Chapter 20

CHAPTER TWENTY

" S o the owner of Norcott Park is deceased. This is his death certificate?" The magistrate, brow furrowed, perched his bridge spectacles on his nose and regarded the sheet of parchment his clerk had furnished him, which Leda had furnished the clerk.

"Yes, your worship."

Leda sat in the ladder-back chair that had been set aside as a witness stand, though this was not a courtroom, only a very curious sort of inquest. A private parlor had been requested, and granted, in the King's Head in Cirencester, and its situation in the Market Place, sandwiched between other inns and public buildings within a main route of a bustling city, suffused the room with the harmonious lull of a continuous stream of traffic. Signs of a busy world of commerce and life taking place outside while Leda sat suspended, waiting to see if she might return to her life, or if she would be condemned, again, to the madhouse.

The magistrate presiding over events was not the one who committed her; his predecessor had become Earl of Bathurst around the same time Leda escaped the madhouse he had put her in, and while she swam south to Bristol, the new earl had jauntered off to London to take his seat in the House of Lords and the family's elegant London home. Mr. Michael Hicks Beach, son of one baronet and heir to another, had replaced him and held his position through a hotly debated election, so she'd heard.

Leda knew already, from having lived here, that Mr. Hicks Beach had bought the expensive Williamstrip Park a few years before her marriage; had himself married a wealthy heiress who brought him a tidy sum and the adopted surname Beach; and had sired two sons and two daughters to be brought up in the English manner. He was a man who had done all in the usual style and was climbing his way steadily to a position of influence without the dramatics of family deaths, bouts of madness, and questionable heirs popping up unannounced. It was clear he was taking Leda's case with extreme suspicion.

Eight years earlier, Mrs. Hicks Beach had not called upon the new Mrs. Bertram Toplady, not even a card felicitating their marriage. Leda suspected Bertram had done something untoward, like proposition a married lady, and she had cut him from her acquaintance because of it.

"And the death is due to accidental causes. The coroner at Snettisham confirms this." The magistrate scanned another piece of parchment, remnant of another inquest, short and brief, conducted under the watchful eyes of all the families of standing the Smithdon Hundred, who were curious about the excitement this foreigner, Leda Wroth, had brought into their quiet lives.

Mr. Hicks Beach peered at Leda over his spectacles. She straightened her back.

She had worn the primmest of her old gowns, a simple robe in the nightgown fashion in a soft dove gray. She would be eager to get rid of the thing as soon as her new gowns arrived. May could wear it marketing and preen like a hawfinch in it.

The maid currently sat in the back of the room with Jack, who had insisted on attending the hearing, and the girls, who had insisted on coming as well. May was enjoying her turn as traveling nurse and governess, while Grace despite her growing belly had taken the position of lady's maid, as the rank of a baron's wife required one. Henry had come as groom, leaving Mrs. Leech to set up her feet and direct the hall boy and little scullery maid to such tasks as needed attending at Holme Hall while the family was away.

Leda's sister sat in the back of the room as well. Leda had not yet ascertained what Emilia thought of all this, but when she learned of the proceedings that would reinstate Leda's standing in the neighborhood or condemn her again to the asylum, she insisted on coming from Chippenham.

Her parents, in Cheltenham, had not sent a note.

"And the deceased has no surviving issue. His nearest family would be…"

"My son, your worship. Ives Toplady."

Emilia flinched.

"Ah, yes, Master Ives." The magistrate turned his gaze to where Ives sat between Bestey and Mrs. Blake. Ives, too, straightened his back, and Leda bit her lip in fear. He looked so small and brave, his hair flattened with Jack's pomade, new clothes for his appearance in court. He had Bertram's hair, Bertram's heavy jaw, and what threatened to become, in a few years, Bertram's nose. She would swear, in the month since she'd seen him, he'd grown taller, his face filling out.

"Yet there is no record of the boy's birth or baptism in the parish registry. This is the boy you were believed to have…" The magistrate shifted his gaze over the women and children assembled. "Erm."

"My husband's servants hid the boy after his birth, your worship, a task with which I assisted. I had reason to believe that Eustace meant the boy harm. He admitted as much to me."

