted that to me just the other day. And we both want the best for the child we have created together. There is no reason why we cannot have a perfectly contented marriage.”

She bit her lower lip and looked at him, shaking her head. “This is all wrong, Dominic,” she said. “It does not feel right.”

“Then we’ll make it right,” he said. His hands had moved from her wrists to clasp her own hands tightly. “Say yes, Ellen. It’s the only decent thing we can do.”

She clung to his hands and looked into his green eyes, fixed anxiously on her own. And felt trapped. She had had very little choice the first time, except to throw herself on the charity of Charlie’s sister in London. So she had begged him to marry her. Now she had even less choice. She must make the baby her main consideration, and that left her with no personal choice at all.

Two forced marriages. The only difference was that the first time she had known that Charlie loved her, that she had a chance of making him happy and therefore of making herself happy too. This time she was being married entirely out of a sense of duty to a person who was only a part of her at the moment, but not really her at all.

He did not know the stresses and strains of marriage. Her love for him would become a hopeless thing and would sour and die. Her love would become a chain about his neck, and he would fight it and come to hate her.

And their child would be caught in the middle, as she had been caught between the jealousies and hatreds of her own parents. And yet without marriage, the child would be called bastard, would never be quite respectable.

There was really no choice at all.

“Yes, then,” she said. “I’ll marry you, Dominic.”

He squeezed her hands so hard they hurt. “You won’t be sorry,” he said, lifting one of those hands to his lips. “I’ll see to it that you will never be sorry, Ellen. Shall I make the announcement tonight?”

“No.” She pulled her hands from his and rose to her feet. She turned away from him. “No, not today. Jennifer doesn’t know yet. I…I haven’t found the right moment to tell her. Give me a few days.”

He stood behind her, his hands on her shoulders. “As many days as you want,” he said. “Don’t feel rushed. And, Ellen, don’t be unhappy. I don’t want to see you unhappy. It will work out for the best, you will see.”

She turned toward him, a determined smile on her face. “For a newly betrothed couple,” she said, “we are being rather gloomy, aren’t we? We must try to be fond of each other, Dominic. And to share with each other. I have felt the baby move in the last few days. I don’t think it is imagination. I have felt it more than once.”

“Have you?” His eyes widened and looked deeply into hers. And he smiled, a warm, joyful smile that lit up his whole face.

She nodded.

ON THE THIRD DAY, not only had the mist lifted and the rain stopped, but the clouds had moved off altogether and the sun shone. A brisk, fresh breeze brought with it the salt smell of the sea.

Jennifer wandered out onto the terrace after luncheon, impatient for the arrival of Anna and the others from the Carrington house and Miles Courtney from the other direction. When they came, they would all be able to leave for the long-promised ride to the beach and climb to the clifftop.

Lieutenant Penworth was standing on the terrace, propped up on his crutches.

“What are you planning to do this afternoon?” she asked.

“Paint,” he said, “or play the pianoforte or read. My choices are myriad.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was a perfectly civil question.”

He looked across at her and away again. “I am going to wait until you all leave,” he said, “and go to the stables to have the fastest horse left there saddled. Perhaps I will not even wait for it to be saddled. And I am going to ride up the hillside and gallop out onto the cliffs.”

“I said I’m sorry,” she said. “Was my question tactless? But one cannot forever be tiptoeing around you, you know. I am sorry that you cannot ride and walk with us, but the fact is that you cannot. So am I to pretend that I am not going to be doing those things? Am I to pretend that I am not looking forward to them? Am I to pretend afterward that I did not really enjoy myself? That would be nonsense, and you would know that I was patronizing you, and you would be even more annoyed than you are now.”

He grinned suddenly and quite unexpectedly. “Little spitfire!” he said. “You remind me of one of my sisters. Never a day passed without our having a good fight.”

“She has my profoundest sympathies,” Jennifer said.

“I will say one thing,” he said. “After I have had the pleasure of conversing with you, I invariably feel angry enough to throw things. And on the whole, I think that is better than the mild irritability I feel with most other people.”

“Madeline should be made into a saint,” she said, “for putting up with you. I would certainly never do so.”

“Ah,” he said, “but you have never been asked to.”

“That was such a glorious set-down,” she said, “that I will not even try to cap it, sir. I see that the Carringtons and Lord Agerton are on the way. I am going to enjoy myself. Good day to you.”

LORD EDEN RODE at the head of the group with Anna. He had been somewhat amused to notice her maneuvering to have him as a partner. And yet not entirely amused. She was no longer a little girl to be indulged by an older cousin whom she had chosen to make her hero.

Besides, he was a betrothed man. Soon to be a married man and a father. It amazed him that he had been able to live through almost twenty-four hours without blurting his secret to Edmund or to Madeline. Or to someone. He felt distinctly like a child with a precious new toy.

It didn’t matter that she did not love him, that she had agreed to marry him only because he had convinced her that their child would suffer if she did not. The fact was that she had agreed to marry him. She was his betrothed. He would bring her to love him by very slow degrees after they were married. In such a way that she would not feel threatened, that she would not feel disloyal to her memories of her first husband.

