Clare sought the refuge of her study chamber. It was a place where she could usually find as much satisfaction as she could in her garden or in the workrooms where she concocted her perfumes and potions.

The walls of the sunny chamber were covered with beautifully worked tapestries featuring garden scenes. The air was scented by urns full of flowers that had been crushed and dried and then painstakingly mixed to yield complex fragrances.

The braziers in the corners, which provided heat on cold days, burned scented coals that delighted Clare's sensitive nose.

In the days following the death of her brother, Edmund, and again, after receiving the news of her father's death in Spain, Clare had found solace and comfort in this chamber.

A few months ago, seeking a way to take her mind off her myriad problems, she had begun a book-writing project. She determined to write down many of her intricate perfume recipes.

The task gave her a great deal of satisfaction.

Today, however, there was no escape to be found from the troubles which beset her.

She sat for a while with pen and parchment in front of her and tried to concentrate on the book of recipes, but it was no use.

After three botched attempts, she gave up the effort and tossed aside the quill. She gazed moodily out the window and thought about the feel of Gareth's mouth on hers.

His kiss had shaken her more than she wished to admit. It had been nothing like the wet, obnoxious kisses Nicholas had forced on her last month when he had carried her off to Seabern Keep.

She had disliked everything about Nicholas's embrace. When he had crushed her against his great, oversized body, she had been repelled, not only by the bulge of his aroused manhood, but by the very smell of him.

Part of the problem, of course, was the undeniable fact that Nicholas was not overly fond of bathing.

But it was not just the odor of sweat and dirt that had repulsed her; it was the personal, utterly unique scent of the man, himself. Clare knew she would never learn to ignore it, let alone accept it in the same bed with her.

She touched her lips with her fingertips and inhaled deeply, seeking a trace of Gareth's scent.

"Clare?" Joanna frowned from the doorway. "Are you all right?"

"What? Oh, aye, I'm fine, Joanna." Clare smiled reassuringly. "I was just contemplating something."

"Sir Gareth, by any chance?"

"What else?' Clare waved Joanna to a stool near the window. "Did you know that he is Lord Thurston's son?"

"Aye. I heard the news just now downstairs in the hall." Joanna studied her with a perceptive look.

"He is Thurston's bastard, to be precise."

"But still a son." Clare fiddled with the quill. "Some would say I have been honored."

"Some would say that Lord Thurston places great value on this manor,"

Joanna said dryly. "Tis obvious he wishes to be certain that he can depend upon the loyalty of its new lord. What better way to make sure of that than by seeing you wed to a man who is tied to him by blood?"

"True enough." Clare glanced at the letter that lay on her desk. "He claims he could not find any suitors who came close to meeting my requirements except Sir Nicholas and Sir Gareth."

"Indeed?"

"Personally, I am beginning to doubt that he tried very hard."

"Men tend to be very practical about such matters," Joanna murmured. "At least he has given you a choice."

"Tis not much of a choice, if you ask me."

Joanna clucked unsympathetically. "Tis more of a choice than I had."

Clare winced. She knew very well that at fifteen, Joanna had had no say whatsoever in the selection of a husband. "Were you very unhappy in your marriage, Joanna?"

"Lord Thomas was no better and no worse than most men," Joanna said philosophically. "He was never deliberately cruel to me or to William."

"That is something, I suppose."

"'Tis a great deal," Joanna retorted.

"Did you ever grow to love him?"

Joanna sighed. "Nay. I respected him as a wife should respect her husband, but I could not love him."

Clare tapped the quill gently on the desk. "Abbess Helen wrote in her last letter that a good man will cause his wife to fall in love with him after the marriage."

"I mean no offense, Clare, but what would Abbess Helen know of marriage?"

"Aye, you have a point." Clare glanced at the bookshelves which contained her precious books and treatises.

Two of the volumes had belonged to her mother. Some of the others Clare had obtained in her endless quest for information concerning the making of perfumes. The remainder had belonged to her father. He had returned from each journey with new ones, some of which he donated to the convent library in the village. The last, a book that he had scripted himself and was almost indecipherable, had been shipped to her shortly before his death.

One of the large, heavy volumes, a work devoted to herb lore, had been written by Abbess Helen of Ainsley. Clare had purchased a fair copy from a monastery in the south.

Clare had studied every word of Abbess Helen's treatise. She had been so impressed by Helen's book that she had boldly undertaken to write a letter to the abbess. To her astonishment the abbess had penned a response.

The correspondence between the two women, nourished by their mutual interest in flowers and herbs, had flourished during the past year. Last fall Clare had been delighted and deeply honored when Abbess Helen had journeyed to Desire for a short visit.

The Abbess had stayed at the hall, rather than at Saint Hermione's, and she and Clare had stayed up very late every night. They had talked for hours, discussing every conceivable subject.

But Joanna was right. As intelligent and learned as Abbess Helen undeniably was, she had never been a wife.

She could not know much about the intimate side of marriage.

Clare studied the tip of her quill while she tried to find a tactful way to ask her next question. "Did you ever develop any feelings of, uh, warmth for Sir Thomas, Joanna?"

Joanna snorted. "Few women find passion in the marriage bed, Clare. Nor should they seek it. Tis a frivolous thing, passion. A woman marries for other, far more important reasons."

"Aye, I'm only too well aware of that." But still, she had hoped to find some warm feelings in her marriage bed, Clare thought wistfully. And with Gareth's kiss still burning her lips, she sensed she might find such feelings with him.

How could that be? she wondered. Other than the ability to read, which Gareth claimed to possess, he did not appear to be made up of any of the ingredients she had specified in her recipe for a husband.

She could not begin to comprehend why she had responded so unquestioningly to his embrace.

"I shall be honest with you," Joanna said. "Thomas was thirty years older than me and he had little patience with a new bride. Our wedding night was unpleasant but bearable, as it is for most women.

One gets past it and it is done. After that, I grew accustomed to the business and so will you."

Clare groaned. "I know you are trying to encourage me, Joanna, but you are not succeeding."

"It is not like you to complain about your responsibilities, Clare."

"I do not complain without reason. Sir Gareth has virtually ordered the wedding to take place the day after tomorrow. Thurston's letter gives him the authority to insist."

"What did you expect?" Joanna sighed. "Tis no surprise, I suppose."

"Nay." Clare got to her feet and went to stand at the window. "I wish I had more time. It is the one thing I crave most at the moment. I would pay dearly for it."

"Do you think that time would make much difference? Sir Nicholas grows more encroaching by the day. You have lost the last two shipments of perfumes to thieves. You have said yourself that Desire needs a lord who can protect it."