I write Brain Chocolate. Want some?

London, 1813

SHE HAD MARRIED MORTIMER Applequist on April 7, 1813, in a moment of mingled exasperation and imagination. He wasn’t much of a husband, being merely a name to offer up when people dived too deeply into her affairs. Still, in that he had suited Miss Agatha Cunnington very well indeed.

Until now.

On the outset of her journey, Agatha had been stalled and stymied more times than she could count. Every time it had been by some well-meaning soul trying to save her from herself.

As if a woman were incapable of purchasing a ticket and traveling from Lancashire to London without the supervision of a husband!

Upon announcing her “married” state, however, Agatha met with nothing but assistance and polite respect. Truly, she should have made up a husband years ago.

Because she disliked leaving poor Mortimer as merely a name to spout when necessary, Agatha had spent many a pleasant moment on the journey visualizing him in precise detail. After all, he was her creation, was he not?

He would be tall but not bulky. Elegant but not foppish. Dark but not brooding. If only she had been able to make his face come into focus in her imagination, she would have been entirely satisfied with her invented spouse.

Mortimer had become increasingly handy when she had arrived in town, allowing her to rent her little house (her very own!) on respectable Primrose Square and hire a few servants.

Most important, Mortimer had allowed her to fully pursue all venues in her search for her missing brother, James.

But all of that would end today if she could not come up with some sort of plan.

The hall clock chimed the hour, and desperation began rising within Agatha. She turned to pace back up the front hall of her lovely new house, ignoring the rose-covered wallpaper and gleaming dark woods that had lured her to select it. With her arms folded tight and head down, she was lost in her scurrying thoughts.

Why was it the men in Agatha Cunnington’s life were never about when she needed them?

She could dress up Pearson. No, too old and too stout. Could she pass off Harry? No, too young, just a boy, really. She’d given Harry the footman position as a favor to Pearson, but the butler’s nephew could scarcely see over his two enormous left feet.

She needed a man, and she needed him immediately!

SIMON MONTAGUE RAINES, AKA Simon Rain, paused outside the servants’ entrance of the house on Primrose Square to check his disguise. His face and hands were blacked with soot, and the long brushes slung across one shoulder were believably well-used. As they should be, having been his bread and butter once upon a time.

His target’s house seemed ordinary enough from the outside, with its tidy entry and scrubbed steps. It was amazing the corruption that could hide behind such a harmless facade. Vice, lies, even treason.

“Mrs. Mortimer Applequist,” said the lease. Yet the rent was paid from a certain account that Simon had been watching for weeks. The account of a man who well knew the definition of treachery.

Simon should have sent one of his operatives in on this task and remained aloof and objective, as any good spymaster should. However, Simon had to admit to himself that this case had become personal. Someone was killing off his men. Men with identities so secret that they scarcely knew of one another’s existence.

Only two men within the Liar’s Club had the information necessarily to bring down its members one by one. Simon and one other. A man who hadn’t reported in for several weeks. A man with a sudden increase in his account at the London Bank. A man who had, according to Simon’s sources at the bank, paid well to rent and furnish the tidy little house before Simon.

With a grim smile, Simon hefted his brooms and prepared to play the hated role of chimneysweep one last time. All in defense of the Crown, of course.

THE SITUATION WAS BECOMING most desperate. Agatha had been combing her fertile mind for a solution all morning and still nothing had occurred to her. The rug in the front hall might never recover from her frenzied pacing.

Agatha turned to pace again—and ran full force into an obstacle that had not been there a moment before. Stunned, she staggered but didn’t fall.

“‘Ere now, missus! You alright? Didn’t see you coming.”

Agatha blinked and focused her vision on the black expanse before her. Black coat, black vest, black hands on the sleeves of her dimity morning gown.

“My dress!”

She was set swiftly back on her feet.

“Oh, well, it were a close one. Had to decide if you’d rather dirty your sleeves or your bum when you hit the floor. Guess I called it wrong.”

Agatha was being teased and rather freshly, too. Ready to let the fellow have it, she looked up.

Into the bluest eyes she had ever seen, in a face as black as midnight. Or soot.

Soot! All over her dress, right when she was expecting Lady Winchell!

Soot.

Chimneysweep.

Man!

She looked up again. Tall, but as lean as a greyhound. Just like Mortimer. Even the soot couldn’t disguise his even features.

“Sorry I am, missus. It’s a pretty dress, or it were. I don’t suppose the soot’ll come out.”

He was perfect.

“Never mind the soot,” she interrupted. “Come with me.”

He only blinked at her, and she couldn’t help her sudden fascination with the sapphire brilliance of his eyes. Then she noticed he hadn’t moved yet. “Well, come along then!”

With another blink, the chimneysweep shrugged and fell into step behind her. She led him up the curved stairs and down a short hall. Before a paneled door, she turned and held up a hand. “Just a moment. Did anyone see you come in?”

A knowing gleam entered those lovely eyes.

“I come in through the kitchen, mum. Blokes like me knows better than to use the front door.”

Agatha shook her head. “No, I care nothing for the people on the street. Did any of the servants see you come in?”

“Well, Cook let me in, but she ‘ardly looked at me. Up to her elbows in flour, she was.” He grinned at her. “If you’re after a bit o’ fun, Simon Rain’s your man. After a wash, o’ course.”

Agatha was barely listening. Was there enough time? “Yes, yes, I’ll get a bath for you.”

Agatha opened the door to the bedchamber she’d lovingly prepared for Jamie. She ignored the few of his possessions she had brought with her from home. There was no point in mooning over his books and his personal items. Sentiment would have to wait.

In an hour, three of the most influential women on the Chelsea Hospital Board of Volunteers would be calling upon Agatha and her husband, Mortimer, of whom they had heard so much.

Oh, why hadn’t she kept her mouth shut? She could have simply listened when the other women talked about their husbands. She could have answered vaguely when they had asked about hers.

Instead, she had carried on about “dear Mortie,” enumerating all his attributes and virtues. He was a scholar, a musician, a man of enormous charm and appeal.

And he was at home.

Well, she’d had to say that.

Lady Winchell, with her smarmy smile and her gimlet eyes, had wondered if it was quite proper for such a young bride to be working amongst the men at the hospital all day while her husband traveled abroad.

Now, Lady Winchell and two other highly placed ladies were coming to meet Mortimer.

Agatha remembered Lady Winchell’s suspicious manner and couldn’t help a shiver. If she were found out, she would never be allowed to stay here in town alone. Her self-proclaimed guardian would fetch her home within days and she would never accomplish her mission.

Her choice seemed clear. She could admit to her situation and return to Appleby, and all that awaited her there.

Or she could lie. Again.

Well, in for a penny, in for a great many pounds. Putting one hand on the chimneysweep’s back, she gave him a little push into the spacious bedchamber.

“Get undressed behind that screen. I’ll have your bath brought up immediately.” She had best not let the servants in on this little bit of playacting. Newly hired, they had certainly never seen Mortimer. She could always say that he’d been “called away” on another adventure by supper, and then things would go back to normal again.

After shutting the door on the bemused chimneysweep, Agatha pasted a happy smile on her face and hurried back down the stairs.

“Pearson,” she called to her butler, “I’ve just had the most delightful surprise. Mr. Applequist has come home! He is terribly weary and wants his bath straightaway.”

