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Chapter One

Rebecca Valence crouched, careless of her costly blue traveling gown, before the weeping child who perched upon a substantial settle in the entry of the venerable inn. She took the cup of milk from the inn's serving maid who had answered her request. "Come now, little one. You must stop weeping. Here is a lovely drink for you and you shall have a biscuit if you finish it all."

Her only answer was a hiccupping wail. Rebecca set the cup on the bench beside the child, and heaved a sigh of mingled frustration and impatience. She twitched off her fashionable trencher hat--with the triangular brim of which she was particularly fond--and laid it on the bench beside the rejected drink.

It was more than two hours since she had first spied the precariously composed child--with alternating expressions of concern and resignation on her small, freckled face--seated alone on the bench. She had thought little of the matter at first, but as the infant remained unclaimed, her curiosity was aroused. When eventually the moppet began to cry, and no one in the bustling establishment took any notice, Rebecca's compassion--usually in short supply--was stirred.

But she had made little progress in ascertaining the child's situation or anything about her, and was beginning to wonder why she was bothering. It was not like her to take an interest in the infantry, and she had no experience with the vagaries of very small children to guide her. She began to think she was doomed to failure in this rare attempt at benevolence.

She was still crouched before the crying child when she became aware that someone had joined the obsequious innkeeper near the massive open door of the inn. She could hear a muttered colloquy and then a gentleman stooped beside her.

"I understand you have been commandeered by the infant, madam. May I be of any assistance?" he murmured.

Her attention distracted from the child, she replied, "Rather waylaidthan commandeered, sir, and by my own choice. I have given up my plan to survey the town. Ludlow must wait." A sidelong glance told her the gentleman was comely and in his prime. She straightened, and bestowed upon him the wide-eyed candid gaze that had served her well with the opposite sex in the past. "I cannot think how you may help, unless you are an expert in childhood dialects. I can understand little the infant says. I am certain only of her name, which is Maudie."

He did not straighten or bow, but kept his attention fixed upon the child. "Bennet Kelmarsh, at your service, Miss Valence," he said. His tone was cool and distant, and he seemed unusually immune to her appeal. "Maudie, I am Ben."

"How nice Maudie, we have a new friend; someone has even made him free of my name," Rebecca said with patently sarcastic delight. She was affronted by his lack of attention.

"The landlord, madam; it seemed no time to stand on ceremony," said the gentleman with no apology.

The child's tears subsided as she assessed the newcomer. "Ben," she said. "Alice don."

"She keeps saying that. Alice was, I think, a maid." Rebecca put aside her annoyance with the gentleman. "No one noticed who deposited the child here, or precisely when she arrived. I have determined a coach from Shrewsbury does regularly set down passengers at this inn, but no one can say that she disembarked from it."

"Verdammt," muttered Mr. Kelmarsh, straightening. Louder, he said, "Maudie, may we sit upon the bench with you?"

Rebecca gestured to the serving maid to remove the rejected milk, and picked up her bonnet. She discreetly considered her new companion. Mr. Kelmarsh was comfortably tall, broad-shouldered and more than reasonably well-favoured. He possessed a straight nose, a strong jaw and well-opened grey eyes. He was garbed in the breeches, tail coat and boots of the country gentleman, but they were exceedingly well-tailored garments and of the finest materials. His low-crowned beaver hat was in the landlord's care, and his hair was the most unusual colour she had ever seen...silver-gilt, as a description, came to mind. His expression was more than customarily self-possessed and notably reserved.

Rebecca's skill at lightning assessment had been honed over many years of observation. It had never failed to provide her with the preliminary information she required about any man. Satisfied with her survey, she turned her attention to the child once more. "May we sit beside you, Maudie?" She repeated Kelmarsh's question.

The little girl nodded shyly, her last tears beginning to dry in tracks on her rosy cheeks.

Rebecca sat down, donned her hat once more and settled her skirts over her knees. "Shall we tell Mr. Kelmarsh how we met and how you came here?" Patrons of the busy inn were edging past them to the coffee room, the tap room, and the chambers abovestairs. She paid them no heed and the landlord, obeying her minatory glance, gave her and her companions a small island of privacy as he could.

Maudie nodded again, speechlessly, and rocked the soft doll that she clutched in her arms. She was staring wide-eyed now at the passers-by.

"I first saw Maudie sitting here, oh, at least two hours ago. I thought nothing of it, but the landlord has since informed me that she was sat here at the minimum an hour before that. When I returned downstairs perhaps twenty minutes ago, she was crying." She did not tell the gentleman that she had waved away the landlord who had been bearing down upon the child in an intimidating fashion. Or that she had demanded an extra handkerchief with which to mop the child's face and blow a deplorable nose. "Should you like to sit on my knee, Maudie?"

At the child's nod, she lifted the little girl to perch on her lap. She patted the doll, and the child made no demure. Without speaking Rebecca untied the ribands of the infant's small bonnet and drew it off to reveal a tumble of ginger curls. She handed the hat absently to the gentleman, who had seated himself also. She was touched when the child, inserting her grimy thumb in her rosebud mouth, nestled against the bosom of Rebecca's lapis blue challis gown. "Maudie has a small valise, but there is nothing in it to identify her. We don't know why Alice left her here, or when Alice is returning."

The little one's eyelids were drooping wearily; Rebecca could see her small profile. The gentleman's gaze was lingering on them both. They were a charming sight, she had no doubt of it.

"I think madam, you may have to house the little one overnight."

"I suppose you are right sir. There is little else to be done. The landlord will know where she is, should someone arrive to claim her. We will be better abovestairs, away from all these...people." Her disdain for the landlord's clientele was unconcealed.

"Miss Valence! You cannot!" The words, squeaky with protest, came from the shadows of the old entry.

Rebecca had wondered where her maid, usually voluble and contrary, had got to. "You think not, Rush? Where have you been?" She ignored the girl's spluttered excuses. "You are unwilling to provide Christian charity for a lost child? Unable to undertake the extra work? Never mind, I may no longer require your services. I am sure the landlord has a chambermaid willing to help me."

Hovering nearby, attentive to his most elegant patrons' needs, the man heard her words. "That I do, my lady, and we'll set up a trundle for the babe, in your chamber, quick as may be." He bustled off happy, it seemed, to be assigned a task.

Rebecca's maid, a plump creature with a round country face, emerged from her corner and snatched the child's bonnet from Mr. Kelmarsh's hand. "I did not say I was unwilling, ma'am. Only 'stonished at your unusual concern. I sh'll order some bread and milk from the kitchen, ma'am."

"And bespeak a supper for me, Rush!"

The maid was gone in an instant.

"You and your maid have a contentious relationship, Miss Valence?" The gentleman seemed surprised but, more than that, amused.

"Not really, sir. I simply cannot seem to prevent myself from baiting her. She bears it very well, I think." She rose, still holding the child.

"Allow me to carry Maudie above stairs for you, madam."

"To my bedchamber, sir? It cannot be thought proper." She protested, but unconvincingly. She transferred the little girl to his long arms without further demur.

"I have no doubt you have a comfortable parlour as well." The gentleman was reproving and unsmiling. "Needs must, Miss Valence, and the landlord and your maid will protect the proprieties surely?"

The child accepted Kelmarsh's arms, but clung to Rebecca's hand, so that Rebecca had awkwardly to mount the stairs ahead and a little beside them.

She could not remember when last she had been so attracted to a gentleman. Her acquaintances on the continent had none of them caught her fancy as had this quiet, forthright man. But she could not either recall when a gentleman had displayed so little interest in her.

"Too much perhaps," Rebecca said, flirting her long dark lashes at him as she answered his sardonic question.

He stared at her consideringly over the child's head. "Left or right?" he asked without other comment, at the head of the stairs.

Rebecca, stranded with her flirtation, closed her mouth with a snap. She was affronted anew by his impassive and positively rude response to her flirtatious pleasantry. With a brief wave, she indicated the right hand corridor and a moment later pushed open the door to her commodious parlour. Kelmarsh followed her into the chamber, and then lowered the child to the floor. Maudie ran to clamber on a serviceable sopha to stare from the window at the busy street below.

On her dignity, Rebecca refused to offer a topic of conversation. After she and Kelmarsh spent three or four uncomfortable minutes in utter silence, a tap upon the planked door interrupted the impasse. The landlord entered with a bright-eyed boot boy and groom in his train carrying a bed frame. A maidservant bearing a mattress and linens followed, and finally Rebecca's maid trotted in with a laden tray.

Rebecca chose a Windsor chair at the deal table, and called the child. "Maudie, Rush has brought a charming supper just for you." She lifted her gaze to the tall man, who stood regarding her intently from a position halfway between the door and the small, welcome fire in the grate. "Good night, Mr. Kelmarsh. Thank you for your assistance. The landlord will advise you how this matter resolves itself." Her annoyance translated itself to a prickly dismissal.

He seemed unmoved by it. "I should like to attend upon you both tomorrow morning to discover if the child is claimed. If she is not, I may be able to assist you further." He did not wait for acquiescence. "Good day to you, Miss Valence. Laila tiaba--good night--Maudie. Never fear, all will be well." He cupped the small ginger head in his hand a moment, and tousled the curls. The child, who had tucked her left thumb back in her mouth, smiled around it. "Bye-bye," she managed to say, though indistinctly, hugging her doll yet more closely.

The gentleman removed himself from the room with an impressive economy of movement. Rebecca stared at the closed door. An attractive but irritating, domineering, and positively puritanical gentleman. He would be well served if she was gone in the morning.

The landlord came through from the spacious and spotlessly clean bedchamber Rebecca had earlier examined. "Trundle's about set up, my lady. Might there be anything else you would require this evening?"

"A bottle of your best Madeira, and information?" she asked, helping the sleepy child to spoon bread-and-milk into her small pink mouth. "Who is this Kelmarsh, landlord?"

"Mr. Kelmarsh's a gentleman as comes from Penstrey in the Vale. I took the liberty of explaining your difficulty, my lady, to Mr. Kelmarsh being he's a gentleman much involved in philatht...philant...good works, my lady. He is uncommon good about handling such things, always busy about helping someone. I thought he might be able to come to your aid, my lady."

Rebecca digested the fact that she had, without any intention of it, become one of Bennet Kelmarsh's good works. Before she could speak, Rush appeared in the bedchamber's doorway. She folded her sturdy arms on her plump, dimity-clad bosom and dismissed the chambermaid.

The landlord made to follow his employee from the parlour.

"Wait!" Rebecca directed, halting him when his broad hand reached for the open door. "Do stop calling me 'my lady', landlord. I've not a hint of a title though my brother is a baron." She interrupted herself. "Maudie, will you go to Rush? Find your nightrail, and your lovely little bed?"

The child uttered a shriek, and hid her face in the curve of Rebecca's throat while winding small, surprisingly strong arms around her neck. "Perhaps not," Rebecca murmured. "Hush now! I will stay with you."

"Yes, my lady!" The landlord was answering her interrupted request.

Rebecca shook her head in despair at his remarkable lack of understanding. She rose with the sniveling child securely in her arms. She fired her final instructions at the hapless host as she crossed to the bedchamber. "Do not show that gentleman up if he returns on the morrow. Come to advise me first of his arrival. If anyone asks after the child, I am to be notified immediately, and again, visitors are not to be conducted to me without prior knowledge."

"Yes, my lady." The man bowed himself out, his delight at escape apparent in every line of his substantial person.

