Dew - of all people to meet when he was feeling irritable. They both stopped abruptly, and he took a step back so that there might be more than three inches of space separating them. "Oh!" she said. "I do beg your pardon, ma'am." They spoke simultaneously. "I saw you riding up the driveway," she said. "I came to meet you." He raised his eyebrows. "I am flattered," he said. "Or am I? Has something happened? You look agitated." "Not at all." She smiled - and looked even more so. "I was wondering if I might have a private word with you." To deliver another scold? To enumerate more of his shortcomings? To ruffle more of his feathers? To worsen his mood even further? "Of course." He cupped her elbow in one hand and drew her away from the stables and the house. They began to walk across the wide lawn that led to the lake. "Thank you," she said.

She was wearing a pale blue dress with a matching cloak, he noticed. Her bonnet was a darker blue. It was the first time he had seen her out of mourning. She looked marginally more attractive than usual. "How may I be of service to you, ma'am?" he asked curtly when they were out of earshot of anyone at the stables. "Well," she said after drawing an audible breath, "I was wondering if you would be willing to marry me." He had already released his hold on her elbow - which was probably a good thing. He might have broken a few bones there when his hands clenched involuntarily into fists. But - could he have heard her correctly? "Marry you?" he asked in what sounded shockingly like his normal voice. "Yes," she said. She sounded breathless - as if she had just run five miles without stopping. "If you would not mind terribly, that is. I believe your primary concern is to marry someone eligible, and I do qualify on that count. I am an earl's sister and the widow of a baronet's son. And I think your secondary concern is to marry one of /us /so that you may more easily deal with the problem of bringing us out into society. I know you think you would prefer Meg. I know you do not even like me because I have quarreled with you on more than one occasion. But really I am not quarrelsome by nature. Quite the contrary - I am usually the one who makes people cheerful. And I do not mind…" Her speech, hastily delivered with hardly a pause for breath, trailed off and there was a moment of silence.

No, he had not misheard. Or misunderstood.

He had stopped walking abruptly and turned to face her. She stopped too and looked up at him, directly into his eyes, her own wide. Her face was flushed.

As well it might be.

He could not think of anyone else who had such power to render him speechless. "Please /say /something," she said when he had not responded within ten seconds or so. "I know this must be a shock to you. You could not have expected it. But /think /about it. You cannot really /love /Meg, can you? You scarcely know her. You have chosen her because she is the eldest - and because she is beautiful. You do not know me either, of course, though you may /think /you do. But really it cannot make much difference to you which of us you marry, can it?" /I know this must be a shock to you. /Had there ever been more of an understatement? Marry /her/? /Mrs. Dew? /Was the woman quite, quite mad?

She bit her lip, and her eyes seemed to grow even larger as she waited for him to speak. "Let me get one thing straight, Mrs. Dew," he said, frowning. "Do I interpret your flattering proposal correctly? Are you by any chance offering yourself as the sacrificial lamb?" "Oh, dear." She looked away from him for a moment. "No, not really. It would be no sacrifice. I believe I would like to be married again, and I might as well marry for convenience, as you would be doing. It really /would /be convenient if we were to marry each other, would it not? It would make things far easier for Meg and Kate - and for Stephen too. And maybe your mother will not mind /too /too much if it is not Meg, though of course I am not as beautiful as she - or beautiful at all, in fact. But I should do my best to see that she approved of me once she had accustomed herself to the idea." "My mother?" he asked faintly. "She clearly indicated yesterday," Mrs. Dew said, "that she approved of Meg as a potential daughter-in-law. She did not say so openly, of course, because that was for you to do. But we understood her nevertheless." /Damnation!/ "Mrs. Dew." He clasped his hands behind him and leaned a little closer to her. "Is this by any chance how you came to marry Dew?" He had the sensation for a moment that he was falling into her eyes. And then she lowered her lids over them, shutting her soul from his sight.

He frowned at the top of her bonnet. "Oh," she said. "Yes, as a matter of fact it was. He was dying, you see.

But he was very young and there was so much he had wanted to do with his life - including marrying me. He loved me. He wanted me. I knew that. And so I insisted that he marry me though he was not willing to trap me, as he put it." Her eyelids came up again, and her eyes looked back into his own. "I made his last year a very, very happy one. I do not deceive myself about that. I know how to make a man happy." Good Lord! Was this a frisson of sexual awareness he was feeling?

Impossible! Except that he did not know what else it could be.

He shook his head slightly and turned away from her to stride onward in the direction of the lake. She fell into step beside him. "I am sorry." She sounded dejected. "I have made a mess of this, have I not? Or perhaps there /was /no other way I might have approached you or explained myself." "Am I to understand," he said testily, "that Miss Huxtable will not be disappointed if she discovers that you have stolen me from under her nose?" "Oh, no, not at all," she assured him. "Meg does not want to marry you, but I am afraid she will if you ask because she has a fearful sense of duty and she /will /insist upon doing what she thinks is right for the rest of us even though there is no real need for her to do so any longer." "I see," he said, quelling the urge to bellow with rage - or perhaps with laughter. "And she does not wish to marry me because…?" He slowed his steps and turned his head to look down at her again. He began to wonder if he would perhaps wake up at any moment now to find that he had dreamed this whole bizarre encounter. It surely could /not /be real. "Because she is dreadfully in love with Crispin," she said. "Crispin?" He believed he had heard the name before. "Crispin Dew," she told him. "Hedley's elder brother. She would have married him four years ago when he purchased a commission and joined his regiment, but she would not leave us. They had an understanding, though." "If they are betrothed," he said, "why would you fear that she might accept an offer from me?" "But they are not," she said, "and he has not been home or sent any message to Meg in almost four years." "Is there something I am not grasping here?" he asked after a few moments of silence. They had arrived at the bank of the lake and stopped walking again. The sun was shining. Its rays were sparkling on the water. "Yes," she said. "The female heart. Meg's is bruised, perhaps even broken. She knows he will never come back to her, but while she is single there is always hope. Hope is all she has left. I would /really /rather you did not make her an offer. She would probably accept, and she would make you a good and dutiful wife for the rest of both your lives. But there would never be a spark of anything else between you." He leaned a little toward her again. "And there /would /be between you and me?" he asked her. He was still not sure if it was anger or a bizarre sort of hilarity he felt at this whole ridiculous conversation. But he suspected that one or the other was about to erupt at any moment.

She flushed a rosy red again as she stared back into his eyes. "I know how to please a man," she said almost in a whisper and sank her teeth into her lower lip.