As there was no possibility of questioning Eustace, the magistrate could only take her word for what it was worth. "And Mr. Toplady—Eustace—admitted to causing the death of Mr. Toplady—Bertram. Your husband."

"Eustace told me he had killed Bertram, yes. He had drugged me with laudanum so I could not interfere, but when I woke too early, he feared I would accuse him and so put the knife in my hand to make it appear that I had—well."

No need to go into the lurid details before children. She had suggested they all stay at the house, but her good advice had for once gone unheeded. She had been alone in this box of accusation the last time. Her family had insisted she not be alone again.

"Mr. Cripps." The magistrate turned to the coroner. He had been in attendance at Leda's last hearing; she remembered how he'd never met her eyes, as if madness were catching and he might take it home to his wife. "You examined the, er, body at the time of, um, Mr. Toplady's demise. Is it possible that what Mrs.—what her ladyship claims is true?"

The coroner blinked at the reminder of Leda's status. She had entered her name in the records as Leda Burnham, Lady Brancaster, formerly Caledonia Toplady, née Caledonia Hill. They were not dealing with a poor, mad widow this time. They were dealing with the wife of a peer of the realm, and the peer himself sat on a hard wooden bench in the back of the room, appearing relaxed in his superfine cloth coat and pantaloons, but alert to every word of the proceedings.

"Erm. It is very likely that Mr. Eustace Toplady is responsible for the, ah, state of the body. The wounds were, ah, at a depth and placement that suggests a man delivered them, and not a mere female."

How different her fate might have been if someone had raised that point eight years ago, Leda thought.

The magistrate nodded and moved on. "And you yourself, Lady Brancaster, are not deceased, though your family was informed of your passing six years ago, by the proprietor of the madhouse—er, the asylum in Gloucester, we thought?"

"I believe the information about my death was given out to cover the fact that I escaped," Leda said.

That was changing the facts a little; she had paid the proprietor of the private institution, trading the bits and bobs of jewelry and other possessions he had locked in the strongbox on her behalf for the promise not to pursue her if she disappeared. Very likely, if questioned, he would not admit to having made that dubious arrangement.

Six years. The connection sent a strange trill down her back. Six years ago, Anne-Marie Waddelow Burnham had died, and six years ago, Caledonia Toplady had died, too. But Caledonia got to rise again as Leda Wroth. Anne-Marie Burnham was reduced to a ghost, haunting the edges of her former life.

The life which Leda had taken over as Jack's wife, as the mother of his daughter and the keeper of his wards, as the mistress of Holme Hall. The lady of precedence in Smithdon Hundred, though she had a ways to go to rival Mrs. Styleman as a hostess, given the vast richness of Hunstanton Hall.

"So you have not, in fact, committed any murders," Hicks Beach concluded.

"No, sir."

"And you are not mad?"

"I am in full possession of my faculties, your worship. Compos mentis ."

Except for certain moments in Jack's bed, in Jack's arms, but that was between her and Jack. Heat singed Leda's ears at the most recent memory.

"And you wish it confirmed that Master Ives Toplady come into possession of the estate of Norcott Park, including the house and home farm, as well as all the duties and obligations of the estate, at his majority. Until which time, you and Lord Brancaster will hold the property in trust."

"Yes, your worship."

Hicks Beach glanced at Jack. "Know the Earl of Bathurst, do you? Since you're both in Lords."

Jack shifted. "I have not occupied my seat as much as I'd like. I'll be there when the First Parliament of the United Kingdom forms, however."

There would be much to prepare to move the household for the opening of Parliament and the Season. Finding an affordable house to let in a respectable part of London. Arranging for the girls to have a proper governess, since Leda would be busy as a hostess, consolidating connections for the Burnham family. And, she hoped, continuing her side interest of ensuring that independent women were able to remain so, and did not fall prey to fortune hunters and thieves of hearts.

All this awaited her as long as Mr. Hicks Beach did not see fit to lock her away. But she was a lady now, a baron's wife, not a poor mad relict of an unliked man. What a difference a title made.

What a difference love made, Leda thought, watching Jack. No wonder she'd had to strive so very hard, with some of her young mentees, to steer them away from unsuitable men. Desire flattened common sense the way a herd of frightened sheep could trample a fence and stile.