Rebecca was conscious of nothing so much as weariness. With Rush's help she settled Maudie into the trundle. Because the child would not suffer her to leave the room, she had Rush bring her supper to her chair by the bedchamber fire. She surveyed the meal with distaste; it was cold.

"Why did you not tell me the tray contained my supper as well?" she asked her maid, ignoring that she might herself have noticed the fact.

"There was no opportunity, ma'am."

Rush was scoring her off for her earlier sharpness. Rebecca knew it; it was no more than a game they played. It did not matter. She pushed aside the plate, stared at the fire, and then at the child who was watching her, thumb in mouth and doll clutched tightly to her small chest. Nothing was proceeding as she had planned for her return to Britain.

"You must know something of child care, Rush," Rebecca said. "Give me the benefit of your wisdom...quickly!"

* * *

After a broken night, Rebecca was nearly as weary when she rose as she had been on retiring. She had not been so fatigued after dancing countless hours at the gayest, most crowded ball of her experience. Her small charge's sleep had been disturbed by nightmares, and a frequent need for the convenience bestowed behind a screen in the corner. They had been up and down all the night. Eventually Rebecca had taken the child into her own bed, and they had at last slept for some two or three hours.

They were slow to rise and dress. Rebecca considered that Rush was annoyingly fresh and rested even as she recognized that it was by her own choice. She had not called upon her maid in the night, thinking that the girl would be of more use in the day. She was glad of the decision even though she had shuddered over the dark circles under her eyes that the looking glass had shown her.

Rush was bustling about serving their breakfast, when the boot boy brought news of Mr. Kelmarsh's arrival.

Rebecca had wondered, in the still watches of the night, if he would keep his word and attend upon them. No man that she knew would trouble himself so for an unknown child. But then she could not imagine a well-favoured, intelligent man residing in such a backwater of a county, distant from all that was important in the world.

She paused with a forkful of buttered egg half way to her mouth. No doubt he was himself the father of a hopeful family...that was why he cared about a lost little one. The thought gave her no joy whatsoever, and she laid down her utensil.

She surveyed the little girl across the round oak table from her. The child was perched on Rebecca's stout, iron-banded jewel chest which was, in its turn, set upon a hoop-backed chair. "Shall we allow him up, little one? No one has asked about you, and I can scarcely trail you about the town asking if anyone knows who you are. We might have to rely on the gentleman, annoying as that might be."

The child said nothing, but occupied herself in offering toast to her blank-faced doll.

"Show him up, Rush," Rebecca directed her servant.

The maid flounced out. Rebecca read very clearly the outrage in the set of the girl's shoulders; she had not liked her mistress' peremptory tone. Rush was tired of traveling; she wished only to settle again at Brighton and resented this change of plan. Rebecca laughed softly; she led her servants a merry dance, but she paid them well to endure it, and she had no sympathy for them.

She was wiping egg from Maudie's mouth, when Rush announced the gentleman. Rebecca had heard the footsteps on the uncarpeted stairs, his booted, measured tread counterpoint to Rush's pattering steps, but she had no intention of welcoming Kelmarsh in a flutter of flattered charm.

"Sir." She nodded briefly to him upon his entry, continuing her ministrations to the child.

"Good day, Miss Valence."

He seemed vexingly unmoved by her brevity. She released Maudie, who was squirming away from her to slip to the floor.

"You slept well, madam? And Maudie? How did your dolly sleep?"

"Dolly was the most fortunate of us all; her sleep was unbroken," Rebecca said, with brittle promptitude. "Maudie slept poorly in the trundle, and spent the better part of the night in my bed. She had nightmares and a remarkably weak bladder. I slept very little. She will not allow me to leave her presence for a moment without tears. Tears and shrieks..."

"One can understand her concern. She has lost all that shapes her world, madam. She has chosen you to replace what she has lost."

"A poor choice, Mr. Kelmarsh, did she but know it." Rebecca sat down once again, and waved him also to a chair. She noted that his linen was again impeccable, his hair was either silver or gold or both, and that he possessed a quality of self-possessed calm about him that was intriguing. "I can answer your questions before you ask them, sir. We have heard nothing. There have been no inquiries, no searchers, no concerns expressed to us. Yet her clothing is of good quality, and she has genteel manners, at least so much as any child so young may have them. I have discovered little else from her. She might as well be speaking Greek for all the sense I can make of her language. Though her speech is unintelligible, I think she is not stupid."

The gentleman ignored her invitation to be seated. "A mystery indeed, madam." He crossed the chamber to crouch before the little girl who had climbed upon the window seat.

She sat holding her doll, framed by the serviceable linsey curtains. She inserted her left thumb into her mouth, and surveyed him with a little shyness, and some anxiety. Her green gaze flickered from Mr. Kelmarsh to Rebecca.

"And are you in a hurry, Miss Valence? What destination awaits you? What burdens must you take up?" Mr. Kelmarsh smiled at the child, who ventured a small grimace in return.

Rebecca might have been flattered by his questions had she thought them occasioned by an interest in her, but she knew he was concerned only for the child's future. "I have been traveling, sir, for my own entertainment upon the continent these thirteen months. I am touring my own country a little before returning to my home in Sussex. I have no fixed plan, no one is expecting me, though I might decide to visit my brother and his family."

Mr. Kelmarsh only nodded. He murmured something to the child, and upon her response, seated himself on the window seat at her side. They continued to converse for some minutes, mostly in an undertone Rebecca could not discern. Her temper, never sanguine, began to rise.

Kelmarsh seemed to sense when her vexation was like to erupt, and forestalled her with information from across the room. "Her name is Maudie Fairmile. And, as you say she is difficult to understand. But I believe she has confided that you smell like her mama, Miss Valence." There was a hint of amusement in his deep voice. "It would be much to her benefit if you could delay your journey until we find Maudie's family."

Rebecca hesitated. She was affronted that her heliotrope scent, distilled especially for her by a Swiss perfumier, could be considered to have been approximated by some Shropshire apothecary. With some difficulty, she put the inconsequential aside.

The child was regarding her with beseeching eyes, and the gentleman with a considering gaze. She found she could disappoint neither. She nodded. "I will do that, Mr. Kelmarsh. I hate to see an infant in such distress. I have no experience but surely she is a beautiful child, sir? How could someone abandon her?"

"It cannot be so difficult as we imagine, madam. It is done all the time. The foundling hospitals are always full." The gentleman's voice was grim. "I shall set some enquiries afoot, and question the staff here. It may be something has been overlooked."

"I have not been able, myself, to question anyone save the landlord. The child cries bitterly when I leave the room. "

"You have been very kind, Miss Valence. Maudie's family will appreciate it."

Rebecca could not recall the last time she had been praised for kindness. Reviled for harshness, belittled for flirtation, condemned for spitefulness, but never praised for altruism and courtesy.

She rather liked the novelty.

"If you will wait here, I will return as soon as I may, with such news as I can glean." Kelmarsh patted the little girl's ginger curls, and exchanged a smile verging on a grin with the child.

To Rebecca he showed no such ease. He left the child's side, and bowed over Rebecca's hand. "I will return, Miss Valence." With that abrupt assurance he was gone.

Despite his pledge, Rebecca had given up hope of him by seven o'clock that evening. They had spent a long day, she and Rush, devising entertainments for the child and playing with her doll. A considerable amount of time had been spent staring from the window at the lively street below and inventing tales about the people there. She had managed in the afternoon to lie down with the child, and they had both slept.

She had considered Mr. Kelmarsh as brief opportunities for thought arose. No doubt he had thought to humour her with his questions and his praise, but he had had no intention of actually coming to her aid. His own family must come before strangers, and there was no reason why he should fulfill his guarantee of return.

No, there could be no doubt that she must solve this problem herself. There must surely be distraught relatives searching for a child so evidently well-cared-for. There could be no reason to abandon such a bright and pretty infant. If she simply waited here in Ludlow, someone was sure to come in search of Maudie Fairmile. It wanted only patience.

Unfortunately, patience was something Rebecca had never possessed in abundance. Herself a neglected child of uncaring parents, she had early learned that manipulation and aggressive perseverance were the tools that obtained the results she desired. She could understand Maudie's weeping to keep her benefactress--Rebecca--at her side; she had used such tactics herself often enough.

Rebecca knew she was possessed of a determined and unconventional nature. It had sent her, in the grip of annoyance and defiance, to travel on the continent in the company only of a coachman, a groom, and her maid. She had seen many famed sites in the past year, and many famous and infamous people...Brummel in Calais, Byron in Venice, Metternich in Vienna. She had flirted with them all, promised much to various charming Italians, Frenchmen, Greeks and Hungarians and delivered nothing. She had come home to England as disillusioned and embittered as when she departed.

And now this little child held her here, in Ludlow, of all English places. It was unexpected, but no penance. She had little desire to retire to her former abode in Brighton. It held nothing for her anymore...neither personality nor treasures that she wished to reclaim. And Kelmarsh's attractive person added a fillip of interest to her enforced stay in Shropshire.

It was growing dark. She wandered from the parlour of her suite to the bedroom, to view the little girl asleep in the trundle beside her own high bed.

She had wished that Rush might take over all care of the moppet, but Maudie had let her opinion of that be known in no uncertain terms. She had declared it, in screams heard all over the inn, unacceptable. The plan had been unpopular with Rush as well, though she was wise enough to temper her protests.

The maid sat with the sleeping infant now; she had been given the task while Rebecca had eaten her supper. She looked up as Rebecca entered and said, "She's a pretty little thing, ma'am."

"She is that. How old do you think she might be, Rush?"

"'Tis difficult to know, ma'am--two or three years, I suppose."

Rebecca nodded and drew her cashmere shawl more closely about her shoulders. The old inn was draughty. "Three I think, despite her language. You may go to your own dinner, Rush." She dismissed the girl with a wave of her hand, seated herself in the abandoned chair and continued to attempt to develop some sort of plan.

To spend days or, God forbid, weeks in Shropshire was beyond imagining with or without Kelmarsh. If no one claimed the child, what should she do? Deposit the unwanted cherub at a foundling hospital? The idea did not appeal; she had felt herself unwanted enough in her childhood and youth. Take the girl to her brother? But he had a baby daughter of his own. Neither of them had ever imagined parenthood; while Eric might dote upon his own child, she could hardly burden him with an orphan.

She might take the child with her...treat her as her own? Maudie might be antidote to whatever was the strange restlessness that had pursued her all over Europe and home again, but she doubted it. And would that be fair to the child? She thought not; she had no maternal instincts.

Rush returned to curtsey in the doorway. "The gentleman, ma'am. Mr. Kelmarsh. He says he is expected."

"I had given up expectation," Rebecca muttered.

Her maid, though inured to her mistress' vagaries, looked alarmed. "Shall I refuse him, miss?"

"No, no, stay here with the infant after all. I will see Mr. Kelmarsh; I had given up hope of him."

When she entered the parlour, she could see that, as she had intended, Kelmarsh had heard her words. He however looked neither contrite nor regretful at his tardiness and he made no apologies.

"Your servant, madam," he bowed to a nicety, blending reserve and assurance with grace.

Rebecca, accustomed to admiration, importunity, and lechery, was both piqued and relieved to encounter none of them. She only nodded her greeting.

"I wished to leave no stone unturned in the search for the child's family, Miss Valence. And I have not, in so far as Ludlow is concerned. She did arrive on the Shrewsbury coach, she was unaccompanied when she arrived, and she is unknown--though her colouring is distinctive--in the town."