Coming from the parlor, where he’d been overseeing the preparations for her guests, Pearson raised a silvered brow and looked askance at the front door, which of course hadn’t admitted a soul all morning.

“Yes, madam, happy news indeed. Shall I attend Mr. Applequist until a manservant can be engaged?”

Agatha folded her arms to disguise the black hand prints on her sleeves. “No, Pearson, that won’t be necessary. I’ll tend my husband myself. After all, we have so much to, ah, talk about.”

Now why was he looking at her that way, with both eyebrows nearly to his hairline? Couldn’t a woman talk to her own husband?

“As you wish, madam. Nellie will bring the water directly.”

“Thank you, Pearson. I shall be down in just a moment to greet the ladies.”

By the time Nellie went back downstairs with the last of the hot water pails, Agatha was freshly changed and her hair repaired. Quickly she slipped into the other bedchamber.

The room was the finest in the house, much better than her own. Green velvet draperies framed the bed, and the hearth was nearly the size of a kitchen fire. There was no one in sight and only the large steaming tub in evidence. Had he left?

“Hello? Mr. Chimneysweep? Are you here?”

“That you, missus? Crikey, a bloke’s like to freeze his you-know-what off by the time he gets his bath round here.”

From behind the painted Oriental screen that stood in a comer of the room, she heard a rustle.

“Oh, no! No, don’t come”—it was too late— “out.” From behind the screen had stepped a man who was quite very nearly naked.

She should turn away. Yes, definitely.

She couldn’t turn away. She could only stand and stare, without blinking or even breathing.

With the majority of soot wiped from his hands and face, the man before her was as beautiful as a Greek statue. Lapis-blue eyes shone in a poetically boned face, with a mussed shock of black hair and the body from her dreams, dreams she hadn’t even known she’d had.

Whipcord muscle wrapped around his lean frame. Even his stomach rippled in a most diverting way. His shoulders weren’t enormously broad, but they were square with strength, the muscle twining down his arms to wide hands that grasped the toweling at his narrow waist.

Agatha blinked at the size of those hands. Heavens. Were his feet as large? She let her gaze travel down. Oh my.

Jamie’s boots would never fit him. “Blast!”

The fellow’s grin disappeared and he looked down. “What’s wrong w’ me feet?”

“Let me see your boots.”

“Whafore?” His voice rose in indignation. “They’re mine. I ain’t stole nothing!”

“I need to examine your boots to see if they’ll do.”

Still scowling suspiciously at her, he bent to retrieve his boots from behind the screen.

Agatha almost swallowed her tongue at the view.

“Let me see.” She held out a hand and he gave her the boots. She examined them closely, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “These are rather fine. Yes, I think they’ll do well enough. Let me have Pearson give them a cleaning while you are in your bath.”

She turned to go. “We’ll be expecting you downstairs in a quarter of an hour. Do be sure not to say a word, not to anyone.”

“But, missus, wha’ about?” The fellow gestured to the bed. “You know?”

Agatha looked at the bed, and then back at him. “You may have a nap later if you like, although I shouldn’t think you’ll find any of this terribly exhausting.” She smiled brightly at him. “Yes, you’ll do nicely. Your new things are on the chair. Hurry now. And remember, not one word.”

Agatha shut the door on her beautiful chimneysweep and drew in a long breath. My, oh my. Did all men look like that underneath? Somehow, she doubted it.

Then she shook off the spell of his masculine charms. She must focus on the problem at hand. Trotting downstairs to see to refreshments, she firmly denied herself the imagining of that perfect body in the bath.

Wet.

Covered in soap.

Oh my.

SIMON TWISTED HIS LIPS cynically as he squeezed the sponge over his already perfectly clean torso. Here he was, in Mr. Applequist’s house, in Mr. Applequist’s tub, with Mr. Applequist’s lady awaiting him downstairs.

If she was indeed Mrs. Applequist, for that was not the name on the account that had rented this house and hired these servants. That account belonged to none other than James Cunnington, Simon’s fellow spy, former best friend, and probable traitor.

At the thought of James, Simon’s fingers tightened on the sponge until it was wrung dry. Years of friendship and trust, sold out for a bag of gold or possibly no more than a woman’s favors.

For James was a man in love, or at least in lust. Simon had heard it from his protégé himself, when last he’d seen him. James had sat across from him in Simon’s private office, preoccupied with his latest mistress.

“She’s incredible, Simon. As limber as a snake, and as lusty as a mink. Like no woman I’ve ever known. The things she does! So much energy.” James had thrown his head back on his chair and given a great sigh of weary satisfaction. “I’m exhausted, but I’m sure I’ll recover before tonight. You should find yourself such a woman, old man.”

Simon had only grunted, too engrossed in the recent reports from the front to take up the challenge.

“You don’t have to marry a woman, Simon. You don’t even have to love one. But you need a little fun, Simon. A bit of muslin to take your mind off work. Just the thing for you, to get you out of this dusty office. Get your juices flowing before you become as rigid as our dear founder, cold in his grave.”

James had eyed the portrait of Daniel Defoe that hung behind Simon’s head, squinting as if to make out something not usually seen. “Although I’ll wager he was a juicy fellow in his day. A man of adventure. You’d never catch him moldering behind a mountain of paperwork.”

Simon had finally looked up at that. “What do you call penning hundreds of novels and works of political satire, if not paperwork?”

James had only grinned affably, happy to have gotten a rise from his mentor and superior, even if it meant losing the point. “I could find out if she has a sister. Or a friend.”

“No thank you. James, I’ve been where you are, and I decided it was seldom worth it. It makes one too vulnerable. I’ll leave the womanizing to you.”

James had dropped his clowning and leaned forward, his elbows dislodging a week’s worth of counterintelligence reports. “Seriously, Simon, you need to get about more. Get a bit of perspective. There is more to life than the Liar’s Club. Hell, there’s a whole world outside of Europe that doesn’t give a damn about Napoleon, nor how many horse soldiers he has, nor how many spies in London!”

Simon had gazed at his young friend. There was so much that James didn’t understand. He was a good operative, quick-witted and dedicated, but the only one James put at risk was himself. If he was caught, the only neck in Napoleon’s noose would be his own. At least, until he took over Simon’s position as spymaster of the Liar’s Club.

Simon couldn’t afford mistakes. He held in his hands the lives of every one of his men and, in a grander scope, perhaps even the lives of everyone in England. There was no time for play, with a burden such as that. Not a moment to lose, nor a fact to disregard.

He had to remain on top of the mounting pile of clues, in order that the next time he sent out one of his Liars, perhaps even James himself, the man would go with the best and newest information that Simon could give him.

So that when one of them died in the service of his country, Simon could try to ease his own pain with the knowledge that he had done his best. Perhaps someday it would work.

James apparently had no such concerns. Taking his new assignment in hand, James had given Simon a half-salute and a grin. He’d left, whistling, to cadge a last drink from Jackham behind the bar.

Simon had never heard from him again.

That alone would have only given rise to worry, not accusation. But it then became obvious that someone was supplying descriptions and identities of Simon’s men to the opposition. One man after another turned up dead or injured.

Simon had entertained the possibility that the leak was someone higher in the chain of command than himself, so sure had he been of James’s loyalty.

