Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

September 17, 1815

Reabridge, Cheshire

Barlow Hall

V ictorine Wright allowed herself a slow sweep of the twenty-two guests at her host and hostess's dining room table in the medieval great hall of this three centuries' old mansion. Vicky smiled, happy to see so many of them once more.

Did people ever change?

Not her gregarious Aunt Celeste who sat across from her at this banquet table. Not her aunt's friend, Countess Barlow, who commanded the far end and smiled her approval often at the newest young lady among them whom she'd invited especially to meet her son. Not Gwen Hughes who sat politely quiet for a woman who possessed the courage to do a man's job every day of her life. Certainly not Doctor Owen who had opposed the union of Gwen's brother Evan with Vicky's young sister Yvette.

But Lady Barlow's son who headed the other end of the table had changed. So much had he changed that it hurt to look at him. Six years ago at another harvest time, he had gazed only at me. Tonight he had eyes for every young woman here.

But not me.

Vicky didn't fault him. She was thirty, a widow who was not in weeds, thanks to her foresighted husband's generous yearly stipend. But she was not the carefree girl whom Ford had met and kissed and swept off her feet. No, she hadn't expected to see him here. She'd planned a short visit. One day to examine the baby whose parentage all fretted over. A second to decide about the child's future—and on the third to leave.

And I definitely will not give Stafford James Houghton Barlow, 6 th Earl Barlow, most recently Colonel Lord Barlow, any reason to believe I came here to see him.

So she wouldn't look. Not at him. Not again.

He could be sitting there bloody well stark naked, and she wouldn't look at him again. She'd already done so much of that since Aunt Celeste and she had arrived here hours ago that he was emblazoned on her mind. In his maturity, at thirty-one years old, he was more man than she had remembered. More man than any she'd ever met. Devastatingly handsome. Dark-haired, silver eyed, silver-tongued, big, broad and undeniably dashing as a sharp-shooter who could kill a man in high winds nine hundred feet away.

Or seduce a lady by flashing her a bright white smile.

But not me.

Vicky shifted in the ancient filigreed Tudor dining chair.

She picked up her soup spoon and dipped it once more into the very good fish chowder. After all, why would she look at him? She knew how Ford looked clothed—and naked. Rather, she had. Six years ago when he was younger, thinner, his hair blacker, his grey eyes clearer. Before he went off to Spain to take up his commission and join his regiment. After he and she had met and kissed and parted. Never to meet again.

Or so she had thought.

Until five days ago when her aunt Celeste told her she'd received an invitation from her friend, Countess Barlow, on an urgent matter. A baby had been brought to Reabridge in Cheshire a few weeks ago. A child who toddled and babbled some words in French and others in Occitan, and whom many believed belonged to a British soldier and his camp follower. A baby whom English travelers wandering near Toulouse brought to England because they had speculated the child should belong with his family. If they could identify them. If they could find them.

Vicky took a drink of her white wine and pondered how outlandish that possibility was. The child could be anyone's, belong to any family, any country. Yet Aunt Celeste had insisted she and Vicky had to visit her friend, Countess Barlow.

"We must see for ourselves," she'd said, drawing herself up into her dignity and brooking no argument. "Plus, it's time for the Harvest festival in Reabridge. You like parties."

"And dancing?" Vicky had teased her aunt.

" Oui, ma petite ." The woman had leveled the family's famous Fortin sapphire eyes on her. No one refused ma chère tante anything when she trained her sights on a particular goal. She was the incomparable Comtesse d'Vaux, widowed, childless, rich as Rothschild and a ruthless dragon of London society. One did not deny d'Vaux anything. "We will go to look at this baby. But also, for you to remember once when you were there and had fun. To renew yourself which you have forgotten how to do."

But Vicky had known the real reason her aunt pressed her. "I doubt this baby is Yvette's, Tante ."

"We owe it to your sister to look at the boy. It is possible he is Yvette's and Evan Hughes'." The lady had removed her tiny reading glasses to fix Vicky with her resolve."Coincidences do occur."

But not to me.

To avoid arguing, Vicky had ordered her maid to pack a few useful gowns and written to her butler in Bath not to expect her home until the twenty-first of September. She'd accompanied her aunt from London to Reabridge in her aunt's decadently plush traveling coach. But Vicky had not anticipated she'd be looking at Ford Barlow. Looking and regretting…so much.

Foolish.

She took another sip of her wine, then drained her goblet. It was rather good. Where had they acquired this? From Champagne? Or from the Loire? How could the French produce good wine in the midst of ridding themselves of Napoleon?