"This is not good news," Rebecca said, offering Kelmarsh a glass of wine from the decanters set on her parlour's sideboard, and taking a glass of Madeira herself. If she hoped to provoke a reaction to her strong wine from the gentleman, she was disappointed.

"It certainly bodes ill for her early restoration to her family," he agreed.

Rebecca seated herself on the sopha near the fire and she indicated the seat next to her with a graceful wave of the hand.

Mr. Kelmarsh chose a wing chair some distance away.

His fair hair--was it silver or gold?--gleamed in the firelight.

"You were wise to purchase her a book and a toy, madam."

"Self-preservation, sir." She was impressed by his powers of observation. The ball and chapbook were half-hidden on the dun-coloured carpet under the table. "I sent Rush to the shops. I have no knowledge of the infantry, but it was a long day, and it seemed to me that distraction had much to offer a distraught child."

"Your wisdom does you credit. Has she indicated any willingness to part with your company?"

"None. I had to sit with her until she slept. Even now Rush is there, for if she wakes, she makes an unholy fuss."

"I have a suggestion, Miss Valence."

Rebecca could have conjured a few inappropriate and outrageous suggestions of her own. She smiled demurely however, and looked her enquiry.

"I should dislike to see this child lose her home and family through any lack of exertion on my part. But I need more time to pursue the matter. She will not leave you. Would you come to the village--Penstrey--near my home with her? Stay with her there while I investigate? We have a most comfortable inn, The Black Marcher."

Rebecca was surprised by the suggestion; whatever she had expected it had not been that. It was not however an entirely unwelcome notion. Bennet Kelmarsh was worth further consideration. Nevertheless she hesitated. "Why should we remove to Penstrey, sir? Surely it would be better to stay in Ludlow, so that if she is sought we should be on the spot?"

"There is some merit in that, madam. But I doubt that anyone is going immediately to step forward and claim the child after nearly two days. I should of course, leave appropriate messages here and wherever else in the town they may be of benefit. I think a more quiet, wholesome atmosphere might benefit the child. I believe I may be of more service if I may work from my home and command the assistance of my staff."

"How far distant is this village?" Rebecca could see some sense to his arguments and could not, to her regret, discover any hint of an ulterior motive regarding herself. "And what would your family think?"

"I have no family, Miss Valence." His expression was discouraging in the extreme, forestalling further questioning. "Penstrey is down in the Vale. Some five miles from Ludlow."

"Very well." She made her decision suddenly. "Such a detour cannot matter to me. We shall move to Penstrey on the morrow."

"Shall I come to guide you?"

"No!" Rebecca said. "That is, I have a reliable coachman, and there is no need to trouble you." And no need to attract attention by making a parade of the move, she thought.

"Shukria," he said, puzzling her. "That is, thank you, Miss Valence. I think you will find it a wise decision."

"I hope so, Mr. Kelmarsh." She gave him a slow, seductive smile...one of her most practiced. "I do hope so."

* * *

Bennet Kelmarsh left the Feathers, one half hour later, satisfied with his efforts. He bade the landlord a pleasant good evening, and made his way to the inn's stables without delay. There he exchanged a quick word with the skilled groom who had tended his bay mare many times. He mounted the refreshed animal with an economy of movement that never failed to bring a gleam of admiration to the ostler's eyes and headed to Broad Street and the Ludford Bridge.

He had no hesitation in taking the road down to the Vale in the darkness of a September evening. A gibbous moon was rising, and after three years, he knew the way as well as any road he had ridden in his life. He was besides not a timorous man, and the pistol in his greatcoat pocket had seen service in the past. He had no doubt it would in the future, as well.

He was relieved that he had convinced Miss Valence to remove with the child to Penstrey. It was by far, he was certain, the best thing for the little girl.

Bennet accounted himself a good judge of people, and his assessment of Miss Valence was that she was unreliable and selfish. He could not feel confident that the child would be uppermost in her mind, should Miss Valence take a notion to leave Ludlow. She was the sort of person, he reckoned, who could decide on a whim to depart for London. She was wealthy, idle and no doubt capricious. Another whim could urge her to take the child with her, or to leave her at a foundling hospital either in Ludlow, in any of the towns on her route, or even in London. He could not allow that to happen, though Miss Valence did not yet know it. And she would never know his reasons.

He wished for the child to have the best possible solution to her predicament. He did not trust Miss Rebecca Valence to provide that solution, and so he wanted them both under his eye.

Despite that he knew nothing of the child or her circumstances, despite that he had no reason to care about the little girl's future, he did. In the same way he cared for any stray animal or person in difficulty that came to his notice. From Ludlow to Leominster, as far west as Presteigne and east to Tenbury Wells, he was accounted the man to call upon to resolve any such matter. When he had first arrived in the district, he had helped to recover a child taken by gypsies and since that day he had been held as a valuable and sympathetic addition to the area. He felt honoured by the trust placed in him.

Bennet gained the base of Ludlow's precipitous cliff, and urged his horse to a ground-eating canter that took them quickly the five miles he had quoted to the young woman. An owl soared silently down the road ahead of him. Scents of the apple harvest hung in the still air and somewhere nearby a bonfire was smouldering.

A mile from Penstrey he caught to the west a glimmer of the artificial lake that graced the grounds of Finedon Hall, home of the local squire. He thought that Miss Finedon, the squire's sister, would not at all appreciate the entrance of Miss Valence into Penstrey's limited society. She would be envious of, and suspicious of, the new arrival.

He wondered about his other neighbours. On the whole he thought the Extons and Brockhursts would accept his explanation of the woman and child without question. The mistresses of those establishments were wise women; they would have their own methods of determining the truth about the situation. They might not approve of the bold and cynical lady, but if she had any saving graces, they would discover them.

He passed through the village at a trot, catching the smell of the pig that lived contentedly in a spacious sty behind the smithy. Drayton, he thought sourly, viewing the half-timbered cottage that stood on the opposite side of the road from the smith's stables. Cyril Drayton would think the worst of the lady's arrival and find Miss Valence's beauty much to his taste. He thought however that Miss Valence was more than a match for any unsuitable advances Drayton might make. He could find it in his heart, in fact, to pity the fellow. He turned left to Church Lane past St. Edfrid's and rectory. Geddings the young rector, and his wife, would be his allies; he could rely on them.

A half mile south east of the village he turned his mount into his own long, curving drive, and dropped into a walk. Coming home, even after three years, was still a joy to him and filled him with satisfaction. He knew every tree that edged the drive: the horse chestnut on his left, the plane trees marching to his right, then the yew distant, again on his left, and closest to the house, the great beech. A hedge of rhododendrons marched at right angles to the drive finally and then Greythorn Court was before him.

His half-timbered home greeted him with several lighted windows and a torch set in the old style in a wrought iron holder by the cross-braced front door. He sighed with unalloyed pleasure as he reined in his mount. When he had found the Court three and a half years previously, it had spoken to some deep-seated need within him, and its purchase had filled a long-empty place in his life. It had been neglected then, a minor holding of some uncaring nobleman. He had revived it, employed craftsmen from all over the county to refurbish it and then had furnished it with care. His hiring of a local staff of some fifteen people had confirmed his position in the neighbourhood.

Bennet dismounted, and after stroking his mare affectionately, he turned her over to the groom who came running from the back of the house. He strode to the door and exchanged a quiet word with the porter who opened it.

He paused in his gracious entry. There was post on the silver salver resting on a marble-topped pier table. A Sevres vase of chrysanthemums and Michaelmas daisies rested beside it. Kelmarsh browsed through the letters without much attention; there was nothing that could not wait until the morning. He deposited the lot back on the salver as his housekeeper bustled from the half-concealed door at the back of the hall.

"You are late, Mr. Kelmarsh. No trouble I hope?" Mrs. Hope was much given to mothering him, and Bennet had given up trying to change the tendency. It was as natural to her as breathing and, truth be told, he was not totally adverse to it.

He explained the problem of the child, and his actions, knowing that the chatter that would arise from his confidences would do much to ease concern over Miss Valence's arrival in the neighbourhood.

"Poor little mite. You do right, sir, to bring her to Penstrey. And the lady. Ludlow's a nasty, busy town," was Mrs. Hope's comfortable comment. "And you, sir? What may I arrange for you before you retire? The dogs are already bedded down I believe."

"Then they shall stay there. If the port is in my chamber, Mrs. Hope, I shall trouble you for nothing further. Good night. Shukria."

The housekeeper bustled away to her bed, shaking her head as always over his Urdu 'thank you'.

Bennet headed for the stairs and his customary glass of wine before retiring. He paused with one foot on the first step. He must try harder to speak only English to his retainers. His past was murky enough, though he had told them of his years of travel. He wanted no awkward gossip examining his personal history.

He bade his porter a good night, and made his way up the Elizabethan staircase to his vast, comfortable chamber above stairs. He hoped he could trust Miss Valence to honour her word and make her way to Penstrey the next morning. She had been very eager to deny the need of his company. He made himself a mental note. In the morning he would send a groom to help the party to make their way to The Black Marcher. It was the least he could do. He suspected Miss Valence would see the assistance for exactly what it was...a check on her actions displaying mistrust. She would not like it. He chuckled. The lady would make an interesting enemy.

In his chamber he poked the fire to a blaze and added coal with a lavish hand. He poured his port into a fine crystal goblet, and sat on the leather fender to savour the wine.

Rebecca Valence continued to intrude upon his thoughts. She was very, very beautiful. Not in an overblown, obvious way, but with the sort of subtle, provocative allure that was every man's dream desire. Was it his? He had not thought so, but there was that about Miss Valence that attracted him.

The black hair with the sheen of jet, and smooth texture of silk; if he allowed himself, he might wonder how long it was. Those wide-set, pale aquamarine eyes that gazed directly and cynically upon the world; they were framed with the longest dark lashes he had ever seen. She used them unscrupulously. And of course the tall, slender yet curvaceous form that she disposed with seductive grace in every movement. It may have once been calculated, that grace; now, in what he thought must be her late twenties, it was entirely instinctive.

He finished his wine and rose, leaving the fire to die down unbanked. Why was she not wed? He examined that question from all angles as he stripped off his clothes in his dressing room. Depositing them on a chair, he left them for his manservant to deal with the next day. Bennet never demanded assistance on retiring; it had taken him months to convince his man of his sincere wish for solitude.

He stepped back into his bedchamber and climbed into his featherbed to find it cool though the well-stoked fire had warmed the room. Just as well. Thinking of Rebecca Valence, though he despised the open invitation in her glance and the cynicism in her manner, heated his blood.

Chapter Two

"Good morning, Rush!" Rebecca was delighted to startle her maid when the girl entered to draw back the calico window curtains and rouse her. Maudie even waved a gay greeting. They were seated side by side in the high, old bed.

Rebecca was aware that Rush had usually a difficult task to wake her mistress. But this morning Maudie had undertaken the responsibility. Rebecca, while disconcerted by the early hour, had been pleased that the child had climbed onto the bed and patted her cheeks until she woke. The previous day they had wakened together after their interrupted night and brief sleep. Last night they had both slept soundly, and Maud had stayed in her own bed.

There was something to be said, Rebecca thought, for having the warm embrace of a child to wake to, even if the embrace held more of desperation than affection.