Until a large amount of money was suddenly deposited in James’s account, so large that Simon had been forced to suspect that worst of all conclusions.

His spy was spying for the enemy. There was no way to know precisely how it had happened. So many things could turn a spy, from sedition to seduction.

He hadn’t discovered the name of James’s mistress, more’s the pity, but he’d kept a watch on his protégé’s bank account. Finally, a certain little Mrs. Applequist had made her appearance, freely using James’s money to set herself up in style.

That’s when Simon had made his move.

Only this morning he’d wondered how he could gain entry into the house in Primrose Square. The chimneysweep guise had worked well for him in his youth, but that had been before he’d reached his full height.

He’d planned everything carefully and had deliberately picked a moment when the cook was likely to be busy in which to knock on the back door. A quickly muttered, “Chimbley cleanin’ for Missus Applequist,” and he’d been inside.

Once he’d been admitted, he’d slipped through the house with an eye out for the butler. Fellows like the fine silver-haired houseman downstairs would look suspiciously indeed on the arrival of a chimneysweep when none such had been ordered.

He’d been hoping to make his later job easier with a quick casing of the layout and possibly the unlatching of a likely upper-story window. And to be honest, he’d been very curious about the lady of the house.

Then Simon had run smack into the comely Mrs. Applequist herself. Her curvaceous form had packed quite a wallop, and it had taken him a moment to get his breath back.

Luckily for him, the lady didn’t seem too interested in his purpose. Nor did she seem to realize that most chimney-sweeps were either boys or poorly grown men the size of children. She obviously had something else on her mind.

What was her game?

Deciding that lingering in the bath wouldn’t help him learn much, Simon stood and let the water stream from his body. As he rubbed the toweling over his chest, his eyes narrowed at the memory of Mrs. Applequist’s face when he had stepped out from behind the screen.

She hadn’t missed a beat, but her eyes had gone wide with what Simon wasn’t too modest to call appreciation. Well, it was mutual. She was a ripe little morsel herself.

Oh, her dress was perfectly demure and her house perfectly respectable. Nevertheless, a woman built on those generous terms was more likely to be at home in the bedroom than the ballroom. A lady of healthy appetite, she was.

And now it appeared she had an appetite for Simon. Not that he minded so much. He liked an armful as much as a handful, but he knew better than to get involved with the subject under investigation.

Unless it became absolutely necessary.

AGATHA’s PANIC SIMMERED AS she waited impatiently in the parlor. Who could have known being married would be so complicated?

She tidied the tea tray for the fifth time and eyed the clock on the front parlor mantel. The ladies would be calling within half an hour and her chimneysweep had yet to come downstairs to hear his part in the charade. Biting her lip, Agatha reminded herself that all this would surely be worth it if it meant finding Jamie.

James Cunnington was a soldier, away fighting Napoleon the last Agatha had heard from him. He had written her every week, and had for four years, until two months past.

Then there had been no word from him in any way. Despite all her inquiries to the army, she had received no answers, even after all this time.

Spurred by her need to find Jamie, a need that became more desperate by the hour, Agatha had packed a trunk and bought a ticket on the next coach, leaving her estate of Appleby for London. Her servants had aided her escape, and she knew they would keep her whereabouts hidden for as long as possible.

It wouldn’t do for Repulsive Reggie to find her before she found her brother. She’d be forced back to Appleby and to the altar with all the speed of Reggie’s thwarted ambitions.

“Marrying” Mortimer had simply made the journey easier. No one questioned a married woman’s morality in traveling alone, not in wartime with so many husbands gone.

When she had been inspired to investigate the Chelsea Hospital in London for news of dear Jamie, it had been her married status that had allowed her in and enabled her to volunteer to care for the wounded.

Still, creating an alias to travel under and presenting the world with an actual false husband were two entirely different kettles of flounder.

“Hello, love. Here I am.”

Pulled back to the present, Agatha looked up … and up … to see one of the handsomest men she had ever laid eyes on.

Jamie’s trousers fit the fellow a bit closely about the hips, although not excessively so for the current fashion. Rather too much for Agatha’s peace of mind, however. She yanked her gaze from dangerous ground and followed the rest of the transformation upward.

Jamie’s snowy shirt and dark green waistcoat gave no reason for dismay, but the morning coat, oh my. While the cut across the shoulders was quite fine and the nipped waist fit perfectly, the cobalt color gave far too much emphasis to those twinkling blue eyes.

His cravat was only loosely tied round his collar, in a way rather more suited to a pirate than a gentleman, showing a bit too much of strong brown throat.

A lethal combination indeed. It was very odd how her imagination proceeded to remove every one of those articles of Jamie’s clothing from his frame, until in her mind’s eye he stood as nearly naked as before.

“What? Don’t it fit?” The chimneysweep flexed both shoulders and twisted at the waist to see behind him. “I thought it looked right nice, I did.”

“Oh, no, you look wond—adequate, perfectly adequate.” Agatha forced her wicked imagination to re-dress him. “Please, come in and sit. I have a boon to ask of you.”

The fellow smiled slightly at her, and Agatha had to fist her hands to keep from tracing the dimples indenting each side of his mouth.

She was attracted to him. How unthinkably inappropriate of her. Not to mention inconvenient. Really, was there no end to the obstacles in her path?

Agatha shot a look full of her irritation at the fellow before her and watched his beautiful smile fade. Good. If she could maintain her vexation for a while, the day would go easier for her. Yes indeed. A brisk, no-nonsense manner was called for. Agatha indicated the seat opposite her. “Please sit, Mister?”

“Rain, Simon Rain.” He sat and continued to look at her expectantly.

The clock chimed three-quarters of the hour, and Agatha knew she didn’t have much time to explain. “I have a need for a gentleman to attend me today. You need do nothing, really, merely smile and greet my guests. I will do all the talking.” Agatha sat back and smiled. There. Rather succinct, if she did say so herself.

“Whafore?” Mr. Rain frowned. “I mean, I’d like to help you, mum, but I won’t do nothing what’s wrong. This here don’t sound much close to right, not a bit of it.”

“Oh, no. There’s nothing wrong here at all. I shall simply introduce you as my husband, you shall bow over the ladies’ hands, we shall all sit for the standard fifteen minutes and take tea. You shall never have to say a word.”

“Your husband?” Mr. Rain stood abruptly. “Here now, we ain’t married! What if your mister finds out? He’ll make a spot of trouble for me, he will. I would, if’n you was mine.”

“You would? I mean to say, of course you would. But there is no need to worry about Mr. Applequist. He won’t.”

Sounds of arriving guests came through the closed door to the entrance hall. Agatha panicked. Oh, this was going very badly indeed!

“He doesn’t exist at all, Mr. Rain!” she hissed, even as Pearson opened the door to announce her guests. “I’m not married, there will be no trouble made for you, and you mustn’t utter one single word!”

Prologue

IN THE SNOWY north of England, in a valley in Staffordshire, there lies a pretty little community known as Haven. It is perhaps the ideal English village. As one follows a curving road along the ice-covered River Churnet, one comes upon prosperous little farms, blanketed in white. These give way to tidy stone cottages with warmly glowing windows, that open out upon a welcoming village square lined with shops and vital local businesses that, during the weeks leading up to Christmas Day, not even the deterrent of winter’s chill can empty.

