Leah glanced at the footman, who was respectfully keeping his distance. “If the weather is fair, I can chance to meet you again at this hour in three or four days’ time. I am watched, though, so it had better not appear contrived.”

“Watched by the help,” Reston concluded easily. “Friday then, weather permitting, or Monday. Until then.” He tipped his hat again and left with a final, thoroughly friendly smile at the footman.

“So that was your Viscount Reston?” Emily gushed as she and Leah sauntered toward home. “Grand, indeed, Leah. And so very well-mannered. Is he the kind of gentleman you meet at these balls and breakfasts?”

Leah smiled at her sister’s enthusiasm and chose her truths, as usual. “He’s larger than most and probably more charming than most. Did you like him?”

“Of course I liked him, though he is quite a specimen.”

“Quite.” Emily was just a shade over five feet in her stockings, while Leah was eight inches taller. If Nicholas Haddonfield was imposing to Leah in terms of both his charm and his physique, what must Emily make of him? “He’s a mild-mannered man as well, though. I shouldn’t think his size would matter a great deal to his friends and family.”

“Perhaps not,” Emily replied, then she gave a little shudder. “But to his wife?”

“He would be a gentleman, Em,” Leah said. “In every regard.”

Emily cast her a curious glance, then shook her head. “He can be your gentleman, never mine.”

Bless Emily’s loyalty, and drat her stubbornness. “Don’t be too sure about that. He’s rumored to be in the market for a wife, and he’s an earl’s heir, Em. You could do worse. He’d be kind. I know he would.” And his kisses would be lovely. Drat that, too.

“Kind or not,” Emily said, “I’ve no wish to bear him his heirs. I’m sure I can find a suitable man among the fifty-one remaining candidates I’ve listed from Debrett’s, though perhaps I’d best start making inquiries regarding height, hadn’t I?”

Leah did not respond to that pragmatic observation, letting the subject drop. Emily had been ten years old when Leah had been whisked off to Italy, and the version of events passed along to Emily was no doubt the one that would put a girl in fear of the slightest misstep, particularly in her search for a husband.

She and Emily had never openly discussed the past, a small, curious sadness amid a sororal landscape full of them. A landscape that now included one very tall, well-mannered viscount with kind blue eyes.

And a devastating way with a kiss.

The young lady for whom Nick would cheerfully have given his last farthing and his last breath was strolling in her gardens, unaware that he watched her from the back of his mare on the grassy hill high above. Blossom Court and Clover Down were not two miles distant by the road, but the properties backed up to each other, and riding from one to the other cross-country was the work of a few minutes.

Every afternoon, weather permitting, the young lady walked outside with her companion. If the companion saw Nick up on the hill, she knew better than to wave. He paid her salary, after all, and kept the entire little jewel of a property simply so the young lady could have her peace and quiet in the pretty countryside.

Then too, if Nick’s presence were discovered, he’d be compelled to join the ladies, and there would be tears and apologies and more tears. He’d already tried to explain why he could not visit as often, and why he must marry and spend more time at Belle Maison.

Explanations that had fallen on deaf, heartbroken ears.

The companion took out a book, while the object of Nick’s devotion chose the location for the afternoon’s picnic. She and Nick had consulted endlessly over the flowers for each bed, most of which would not bloom for weeks yet. Forget-me-nots for true love, coreopsis for cheer, a border of mint for virtue. She chose to spread her blanket near a patch of daffodils—daffodils for chivalry—that Nick had planted for her the previous autumn.

The ladies settled in for a lazy afternoon, while Nick felt his chest constricting with frustrated need. He’d give anything to be the one reading that book to her, to be the one sharing the hours with her.

He sat there for a minute, savoring the simple sight of her. Sunshine beat down with springtime benevolence, while the scent of a field recently treated with the cow byre’s winter leavings lent a pungent, fertile undertone to the air. The mare swished her tail at some bold insect and stomped a hoof while Nick felt a yearning so old and futile it had long since eclipsed tears.

What she needed from him was the self-discipline to turn the horse back down the hill and resume the search for that bride he’d promised his father. Life, Nick reflected as he trotted his horse through the glorious spring day, could be so damned brutally hard.

“What has put you in the dismals?” Val asked Nick at breakfast the following Friday. “The sun is finally out, and spring is at hand.”

“Buttercup and I ran into Ethan in the park this morning,” Nick replied. “He is enough to put anybody in the dismals. Pass the damned teapot.”

Val slid the teapot—a pretty porcelain thing with blue and pink flowers glazed all over it—down to his host.

“I do not know your elder brother well,” Val said, “but mention of him does not seem to cheer you.”

“Nobody knows him well,” Nick opined, stirring a prodigious amount of sugar into his tea, then a fat dollop of cream. “We used to be close.”

Valentine made no reply, and Nick resented both the silence and his companion’s perspicacity.

“As boys,” Nick went on, “we were inseparable. I was his shadow, and we were of a size then, though he’s more than a year my elder. For several years, we rode one pony, then had to have matched ponies. Ethan is brilliant—quick and smart, not just one or the other. He could devise more ways to have fun and not get caught than you can imagine. Beckman used to trail us around like a puppy, and Ethan could lose him without him figuring out he’d been lost.”

“You loved your older brother.”

Nick scowled mightily. “Still do.” And nearly hated him too, sometimes.

“So what happened?” Val prodded, reaching for the teapot.

“An accident.” Nick tossed his tea back and appropriated the teapot before Val could pour himself a cup. “Bellefonte was in the habit of branding his saddles and harness and such with an H—for Haddonfield—and we thought we’d do the same with our boots, clever lads that we were. The brand landed on my backside by inadvertence, and Bellefonte decided Ethan had done it apurpose. Before that…”

Nick poured a second cup, stirred in more sugar, then more cream.

He stared at his tea. “Before that we were brothers and best friends. After Bellefonte tore into Ethan in front of me that day, we became the bastard and the heir. He sent us to separate public schools. He no longer permitted Ethan to spend holidays and summers with us. He sent Ethan to Cambridge while I went to Oxford.”

Valentine considered the teapot at Nick’s elbow. “Over a stupid accident? That doesn’t sound like your father.”

Nick’s smile was sad. “You know Bellefonte as a dear old fellow. Twenty years ago, he was up to his ears in children and responsibilities, and he was a regular Tartar. Grandmother sneaked a few letters for us, but Ethan and I could not sustain a bond. After a time, I told myself it was for the best. I imagine Ethan has done the same.”

“How could losing a brother and a best friend be for the best?” Valentine had lost two brothers, one to war, one to consumption. Nick knew the question was sincere and… difficult.

“I have three other brothers, and four sisters, and until my father sent Ethan away, I could barely have told you their names. Ethan and I were that close. As the heir, I needed to know my entire family, not just my favorite brother. Then too, Ethan needed to make his way, not spend his entire life protecting me and being my… companion.”