She surveyed Rush, bustling about making up the fire, and when the maid did not deign to converse, she threw back the coverlet, and rose. She sat on the old-fashioned step-stool between her high bed and the trundle and drew Maudie to sit on her knees.

"Do you remember the kind gentleman who came yesterday to speak with us, Maudie? He was ever so comely, and he patted your head." It was not easy, she discovered, to converse with a three-year-old, who did not remove the thumb from her mouth and stared at her with solemn, round green eyes. "The gentleman has asked that we adjourn to his village, that he may better help us find your family."

Rush, busied now with hot water and clothing, snorted indelicately.

"Rush is annoyed. She thinks this is one of my flirtations," Rebecca spoke with mock gravity to the child. She knew her message was reaching her servant. "Well, she is wrong. The gentleman could not be less interested. He must be a misogynist, or perhaps even worse."

She paused for a moment's serious reflection. Kelmarsh had not seemed disdainful or effeminate. He had simply the indefinable air of a man alone, a man who determined his own fate without consultation of or concession to anyone. If so, she could tempt him to flirtation, or more. She knew it all too well. And she would define the boundaries of the connection.

"Mr. Kelmarsh requested that we remove to Penstrey. We shall indulge him, for he is to be your knight in shining armour, little one. Rush will tell John Twigg and Corby to be ready to journey in an hour. You and I shall dress and breakfast, then we shall all of us travel to Mr. Kelmarsh's village.

"Run along Rush, and convey my wishes. You may bring chocolate when you return, and whatever else might be suitable for early morning," she shuddered elaborately, "consumption."

"Bistits," little Maudie piped up.

"Your pardon?" asked Rebecca.

"Bistits," the child repeated. She turned and looked up into Rebecca's face, stroking the black hair which tumbled over her shoulders and bosom. "Pitty."

"Yes, dear, as you say," Rebecca said, completely uncomprehending. The touch of the little girl's fingers on her hair was strangely moving. "Hurry along, Rush, we have little enough time."

The maid shot her mistress a fulminating look and sped from the room.

Rebecca accepted the wordless rebuke with a chuckle. "Rush and I understand each other perfectly," she informed the little girl. She picked up the small hair brush that had been enclosed in the child's miniature valise. "I pretend to order her about, and she pretends to obey. It suits us very well." She undertook to brush the moppet's copper curls. "Shall you wear your green frock today? It must become you remarkably."

Accompanied by this one-sided, unsatisfactory manner of conversation, Rebecca and Maudie prepared for the day. Rush returned with the news that the coach, the coachman Twigg, and her husband the groom Corby, were readying for the short journey. Rebecca accepted this information without comment as Rush assisted her into a dark blue merino traveling gown. The maid popped the child into her kerseymere frock and began to pack the valises she had already opened.

Rebecca and Maudie sat down to eat, and it was only then that Rush confided her other piece of news. "That Mr. Kelmarsh has sent a groom to guide us to Penstrey, ma'am."

Rebecca paused with a portion of egg halfway to her mouth. "Has he indeed?" She chewed with unthinking vehemence while considering the information. Half to herself, she finally said, "I told him we did not need a guide. But he distrusts me and so the groom. I've half a mind to fulfill his manifest concerns. But no, rather we shall be obedient and docile. Time enough for vengeance later when we know him better."

In just over an hour they were seated within the Valence travel coach, which Rebecca's brother had given over to her use thirteen months previous. It was a comfortable conveyance with every possible amenity for the long distance traveler. Nevertheless Rebecca realized suddenly, she was weary of travel. She needed to be arrived somewhere, she thought as they took the road south to Penstrey in Herefordshire. When the little girl's fate was settled, it was past time for her to decide her future.

But now it was a fine September morning, sunny and crisp, with a hint of autumn in the air, as well as the scent of ripe apples and hops as they descended to the Vale. Maudie peered from the window like any curious child, but she clung with white-knuckled ferocity to Rebecca's slim, gloved hand.

The orchards they passed had already heaped the harvested apples into tumps where they awaited transformation into the area's famed cider. Likewise the hopyards they saw were thronged with pickers awaiting the drying of the dew before beginning their day's labours.

Rebecca pointed out these wonders to the attentive child, and found a new pleasure in imparting knowledge to a small, absorbent mind. "She appears very clever, does she not, Rush?"

"I'm sure I don't know, miss. It's been that long since I've been around little ones, I've forgot the signs." The maid had temporarily conquered her pique and was sanguine.

"I have never been in company with the infantry, so I'm sure I cannot speak from any experience."

"I'd five brothers and sisters, ma'am, but I've forgot it all gladly."

"But surely now that I have allowed you to wed Corby, we all may be in expectation of a happy event?" Rebecca was gently malicious.

The maid flushed a brilliant red that obscured her freckles, her peace destroyed. "I don't know, I'm sure. But I shall love my little ones, nowt shall be too much trouble. Not like this poor scrap."

"Poor scrap indeed," Rebecca watched the child, thumb in mouth, stare from the window. "And not only is she abandoned, she is fallen into my company."

The maid grimaced. Despite her annoyance, she said, "You are not so desperate a character as you make out ma'am, and well you know it."

"I may know it, Jemima Rush, but you will please not to tell anyone of it." Rebecca laughed. "A reputation for amoral behaviour and a disputatious disposition is hard-won. I would not lose it too easily. And speaking of disputation, do you think Mr. Kelmarsh's loan of a groom was intended merely as a kindness? Or was Kelmarsh ensuring that we did not depart with the infant? And why should he care so much?"

"Not in front of the child, ma'am, I beg you. They understand more than you know, that much I do remember."

"Well, Mr. Kelmarsh shall have to answer for his actions. But later and, as you say, not in front of the child."

There was not time on the journey for Maudie to become restless or Rush to be irked. Rebecca, though she tried to find fault with Kelmarsh's groom, could find nothing in his manner with which to be annoyed. They arrived in the village within the hour and had still good humour enough to be charmed by the cluster of cottages and other buildings.

Rebecca found the village as appealing as any of the scenic places she had visited in foreign lands. The buildings were nearly all of that sort called half-timbered, which meant timbers were interspersed with panels of render. Those that did not display timbers appeared to have been entirely rendered and washed with pale colour. Many structures were roofed with tiles though some smaller ones possessed thatch. A verdant late summer growth of ivy overwhelmed the solid fabric of the old church they passed, and a towering oak tinted with the first changes of leaf colour overhung a duck pond that glimmered on the village green.

The borrowed groom led them down the lane and into a single turn that placed them directly before the inn...The Black Marcher. It appeared very small compared to the Feathers Inn at Ludlow, but it was very well-kept and had a welcoming charm. Casemented windows stood open in the jettied upper story, and a great bay window lighted what surely must be the common room.

Within, the stout landlord had been prepared for their arrival. "A large bedchamber, Miss Valence, and a private parlour. Mr. Kelmarsh was most particular that you should be comfortable. And this is the abandoned little one? Mr. Kelmarsh is forever taking an interest in such things. No orphan be it animal or human is in want in this parish because of him."

"Really?" Rebecca drawled. "What is your name, landlord."

"Hinderwell, ma'am. Josiah Hinderwell." The man's broad, creased face conjured a smile that spoke of contentment and confidence.

"Take us up then, Hinderwell. It was a short journey, but we have need of refreshment. You can provide a suitable repast? And do supply enough for a large gentleman as well. I cannot think that Mr. Kelmarsh will long delay his arrival."

The little girl, clutching her rag doll and the chapbook that Rebecca had purchased trotted obediently beside her, up the spotless stairs and down the low corridor. A small procession followed; Rush with bandboxes and the child's small valise, and Corby with Rebecca's trunk on one brawny shoulder and her expansive valise in his other hand. A maidservant, who from her looks must be Hinderwell's daughter, followed bearing a tray of decanters, jugs and glasses.

The parlour was more than acceptable, Rebecca thought. A large, low chamber, it possessed a broad window...one of those they had observed from the lane below. It stood open permitting the rich scents and small sounds of the village to permeate the room. The warmth of the early autumn day had precluded need for a fire, but a small rocking chair stood beside the waiting hearth and Maudie ran to it immediately.

"See how clever she is, Rush. She has put a claim upon the best seat in the room," Rebecca removed her silk and straw Venetian bonnet.

Rush had followed the luggage into the bedchamber, and did not respond. The landlord departed, followed by Rebecca's groom.

"A few days' rustication cannot be a bad thing," Rebecca said, in the main to herself. She heard a measured tread on the stairs, and knew its owner at once.

She opened the door without waiting for her maid after a short, sharp rap sounded.

"Mr. Kelmarsh! What a surprise to see you so soon on our arrival." She was pleased to see her sarcasm was not lost upon her visitor...from his austere expression he did not appreciate her wit. He looked very well, robust and overwhelmingly virile, in the same sort of garb as the previous day. He was more comely than she remembered, and more tall, a most presentable gentleman.

He nodded to her, crossed the room, and knelt beside the small rocking chair that Maudie had claimed. "And how are you this fine day, bach?" He made it very clear he was more interested in the child than in Rebecca.

She was taken aback. There were very few gentlemen who had ever treated her with such detachment. Yet there was something particularly appealing, she reflected unwillingly, about a gentleman who would talk with a child. It intimated a kind and loving nature, and a thoughtful one. But what was that word he used?

Maudie had responded to him with delight. The little girl thrust her doll at Kelmarsh and he dandled it, making the little girl squeal with laughter.

Rebecca was not accustomed to being ignored. "Your groom, Mr. Kelmarsh, was most helpful. Was his presence kindness on your part, or lack of trust? Did you think I should disappear in the night with the child?" Her irritation bestowed venom on her words. "Your zealousness does you credit, sir, but it also raises suspicions. No one I know would bestir themselves so. Why should you care so much about this one child?"

Kelmarsh rose slowly and turned to her. The scorn in his face took her aback. She was not a small woman, but she--who was seldom intimidated--felt disturbed by his overt strength and presence. Yet he had made no untoward movement.

"Christian charity, Miss Valence. Compassion, pity... You obviously keep censurable company, if you cannot understand. But I think--if you strain yourself--you do comprehend it. After all, you first approached the child."

Rebecca flushed at his open reproach, and realized with dazzling clarity that he was quite correct. She did keep company with hard, uncaring individuals for the most part. And she did understand his concern, though she marveled at it. The sight of the weeping child two days previous had touched her heart, and she had been unable to walk away from the all too obvious distress.

"You have the right of it, sir." Her irritation drained away.

His quick anger seemed to fade with equal speed. "And I think if we are to restore Maud to her family, we must not argue." Kelmarsh smiled at her for the first time, with great charm.

Rebecca thought, had she been an impressionable and innocent twenty-year-old, she would instantly have fallen desperately in love with the irritating man. As it was she was convinced to aid the child, and him, all she could. "I think, Mr. Kelmarsh, you again have the right of it."

She extended her hand to him. "Truce?"

He took it in a warm clasp, and smiled again. "Pax," he said.

The child had been ignored long enough. She rose and tugged on Rebecca's silk ribands and inadvertently untied a sash.

Though fashionable perfection was Rebecca's eternal aim, she found herself undisturbed by Maudie's innocent action. She thought of a flippant, and outrageous, comment at which her society's friends would have laughed. She left it unspoken. Somehow, she wished Kelmarsh to think no more badly of her than he already did.

"Maudie play witout?" The little girl was turning to Kelmarsh.