Ah. Mais, oui. Vicky picked up her soup spoon again, as a footman topped up her crystal. The French had not rid themselves of the Usurper. The Allies had done it.

Quite a few men here had helped to make that happen. The vicar's son, Captain Thomas Owen, was a childhood friend of Ford's. A man who had struck out on his own to join the military and make a fine reputation for himself in diplomatic pursuits. Across from him sat Captain Jack Wrath who seemed to know Ford well and, from what Vicky gathered during introductions, had come up in the ranks in the 20 th Lancers. Jack had come to town recently and formed une tendresse for gutsy Gwen Hughes. Vicky could see how they regarded each other with a fondness that spoke of a happy future for both.

She hoisted her glass in a silent brava. She would drink to that happiness. To any couple who were so fortunate as to find love and use it as a basis for marriage. Far too many men and women were forced to wed for all those other seeming necessities like title and land and that perennial requirement, money.

Ford's mother, Countess Barlow, gave a fluttered-eyelash signal to her footmen to do the soup remove and bring the entrees. "I say, Vicar, how is the boy faring in your care?"

"Ah, my lady, he does well, poor little fellow." The man adjusted his old-fashioned wig and smiled at all at table, lingering on the other French émigré here tonight, a petite young lady with dark eyes and hair. "That is due to Miss Charite du Pessac who has come to us in the vicarage and cares for him."

The young woman perked up at the compliment. "Sam is a charming child. He is so easy to care for."

The girl's aunt, Lady Afton, sat across from the girl and beamed at her niece. "That is because you are so good with him, my dear."

"You've not seen him yet, have you, Victorine?" This pointed question came to Vicky from Ford's mother, Countess Barlow.

"No." She met the lady's bright silver gaze and held. "Miss Hughes and I plan to go tomorrow morning." Gwen and she had decided that in a private moment as the dinner guests gathered for introductions. They'd not met in years and had not corresponded, but their camaraderie had survived their mutual tragedy of seeing their only siblings marry and run off to the wars together. "It is our first opportunity."

"You will come to see him together?" Charite du Pessac sounded alarmed.

"We do," Gwen added. "We thought it best."

"Why?" the girl asked.

Gwen hardened as if she were the iron she forged each day in her farrier's shop. "Because we each knew our siblings best. My brother had a certain look in his eye for peppermint drops."

"And my sister Yvette," Vicky added, "laughed at nineteen as she had when a child of five. Like the ting-a-ling of chimes blowing in the wind."

Gwen nodded at Vicky in approval. "Vicky and I can see things no one may notice…or wish to."

"But Sam is sensitive. He may not like so many poking at him."

Vicky smiled at Charite. The du Pessacs were emigres like her own Fortin family. Charite's had been devastated by Napoleon while the Fortins suffered from the Paris mobs of The Terror. Vicky had sympathy for the girl. She hung on to those she loved. "Gwen and I promise not to poke."

"Can you not come one at a time?" She sounded sad.

"I, for one," said Vicky, "cannot. I am here only for three days. Then I return home to Bath."

"Why do you leave so soon?"

Her insides warmed.

There were the first words Ford had addressed to her since their initial greeting hours ago on the steps of Barlow Hall.

Her fingers pinched the finely blown stem of her crystal wine glass. "I am head of a sponsored event for a girls' school in Bath. I must return for the Autumn meeting." Seeing few, biding my time until I bore myself to death writing my memoirs and teaching the fine art of painting to young ladies who have no sense of hue or contrast or character.

"That is a shame. Mother and I had hoped you would stay for a few weeks. You and your aunt."

How long did she sit there allowing his baritone to flow through her veins like hot honey? She stirred. "That is kind of you. I know Aunt Celeste would like that very much, wouldn't you?"

Her aunt, the cat, eyed her like a queen of felines. "Most definitely. If you stay, ma petite , I would be happy to go south to Bath with you before returning to London."

"Good of you." And once more to avoid argument, especially in front of these dinner guests, Vicky added, "I will consider it."

And then, she downed the bubbly remaining in her flute.

Ford stared at her. The Tempter. Studied her and let his wide-set sculpted lips curl in a smile.

She tipped her head and fixed her gaze in his. He would not charm her. But then…his electric eyes should not sear hers. That jagged scar from temple to throat should not intrigue her…or make her yearn to trace it with kisses. The broader width of his shoulders should not make her wish to measure them. Nor should she ache at the cause of numerous grey strands in his lustrous midnight hair.