"I have every confidence you will be a good benefactor for Master Toplady, milord, and will be looking out for the boy's best interests." Mr. Hicks Beach swept aside his papers and handed them to the clerk. "I believe we're done here, are we not? I, for one, am for a pint, if mine host will bring it."

"Stop." Emilia rose with a rustle of white satin skirts. "She is lying to you."

Leda swung her head, sitting up at the edge of her seat. "I am not mad."

"And you have no child. Ives is not Leda's son, your worship. His mother is that woman beside him."

"Emilia," Leda began warningly.

"What's this?" Whatever the source of his outrage—being delayed in his pint, or learning his witness had committed perjury—the emotion was writ clear on the magistrate's face.

"She wouldn't know," Leda said swiftly. "She never visited. She never saw me?—"

"You know I did. And I know you were not breeding. A mother knows." Emilia glared in turn at the magistrate, seated at his table, the coroner, who shuffled in his seat, and the wide-eyed clerk. "I cannot permit the lie to stand."

"You have no reason to doubt me." Leda fought to keep her voice calm.

"I do, if you claim him as your son. Our father might decide he deserves to inherit some of his property, rather than leaving it to my children, his blood. You would make my children claim a relationship where they have none. You might put a cuckoo in your husband's nest, but not in mine, Caledonia."

Leda stared. Where was the companion of her childhood, her guide and advisor, her first great love? She didn't know this cold woman.

"Ives is Bertram's son," Leda said swiftly. "Only look at him."

Betsey, almost too terrified to speak, blushed as red as a rhubarb stem as every eye tuned to her. She swallowed hard. "He were fathered by Bertram Toplady, that he were. As God and Patience Blake are my witness."

Ives looked as if he'd eaten a raw gooseberry, his lips set, his eyes bright.

The magistrate frowned. "The boy cannot inherit if he is a bastard."

Jack broke in with a mild tone. "To whom would Norcott Park go without an heir, Hicks, and without an entail or last testament?"

Hicks cleared his throat. His gaze moved, with considerable surprise, to Leda. "To his wife, by law, as the nearest surviving family. To be under your control, as her new husband, Brancaster."

"Then let it be known that my wife, being declared compos mentis and restored to full rights under the law, inherits all of Norcott Park, its duties and obligations."

"To be administered by you, I take it." Hicks peered over his glasses, brow furrowed.

"To be dispensed with however my wife wishes," Jack said silkily.

"To be granted in full to Ives Toplady, at his majority," Leda rushed to say. She slanted a narrowed gaze at Jack, challenging him.

He nodded, a smile tugging the side of his mouth. He'd grown a short beard on their travels, and while she would make him cut it the moment they returned home, for the moment it made him look rakish, a pirate in a gentleman's suit. Her heart beat faster.

"I will insist on it," her husband replied, and Leda nearly melted in relief.

"His name is not Toplady," Emilia said.

"Then the lad can take whatever name he likes, or petition to take the name of his sire," said Hicks with a touch of irritation. "Do you object to any of these arrangements, Mrs. Crees?"

"Of course not." She subsided into her chair, not looking at Leda. "I have no objection to the boy being provided for. I only wanted the truth out in the open."

Leda's hands trembled as she linked them in her lap. It was out in force, the lies she'd told, the people she'd tricked. The hoax she'd meant to perpetuate on Bertram and the English laws of primogeniture.

Hicks Beach checked the watch hanging from his coat by a chain. "Am I permitted at last to close the proceedings, or does anyone else have any surprises?"

Leda bit her lip, holding her breath, until Hicks rose. "Brancaster, are you at your leisure?"

"I'll join you in a moment," Jack said. "I must congratulate my lady on her inheritance."

"Fine thing, to marry rich." Hicks nodded. "Recommend it to anyone. Cripps, you can stay for a round if you like." And he exited the parlor.

Leda staggered to her feet, feeling the room spin. She was thrown off balance. The chains of the past had been loosed suddenly, when she'd been dragging them so long.

Betsey reached her first, sniffling, and threw her arms around Leda. "We'll do what you wish, mum. We'll live where you say."