And in the meantime he would withhold the truth from her. She would never marry him if she suspected that his feelings for her were as powerful as they had been during that week when they had been lovers. A sense of honor would make her draw back.

But no matter. On such a day and in such surroundings, one could feel boundless optimism.

“And Papa keeps saying no, but all the time he winks at Mama,” Anna was saying, “so I know he means yes. Oh, it will be so splendid next year, Dominic. I will not be overawed as I was this year, and I will already know a few people. And you will be there, and everyone will see me with the most handsome gentleman in London. You will be there, won’t you? You really must come.”

He smiled at her. “I plan to become lord of my own manor immediately after Christmas,” he said. “I may well be enjoying myself so much that I will decide to rusticate, Anna. I really can’t promise anything.”

“Oh,” she said, “you could not possibly be so horrid. After you were away all last spring. You know I have had my heart set on it forever, Dominic. Tell me you are only teasing me.”

“I wonder,” he said, “if your riding skills have improved since I rode with you last. Do you think you can race me to the beach?”

“You are about to play your usual trick of galloping off while I am still replying, aren’t you?” she cried, and she shrieked and dug her spurs into her horse’s sides.

Lord Eden grinned and watched her go for a few seconds before going in pursuit of her.

“He will overtake her, poor girl,” the countess said to Ellen. “No one in living memory has ever raced Dominic on horseback. I was foolish enough to try the first time I rode down onto the beach. He was at the appointed rock and dismounted already before I came up to him. It was a dreadful humiliation.” She laughed.

Lord Eden stopped when grass gave way to sand. He reached up to lift his cousin down.

“Anna,” he said, “while we have some privacy, my dear, we need to have a little talk.”

“Oh, dear,” she said. “And you have that serious look. I can guess about what.”

“Can you?” he said. “You are my cousin, dear. I am very proud of your beauty and your vivacity. I have been delighted to hear of the success of your first Season, and not at all surprised. And I am very, very fond of you.”

She grimaced.

“And that is all, Anna.” He kept his voice firm, though his eyes looked gently enough down at her.

“I know that,” she said. “I have always known that, Dominic. But old dreams are sometimes hard to let go of.”

“Some young man is going to be very fortunate,” he said.

She pulled a face. “I had one offer in the spring,” she said.

He smiled. “Did you? You did not reject him on account of me, I hope.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I found him stuffy.”

“Then he certainly would not do,” he said.

“Don’t make fun of me, Dominic,” she said. “I am not a child. I know I frequently behave like one, but I don’t feel like a child. And I can be hurt.”

He brushed one finger beneath her chin. “I was not making fun,” he said. “Whoever you choose, Anna, will have to be very special. I absolutely insist on it. Because you are very special. A ray of sunshine, no less. And I know that you are not a child and that you can be hurt. If you were still a child, I would probably allow this fantasy to continue. And if I did not know you could be hurt, I would not have challenged you to this race so that I might talk privately with you. I don’t want you hurt, Anna. This must end now. Understood?”

She sighed and peeped up at him, rather shamefaced. “Yes,” she said. “Just assure me of one thing, Dominic. You are not going to marry Susan, are you?”

“Susan?” he said. “Good Lord, no. Whatever gave you that idea?”

“She did,” she said. “She is always telling Jennifer and Mrs. Simpson how you used to love her and how she broke your heart by marrying Lieutenant Jennings. And you were kissing her on the hill the other day, were you not?”

“Good Lord!” he said. “No, I was not. And no, I am not about to marry Susan, Anna. I can even make that a promise, if it will make you feel better.”

“It will,” she said.

“I promise, then,” he said. “Now, let’s tether these horses so that the stablehands who come to fetch them afterward will not have to search over miles of country to find them. And here come the others.”

They all left their horses and walked across the beach for about a mile to a large black rock that was almost directly at the foot of the narrow pathway that snaked its way up the almost sheer face of the high cliffs.

They were fortunate that the tide had only just started to come in, Lord Amberley explained to Ellen, taking her arm through his. If it were right in, there would be no climbing, as the water came right up to the cliffs.

“Has anyone ever been cut off by the tide?” she asked.

“Perry and I once as lads,” he said. “We sat on top of the black rock and dared each other to be the first to leave. By the time each of us realized that the other was just not going to give in, the water was swirling about the base of the rock. Fortunately, it never does reach to the top. Those were long and cold hours while we were there.”

“Your parents must have been worried,” she said.

“They saw us from the top of the cliffs,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “Unfortunately we could see them too, and a knowledge of how much less comfortable we would feel when our fathers’ hands got to us did nothing to make the hours pass more pleasantly.”

“I suppose you never did it again,” she said.

“I can remember having to lie facedown on my bed for at least an hour after my father had finished with me,” he said. “No, we did not do it again. We were very inventive, Perry and I. We always found new mischief to get ourselves into.”