Mrs. Strapthorpe, after this outpouring, took a long overdue breath, shook out her purple satin skirts, and marched to the punch bowl, to guard it from her spouse, who was fat, sported three chins, and loved to drink until he was snoring too loudly in his chair. "So distracting for guests," Mrs. Strapthorpe was wont to say.

"She has always amazed me," Meggie said, staring after their hostess. Then she giggled. "She spoke nearly a complete chapter in a book, Mary Rose, and she never lost herself between commas. Remember when you and Papa were first married and he brought you here for a visit?" Mary Rose shuddered.

"And Glenda ordered him to take her to the conservatory-that miserably hot smelly room-and demanded to know how it had happened that he had wed you and not her?"

"I wanted, actually, to dance at her wedding," Mary Rose said, smiling now at the memory. "At last she would no longer send her sloe-eyed looks at your father. Do you know that she has three children now?"

"These things happen," Meggie said, grinning. "After all, you and Papa have given me Alec and Rory." She remembered that Jeremy would be a father soon. But not the father of her child. No, she wasn't about to think about that, she wasn't.

"Ah, the musical soiree begins. There is your poor papa, trapped by Squire Bittley, whose wife didn't manage to snag his lordship for her very refined dinner party last week." Meggie said, "Smart man. Now, Mrs. Bittley-that old battle-axe-has, thank the good Lord, quite come around where you are concerned."

"Yes, she is even pleasant to me most of the time now, unlike my own dear mother-in-law, your blessed grandmother, who still roundly tells Tysen he is wedded to a savage with vulgar hair. And then she looks at Alec, whose hair is also red." Mary Rose was still grinning as she lightly touched her fingertips to her husband's sleeve. Tysen turned immediately to take her hand.

Meggie sat beside her stepmother, in an aisle chair. She hated it when a singer pumped her lungs up to blast out a high C. If need be, if the high notes rattled her too much, she would simply slip out and walk in the gardens.

She did slip out after the sixth high C nearly burst her eardrums and made her toes cramp from quivering so much. She knew the Strapthorpe house very well and walked down the main corridor into the conservatory, Mr. Strapthorpe's pride and joy, the only room that everyone avoided because of the heat and the overpowering scent of the wildly blooming flowers. She imagined the garden was nearly full of escapees by now.

She was totally taken aback when he said from behind her, "I assume this is your sanctuary?"

Meggie turned so quickly she nearly tripped over her gown. She grabbed hold of a rose stem to steady herself, then yipped when a thorn punctured the pad of her finger.

"What a clever way of putting it, my lord. Oh dear, I have stabbed myself."

"The soprano drove me away as well. I'm sorry to startle you. Let me see what you did to yourself."

Lord Lancaster pulled a white handkerchief from his pocket, but he didn't hand it to her, he just picked up her hand, saw a fat drop of blood welling up, and lifted the finger to his mouth. He sucked away the blood.

Meggie didn't move, didn't breathe. He'd actually sucked the blood off her finger? Then licked her finger? How very odd that was. It felt very strange. Not bad, just very strange.

She stared up at him, still silent, as he then wrapped his handkerchief tightly around her finger, and pressed his thumb against the wound. She was very tall for a woman, but still, she had to look up, a very goodly distance. Was he as handsome as Mrs. Strapthorpe had said? He could have been, she supposed, but the point was that he wasn't Jeremy.

She said, frowning slightly, "I have read that vampires suck blood. Usually, in the novels I have read, it's fangs sunk in a person's neck at midnight and there is a good deal of drama involved."

He laughed, a warm deep sound that sounded dark as his midnight hair. "Yes, I have read about vampires as well. However, since you met me at a church during the day, then you know that I cannot be one." He gave her a big grin. "See, no fangs either. There, that should do it. I'm sorry I startled you, Miss Sherbrooke."

Lovely white teeth, just like Jeremy's. No, she had to stop thinking about him. She shook her head as she said, "I will be fine. I did manage to hold on until that final high C nearly knocked me out of my chair."

"Such impressive lungs are fashionable, I'm told."

"Where?"

He laughed again, then paused, as if surprised that he'd laughed. "Why, do you know that I'm not really sure? I haven't lived much in England in the past five years. I suppose I believed that the ninnies in London lauded such performances."

"I spent just one Season in London, my lord. As far as I could see, there were very few true devotees of Italian sopranos. Most people I saw on those evenings were polite enough to endure in stoic silence. Ah, but Mrs. Strapthorpe believed that her musical soiree was just the thing to induce you to attend, that and her elegant invitation to you. She is very pleased with herself."

"Good Lord. Actually, though, I wished to attend."

"But not for the wailing soprano?"

"No, I didn't attend because of the music."

Meggie hoisted up an eyebrow.

"My name is Thomas Malcombe."

The eyebrow remained hoisted.

He laughed, couldn't help himself. She appeared to be utterly uninterested in him. Without conceit, he realized she was the first female to be indifferent to him since he'd come to manhood. It was a rather appalling realization, this unconscious conceit, and one that made him want to laugh at himself.

"All right. I came because I wanted to meet my neighbors, people who had known my father."

"I'm Meggie Sherbrooke," she said finally, and hoisted her left eyebrow again. "You aren't telling the truth, my lord. If I may risk offending you, I daresay you don't care a fig about anyone in Glenclose-on-Rowan."

"Meggie, it's a nice name. You're quite wrong."

"It's short for Margaret. No one has ever called me Margaret, thank goodness. That's a Mother Superior's name. I would have preferred something exotic, like Maigret, but it was not to be. No, I really don't think I'm wrong. If I am wrong, then I have offended you, and I apologize."

"You really are a Meggie, never a Margaret. I accept your apology, for it is merited. I understand you train racing cats."

"Yes." She saw a glass sitting beside an orchid that looked overwatered. Its leaves were suddenly trembling. Probably the soprano had hit more high notes. "Actually, my little brother Alec is a cat whisperer."

"I have never known of a cat whisperer."

"It is a very rare occurrence, and all agree that Alec is blessed. It still remains to be seen if the gift will mature with him. But ever since he was a very small boy, the cats in our mews would gather around him, very happy to just sit and listen to him talk, which he did, all the time. He is at present assisting my brother Leo train our calico racer, Cleopatra, to improve her leaps. Alec believes she doesn't yet have the proper motivation. As a cat whisperer, he will determine what it is she wants and provide it, if possible."

"I should like to see him in action. How old is he?"

"Alec is seven now."

"Cat racing is an amazing thing, really unknown outside of England. I understand that some French devotees of the sport introduced cat races there, but the French were, evidently, too emotional, too uncontrolled, and so the cats never could get the hang of what was expected of them."

Meggie laughed, then shrugged her shoulders as if to say, what can you expect? He smiled again. She said, "At the McCaulty racetrack, all the cats would desert their owners in a moment if Alec called to them. He must be very careful not to unwittingly seduce them."