"You'll live at Norcott, of course." They were already installed there, Betsey and Mrs. Blake and Ives. Mrs. Blake didn't quite know what to do with herself, being the mistress of her own domain, and tended to harry the cook-housekeeper whom she was training up. Betsey sometimes forgot she was the lady of the house and Leda had caught her pulling a cloth from her apron to polish a plate, rather than calling to the young chambermaid, who had become a different person once she learned Eustace was dead, as if she, too, were a prisoner freed to the light.

Ives had his own bedroom, with a shelf for his snake stones and all his other treasures, and he invited Leda in at least once a day to view them. She meant for the house to belong to Ives, and she would see it done if she had to fight her own husband to do it.

Mrs. Blake shook Leda's hand, and Ives shook her hand, then flung his arms around her waist. Leda squeezed him gratefully. He was a strong, bright boy, and he would grow up to be a strong, sweet man, God willing, and a pillar of his neighborhood.

Ives's right to Leda's person was soon challenged by the Burnham wards and daughter, who wanted it made clear that their claim to Leda was as close as his, if not closer, and crowded in to congratulate her.

"He's to inherit that fine house? That young stripling?" Ellinore sounded disbelieving, and she looked at Ives with all the scorn a budding young woman could show a high-spirited boy.

"But you'll live with us, still, won't you?" Muriel squished her doll against Leda's waist, unable to let her toy out of her arms even for that.

"I plan to, if your father permits it," Leda said, tamping down a wild laugh.

"Mum," Nanette said, squeezing her knee.

Atop the heads of the girls, Jack, with that lazy, satisfied smile of his, leaned in to kiss her cheek. Leda let out her breath. She wouldn't have to fight him for what was right, nor for anything he wanted. This man had given her the world, handed her life back, and he would serve up the moon and stars if she asked.

"Do you object if I stay and drink with your justice? Or shall I drive you all home?"

"Stay and make friends. He is an important landowner here, and he will likely stand for MP again in the next election. We will want friends for Ives. I can drive the chaise."

They'd hired a carriage for their journey, along with horses, and Leda felt a great sense of freedom as she learned to navigate the vehicle. Before she'd been restricted to where she could walk with her two feet; now all of Britain lay open to her, if she wished to roam.

Though she didn't wish to be anywhere but here, in Jack's arms. She leaned her cheek into his kiss and smiled at him. Then she turned to see her sister's faintly sour expression. Leda wondered if it was the open gesture of affection that displeased her, or something else.

"You wish me back in the madhouse, I suppose," Leda said, trying to keep her voice light.

Her sister's lips turned down. "Of course not. The shame of it, for one. I am very glad you are exonerated, and I shall feed the news to all the Chippenham gossips at once. And those back at home at Cheltenham, too."

"Speaking of those." Leda patted Muriel's shoulder as the girl gave her another squeeze. "Did you tell Eustace I was traveling to Norfolk?"

Emilia's eyes widened at Leda's tone. "I thought he had a right to know. He was as shocked as I to learn you were alive, and he said he wanted to help you. Was I wrong?"

" He was," Leda said. "He had some mad notion to marry me. I was fortunate to escape."

"Yes, to him." Emilia's gaze wandered to Jack, who, having been commandeered by Ives, was thereafter besieged by all three of the girls, who refused to grant the interloper precedence. Betsey and Mrs. Blake replaced the parlor chairs as if they could not, even now, set aside long habit.

"Your husband does not seem mad in the least," Emilia observed. "Do you know, our mother was still dining out on her woes of having a poor, lunatic daughter and the affliction to her nerves, up until the moment I shattered her again with the news of seeing you alive and well. I think the only way you could have redeemed yourself by coming back to life was to marry a peer. A young, handsome one. Very easy on the eyes, though I for one would never have taken the risk, given his history." Her gaze lingered. "Is he wealthy?"

"Obscenely," Leda murmured. It seemed she was not yet done with lies, but she could not resist the urge to needle this new, self-important Mrs. Crees, when Leda was the one who had fetched her compresses and fresh clothes when she was laid up with her monthly courses, who had shared her devilled kidneys because her sister loved them, who had pretended to see nothing every time a boy tried to steal a kiss from Emilia behind the village church. She was glad that Muriel would grow up with sisters.

