We reached Darkwater and strolled up the long street. The village consisted of one long track made from centuries of trodden down dirt, fringed by cottages. Some had gardens at the front, some at the back. Villagers, busy cultivating their plots looked up from their business to acknowledge us.

“James plans to renovate these, now he can afford it,” I commented.

“They should be grateful,” said Tom, still miffed from our recent encounter with Cooper, “but I doubt they will be. If the Cawntons are using most of them they could probably afford to renovate their houses themselves.”

The small cottages might appear picturesque, but I knew what they looked and smelled like inside. The aroma of cooking reached us from some of the open doors, no doubt from the large pot many of the inhabitants kept bubbling over the fire all day, only adding another chopped onion or some cabbage when the contents ran low.

“Why should they?” I said. “James owns most of these cottages. Most of them are our workers.”

“By day.” There was no persuading Tom out of his present mood, so I turned my mind to other things and walked on in silence.

“Sorry,” Tom muttered after a few minutes. “It makes me angry, that’s all.”

“You see more of it than we do,” I said. “With your land bordering the sea, you get more trouble than we do.”

“Aye.” We stopped to let Trusty free himself from a shallow rut. Tom grinned, his cloudy mood dispersed as it had come. “They’re all talking about you,” he confided, as we acknowledged the greetings of people along the busy street.

“Just me, or the rest of the family?”

“Oh, all of you. But especially you. Copies of old newspapers have been circulating like wildfire. Your Lord Strang has quite a reputation.”

I smiled. “I know. You’re not the first person to tell me that, you know. He told me himself, and his brother told me, and then Lizzie. It might have been a conspiracy to put me off, but he didn’t succeed. Richard has tried hard to live as dangerously as he can for the last twelve years.”

We carried on up the long, straggling street. “I worry about you, Rose.”

“You always did.” I shifted my basket to my other arm.

An edge of concern entered his voice “I know this is a brilliant match, but he sounds dangerous. Rose, you’ve lived here all your life. You can hardly be said to be experienced in the ways of the world, but Lord Strang is.”

“I know,” I said, not at all disturbed.

“By society’s standards he’s a brilliant match; one of the catches of London.” Tom wasn’t convinced; I heard it in his voice. I glanced sideways at him; his mouth was set in a hard line and he stared straight ahead at the church at the far end of the village. “You can’t make a life with someone on a fancy.”

When he’d heard of my betrothal to Lord Strang, Tom had declared himself delighted and embraced me warmly. He’d obviously been reading the newspapers since then. He stopped, pulling Trusty to stand behind him. Sighing, I turned to face him. He motioned his sister and Lizzie to walk ahead. “We’ll catch up with you.” Lizzie made a moue at me and kept walking.

Tom took my hand in his. “Lord Strang’s had more women than I’ve ever met.” He watched my face closely. I kept my expression bland. “He has a reputation as a setter of fashion, and a raiser of ten kinds of Hades.”

There was a reason for Richard’s wildness, but I couldn’t betray him by telling anyone, not even Tom. “He’s done that, yes.”

“And you think you can reform him?” Tom jutted his jaw forward. “Rose, sweet Rose, no one can reform anyone else, unless they want to be reformed. Are you sure Lord Strang isn’t just looking for a mother for his children, someone to take care of his responsibilities while he rackets around London? I’d hate to see you reduced to that, however grand the setting.”

I was taken aback—I’d never thought of Tom as the thoughtful type. Usually, if it wasn’t thrust in front of his face, he never noticed anything. It was clear that he’d been considering this at some length and it touched me. “Thank you, Tom. I love your concern for me. But I’m sure, really I am. Besides,” I added, in an effort to return to an everyday level, “I’d scandalise half society if I cried off now.”

“I doubt it.” He turned around and continued up the street. “They’d just think you’d come to your senses.”

It was as well he didn’t know I’d seduced Richard within a month of our first meeting.

“Wasn’t there some scandal to do with his brother, as well?”

“Yes, there was, but it was over long ago.” I skipped over a rut in the road almost without noticing it. The street was sadly in need of repair, but it had always been like that. I had no doubt it featured in James’s plans for improvement.

Richard’s brother had confided the nature of the scandal to me, but the details were not generally known. I couldn’t tell Tom without Gervase’s permission. It wasn’t my secret to tell. “Gervase had to spend some time abroad, but he came back from India a rich nabob and all was forgiven.”

“Well they sound like a pretty shaky family, rich or not.” Since anyone not born in Devonshire seemed shaky to Tom and his family, it wasn’t strange he should think that.

I watched Lizzie and Georgiana, still walking in front of