There is a talented blacksmith with a busy smithy, a welcoming innkeeper with a comfortable establishment, a practical but creative milliner who can give the most common straw bonnet that special Sunday touch, and a very fine church built of local stone with proper stained glass windows and a spacious vicarage beyond it.

The village is well supported by the needs of the fine manor that lies just over the river, and of course the people of Haven help each other in times of need—but there is something else afoot in this enchanting little place that has nothing to do with his lordship’s gold.

Haven is where one comes to find the single thing coin cannot buy.

Chapter 1

VICAR JOHN BARTON took the last nail into his hand and hefted his hammer once more. Pounding the finishing nail into the last framing board around the final window of the entire house should have been a triumph. The large but drafty old vicarage had been reborn into a spacious, snug home bright with fresh paper on the walls and fine glass windows. He’d begun the work when he’d first arrived in Haven a little over two years past. Only the painting of the last few window frames remained.

John should have been exultant. Instead he only felt edgy and cold.

It was not the proper season for building. It was December, lacking only a few days until Christmas. And December in Staffordshire was no summer day in Brighton!

Yet John had been determined to finish his vicarage. Furthermore, he needed to keep busy so as not to dwell upon the lord of Havensbeck and his lady, getting ready to put on their first Christmas celebration as a wedded couple at the manor. All of Haven was invited. John’s invitation had been penned by her ladyship herself, the warm greeting simple, the wistful request an act of reconciliation toward a family friend.

He would never receive any other sort of message from her now. That ship had sailed, that stable door had been left open, that water had turned to ice under the bridge—and Matthias was a bloody, greedy poaching bastard!

Except he wasn’t. Lord Matthias was a good man and a dedicated, responsible landlord who took excellent care of Haven and all its residents. In fact, he and John had almost become friends before John had encouraged pretty Bernie and her family to spend the previous Christmas in Haven.

John had thought himself clever, timing it all so well. He would spend some time with Bernadette, whom he’d begun to care for a very long time ago but who’d never much noticed him, all the while with the enthusiastic support of his former mentor, Bernadette’s uncle, who favored the match. John would show Bernadette his very fine vicarage and the lovely village and when he’d beguiled her with his success, he would propose.

And he had.

And she’d accepted him. It had all been storybook perfect—except that even before he’d had the opportunity to make an impression on the new, adult Bernadette, she’d already unhorsed Lord Matthias into a snowdrift and irrevocably captured his lordship’s attention. A momentary encounter on a country road had overturned every single meticulously planned detail of John’s courtship.

John hammered more violently for a moment, picturing a certain poaching rake of a lord sitting upon the head of his nail. Then the anger subsided, as it always did, because Matthias wasn’t a rake or a poacher. He’d been a man lost in mourning for the wife and child he’d lost tragically several years before. Since he’d come to Haven, John had racked his brain for some way to help Matthias.

Well, John had certainly helped him, by bringing the one person who carried within her a certain spark, a clear, brilliant vitality that shone from her lovely eyes—and yes, with enough experience with her own tragedy to help a broken man move on from his. Bernie had even brought along a new child, her worldly-wise little brother Simon, to brighten the dark halls of Havensbeck.

At the thought of Simon, John put the hammer down and drank a swig of tepid, overly steeped tea. He grimaced at the taste. He couldn’t seem to make a decent pot of tea for himself. He ought to go inside and warm himself at the hearth, but the sun was still on the crystalline valley and the days were so short now. He couldn’t bear to spend a moment of it indoors.

Young Simon would be climbing the walls on a day like today, wanting to be outside. John felt the same way, edgy and twitching with house-bound restiveness. The sun was bright on the snow and the wind was slight, giving the day a deceptively balmy feel. John had lived in Haven long enough to know better. The ice was thick on the River Churnet and the night would fall black and impenetrable in just a few hours.

John stepped back and looked at his handiwork.

Building things wasn’t what he’d been raised to do. His father would likely shudder at the very idea, yet John had found real enjoyment in the use of his healthy body and his new, hard-won skills.

Now, the exterior window frames were entirely complete. Every window had fine new glass and a spacious windowsill. He’d designed deep sills for the single shining memory of young Bernadette curled up on a sunny windowsill of her uncle’s vicarage, lost in a book. The sun had glinted on her amber-brown hair and the light had shone into her eyes, making her squint resentfully though she was clearly too enraptured by what she was reading to bother adjusting her position. She’d been no more than a gawky fifteen and he’d been just another boring adult, albeit a young one. She’d been polite to him when she remembered he existed, but she’d never invited him into that personal, clearly magical world behind those eyes.

John had been an awkward and officious twenty, very aware of his own importance as the selected student of the venerated Vicar Goodrich. Young Bernie mocked him politely for his determination to bring God to the world whether the world liked it or not, and Vicar Goodrich had shown him a gentler approach of guidance and support. Vicar Goodrich had led John by example, bestowing grace in constant small doses that brought succor and strength to everyone around him. A new ambition had been born in John, to set aside the fire and brimstone he’d been taught to favor, and instead to serve with generosity and patience.

And to do it with Bernadette Goodrich at his side.

He’d been so relieved when his scrawny, spotty youthful looks had improved and it became likely that a young lady would not be averse to becoming the vicar’s wife. John’s only hope was that clever, lively Bernie might feel the same.

So close. He’d missed making that impression upon her by a bloody hour!

John sighed and closed his eyes. You are the vicar. “I shall not curse.” He looked skyward. “Sorry.”

The empty house didn’t comment. The spacious rooms and the fine new windowsills and the impervious roof simply sat there, offering nothing in return for his hard work.

The feeling gripped him again, that need for action, for desperate occupation so that he could fall exhausted into his cold bed at night and not spend hours imagining the Christmas he might have been having this year with his beloved new family.

One bloody hour.
He ran his hand through his saw-dusted hair and squinted at the bright day once more. He had close to three hours before night fell.

STUPID. BLOODY. ROCK!
John didn’t even bother to pronounce his anti-cursing ritual. He was one chunk of sandstone short of a full load in his mule-cart and the small white sun hung so low on the hillside across the river that it looked as if it might roll right down the snowy slope. It was already growing dark in the cut of the river.

He should leave now, if he wished to get the cart home before full dark. He would just have to come back another time for the last stone. It wasn’t as if he would even be able to lay the stone on the terrace until spring. Sometimes he doubted his own good sense. Yes, he should definitely go.

Instead he dug his pry bar into the crack between the frozen ground and the large hunk of sandstone he had ambitiously chosen. This was meant to be a cost-saving measure, not a penance. It didn’t hurt that it was one less thing he would have to request from his lordship. Matthias would shrug and order the finest flagstones the quarries downriver could cut. Then every time John walked upon them, he would recall that his life and his work was entirely dependent upon the support of the man who had stolen the woman John had set his heart on.

Grunting, John pounded the pry bar deeper with a few strikes of his sledgehammer, then he put all his weight into shifting the rock. The exertion made his cold, tired body ache and his head pound.