"Yes, well. You're in the honeymoon still. Give him a half a year, and you'll see his true stripes." Emilia touched the curls beneath her cap to ensure they held their place.

"Norcott will go to Ives," Leda warned her sister. "I hope you can accept that."

"I told you, I have no problem with the boy. Only when you are burdening the family with lies, trying to pass off a bastard as your own."

Leda nodded. Her plan had been a wild hope, born of desperation, and the wish to bar Bertram from her bed. "I simply wanted Ives to have what should be his."

"Which is the same I want for my children." Emilia smoothed her gloves. Leda felt a pang that they should part this way. This had once been the dearest person to her. Her sister had once known all her secrets, and now, they knew almost nothing of one another's lives.

"My Patrick is only a year or two older than Ives, you know," Emilia said. "I have no compunction with him being friends with a natural son, if the boy is being raised right."

Leda blinked. "Does that mean you will come to dinner on Saturday?" It was Leda's birthday. She had invited her family to what she had hoped would be her resurrection, but she was not sure they wanted to see her.

"Of course we will be there, Hector and I with the children, and Mama and Papa plan on coming with us," Emilia said. "Mama and I are dying to see what Eustace did to the inside of that house."

It was strange to be mistress of Norcott Park again, Leda thought as she walked through it Saturday morning, ensuring it would meet her mother's exacting standards when she arrived. Mrs. Hill had always been prone to place more value on the appearance of a thing than its substance. Leda had ordered a complete and thorough house cleaning when she arrived, hiring help from the nearby village, and some of Eustace's less lovely acquisitions were still being tidied away.

Lady Brancaster, newly arrived in town, and newly exonerated of both murder and madness, had enjoyed a steady stream of callers. Ives and his mothers would have a very different experience living here than that Caledonia Toplady had known.

Here was the library where she'd found Bertram's body. The rug was different, and one chair had been reupholstered, but Eustace had kept things almost the same. He hadn't wanted to remake Norcott in his own fashion; he'd coveted his uncle's fine things.

After his father had died under a cloud, Eustace's mother had remarried to a man who didn't much like Eustace, and certainly could not keep him in the manner of a fine young gentleman about town. Another young man might have tried to ingratiate himself with his rich uncle, but Eustace hadn't felt it necessary to make that effort; he'd demanded what he felt he deserved, and then killed to acquire it when he wasn't getting his way.

Leda shuddered and left the room. She would let Jack borrow what books he liked, then let Betsey decide what she wanted to do with the chamber.

Here was the parlor where she'd spent so many days mauling her embroidery, wishing someone would call to relieve the monotony. Wishing she could go out in their small village and feel welcomed, rather than having to travel to Cirencester, where she was not known, for her business.

How different this small, oak-paneled room was from the room they had made the family parlor in Holme Hall, which was a glowing seashell rose and gently cluttered with the girls' many projects: Nanette's slate with her letters, Muriel's book of French exercises, Ellinore's attempt at netting.

Leda walked past the bedchamber that had been hers when she lived here. She'd given it to Betsey. She and Jack had taken the master suite. Leda had suggested a smaller guest room would be enough for them when they were in residence, but Mrs. Blake had insisted. She wanted one of the smaller rooms for herself.

Jack appeared outside the door of their dressing room, his shoes sinking into the soft runner along the hallway. He had not yet finished with his toilette and wore only his waistcoat, with no neckcloth, and her gaze riveted on the strong line of his neck and throat. One of her favorite places to kiss.

His voice was warm, husky as he surveyed her dressing gown. "Everything just as you want it?"

The servants were downstairs busy in the kitchen and laying the table with the china Leda had brought with her ten years ago. She had married on the instant of her eighteenth birthday—so na?ve, so resentful, knowing even then there was something wrong about the barter of innocence to feed greed. May had taken the girls for a turn in the overgrown gardens to settle them before guests arrived, and Betsey and Mrs. Blake were dressing Ives, then redressing him again so he would meet the approval of the Hills.

Leda was quite sure little would meet with their approval, and nothing about her. Leda's mother had sent her off to marriage with no better advice than to keep her own set of accounts so her housekeeper did not cheat her, never air her dirty linen in public, and accommodate her husband without complaint in everything he should require.