He knelt to her level. "Should you like to walk out?" He spoke over his shoulder, "Miss Valence, would that be agreeable to you?"

Rebecca was standing deep in thought. She realized she had understood the child's words. Now if only she could detect the key to the entirety of the infant's language. Both her companions were staring at her quizzically, she discovered with a start.

"We need to speak with that coach driver, sir. The one who set her down in Ludlow without a thought."

"My feeling exactly," he agreed as he rose. "But the coach only passes through Ludlow every five days; it runs regularly from Shrewsbury to Hereford. You may be sure I will be at the Feathers to question the driver on Tuesday, but the problem will not be solved with any speed."

He offered her the support of his arm, and extended a strong hand to Maudie. "If you and Miss Maudie will walk out with me, I will show you our village. You had best become familiar with it; it looks to be your home--for a little, at least."

* * *

Bennet Kelmarsh was thinking of that walk around Penstrey village as he mounted his gelding the next day to ride into the village for Sunday service at St. Edfrid's. It had been a pleasant enough afternoon; Maudie had chattered incomprehensibly without pause and Miss Valence, when she laid aside her affectations, was a captivating companion. He suspected in fact that she had laid herself out to charm him. The idea did not please him, particularly as he had been more interested in what he could learn from the child.

He grinned, remembering his suggestion that Miss Valence should attend divine services for the benefit of the infant. The idea had not pleased her...in fact, she had been appalled.

"I have attended the morning service without fail since taking up residence in Herefordshire," he had said to her. "I am none the worse for it. I am not suggesting Satanism." That was truth indeed. The Reverend Gedding's Anglican service was a model of conformity and sincerity.

"You might as well be," she had answered. "The church and I have no more than a passing acquaintance. Indeed there are churchmen who would faint at the thought of me within their sacred portals."

"You will find our rector here, the Rev. Gedding, unshockable. In fact, I think him possibly the most Christian man I have ever encountered. Besides that you will provide a positive model for the child, and ingratiate yourself with the community."

"Is that why you attend?" Her question had been uncomfortably astute.

His answer had been uneasily evasive. "I admire Mr. Gedding, and the services are meaningful to me." If he had explored other faiths and worshipped in strange and heathenish ways in the past none of his staff, his friends or his acquaintance in the small village suspected it. However, he had no inclination to discuss that which was close to his heart with a woman who to this point had appealed to nothing more than his most basic instincts.

He headed his mount toward Penstrey as he considered Rebecca Valence. She did appeal to his base desires, he admitted to himself. But he had no intention of acting upon them, though he sensed she might not be adverse to such actions. She was an odd combination of physical allure and intellectual astringency, he found. It was as though she had hedged her beauty around with a barrier of cynicism, sarcasm and acerbity. What lay beyond the emotional barricade, he had yet to determine. He doubted that he wished to know; it could not be to his advantage.

He delivered his mount to the smith, who stabled animals for a fee, and strode the dusty autumn lanes to the church. He knew everyone in the village, and was known by them. He was pleased to think he had their respect, and from those who knew him better, their liking. He was kept busy on the brief walk with responding to greetings and salutes of appropriate Sabbath solemnity.

Cyril Drayton did no more than nod, despite he was obviously bound also for St. Edfrid's. Drayton was one of the few villagers who Bennet had been unable to befriend in the three years since his arrival at Greythorn Court. The man seemed to see him as some sort of rival or competitor. Certainly before Bennet's arrival--his friends had informed him--Drayton had played the part of the district's nonpareil. He was the distant relative of a noble house, the remaining member of his family in the county, with a private income and possession of the largest cottage in the village. He claimed to be a scholar of sorts, but it was Bennet's opinion that the fellow was more interested in fashion, gossip and puffing his consequence. Certainly Drayton had hurried to be introduced to Miss Valence the previous day. He had come out of the village shop they had passed, and his haste to make his bow had been, in Kelmarsh's eyes, laughable. He was welcome to the woman, Bennet thought, though her response to the furfante had been cool. He paused in mid-stride. Scoundrel was too strong a word for Drayton...he was no more than a fribble.

He discarded his thoughts as old Mrs. Ladbroke who lived opposite the draper made a comment upon the fine day. She stood in her cottage's doorway watching the passers-by, and he paused to exchange a few words with her. She was a chapel-goer, and though she had no opportunity to travel to the next village to attend services, she would not be induced to set foot in the Anglican church. Bennet admired the strength of her conviction. And he admired her fortitude in the face of her impoverished state; he helped her as much as she would allow. He made a mental note to send her more firing now that the days were shortening. He bowed in farewell, and continued on his way.

In the church porch, he encountered his near neighbours the Brockhursts. Their lovely daughter Phoebe smiled at him roguishly, and her stepbrothers and sisters grinned and winked as was their wont. He counted Cornelius Brockhurst his closest friend, and his best resource for local lore and land management discussions.

His friend, a massive man some dozen years his senior, drew him aside now with a broad, capable hand on his superfine sleeve. "The village grapevine is humming, Kelmarsh. You've installed a lady in the pub, a woman with a child no less. Cyril Drayton is positively salivating over the woman's beauty. Mrs. Hinderwell is rapturous over the child, and the Geddings assure me your motives are purer than St. Peter's."

"The rector has the right of it," Bennet said, with a somewhat grim smile. It was no more than he expected. "The child was found abandoned in Ludlow; landlord at the Feathers alerted me to the matter. She has taken a liking to the lady, a Miss Rebecca Valence, and won't be separated from her. I've never before met the woman and I don't trust her, hence my idea to bring them to Penstrey."

"She is a lady?"

"Birth and lineage declare her so; her brother is a baron. Her manners are over free and over confident, but I think that is a common fault among the beau monde."

"You don't know?"

"I never claimed to travel in those exalted circles in London." Kelmarsh tensed, as he always did, when someone questioned his past or his origins. He thought his tension was not evident, but this man he had allowed closer than any in the past twenty years, and so he might have deeper insight.

"Ah, we've to go in..." Brockhurst did not pursue his questioning. "I think Mrs. Brockhurst would like a word after service."

"I would be honoured," Bennet nodded. He entered the small church and breathed in the air which seemed itself to declare the age of the building, carrying as it did the echo of past incense, the damp of centuries and the essence of every human emotion. He made his way down the flagged aisle to the Greythorn Court pew near the intricately carved rood screen. It had long been empty before his arrival in the neighbourhood, and he was well aware the neighbourhood wished to see it filled with his family. He would remain its sole occupant; they would only realize the fact over time.

He was relieved that he had not long to wait for the beginning of the service. His thoughts were not easily disciplined since he had met Miss Valence. With a heightened awareness, he listened to the entrance of the remainder of the congregation, the rustle of skirts, the coughs and quiet words. A baby wailed briefly but no extra sense told him that Miss Valence and her small charge had joined the congregation.

Silence heralded the start of the processional and the service was undertaken in its usual ordered form, without the interruption of any stranger. Kelmarsh was disappointed and even annoyed. He did think that Miss Valence might have understood his motives and taken his suggestion more seriously. It was illustrative to him of her contrary and capricious nature, and of her carelessness for the child's future, that she had not. He would not admit that his disappointment sprang from a more personal desire to be in her company.

He stood with Mrs. Gedding at the end of the service.

"Miss Valence did not come," that lady said ruefully. "I can understand her reluctance. It would not be pleasant to be stared at, and whispered about."

Kelmarsh nodded. They had encountered Mrs. Gedding and two of her children before the rectory of St. Edfrid's the previous day, during the tour of the village.

In Bennet's opinion, the rector's wife was possessed of true Christian charity. He did not think that public notice or excess attention would have discomfited Miss Valence in the least, but it would scarcely be politic to mention that.

"And then there is the child. All the attention might have sadly upset her. She was, I thought, very shy yesterday."

He was much struck by Mrs. Gedding's acute statement. He had been insensitive himself. Little Maudie Fairmile was in no way prepared for the scrutiny of an entire village. "You are quite right, Mrs. Gedding and I thank you for your discerning insight. I ought myself to have realized that the little girl could not support such a trial. She has endured enough."

"Who has?" They were joined without ceremony by Miss Lettice Finedon, sister of Sir George the only titled landowner in the vicinity. The question was both rude and abrupt, but Miss Finedon believed her position as doyenne of local society--despite she was no more than three and thirty--was unassailable.

Mr. Kelmarsh, who had suffered much pursuit by Miss Finedon, and was not an admirer of the acidulated and self-opinionated lady, was as abrupt. "Maud Fairmile, who has apparently been abandoned by her family; she is a child of, perhaps, three years."

"Ah, yes. Mrs. Hinderwell was telling me of the odd circumstance and the 'lady' who has the child in keeping. It is all surely a rather thin story? What sort of 'lady' racks up at a common inn without a gentleman to protect her modesty and her propriety? What kind of lady diverts herself from her destination to aid some waif the local authorities should have immediately taken in? "

"A Christian one, surely?" Mrs. Gedding reproved gently.

An unbecoming flush mottled Miss Finedon's thin cheeks. "Mr. Drayton thinks she is not all that she should be. And he has gone about much in society."

"Miss Valence's brother is a baron," Bennet was astonished to hear himself puffing the lady's credentials, as if aristocracy was a guarantee of every virtue. "She has been abroad and is returning home. She has been very kind to the child."

"My brother is a baronet, and I should not dream of staying in an inn unaccompanied, child or no child. How do you know the lady's brother is a baron, sir, if you have never met her before last week?" Miss Finedon's expression held something of triumph.

"Good morning." Mrs. Brockhurst, a large handsome woman with a cordial expression and boundless good will, greeted the small group. "I understand we have a newcomer amongst us. I shall ask her to dinner. She'll find it difficult to entertain that child in an inn. I should invite her to stay with us, but that I think Peter is taking a cold. That would be a fine welcome; a nasty head cold, and probably the child would develop a fever." She smiled at Mrs. Gedding and nodded coolly to Lettice Finedon. "Has she everything she needs, Mr. Kelmarsh, do you think?"

Her effusive words masked an acute understanding, Kelmarsh knew, and he had no doubt she had the measure of everyone's part in the previous conversation. He relaxed a little, though he was annoyed at Miss Finedon's insinuations. "She has able retainers and seems content enough. The Hinderwells will support her kindly, I have no doubt of it." Ben said. "Josie seems already taken with the child."

"Miss Valence mentioned her brother yesterday when we met," Mrs. Gedding said, serenely regarding her neighbours. "He has a small daughter himself, and she said she thought of taking the child to his home in Sussex. Mr. Kelmarsh convinced her of the need to keep the child near where she was left."

Miss Valence's manner the previous day to Mrs. Gedding had been pleasantly open and friendly, Bennet recalled. It was apparently only men whom she treated with a mixture of flirtation and disdain. If he was not careful it could become an object with him to obtain a more amiable reaction from her.

He held off the thought, and stared at the circle of women around him. If the ladies were to fuss over this addition to their numbers, he for one would not know what best to do. At least he could rely upon Mrs. Gedding and Mrs. Brockhurst's support.

But surely, he thought, his credit and his equanimity could bear association with one demanding lady for a short time?

* * *

Monday stretched out before Rebecca, unplanned and without design, much as had Sunday. How long was it, she wondered, since she had experienced two consecutive days of inactivity? A very long time indeed, she decided. Her journey to the continent had been a constant round of travel, excursion and connection. Previous to that she had spent a busy season in London...a disastrous and disappointing season. And before that, in Brighton, every day had been a mixture of forced gaiety, suspense and anticlimax, waiting for a visitor who only sometimes appeared.