For just a bit more strength, he cast his thoughts back to the sight of Bernadette and Matthias, with their coats covering their wedding garb, leaving the Havensbeck chapel to be greeted by every single denizen of Haven, all equally bundled up, who had cast cut paper snowflakes at the sheepishly grinning couple in lieu of flower petals. Bernie, laughing, alight with joy. Matthias, gobsmacked by his own good fortune and most definitely smug about it.

Weeks. Mere weeks of courtship. Bernie had been so mad for Matthias, and he for her, that John had taken the high road and stepped aside—and Matthias hadn’t lost a moment in making his conquest.

“Rraahh!” Spurred by the twist of the knife of memory, John convulsed his entire body, aiming all his disappointment and fury and hurt at the pry bar—and ripped the wide, flat piece of sandstone from the frozen earth.

As if in answer, a high, feminine scream cut the icy air.

JOHN FOLLOWED THE cry, running along the riverbank, slipping in the snow. Ahead he could see the silhouette of the bridge against the dimming sky and the shadow play of a damaged carriage tilting slowly, slowly over the stone balustrade of the bridge.

The neighing of distressed horses echoed the screams. He kept running, scrambling up the bank now to access the bridge level.

“Hold on!”

More cries from the carriage. “Help! I can’t hold her. She’s falling!”

John looked up to see a limp form hanging from the carriage that still threatened to topple over the edge of the bridge. Then he realized why. One of the horses had already fallen over the side and was now dangling from its harness, screaming in panic and thrashing wildly. Every convulsion of its giant body tore at the carriage, dragging it down, crushing it against the low stone wall, while the other panicked horse, still on the bridge but fighting the pull with all its might, threatened to rip the vehicle apart with its plunging antics.

The lady in the silk gown hung pale and unmoving except for the limp sway of her upper body as she hung with her lower half and skirt trapped within the carriage.

It only took a split of a second for John to assess the situation and make a decision. He’d never be able to secure the carriage in time, for the dangling horse was doing more damage by the moment. “I’m getting below her! I’ll catch her!”

“Hurry!”

John scrambled down the rocky bank and slithered awkwardly out onto the ice until he stood just beneath the insensible lady. She’d slipped a bit farther out of the carriage. The other woman must be losing her grip.

“Now! Let her go!” John cried over the wheezing and groaning of the trapped horse, whose rear hooves whipped the air in alarming nearness to John’s upraised arms.

The lady fell silently, with only the flutter of her skirts and cape to mark her descent. As she turned in the air, John had a brief impression of black and white and scarlet before she landed in his arms and knocked him back hard onto the ice. The wind left his lungs in a great whoosh and his arse ached, only partially protected by his thick woolen coat, but he’d caught her!

As he tried to bring any possible scrap of air back into his chest, he looked back up at the carriage to spy wide, worried eyes in a pale face, peering down at him and his catch.

“Get free!” he tried to say. Before he could gather the breath to shout a warning, the harness broke into pieces, the sounds like gunshots as the leather straps rent and the traces snapped— And the horse fell.

Chapter 1

LORD MATTHIAS WATERFORD entered his fine country manor of Havensbeck in county Staffordshire, removed his hat and was promptly greeted by his butler, Jasper. The stout man looked dignified as usual in his dark blue livery.

Jasper bowed. “How was your ride, my lord?”

“Cold.” Matthias shrugged out of his snow-dusted greatcoat and unwound his woolen scarf. Something caught his eye as he looked up. “Jasper, what is that hideous growth that is even now strangling my banister?"

Jasper wasn’t the slightest bit near-sighted, being no older than Matthias’s own thirty-two years. Yet he squinted up at the stair railing as if barely able to see what his master referred to. "Oh, that? That is a garland, my lord. A braided strand of winter greenery used to impart a sense of the season."

"Yes, I know what a garland is. Why is a garland allowed to infest my house?"

Jasper beamed at Matthias innocently. "Some people consider them very becoming decorations, my lord."

"Some people may, but not I. Take it down."

"Absolutely. Hideous thing. I shall banish it at once, my lord." The butler bowed so obsequiously low that Matthias could see the top of his ginger-haired head. Sarcasm, in his own house.

Matthias handed his black leather riding gloves to Jasper with an admonishing glare. Then he turned toward his study and the bottle of brandy that awaited him there.

Garlands. Blast it! Christmas just kept coming, every year, again and again, no matter how fast he rode or how far he traveled. So he retreated to this place, Havensbeck, deep in the Staffordshire valley, where the icy cold kept everyone indoors and the heavy snow muffled the sounds of their celebrations. And he still walked in on blasted garlands.

"My lord?"

Matthias sighed and turned to face his most faithful and trusted and annoying retainer. "Out with it, Jasper."

"The Haven assembly rooms are under repair, my lord. Recall that storm last October? The roof leaked most abominably."

"I don’t believe a word of it."

Jasper nodded solemnly. "It is quite true, my lord. Mildew everywhere. The blue velvet chair cushions are positively green with stuff growing on them."

"And yet you drape my house with green growing stuff?"

"That’s different, my lord." Jasper’s tone was starchy. "That’s traditional."

Matthias sighed. "Mildew, eh?"

"It is most unrefined, my lord. The ladies will never sit down all night. You will be forced to dance with every single one, at least three times. That is, you would if you still danced."

Pity tinged the butler’s voice. Matthias flinched from it, parting his lips to reprimand Jasper. However, those black days of shouting at his devoted servants were long past. “Inform whomever is arranging this event that I will buy new chairs for the hall.”

Jasper blinked. “Ah. Yes. That is most generous, of course, my lord. But with only three weeks until Christmas?“

“Ah, you were hoping I would volunteer the manor for the celebrations?”

"Oh, it isn’t I, my lord. It’s the staff, you see. I’m simply the elected spokesperson." Jasper spread his hands in an apologetic gesture. "I’m fully against it, myself. I loathe people. I despise celebrations. So messy. Dreadful nuisance, guests. If it were up to me, my lord, I would keep the house dark and cold and serve only dry toast and brandy for the next three weeks, just as you prefer. Now, that’s my sort of Christmas."

Irony, from his own butler. Matthias grunted as he turned away. "Just top off the brandy, Jasper. The dry toast is all yours this evening."

MATTHIAS LEANED BACK in his fireside chair and cupped his snifter in both hands. His study remained quite satisfactorily dark, but it wasn’t cold. Jasper would never allow that. A cheery flame traced blue and gold over the coals in the fireplace. From his high-backed chair, Matthias watched it numbly until its merry dance seemed to mock his misery. He closed his eyes against its optimistic flare.

Another Christmas. Another year without Marianna, without his jolly little Simon, without his family. No happy singing of carols, no giddy hiding of gifts, just this bloody great echoing house and another snowy anniversary of that horrible fiery night.

His eyes opened and his gaze slid to the blotter on his desk. Jasper had left out a stack of foolscap and a filled inkwell. Next to the blotter stood a washed, dried wine bottle and a cork at the ready.

Matthias looked away. He didn’t know why he bothered. The letters never helped. The entire process was maudlin and unwise and useless. If anyone but Jasper ever learned of it, they would certainly think him mad.

So why did the next moment find him seated at his desk, sharpening a quill? Why did his fingertips grasp the pen, dip it into the ready ink and begin to write?

My dearest Simon,

He wouldn’t write to Marianna this time. But a man could pen a letter to his own son, could he not?