How much more she knew, this time around. And how different it was to delight to accommodate a husband, and feel he looked after her as well. She stepped toward Jack.

How different to have an anchor in her life now. A compass point, rather than living by her wits alone.

"I am walking with my ghosts," Leda admitted. "It's not as if I can feel them here—I know they're gone, both of them. But something—lingers." Memories. Regrets.

"Come into our dressing room. I put something away that I found when we first arrived. I've been thinking of moving them to the attics, but I wanted to see what you think."

"Are you luring me into an interlude, milord? My parents are bound to arrive early, and I am not yet dressed."

"Then you can't mind if I muss you first." He beckoned her into the room.

The dressing room was as large as a bedchamber, built to accommodate the powdering apparatus and furniture-sized skirts of a previous era, the extra space occupied now with their luggage.

"What did you do with Grace?"

"There was a last-minute spill on a prized tablecloth, or some such, and Grace knows just the thing to get it out. But I've no doubt she will be reminding everyone belowstairs she is a lady's maid now, above such household tasks, and she shares these nuggets of knowledge out of the goodness of her heart." He ran a hand through the fall of her hair, unbound and left to dry after the morning's washing. "You've made a great many dreams come true, my love."

She stepped into his arms and raised her face for his kiss. "You flatter me."

"Not at all. Ellinore came to us because of you. She trusted you from the first moment. So did Muriel, though she had her little claws out, I know, and might still bite you now and again. Nanette has never known mothering. You seem a veritable goddess to her."

"Pooh." She tilted her head to allow his kisses along her neck.

"A goddess to me as well," he whispered, and she shivered at his warm breath on her skin. "Of course, I was half in love with you from my aunt's letters, well before we met."

"What do you mean?" She hummed with pleasure as he skimmed his lips over her shoulder, pushing aside the neckline of her loose gown. His beard was soft, his lips softer.

"Aunt Plume would not stop going on about her clever companion, her wondrous Leda. I suspected she was trying to entice me. Insisted I come in person to talk with you about finding a governess. And when I saw you in the Assembly Rooms, in that gown trimmed with scarlet, so calm and queenly, with a queue of people lining up for your attention and advice—I knew why my aunt made me visit."

"You didn't like me one bit." Leda shivered as she recalled their first dance, and the spell he had wrapped around her. The way she had longed for him instantly. Had she known then what he would come to mean to her, that he would be the element of life that she'd never known she sought? Had she been looking for him all that time—lover, companion, her solid rock, her sure refuge, the piece that made her heart complete.

"I kissed you under my aunt's roof when I had known you less than a day. Do you suppose I am in the habit of falling upon women in libraries?"

"Not anymore," Leda said. "Only me."

"Yes." He kissed above her breasts, and the fire, always banked for him, began to burn. "Only you," he said. "Now—who do you suppose procured these?"

He pulled the cloth from a set of four prints leaning atop one of the dressing tables. Leda put a hand to her mouth, suppressing a giggle. All of them depicted nude couples in the midst of sexual congress, in varied and interesting positions.

"Oh, these are Bertram's. He was very proud of his collection. He spent a great deal of time—admiring them."

"I believe Eustace admired them well. They were on full display in here, no doubt for his own delectation." Jack slid his arms around her from behind, and his mouth was beneath her ear again, trailing hot kisses. "Which one of them is your favorite?"

"I've never tried them. I saw these prints once, when I entered Bertram's dressing room to tell him something, and he bellowed at me to go away. A wife wasn't to be—entertained in this fashion." He was still at the edges of the room somehow, his glowering presence, his animal scent, meaty and rank.

"What an utter fool." Jack pulled a low stool toward them. "Put your foot on here."

"What, now?"

"I'll make short work of it, I promise." He bunched the back of her skirts up to her waist and slid a hand over her bottom, bare beneath the shift. "If you're willing, I think number four."

Leda twisted at the waist to kiss him. "I suppose I won't know if I like it until I try," she said demurely.

His eyes lit, a gleam of silver. "That's the spirit."

He was hard already, and a few tugs opened the fall of his pantaloons. He moved his hands to her breasts and Leda sighed as the arousal washed over her. She was wet and wanton and ready for him.