No, pure leisure, unencumbered by expectation or appointment, was at least seven years in her past. Even the previous day had been fraught with a certain amount of consternation and decision. She had thought long and carefully about attending at divine services, and had decided that neither Maudie nor she was prepared for the amount of scrutiny they must attract. She had wondered if Mr. Kelmarsh might descend upon them with demands and questions, after their absence, but they had been left quite alone.

They had spent the day within doors, and Rebecca had been stretched to recall nursery songs, snippets of story and make-believe. That she had enjoyed it, she could scarcely believe, and that she could remember so many pleasant times from her childhood, she would not have credited. She and Maudie had giggled together, napped together and eaten together, with great relish, the nursery fare that Mrs. Hinderwell supplied. It had been, she supposed, an unremarkable day but Rebecca knew it was one she would long remember.

But today, Monday, was a different proposition. They needed activity; Rebecca was wise enough already to know that a child could not be content within limited space for very long. She prepared Maudie and herself for an outdoor excursion, with Rush's help. The maid, who had been pressed into constant attendance on Sunday, would be glad of their absence for a few hours. Rebecca had no doubt of it.

They left Rush already beginning to tidy their chambers and started down the corridor. At the top of the steep stairs, Maudie halted. "Dod!" she said.

Rebecca stopped before setting foot on the steps. Startled into attention she wondered if the infant mean 'god', or 'dog', or perhaps something else altogether?

A small terrier, the sort used for ratting, sat at the foot of the staircase. His presence clarified Maud's word. "It is indeed a dog, you clever girl!" she praised Maudie. There were so few words from the child that she understood. "What shall we do today? We might feed the ducks, or visit the drapers. I know we explored the village in Mr. Kelmarsh's company, but it was a hurried affair." She reviewed Saturday's walk without pleasure while Maudie trotted down the staircase. Kelmarsh had spent much of the time ignoring her while he lavished attention upon the child. He made no secret of the fact that while Maudie considered Rebecca an essential aspect of her new life, Kelmarsh regarded her as a nuisance. It was another score she had to settle with him.

Maudie was making much of the little dog; it was possessed of good manners, impertinent ears and a small but emphatic bark. An idea formed suddenly in Rebecca's mind as she watched the child. They could occupy the afternoon by visiting Bennet Kelmarsh.

She examined the thought as they gained the entry hall, and stood on the inn's threshold in the hazy noon-tide sun. It was a bright day replete with the scents of smoke and frosted nature; the trees that surrounded the ancient houses were increasingly coloured with the reds and golds of autumn. There was a chill on the edge of the sun's warmth that made Rebecca glad of her shawl, and glad as well that Rush had found a warm little spencer in the child's valise.

Call upon Kelmarsh. It was an intriguing notion. He had said nothing of visiting them today and he had not called on Sunday. Very probably he was annoyed that they had not attended at the church as he had commanded. A visit to his home would no doubt also irritate him...a small but excellent revenge.

His house was called Greythorn Court, that much she had gleaned from Hinderwell. She had a desire to see it, to see if it was as unconventional as the man himself. She had decided he was as much a mystery as Maudie. He bore none of the unconscious arrogance of the nobility, so he could not be a younger son. His manner possessed none of the self-conscious dignity of the nabob, or the roughness of the parvenu--the newly rich and elevated.

She was distracted by the thought of him. He would not be categorized...was an enigma. But he would not be happy to see them arrive at his door. She sensed in him a need to preserve his privacy and as well, the proprieties.

An unmarried lady calling upon a gentleman was unheard of, beyond the pale, but it held no terrors for her. She could present a case for circumventing common custom if necessary, she thought. A young woman of mature years, accompanied by a child, might just manage to observe the conventions without offending. She smiled to herself and turned back into the entry surprising the landlady who was preparing to mount the stairs, her arms full of linens.

"Mrs. Hinderwell, good morning. If you see my groom, will you ask him to come to me? Thank you so much." Rebecca put all her charm into the encounter; she suspected the host's wife had marked her down as a haughty piece of work. It would be amusing to change that lady's opinion of her.

Kelmarsh had enticed these people into accepting him unquestioningly. She could not think why she had never considered the approach herself. Having the devotion of the common people was much more desirable than possessing their disapprobation. It was perhaps less honest, but might be surprisingly pleasant.

She made a passing resolve to moderate her sarcastic tongue as she turned back to the door to watch Maudie throw twigs for the little dog. It was a pleasure to behold the child's innocent delight and see her ginger curls gleam in the morning sun.

Corby came up unheard, and cleared his throat behind her, making her startle from her domestic reflection.

Rebecca bit off an irritated remark, thinking of her very new resolve, and smiled at the groom.

"I have need of a light conveyance, Corby. A gig, a whiskey...even a dog-cart would serve. I wish to drive out with the child. Oh, and I need directions to Greythorn Court. Anyone may know them I suppose. Within the hour, if you please?"

The man bowed in silence, and indeed he had no need of voicing his thoughts. They were writ on his rough-hewn face, Rebecca thought. Miss Valence was outraging the proprieties again--the mistress and her inappropriate, scandalous ways--visiting a gentleman uninvited and unchaperoned. No doubt Rush would hear of it, and censure her, and John Twigg would caution her with the familiarity of long service.

Well, they could say what they might, she had always allowed them that.

Within the hour she had the gig--a surprisingly smart conveyance--and a respectable beast with a bright, intelligent eye to draw it. She swung Maudie up to the seat, and accepted Corby's assistance herself. She was a competent whip, and the groom made no suggestions beyond a mention that the horse had an odd habit of kicking out his left rear leg occasionally.

Rebecca could allow for that eccentricity, and she thanked Corby for his warning. He coloured in surprise. She was amused; there was perhaps some entertainment in politeness.

The directions that Corby had obtained were concise: travel east past the green and the duck pond, ignore the narrow lane that led only to the woods, and take the first road that angled to the right past the last village house. They saw no one as they traveled out of the village; there was a somnolence in the air that seemed left over from Sunday.

It was pleasant bowling about the lush countryside in the gig with the child in raptures at her side. That she was a town child was evident in her wonder at all the sights of the countryside. Rebecca was treated to bursts of incomprehensible chatter, and responded by pointing out things of interest in clear, one-word descriptions.

Greythorn Court wasn't so very far distant. They passed two harvested fields with gleaners hard at work, an orchard with its tumps of apples well mounded, and a great fallow pasture. Then a sharp turn to the left revealed a smooth drive that led them to a sweep of well-tended gravel and the half-timbered front of a substantial manor house. Its age and design made it beautiful and its perfect condition rendered it delightful. A peacock wandering across the lawn before the house drew a happy crow from Maudie.

Rebecca drew the horse to a halt near the carefully kept path that led to the iron-strapped front door. Simultaneously a groom arrived to take charge of the carriage, a porter opened the door of the house, and Mr. Kelmarsh appeared at a swift walk from somewhere across the lawn. He was trailed by an elegant, long-haired black and white dog whose narrow head very nearly reached his hip.

"Miss Valence!" he called as he approached. "Is aught amiss?"

The porter subsided, remaining sentry-like by the open front door.

Kelmarsh fetched up beside the carriage, and Rebecca looked down at him. The brilliant sun threw the hard planes of his face into high relief; a Belcher handkerchief encompassed the strong column of his throat. She ruthlessly quashed a quiver of attraction, and was glad when the great dog came to his side, staring at her solemnly.

"Nothing at all, Mr. Kelmarsh. Calm yourself. We merely decided that a drive would do us good, did we not Maudie? And having no other acquaintance, your home became our destination. Who is your companion?"

Maudie had shrunk a little closer to Rebecca's side at the sight of the large beast. Rebecca was pleased to note that Kelmarsh instantly understood her unspoken hint.

"This is Betep; he is a Russian wolfhound...a borzoi. Maudie, should you like to be introduced?"

Shyly the little girl nodded.

"Betep...up!" The great dog stood on his hind legs and rested its forelegs on the carriage wheel. Its head was level with Maudie's, but it stood very still and calm. "This is Maudie Fairmile, Betep. Maudie, this is Betep, whose name means 'wind'. Make a fist, Maudie, and let him sniff it. That's right. Now he knows you. Miss Valence, you must do the same."

"Innadooce!" Maudie commanded.

"Miss Valence, may I introduce Betep?" Kelmarsh obeyed the child, apparently understanding her with ease. "Betep, Miss Rebecca Valence..."

Rebecca laughed and held out her fisted hand. The dog sniffed it delicately, and then allowed his silky head to be stroked.

"He does not like rough play, Maudie," Kelmarsh warned, "but once he comes to know you, he will be delighted to see you. He will walk with you for miles and he can run very, very fast."

He hesitated then extended his arms to swing down the child. Rebecca sensed his reluctance as he turned back to assist her. It was the first time he had touched her. Despite her nonchalance, Rebecca was aware of the strength and vigor of his frame, the warmth of his hands. She would have liked to linger in his arms, perhaps venture one of her flirtatious comments, but the moment, and the man, made it seem inappropriate. Those actions had always been inappropriate she realized with a shock of discomfort. She subsided to stand in a flutter of skirts, the picture of propriety, and Maudie's small hand slipped into hers. Rebecca was glad of it.

"It is not proper you should come here," he began. "I spent an hour at St. Edfrid's after services yesterday countering suspicions about your presence, my motives and the child's parentage. Your visit here will make matters worse."

"You, sir, are predictable. I expected these strictures." Recovering her insouciance, she waved a dismissive hand. "I am not a green girl, Mr. Kelmarsh. I am eight and twenty, and surely the child is chaperone. I am not concerned for my reputation, so unless you fear for yours...?"

"I do, a little."

She was surprised into a choke of laughter.

He said without self-consciousness, "You will, when our problem is solved, take your carriage and your servants and leave the area. I will remain. These country folk are difficult to conciliate. I have lived here three years and have no desire to jeopardize my hard-won position among them."

"Ah, not a family seat, then?"

"No." He added nothing to that cryptic, eloquent syllable.

In the awkward pause that followed, Rebecca considered the surrounding countryside. There was a long vista of field and forest from their position on the path as the ground dropped away in a gentle dip that preceded a rise in the land. Bored with the adults' conversation, Maudie tugged free of Rebecca's hand and, with a glad cry, pursued the peacock which had reappeared.

The great dog startled but subsided at a quick command from Kelmarsh in a language Rebecca had never heard. Kelmarsh himself chased after the child. He caught her with ease, admonished her with firm kindness, and soothed her repentant tears in a practiced fashion.

Rebecca was wondering about his facility with the child, when he said, "She is probably hungry. You had best come within."

"Not the most courteous invitation I have ever received, but I shall overlook it...in the interests of curiosity. You have no children of your own yet you are marvellously at ease with Maudie. I do wonder at it."

To her surprise he flushed darkly. "Do restrain your inquisitiveness," he snapped.

Rebecca was bristling with annoyance as Kelmarsh escorted them to the main door, where the porter still stood guard. The servant ushered them within, and at a word from Kelmarsh took charge of the borzoi and disappeared. Rebecca halted a moment to allow her eyes' adjustment from the bright sun without to the dimness of an entry from another age. The hall had been little altered from its sixteenth century attitude; it was broad and high with narrow windows, a handsome wainscot and a dark slate floor.