The snow is falling on the lawn and I think of you chortling away as your mama tried to show you how to make a snow angel. She moved your little arms and legs and you thought she meant to tickle you. And when she lifted you into her arms and pointed at what you made together, you clapped your hands and shouted "Doggie!" That’s when she began to call them snow doggies instead and we made them all over the lawn for you to see the next morning when you awoke.

The coals had gone to gray ash and the house was silent by the time he finished the letter. The pages, when rolled, scarcely fit through the neck of the bottle.

“You are a man of few words, my love,” she had told him once with a little laugh in her voice, “but when you take up a pen, you write volumes!

"Only about you," Matthias whispered now. "Only about him."

He corked the bottle tightly and stood, weaving just slightly. He’d been at the desk so long the brandy had nearly worn off, or it would have, if he’d taken the toast. He would have an aching head on him in the morning for his carelessness.

No matter. His step was steady as he left the study and the house. It wasn’t a far walk to the stone bridge over the river. His woolen surcoat and weskit would keep him warm enough, even in the snowfall.

The clouds held a glow, for the village was still alight with lanterns and the first round of celebrations. The people of Haven loved a fête, that was for certain. Marianna had adored throwing parties for them all. From baptisms to weddings, she had turned her considerable imagination to pleasing his people. Matthias had always held their respect, but it was Marianna they had loved.

And Simon.

His chest hurt. The hollow pain of loss and helpless fury that smoldered in his heart burned with a special, piercing ache as Christmas Eve approached every year.

The manor had long been repaired. Looking back at it now, no sign remained of the fire damage that had burned the heart right out of its master. Tonight, as the snow fell so peacefully and silently, muffling the faint sounds of fiddle music coming from the village, one would think that nothing bad could ever happen in a place so beautiful.

One would be wrong.

Marianna had loved the river. It was known as the River Churnet, a name so old no one remembered what it meant any longer. “Mundane,” she had stated, and renamed it the River Celadon and declared it chock full of naiads or dryads or whatever spirits haunted running water. Even now, in the harshest of winters, the swift running water had refused to freeze entirely, leaving a rushing stream down the center of the encroaching ice on both banks.

Matthias leaned his elbows on the sturdy stone railing of the bridge and pressed the freezing glass bottle to his flushed forehead. It was a silly thing to do, writing these letters.

"Stupid. Useless." He held the bottle to his cheek and squeezed his eyes closed. "I love you both. I miss you. Merry Christmas."

And he let the bottle fall into the hissing, rushing water yet again.

BERNIE GOODRICH WRAPPED one fist in the back of her brother’s thick winter jacket and held tight to the leafless branch over her head with the other. Beneath them, the ice-edged water of the River Churnet swirled gray and white.

"Just a bit more."

"I haven’t any more, Simon. Do you want to take a dousing in the ice water and cause Aunt Sarah to carry on about you taking a chill? She’ll boil you alive in the tub until you’re the color of a cooked lobster!"

"Got it!" Eight-year-old Simon held the bottle aloft like a trophy, brandishing it in triumph.

Bernie pulled him back to the bank with a mighty heave. "Heavens, you’re growing. I won’t be able to do that for much longer." She set him on his feet and then brushed her fallen hair back into her knitted hat so she could better examine their prize.

"It’s a different label than last time," Simon pointed out. "Look, there’s a waterwheel on this one."

Bernie tilted her head. "I think it’s one of those Dutch inventions. A windmill." She held the greenish-brown bottle to the wintry gray daylight and tried to peer through it. "This one looks chock full of paper!"

"Bernadette Goodrich! What on earth are you doing on the riverbank on such a terrible day?"

Bernie tucked the bottle away into the folds of her skirt as she straightened.       "Nothing, Aunt Sarah!" She called back up the bank.

Her aunt gazed down at her from the path above the Churnet, her work-worn fists plunked onto her angular hips. Her brow held the permanent furrows of confusion that Bernie and Simon seemed to inspire in their childless aunt and uncle.

"Are we late for something?" Simon whispered as they clambered up the bank. The grassy slope was covered in a thick fall of snow. They left a trail of footprints, one set small and the other not much larger, in the pristine bank.

It was a good question. "I don’t think so, but perhaps?"

It seemed to Bernie that she was usually in the wrong for one thing or another. Tardiness was her usual sin, although according to Aunt Sarah she was also accomplished in Laggardliness and Inattention. In the six years since she and Simon had been sent away from the epidemic that had taken their parents, they had lived in the vicarage of Green Dell and had done their best to adapt. Simon had only been two years of age, so the crumbling house and poor village was all he knew. Bernie, on the other hand, had been fourteen, old enough to recall every moment of another life.

A life very different from this one. "Let’s see. We fed the chickens, filled the coal scuttles and turned down the beds."

"I fluffed the pillows!"

"And a fine job you did of it, too." Bernie counted off on the fingers of her woolen gloves. "Chickens, coal, beds, wood-box, and the dough is rising."

"We didn’t dust the parlor!"

"Oh, Christmas Bells on a Stick!" Bernie swore. It was Wednesday and the village Ladies League met in the vicarage parlor every week. "Scurry home and get the cloths from the linen basket. I’ll put the bread in the oven and meet you in the parlor. Go on! Run!"

Simon bounced ahead of her. If her aunt wasn’t lurking watchfully about, Bernie would pick up her skirts and race him home. But the prospect of a lecture on decorum along with the usual one on duty made her head ache just a little bit.

She didn’t mean to be a slackard. It wasn’t that she minded the constant work, for Aunt Sarah was thrice as industrious herself. None of the chores she’d been set were terribly arduous, at least not now that she was fully grown. It was just that there were so bloody many of them!

And now she’d said bloody in her head, which had to count as some sort of sin. Bernie sighed. It was so easy to sin, living at the vicarage. When Mama and Papa were alive, she’d hardly seemed to sin at all!

The paper-stuffed wine bottle tucked deep into her coat pocket banged against her knee at every step. It was the first one they’d seen this year! Excitement simmered within her, fighting with the frustration that threatened to boil over.

With the Ladies’ League gathering at the vicarage today, she and Simon wouldn’t have a moment to examine their find until bedtime!

Christmas Bells!

ON BENDED KNEE

Chapter 1

IF THE DEVIL KEPT sheep — and Lysander Worthington, of the London Worthingtons, had no reason to suppose that the devil didn’t keep a fiendish herd in some fiery version of the Yorkshire Dales — then the devil would have had Lysander’s adversary as his personal pet ram. The creature had surely come straight from hell.

I was only riding through. Just through the blasted village and out again.

It wasn’t simply the eerie narrow iris of the ram’s eye. All sheep had a similar gaze and Lysander had met a few perfectly angelic woolly creatures in his thirty-one years. It wasn’t the ram’s multicolored face, splotched with black and white in a highwayman’s larcenous mask. Lysander’s own mount, his brother’s fine riding horse Icarus, had a striking white blaze down his nose, and Icarus was as well behaved as any slightly nervy thoroughbred could be.

Perhaps it was the creature’s curling horns that twisted a bit wrong, spiraling straight out from each side of its hellish head like armored corkscrews. The cruel projections had clearly been waxed to a fine shine by the ram’s attentive owner. Lysander had a light-headed vision of a scarlet-skinned devil, cooing fondly at his straggle-woolen pet whilst stropping the beast’s horns with a polishing cloth.

