agree. But I said nothing, just listened to him. “It gives you character. Your face is far more interesting than the blank canvasses presented to me season after season for the last ten years, as soon as I returned from the Grand Tour.” He lifted his hand and caressed my cheek. “You have an elusive quality all your own, something I’ve never encountered before. Elegance, poise, serenity, and when I’ve finished with you, you’ll have style. No one will ever pass you by, unless you wish it.”

Did he mean to turn me into something I wasn’t, something I was uncomfortable with? For him, I would do even that. Anything, for him.

He looked at me closely, no guile, no fashionable languor here, and his face relaxed. “But apart from all that, the first time I saw you I fell in love with you. I found it confusing, and I tried hard to combat it. When I got to know you a little better, I knew I had no reason to fight against it. So I surrendered, and I’ve not regretted it. If you were Miss Golightly of Devonshire, as, let me remind you, you were when I first saw you, I would still have moved everything in my path to win you. You know I’m not particularly handsome, not particularly special.” He ignored my protests. “I’ve made myself something else because I wanted to. You know some of the reasons for that, and you’ll probably get to know others but, my love, it’s all in the mind. Take the fancy clothes, jewels and wigs away and what are you left with?”

“A remarkable man. Loyal, intelligent, handsome.” He threw his head back and laughed at that. “And the man I love.”

He folded his arms around me again, drawing me to his heat. “Enough philosophy. Kiss me once more, and then we’ll go and join your excellent family.” I did as he asked, satisfied for the present, happy to feel him close, to be loved as never before.

My previous suitor, Steven Drury, was far more handsome than Richard, but Richard had something Steven could never possess. Presence, self possession, confidence. Everyone looked at him when he entered a room. He had an energy people found exciting. I’d seen it operate almost without his knowledge, the way people turned to stare at him, as they had done earlier in the village.

The door to the breakfast parlour burst open, and I tried to break away in embarrassment, but he held me close and turned us both in his own time. He kept one arm about my waist, firm and sure.

It was the hope of the house, Martha and James’s oldest son, Walter, at nine so full of confidence and bravado that even short doses of him were tiring. He had been dressed in his best breeches and waistcoat, probably when Richard and Gervase had come to the village to meet us, but his fair hair tumbled about his face in unruly curls, and a small smudge of indefinable dirt marred the soft cheek. Walter attracted dirt. “Oh, I beg your pardon. I should have knocked. Mama told me to knock.” He didn’t sound in the least sorry and I guessed the omission was deliberate.

“So you should.” Richard’s voice held a stern edge, but he wasn’t really angry. I heard the softness beneath. “Did your mama send you to fetch us?”

“Yes. Are you Lord Strang, who’s going to marry my Auntie Rose?”

“I should hope so. If I saw anyone else with his arm about her waist I would be severely displeased.”

Walter laughed. “Even me?”

“Can you put your arm about her waist?”

“Oh yes.” Walter had all the overweening confidence of the child. “Auntie Rose is tall for a woman, Mama says, but I’m getting tall too.” He would have demonstrated, but Richard kept his arm firmly around me and wouldn’t let him.

“Your Auntie Rose is not to be manhandled. Except by me.” He glanced at me, his intimate smile warming me. “Now, shall we go upstairs?” He released me, took my hand instead, and we followed Walter out of the room and upstairs.

We went into the drawing room hand in hand, but he dropped mine to individually greet every member of my extensive family. I went to join Gervase who, having already made his bows, watched the performance from a seat by the window.

My Lord Strang was supremely accomplished in social situations, but a family gathering like this presented a different challenge. However, the informality didn’t upset his sangfroid, and one by one, he was presented to my family. First he met my brother Ian, tall, thin and ascetic, and then his opposites, my niece and my other nephew, Mary and Frederick. Martha always said Frederick was the noisiest child in the world, but we loved him dearly.

Richard accepted a glass of wine from Martha and set himself to charm them. I sat next to Gervase. “I hope they haven’t tired you too much.”

“Not at all,” he replied, but I guessed this was not his preferred occupation. He watched the children warily. I don’t think Gervase understood children, but many people don’t, despite having spent several years as one.

It became clear that my sister Ruth admired Richard greatly. She hardly took her eyes off him, watching the gracefulness of his movements, taking in every detail of his dress. He pretended not to notice, and I was pleased and relieved at that. He was perfectly capable of taking Ruth apart, delicately dissecting admiration until it became hate or fear. I had seen it once during my visit to his parents, and it showed me a side of him I had not seen before, and was glad I’d not seen up to that point. It would have made me afraid