A rustle of skirts made her turn; she firmly depressed her irritation but allowed her curiosity full rein, despite his strictures.

"My housekeeper, Mrs. Hook," Kelmarsh introduced the rosy, middle-aged woman.

Rebecca found herself subjected to a keen, frank assessment. The visit was not unfolding at all as she had expected. Her ability to manage those around her seemed ineffective against Kelmarsh's loyal servants, and the strength of the man himself. She wondered, with quick bitterness, if she would meet the housekeeper's undoubtedly exacting standards.

The woman at length bobbed a curtsey, and said merely, "Good day, ma'am. And this is the child. Such a lovely little one...what a crime of neglect! Will you follow me, ma'am? No doubt the infant will be glad of a necessary pot."

They were led to a bedchamber to refresh themselves, and Rebecca found herself liking the plain, practical housekeeper before she left them. She aided the child with her small necessities, though Rebecca stood by to help. Had she been asked, Rebecca would have denied that she could assist with such personal needs, yet she had done so for three days now. Where had she come by such skill and patience, she wondered? Was there in fact a maternal streak within her that she had never before suspected? The thought caused a spasm of pure regret to shiver through her.

She shook off the notion and, reviving her curiosity, directed her attention to the room. The bedchamber was a model of the current decorating mode. There were no mouldering hangings or moth-eaten tapestries, but the newest of hand-painted wallpaper, chintz draperies, and soft Aubusson carpet underfoot. The simple rosewood furniture looked to be Gillow's best and latest, and the bed was positively sumptuous. Whoever Mr. Kelmarsh was he was obviously well-to-do, and possessed of good taste.

Rebecca tidied her hair where it escaped from her leghorn hat, removed her gloves and tucked them into her reticule and brushed at a spot of dust on her embroidered challis gown. She tidied the child's curls, and taking a small hand in hers, took them both back down the square-set Jacobean oak staircase.

She would have liked to examine the paintings--they had an exotic look--that decorated the wall edging the stairs, but Maudie pulled at her hand upon spying Kelmarsh waiting in the hall below. She did note that there were no portraits hung for display at all.

She was allowed no more than a brief look about the corridor before Mr. Kelmarsh swept them into a simply decorated morning room where a round table was being laid for refreshment with pristine linen and gleaming silver. They partook of a modest, delicious nuncheon there, with Maudie's chatter the only conversation. The windows opened as doors on to the terrace and provided a view of autumn leaves drifting to a finely scythed lawn beyond the stone promenade. Betep sat regally without and was eventually joined, to the child's delight, by another great hound, this one with a buff and caramel coat. 'Nepo'--'feather'--Kelmarsh informed Maudie was that animal's name.

Rebecca had been staring about the chamber. There were one or two unique and curious items of brass on the sideboard, and a bronze statue of a winged goddess decorated the mantel.

"Have you traveled a great deal, Mr. Kelmarsh?" Rebecca asked, putting together two or three clues and risking rebuff with the question.

"A great deal," he confirmed, without embellishment.

It was the only information the man had vouchsafed, Rebecca realized later, when they were restored to the gig, on their way back to Penstrey and the inn Her every other attempt at question or query had been turned aside or ignored. It had been an infuriating, intriguing visit.

She had over her years in society been manipulated, she felt, by masters--and mistresses--of the art, but never had she been so thoroughly out-manoeuvred. His courtesy had never wavered but she had not managed to breach his privacy.

She had asked if he was a gentleman farmer; he had answered baldly, 'no'. She had hoped to see more of the house; they had left the morning room by the terrace doors. They had visited briefly with his dogs, been made known to the newcomer Nepo, and then they had been escorted without hesitation to their carriage. She had learned from the visit only that Mr. Kelmarsh had traveled widely, and appeared to be a 'new man' with new money and little family background.

She managed to ask, before she gave the horse the office to start back to Penstrey, if Kelmarsh still intended to visit Ludlow to meet with the coach driver the next day.

"Indeed I do. I shall call upon you with my findings," he had assured her.

For all the world, she thought, as though he was not rushing her away from Greythorn before she could uncover his secrets. As if she should know that he would not change his mind about assisting Maud.

Chapter Three

Rebecca could not but reflect, for the entirety of Tuesday, on Mr. Kelmarsh's trip to Ludlow that day. When she rose, she hoped that he had already begun his journey; when she breakfasted with Maudie, she wondered if he had yet arrived.

When she tied the child's bonnet strings in the early afternoon, and donned her own hat and pelisse with Rush's assistance, she wondered if he had yet spoken with the coachman. Uncharacteristic, unreasonable worries assailed her. What if the coach did not keep to its schedule? What if the coach's driver was a different man? What if he had no memory whatever of the child? How could she continue to care for the moppet? How could she do without her?

The last fleeting thought stayed with her, and caused her to sink down on the old walnut chair next to the open casement. She waved Rush away, and studied the child, who stood patiently, trustingly, by the door to the corridor.

How had Maudie so soon become important to her? Surely it was the novelty, the first exposure to the charms and delights of a very young child that drew her. Surely it was like a calf love, a swift infatuation that soon burned out, to be replaced by boredom and eventually irritation.

She did not know. But the child had made--was making--a difference in Rebecca's life. She could only await developments.

Rush, hovering near the bedchamber door, stirred. "Are you going out, ma'am?" she queried at last.

Rebecca rose with new energy and determination. "Oh, yes! We shall walk out, shan't we, Maudie? And experience all the wonders of Penstrey!" She caught up the child's hand and hurried her down the stairs where they passed Josie, Hinderwell's plump daughter, polishing the banister. She responded cheerily to their greetings, but they did not pause for conversation intent as they were upon the small world beyond the inn.

The day was fresh and bright, the air scented with apples and the smoke from cottage chimneys. They paused briefly at the duck pond on the green, but one lone drake was the only occupant of the water that was riffled by a light breeze. Presumably the rest of the flock were off stuffing their bills at the expense of the gleaners, Rebecca thought.

They continued down Church Lane with St. Edfrid's squat Norman tower leading them on. Before they reached the church however, they paused to admire the Geddings' carriage drawn up before the rectory. Maudie was entranced by the shining conveyance. The coach horses were mismatched but curried to a nicety. Even Rebecca could not find fault with it though it was a country equipage

Mrs. Gedding and her two youngest children came down the path from the rectory to the carriage. Maudie tugged her hand from Rebecca's and ran away from her to the newcomers, her shyness gone.

"Miss Valence, were you come to visit us?" the lady asked.

Rebecca had been unwillingly impressed by the simple, obvious goodness of the rector's plain wife when they had been introduced on the day of their arrival in Penstrey. Now she was warmed by the genuine friendliness offered in the lady's smile. "No, no. Maudie and I were simply out for a walk. Mr. Kelmarsh is gone to Ludlow today, to speak with the coachman who left the child at the Feathers. I hope he gives the man a rare trimming..."

"It is too bad," Mrs. Gedding agreed, surveying the three children, who were hopping from slate to slate of the rectory path in some game of their own. "It does make my blood run cold to think of my little Etta in such a situation. You are very good to put yourself to so much trouble for Maudie."

Rebecca supposed, with some surprise, that the lady was right. She--who never put herself out for anyone--had done so for the child. And she had been glad to do so. Why? Because the neglected scrap reminded her of herself? Because it amused her? It occurred to her that she was indulging these days in more introspection than had been her wont in ten years. She shrugged the thoughts aside and said, "Mr. Kelmarsh too is very good. He has made this trip to Ludlow, which must inconvenience him."

"He will not mind. He never objects to helping anyone. And he is often in Ludlow at the printer's shop he owns there."

Rebecca seized on this detail of Kelmarsh's mysterious existence. He was involved in trade then. It was only one piece of the puzzle though; he had nothing of the shopkeeper in his manner.

The Geddings' coachman cleared his throat self-importantly.

Rebecca recalled herself from her musings. "We must leave you to your outing," she said, calling Maudie to her side. The child came, dragging reluctant feet.

"We are going to Wigmore. My husband's sister lives there; she married very well, and is a dreadful bore, but one must support the family connections." Mrs. Gedding made a comical grimace. "Do say you will come and take tea with me later in the week. Then the children may have a good play and we can natter to our hearts' content."

"I cannot know how long we shall be here." Rebecca found herself harbouring a stirring of regret. Tea at the rectory? How her friends--her fashionable, faithless acquaintances--would laugh. "But we should certainly be pleased to come if events keep us here."

They parted from the Geddings on the best of terms with Maudie waving so long as the carriage was in sight.

Then Rebecca urged the child on. They passed the church with only a cursory glance at its grey-stoned façade surrounded by tipsy headstones in the churchyard. Maudie was chattering incomprehensibly about her new friends. That led Rebecca to wonder who, of all her acquaintance, she could truly name as friend.

They turned left down the short lane, deep in dust, that would lead them back to the main thoroughfare of the village. They peeped in at the smith's upon hearing the clanging of his hammer on anvil. The scents of leather, horses and sweet hay drifted from the stable next to the blacksmith.

Rebecca stared up and down the village's main road and marveled at the peace of its deserted length. Even more marvelous was the realization that she liked the solitude. The realization brought a smile to her face, and when they passed a thatched cottage with a riotous garden before it, the old lady bent there smiled in return.

"Grandmama!" Maudie greeted the old lady with delight, running to the low fence that surrounded the small property.

"No one's grandmama now, little leddy, more's the pity, but you're a fine big girl, are ye not?" said the old woman. She straightened her bent back as much as she apparently could and, hobbling to the gate, she offered a late rose, stripped of thorns, to the child.

Maudie took the flower after a questioning look at Rebecca, who nodded. She dropped a wavering curtsey and said, "Tank you!" quite clearly.

The old lady swayed, turning suddenly pale, her wrinkled papery skin quite ashen. She reached out to grasp the gate with gnarled hands.

"Are you ill, ma'am?" Rebecca asked in sudden panic. She looked up and down the lane for help, the isolation suddenly become oppressive. Seeing no one about to come to her aid, she eased open the gate without dislodging the woman. She slipped in with Maudie clinging to her skirt.

After another moment's hesitation, she grasped the elderly woman's arm and bore the weight of her frail body. "Do let's go in your house. Perhaps we might have a cup of tea..."

She supported the old lady through the low doorway to her high-backed settle beside a wide fireplace. Only a small fire burned on the hearth; over it hung a massive iron kettle.

"Thank you, me leddy. I shall do now. I thank ye, and must not trouble you further," the woman said in a thin voice, closing her eyes.

Rebecca cast a comprehensive glance about her. The cottage was painfully neat and quite as painfully bare: two chairs, a table, threadbare linens, and a very little firing in the corner by the fireplace. No flitches hung from the beams and only a small store of essentials was tucked within a rickety cupboard. The harvest from the garden outside the door appeared to have been pitifully small. She wondered what best to do.

"Do let me make you tea," she found herself saying. "A dish of tea will benefit you, I am sure." Even as she spoke she wished for Rush's competent assistance. She stiffened her backbone; surely she could cope with such a mundane task.

"I am Rebecca Valence and this is Maudie Fairmile."

"Ah, Mr. Kelmarsh's leddy and child."

Rebecca cringed at the designation even as she found some appeal in it. She did not bother to examine its attraction or correct the assertion. She marveled anew at the infallibility of village gossip.