No matter from where the truculent creature had come, it clearly believed itself the rightful master of this otherwise unremarkable village common. The beast stood stiff-legged and twitchy, aggressively challenging Lysander and his borrowed mount, Icarus. The maddened gaze heated. The hell-spawn ram scraped a cloven hoof on the scattered straw in warning. Apparently the fluffy fiend took offense to Icarus’s elegant long-legged form, which surely looked quite strange to its tiny mind after a lifetime of thick, stolid draft horses and plow ponies.

Aristocratic Icarus, on the other hand, visibly trembled in terror before the snorting demonic creature bountifully festooned in multicolored festival day ribbons, which twisted and flapped in the afternoon breeze in ludicrous counterpoint to the lethal twisting horns.

Lysander had a single instant to wonder if Icarus, London creature that he was, had ever actually seen a sheep.

The previously amiable horse let out a shrill neigh of panic and performed a gyrating, rearing hop that not only faced the gelding away from the rage-maddened ram, but also aided in putting a nearly instant quarter mile between himself and the nightmarish creature.

Unfortunately, Lysander was not invited on this retreat. The world flipped on its axis and he found himself facedown in the mud with the wind knocked clean from his lungs. Shaken by the fall and his sudden change in stature, he madly scraped the mud from his face and eyes and drew his breath in with a strangled gasp.

Mud. Mud and blood and pain. Thunder.

In time, he would look back to comprehend that the pounding that shook the earth was merely the retreating hoof beats of the fleeing Icarus. Unhappily, in that moment Lysander instead heard the thunder of cannon and storm.

And any moment icy rain would pour from the war-blackened sky and the earth would run with blood.

His heartbeat sped until he could hear nothing but the hammer of his own pulse and the hoarse gasps of his own breath scraping its way out of his throat. There was no village festival, no shattered prize sheep’s pen, no gaping crowd of astonished Swaledale farmers around him. There was only the rocky fist of memory, knocking him heedlessly backward in time, flinging him down on a mud-and-blood spattered field of war in Spain.

Thunder. Cannon. Enemy. Battle.

The ram lowered its head and gave a threatening snort, taking up the challenge with vicious glee. Battle indeed, it seemed to say.

To the death, if necessary.

EARLIER THAT DAY …

LYSANDER WORTHINGTON HAD BEEN in the saddle for two days –– or was it three? Not that he cared terribly. On horseback, it was much less necessary to speak to anyone. There were a few people on the road and if he timed the pace of his mount correctly he could either fall back or pass ahead of any other rider or cart with no more than a quick jerk of his head and a tug on the brim of his hat. He tried to remember manners, although it was much easier for him when he didn’t actually need to use them very often.

Beneath him, Icarus moved with contented grace and far more style than Lysander deserved. Then again, Icarus wasn’t actually his horse. The fine mount belonged to Lysander’s older brother, Dade. “Daedalus and Icarus” sounded much more imposing than “Dade and Icky”, but that’s what everyone in the family called them.

Lysander knew that Icarus was a very good horse. He’d loved horses once, been entirely mad for them, in fact. He remembered that feeling. To be more precise, he remembered that he’d once had such a feeling. Feelings themselves had become a bit distant to him now. He was a man groping in the dark when trying to reach for his emotions of the past.

With the ease of great practice he allowed his mind to slide sideways, away from consideration of the changes that the war had wrought in him. That was the best thing about riding alone for days. With no members of his raucous, beloved, unbearable family around him he could pretend for a few miles at a time that he was just a man on a horse riding down a road.

Occasionally, however, the road became too heavily traveled for Lysander’s comfort. It must be market day, for he was beginning to pass more laden carts and wagons full of expectant families. One cart driver kept pace with Lysander for half a mile, telling Lysander more than anyone ever needed to know about his success growing early greens and the high price he planned to ask for them.

When a fork to the right came along, Lysander took it immediately. The instant relief was so great that he made it a practice whenever the road became too full of people and voices and questions and greetings. As long as he continued to travel north, he would arrive in Scotland eventually. Just to ensure he was not putting himself too far behind schedule, he took to running Icarus at a gallop on every long stretch of empty road. Icarus was all for it, for the great thoroughbred loved nothing better than to run as fast as possible.

This worked reasonably well for most of the morning until Icarus threw a shoe. Lysander dismounted immediately and checking the gleaming black hooves of his mount, discovered that Icarus was unharmed. Lysander pocketed the shoe, for surely there would be a blacksmith somewhere ahead.

There was no point in regret. After all, when one has made such vast and monumental mistakes as Lysander had in the past, running his mount out of a shoe seemed rather minor. Finding a proper smithy would be good, but with the undamaged horseshoe in his pocket Lysander thought he might be able to make do with a barn and some tools. It was his own fault, but speaking to people and possibly asking them for help would be a heavy penance.

He followed the road he was on, the peaceful country lane snaking its way through a verdant valley following the banks of a picturesque river. Looking about him, Lysander noticed for the first time that he had reached the Yorkshire Dales proper. He’d never been there before and he found the quiet walk next to the cheerfully burbling river to be extremely soothing. One never found silence like this in London.

It was almost a shock when Lysander turned a bend in the river and found an active village square before him. It seemed a hardworking but not terribly prosperous village for such a large population. Then Lysander realized that despite his best efforts, he’d walked right into some sort of local festival.

Several giggling children ran past him as they played a game of snatching streaming ribbons from each other’s grip. Icarus startled violently at the shrill shrieking and the wildly fluttering ribbons, so Lysander thought it best to get back into the saddle. He could better keep control of Icarus and afford himself some relief from walking among the crowd. And it was a useful vantage, for Lysander spotted the smithy immediately. He and Icarus headed for a stone building with an open shed to one side where Lysander could clearly see an anvil. The cheerful crowd parted respectfully before them.

Nearly twitching with discomfort, Lysander looked anywhere, everywhere except down at the faces upturned to eye him curiously. Something caught his eye, a graceful movement on the edge of his perception. He found his attention snared by a slim form on the far edge of the crowd.

There was a sort of pavilion set up on the common. It was an unlovely structure that served the very practical purpose of protecting the festivalgoers from sun or weather. Lysander had a vague impression of a giant parasol cobbled together from old carts, the posts looking like wagon tongues, taken from between the horses and plunked upright. The thing was little more than a rickety freestanding roof with no walls. The patchy, hand-hewn shingles had lain in place long enough to acquire a green mossy growth on the northern slope.

He’d caught the woman in the act of brushing away a strand of dark hair from her face. It caught on her lower lip, the brunette lock pointing a perceptible arrow at the soft plump curve of her mouth. She stood on tiptoe, bracing one hand against the pavilion post to gaze out over a number of temporary livestock pens. Lysander wasn’t sure what made him think that she was sad, for her lovely ivory features held a small smile and her gray eyes snapped with lively intelligence. Yet he had the instant conviction that she was all alone in the crowd, separate somehow, watching but not belonging.

What should he do?

Lysander’s twin brothers, Castor and Pollux, would have sent her a flirtatious smile or swept a courtly bow. Yes, it could be done from the saddle. Archie had insisted that they all practice it until Iris approved the romantic gesture.