"Beautiful Leda," he whispered, his voice hoarse in her ear. She felt his hardness pressing against her backside, the thick length of him. "I would have taken you in my aunt's library if you had permitted it."

"Far too forward." She leaned forward on her knee, shamelessly baring her bottom to him. Her head fell back as he tested her entrance, put his hands on her hips to adjust. "Far too—" She caught her breath as he entered her. "Bold."

He moved inside her, and the fullness was different, the pressure in new places. She sucked in another breath, light-headed.

"I would have taken you against the door of the pub in Swindon." His voice, a low growl, spiked her craving for him. "Just like this."

"I was facing you that time." She threw back her head and reveled in the new sensations. Jack with her, filling her, the pleasure rising in new ways, that spiral that lifted and carried her. He pushed every fear, every regret out of her head, leaving only him.

"In the carriage on the way to Chippenham. With you on my lap. How I dreamed of moving your skirts aside and having you ride me. Very shocking for the Clutterbucks, I daresay."

He thrust deeply, and she cried out as he nudged a place of pure sensation inside of her. He clamped one hand on her hip and the other to her breast, and the pleasure spouted like a geyser, drenching everything. Every wisp of her past whisked itself behind a curtain, blotted out.

"The mad baron, indeed. If I'd only known." She rocked with him, pressing herself into his hand, back against his body, arching her body to take him deeper. Need scattered her senses, but she didn't fear the surrender. She could set aside her relentless self-control, her constant guard. She could let herself come apart, and Jack would catch her. The tight burn all through her body gathered and grew.

"Having you in my house. If you only knew. Every dinner, I imagined spreading you across the table and dining on you. I imagined coming to your chair and lifting your skirts."

"Oh. Only think what Mrs. Leech would say." She keened softly with pleasure as he pinched her nipple. She writhed against him, then, wanting to be closer still, slipped her hand between their legs. He groaned as she cradled his bollocks. There was something wild about connecting this way, feral. He was not simply a pleasure but a need, a necessity.

"I thought I couldn't please a woman," he whispered. "I thought I had failed my wife. And then…you…" He surged inside her, and Leda cried out. "I didn't know pleasure like this existed."

"I didn't either, my love." She hung her head, panting, straining toward that peak. She wanted this never to end, to live in this rapture always. Be joined with him, swimming this sea with him, always.

"Touch yourself, my Leda. Take your pleasure from me. With me."

She was wanton and without shame. And she wanted to seal him to her. Here in this house where she'd been Bertram's rug, she wanted to be Jack's woman. She wanted every other memory blotted out.

Unsure at first, she touched that quivering nub, and gasped as the pleasure deepened, soared. He filled her like the tide, riding them both to that delirious height, and she let herself be lifted and flung past the edges of the known world. She cried out as the rising tide slammed her, towering through her, and felt his trembling as he joined her on the edge of madness. They hung in a world suspended, composed of only the two of them, and stardust.

He dropped his head to her shoulder and held her close as they rocked together on the waves of bliss, their breath slowing as the waves receded, until they were finally quiet and still, joined in completion. The pulse rolled through them both, fastening them together.

"Leda," he whispered. "You are the dream I never knew was possible."

She blinked back tears and twisted to kiss him. Then she disengaged herself to embrace him firmly, her bare breasts against his chest, her naked legs twined with his. "You are for me as well, dear."

She kissed him long and hard, cradled in his arms, in the satisfaction of desire, in the fulfillment of a promise. He had given her a new name, and he had given her new life. In his arms, she was remade.

"And now you are going to make me face my parents knowing I just did this with you," she added.

"We can try the others whenever you wish." He rubbed his face in her hair.

"We will have it all, my love. Everything. In good time."

"In the most sensible, rational, conventional manner. No more madness for either of us."

"Not a whit," she agreed, and kissed him again.

She felt it, that bright spot in her chest, only it wasn't a floating bead any longer. It was a bloom, and the stem of it ran all through her, down into the ground, like a root. She had to search far back in her memory for the last time she had felt this blithe sense of being tethered to something, firmly attached, and deserving of it. She knew it then for what it was.

Leda Wroth—now Lady Brancaster—finally knew where she belonged.

All of her ghosts were gone.