They should not interest her.

The topic did.

She forced her mind to it.

The baby. Again. The baby everyone was here to examine. Coo over. Cuddle, claim and carry away as their own.

She licked her lips and sought the nearest footman. These Barlow servants knew their jobs. She was not alone in drinking more than her proper lady's share. Her Aunt Celeste had drained hers four times. Never lost a beat of the conversation either. A jewel of the highest order, Aunt Celeste could drink the British Navy under the table.

Just then, Ford stood up, his goblet raised. Doctor Owen did as well, then made his way around the long table to Lady Afton. Guests took their cue to cease their conversations.

"Dear friends," Ford said. "Mr. Owen has asked the favor of a few moments of your attention."

Lady Afton stood at Mr. Owen's side looking up at him as if she were a young girl gazing at her first love. The vicar regarded her in much the same way. It wasn't hard to see where this was going.

"Ladies and gentlemen, friends, both old and new. I am very happy to tell you all that Lady Faith Angelica Afton, formerly of Faversham, has consented to be my wife, making me the happiest man on earth."

All the guests spoke at once. Across the expanse of white linen, Vicky fastened her gaze on Ford.

Always courteous, the man recently home from six years fighting on the Continent, took to his duties as the new earl with the same charm he'd had when she met him. He grinned at his guests and raised his glass. "A toast, to a man whose generosity of heart is unmatched and the woman he loves." Ford moved his glass in the happy couple's direction, but his gaze remained on Vicky.

She shifted in her chair. The vicar's and the lady's love was new and promised a happy future. Your love and mine, Ford, is old and never promised any tomorrows.

Ford drained his glass, his regard of her silent and pensive. Vicky wished she could make him smile, but could not find it in herself.

The young lady his mother had invited to meet him, Clementine Wingfield, noted the looks between him and Vicky with a sharp lift of her chin. At once, she was praising the vicar and his announcement.

Others offered the engaged couple their felicitations. Even Meg, Ford's young cousin who lived here now and who had sat silent as a ghost throughout the meal, offered up her congratulations. Vicky also chimed in and was relieved when the vicar, his lady and Ford resumed their seats.

The topic of discussion wended back to the harvest festival that culminated tomorrow and of course, the mystery of who might be the mother of the eighteen-month-old child.

"How many girls from this town ran off to the wars?" asked the vicar's fiancé, Lady Afton.

That was a very pertinent question. The town was at most one thousand people strong. How many young women would leave their homes and embrace a vagabond life amid the turmoil of war? How many were lovely, wealthy young women with good prospects before them? How many had fallen for a man so different from them that all it took was just one look, one night, one bold assignation beneath the stars and the girl would run off into the unknown? To Spain. To a life of hardship and fright. With a man she adored and would never once complain of the dust or the deprivation until she was with child and feared the birth might come in the midst of battle and she might not survive.

Who did that?

Her own sister.

The sweet girl who chose love and ran off into the wide world embracing the one she adored…and who never came home.

Vicky pushed her glass away. Surveyed those at table.

How many people in this room had changed their lives with one bold decision?

Her Aunt Celeste had fled France with all her money transferred to an English bank in the City at first sign the French mobs would guillotine poor fat Louis.

Gwen Hughes had taken up her brother Evan's trade and shop when he ran away with Yvette to the army and the wars. Gwen now ran the shop, the only female farrier for miles around.—and from what she gathered from their earlier conversation, Gwen was good at it, too.

Ford Barlow had joined the sharpshooter 95 th Rifles because he was the third youngest son and would inherit nothing here. But he had one skill. He was a fine shot with a rifle or a pistol, and he had joined the day after Vicky had refused his proposal of marriage.

Yvette was not here, only in spirit tonight. But her young sister had been brave, too. Falling in love with a man whom many saw as less than she. Yet her little sister declared she loved him and ran off with him to Spain and war and hardship. Then somewhere in southern France in February of last year, heavy with child and alone, she had feared the birth of her baby. "I will deliver soon. Promise me you will take care of him or her," her sister had written in the last of only four letters Vicky had received from Yvette in five lonely years.

Now Yvette was gone, buried who knows where, and there was this child whom Vicky had come to see and decide if he were her sister's. Her family. Her blood. Her flesh to claim and rear and love.

Did Vicky did resemble any of them? Years ago, she would have said she was proud of what she had done with her life. Followed the rules. Been an obedient child. A proper young lady. An honorable wife. A respected widow.

But had she ever been brave?

No. Not me.