It would have been a strange education, if one was not a Worthington.

A part of Lysander’s mind, a very quiet, small part, the part that remembered the way life had once been, applauded the notion. Lysander had no idea what he should do. Never once had a pretty woman snared his attention since his return from the battlefield.

That distraction turned out to be hazardous.

Without Lysander quite realizing it, well-trained Icarus had angled his walk in the direction of Lysander’s focus. As they came near, Icarus snorted in spoiled equine offense at the heavy odor of lanolin and sheep dung. Lysander noticed distantly that they had come quite close to the livestock pens, but since he was still generally en route to the smithy he didn’t bother to turn Icarus aside.

Their path had brought them closer to the fascinating lady beneath the pavilion, although she still had eyes for something few yards farther on. Lysander managed to tear his locked gaze from the gray shadows in her eyes to follow the direction of her attention.

He saw that she was watching a farm family. There was a great strapping father, an astonishingly pregnant mother and four clean-as-a-whistle youngsters whose white-blonde heads formed a stair-step of their ages, right down to the smallest boy, who looked to be barely walking. They were all glowing proudly at the tallest child, a skinny girl of perhaps ten years, who wore a smile so wide it threatened to divide her face. Her straw-colored hair was done up in bows and her flowered muslin dress seemed quite at odds with the substantial black and white piglet squirming in her arms.

The family looked on with pleasure as another, even more massive fellow tied a bright blue ribbon around the piglet’s neck and finished it with a delicate bow, which was astonishing considering the thickness of his fingers.

Lysander surmised that he’d spotted the blacksmith. It was obvious from the girth of his forearms and the ruddy features weathered by fire and steam. Lysander sent one last glance toward the pavilion. The lady was gone. Lysander’s visceral awareness of the lady bloomed in the fog of his consciousness, strange and unlikely and not at all welcome. He’d fought so hard for some tiny fragment of equilibrium. Now she had disappeared and he fought a ridiculous sense of loss.

It would be a very good idea to leave this hamlet as soon as possible.

The smith, luckily, was still within reach. Having awarded the winner of the Fat Piglet Competition, the man had clapped the proud papa on the shoulder and begun to walk away.

In his haste to have the horseshoe replaced so he could be gone from this hamlet and back on the road alone, Lysander nudged his heels into Icarus with more force than necessary. Obediently, Icarus shot forward. His great shoulder impacted the corner post of the woven willow livestock pen.

Apparently this had been a most important post in the scheme of things. Once that went down, the entire arrangement of posts and basket-weave fencing came apart like the unraveling of a poorly knit glove.

Startled by the crashing fence parts, the livestock within scurried and bolted in all directions. Squealing pigs ran beneath Icarus’s legs. Ewes and lambs flowed around them like a white river around a black rock. It was all too much for the finely bred horse. He was a civilized creature, accustomed to cobblestones and rubbish bins and ladies with fluttering skirts and cursing cart drivers and newsboys waving gossip sheets. All of that was familiar and sane, while this scurrying, trampling, baaing horde was peculiar and alarming. Icarus reared on his back legs as if he couldn’t bear to have the woolly bodies brush against his hocks anymore.

Lysander clung on as Icarus rose and remained high like a rook on a chessboard poised for his next move. The horde of smelly fleecy offenders trickled to the odd dashing lamb and Icarus let his hooves fall to the ground with a relieved thud.

Movement caught Lysander’s eye as an enormous horned beast abruptly focused his upset on Icarus –– and by default, upon Lysander.

MRS. GEMMA OAKES PICKED herself up off the trampled grass of the common with the help of a few residents of the village of Farby.

“Thank you, gentlemen. No, no. I’ll be fine.” The act of dusting off her skirts belied that statement when a mere twist of her wrist sent a nauseating stab of pain through her.

Gemma, being Gemma, paused and immediately began running through the appropriate treatment of sprains in her mind. She had no cool water to soak in, nor salts, nor even strips to bind and support the joint. Resolving upon the one thing she could do, which was to raise her wrist above her heart to diminish swelling, she cradled her right hand high on her left shoulder and supported the entire arm with her other hand. She imagined she looked as though she were scratching her own back. Then she put all that consideration aside and moved forward to inspect the wreckage.

Someone had come riding into the village and in a matter of seconds had devastated the entire preparations for today’s festival, including Gemma’s special project, Farby’s first country dance assembly. Despite that, Gemma’s first concern was for the man who lay injured beneath the shattered remains of the village’s old pavilion.

And the ram, of course. “Is Shepherd Orren’s ram all right?” She looked to the nearest farmer. “He took no injury?”

“Oh aye, Missus. ‘e’s right as rain, no doubt. No thanks to that big off-comed ‘un.”

That meant “stranger.” Just ahead of Gemma, two of the younger men struggled with a piece of shingled roofing, which they heaved away with timed grunting.

“There he is. That’s him.” The other men peered at the stranger.

“I never seen him afore. He donna be from any village in Swaledale.”

The man on the ground was very long, which matched Gemma’s brief impression of his height. He had lost his hat and his dark hair covered half his face as he lay upon his side. He wore a deep blue coat and buckskin breeches with tall black boots.

London. Gemma wasn’t sure how she knew that. After all, there were many large towns and cities in England where men on a fine horse could come from. But he looked like London to her. She was certain she was correct. Perhaps it was his finely made but worn clothing, or the careful polish of his boots although she could see the soles were in need of refurbishment.

One long arm lay stretched out toward her, the large hand open palm upward as if in plea. Even his hand look like London. A gentleman’s hand, with naught but a horseman’s callouses, unscarred by hard labor.

All this she took in as she swept past the watching villagers. Keeping her right hand high on her shoulder as she knelt, she took the pulse of that exposed wrist with the fingers of her left hand.

“He’s alive.” Reaching with assurance, she swept back his hair before carefully raising one eyelid, then the other. “Hmm.” Concussed, there was no doubt about that. Without jarring him in the slightest, she slid her hand around his head. Her fingers stroked through that thick, overly long hair to gently probe for any sign of –– oh yes, there it was. A sizable knot was forming on the back of his skull. Lucky fellow, for that was the hardest part of what was quite certainly a hardheaded person in the first place.

And handsome. Heavens, he was almost beautiful! Perhaps it was the mystery of his sudden arrival, but she had the oddest sensation something important had just happened.

Who in their right mind would take on a fully grown ram? A man perhaps well-conditioned to ferocity, she mused. A soldier, one who still carried the battlefield in his soul.

“I believe he should be brought to the manor. I must keep an eye on him overnight.” She stood and several hands reached to aid her rising. She retreated a few steps, and the villagers flowed into the space she had left like water when a river stone was removed.

“You hurt yourself, then?” The voice came from one side of her and Gemma smiled at the familiar brisk tone.

“It’s only a sprain, Jennie. I landed wrong on my wrist. It could’ve been worse. It could be me they pulled from the wreckage.”

“Aye, that was a good thing, him flingin’ you out, though too roughly done.”

From beyond Jennie, Gemma heard a giggle. Two of the village girls gazed rapturously at the unconscious newcomer. “Oh, he’s a fine one, ain’t he?”

Gemma remained composed, although she had just been thinking the same thing. I don’t think I have ever seen such a magnificent man.

Order your copy