She found a stool for Maudie, and sat the child down beside the old woman. "I shall not meddle with your things I promise you, but you must tell where the tea may be found."

"I steep me own herbs, me lady. In the crock by the sink." Her voice was a little stronger now.

Rebecca could not think that an herbal mixture would be as bracing as a good Bohea but if it was all the old woman had it would have to do. She found a gaudy pottery teapot and spooned the fragrant dried leaves into it before pouring on water from the heavy kettle.

"I've not a biscuit nor a rusk in the cupboard to offer the child." The old woman had opened her faded eyes and was observing Maudie's fidgets.

"She needs nothing, ma'am. May she play in your garden? She will be happier outside."

"Bless her, of course she may." Admonishing Maudie to put nothing in her mouth while outside, Rebecca dismissed the child to the garden.

She poured the tea and carried an old-fashioned tea bowl--all that she could find--to the old lady.

"Thank you, my lady." The old woman clasped her gnarled hands about the bowl carefully.

"Please, I am Miss Valence, ma'am, you must not call me 'lady'.'"

"Thank you, Miss Valence; I knows a lady when I sees one." She slurped gratefully from the bowl.

Rebecca smiled faintly, thinking the old woman quite mistaken. She had been called many things, but not a lady, not these many years. She took the stool she had found for Maudie and seated herself carefully upon it.

"I am Mrs. Sally Ladbroke, Miss Valence, grateful for your kindness. You're a good gel, no matter what they're saying."

"Thank you, Mrs. Ladbroke, but what are 'they' saying?"

"'Tis that Mr. Drayton, and t'squire's sister, Miss Finedon, who should know better. They are the worst gossips of all the district--say what you will about old women."

The old lady was definitely gaining strength; her faded eyes twinkled at Rebecca over the edge of her bowl.

"Drayton holds that you are too lovely to be a lady of consequence, and Miss Findeon contends that you are too free in your manner."

"But they scarcely know me!"

"That's neither here nor there to them. But I trust our Mr. Kelmarsh...if he approves ye, I'll not gainsay him. A good man is he. It were a grand day for the village when he come here."

Rebecca, eager to discover more about Kelmarsh, said, "From where did he come, Mrs. Ladbroke, and why?"

"From London I think or were it abroad--them heathen places? I'm not at all certain now you ask." The old woman looked troubled.

Rebecca abandoned her ignoble questioning with embarrassed regret. "Never mind. Are you better now?"

"As well as I can be, miss, having buried me husband, two children and a grandchild."

Rebecca paled before such sorrow. She did not know what to say. Her life was a trivial thing compared to such sadness and fortitude. How did the woman smile? How could she be grateful for anything?

"Can I get you anything else, ma'am?" was all she could think to ask.

"I'm in need of nothing, my dearie, I thank you. I shall have a little nap, I think."

"We'll leave you then," Rebecca was relieved to go, humbled by the old woman's poverty and burdened with much to consider.

"If you should find yourself by, another time, you might bring the little one to brighten my day. Good as a tonic are the little ones. Mrs. Gedding comes, but she's a busy woman with many demands on her time."

"I will," Rebecca found herself saying. "We'll come again."

The old lady was already nodding when Rebecca slipped out the door, and caught Maudie, patting an old ginger cat tenderly, up in her arms.

"How could I have mistaken, all these years, the important things of life?" she whispered into the child's tumbled curls. The little girl pulled away and patted her cheek in comfort, not understanding the words, but certainly sensing the clearly distressed tone.

"Good God, I am become maudlin," Rebecca muttered to herself, whirling the child to the ground and straightening her spine. "Come along, Maudie, practical Christianity is most definitely called for."

The village's store stood across the dusty road, and Rebecca, holding Maudie securely, ventured in for the first time. She ordered a half pound of tea, best Bohea, a pound of flour, a quarter of sugar, and a quantity of firing to be delivered to the old lady.

"I should wish this to be presented with some discretion," she commanded the smiling shopkeeper.

"Aye, Miss Valence. Mother Ladbroke's right proud. We'll say as it's come from Greythorn Court. I've some coals to deliver from there anyway. Nobody argues with Mr. Kelmarsh's wishes, pride nor no pride."

Chagrined by Kelmarsh's benevolence, and astonished at the shopkeeper's knowledge of her name, Rebecca all but staggered from the shop. This was a day of revelation, there could be no mistake about it.

Maudie pulled her towards The Black Marcher for the little terrier, Bart, sat on the bench beside the door. Rebecca released the infant to frolic with the animal, but herself hesitated on the path.

A brisk breeze stirred her ribands as she considered the past hour or two. Absently she gazed northward and, with a start, realized that she was observing Mr. Drayton leave his cottage. She had no desire to speak with the gentleman, particularly after learning of his opinions and his gossipy habits.

She turned toward the inn feeling it too early to return there, but intent upon escape from Drayton. She suddenly heard horses approaching, and wondered briefly if it might be Kelmarsh returning early from Ludlow. She soon knew she was mistaken; there was more than one horse approaching. And the clop of hooves sounded from the south of the inn, whereas the approach from Ludlow was to the north. Whoever it was come to call in the village, it was not Bennet Kelmarsh.

* * *

It was four o'clock before Rebecca's visitors departed, and six o'clock before Mr. Kelmarsh arrived. He was accompanied to Rebecca's parlour by Josie Hinderwell. On hearing the tap on the parlour door, Rebecca came through from the bedchamber where she had just aided Rush to put Maudie to bed.

She opened the door, and with a gesture admitted Kelmarsh in silence. He held his low crown beaver in gloved hands, and stood just inside the opening. "My apologies for coming to you in all my dirt, Miss Valence, but I knew you would wish to hear my news."

Josie waited in the corridor without, her hands restfully folded across her apron.

"You need not apologize, sir. Will you dine with me? Hinderwell has dinner nearly ready to be served, I believe." She did not wait for his answer. "Josie, will you ask your mother if her no doubt excellent dinner may be stretched to include Mr. Kelmarsh? And bring a jug of ale, if you please, for Mr. Kelmarsh immediately."

The maid assented happily, assisted Kelmarsh from his dusty freize greatcoat and bore it and the beaver away.

Rush appeared in the bedchamber doorway and said, "Miss Maudie knows it's you as is come, sir. She wishes you will say good-night to her?"

Kelmarsh cast an apologetic look at Rebecca and, stripping off his gloves, followed the maid into the bedchamber.

He was not long. Rebecca entertained disturbing thoughts of him in her bedchamber then heard him bid the little one a sweet rest. She put her fancies firmly aside as he reappeared.

She waved him to a seat by the open west window. The sun was edging toward the horizon and only the trees on the distant hills prevented it from dazzling the west windows with its rays. She was withholding her curiosity with an iron will, and allowed him to be comfortably settled with his ale, which Hinderwell sent up with the potboy.

Then she asked, "Well, what of it? Did you see the coachman? Did he remember aught?"

Rebecca could see Rush, seated by the fireside, through the partially open bedchamber door. A small fire was lit to keep the autumn chill from the beds and she could see that her maid was as curious as she was herself.

He took a deep draught of his ale before he replied. "The coach rolled in at one o'clock; I've a notion the schedule has been changed recently, for I thought it was used to come much earlier."

Rebecca wondered if he was deliberately being irritating...as if she had any interest in the coach's schedule.

"He wasn't best pleased at being kept from his porter, but a guinea revived his memory remarkably. He remembered the child." Kelmarsh took another gulp from his ale. "She was attended by a maid when she joined the coach at Shrewsbury. They were seen off by a middle-aged woman, not finely dressed; a housekeeper or such had been his passing impression. He remembered because the child was in tears, and he thought how the other passengers would complain."

"This does not explain how she came to be alone at the Feathers in Ludlow!" Rebecca could not help but exclaim.

"Oh it gets yet more interesting. The maid demanded to be set down at the crossroads for Church Stretton. The coachman protested, but by that time Maudie had fallen asleep. The maid directed that the child should be taken to the stop in Ludlow; that someone would meet her there. The coachman was at a loss; short of detaining the maid by force, he could not require that she remain or that she take the child with her. So he brought Maud to Ludlow. When there was no one to meet her, he left her at the Feathers in care of the landlady, and went about keeping his schedule. The rest of course you know."

Rebecca rose and paced the room, her skirts rustling in accord with her irritation. "Diabolical. Sheer wicked selfishness. The maid was obviously meant to make the whole journey with the child, and abandoned Maud to go about her own business. She must be found and punished for her dereliction."

"I think we should not waste our time pursuing the maid. She might not have the answers we require. Besides, she must have walked to Church Stretton or even Hope Bowdler, and will be gone who knows where from there."

Kelmarsh was watching her pace the chamber. Rebecca forced herself to calm, and resumed her seat. "I suppose you are correct. So Shrewsbury must be our object now."

He nodded. "The Bull is the posting inn for the Hereford coach. Someone at the Bull may know the older woman who put the child and the maid on the stage. I think that is where our quest next takes us."

A knock at the parlour door heralded the arrival of Josie, her father and his pot-boy all burdened with trays. The conversation was delayed as the table was laid, and the food presented.

Rebecca waved Kelmarsh to the table as the landlord and his helpers withdrew. The platters were well filled with cold capon and ham, a raised rabbit pie, a steaming mixture of root vegetables and fresh bread. She served herself, and took up her fork.

"Your maid? Has she eaten?" Kelmarsh questioned.

"She dined with the child," Rebecca replied, wondering at his concern.

"I cannot like to see anyone go hungry in the face of plenty, madam," he said quietly in answer to her unspoken question.

She coloured, rebuked for her thoughtlessness, and all too aware that she took her servants for granted.

"Shall we travel with you to Shrewsbury, Mr. Kelmarsh?" she asked in a cool voice, putting aside her discomfort, and disliking him for causing her to experience it. "We might use my coach..."

"I cannot think it wise. The child has endured great distress, been taken from her home, and bereft of all she held dear. She is only now regaining her composure. To return her to familiar scenes when we know nothing of the cause of her departure could only be cruel."

He must be right; Rebecca was startled by his sensitive insight. She applied herself to her meal, cogitating furiously. They ate in silence for some minutes, Rebecca darting glances at her companion surreptitiously. She could only approve Kelmarsh's table manners. They were impeccable. In all her travels, that was something that had appalled her...the dining etiquette at European inns. It was a distinct pleasure to join an Englishman gentleman at a plentiful table.

She confined her attention to her own plate. He appeared unaware of her scrutiny and she wished him to remain so. "When shall you go?" she asked. She wondered if he had business in that town as well. Certainly the affluence of his establishment at Greythorn could not depend upon one printing shop.

"I shall make the journey tomorrow. 'Tis a matter of some twenty-five miles. The journey generally takes me about two to three hours when I ride. Then I shall have to find the woman and question her. I think it is a matter of two days at least, perhaps three."

"And what shall I do, sir? I am unused to inaction. I am more accustomed to dealing directly with matters, than allowing some man to resolve concerns for me."

"Caring for a small child is scarcely inaction, madam. Indeed many women would tell you it is, of all the world's tasks, the most challenging."

"Indeed? They must be singularly bereft of staff then." Rebecca found herself wishing to discount any and all of his comments.

"Many women are," he said quietly, laying down his utensils tidily and wiping his lips with the napkin Hinderwell had unexpectedly provided. "But I am thoughtless. You are childless, and have no experience...."

Bested again, Rebecca bit her lip. The man was impossible. "And you have