That did it!

Jasper released Katherine’s arm and strolled forward until the toes of his boots almost touched those of Clarence, who could not step back because the carriage was still directly behind him.

“Clarrie,” Jasper said in the soft, pleasant voice he reserved for those with whom he was not pleased at all, “you are a nasty little beast and I have a few scores to settle with you when the time is ripe. That time, for the sake of civility, is probably not yet, alas. But if the time is not to be now, you will apologize to my wife with abject humility so that we may proceed into the house and make you and your mama comfortable as we do with all our guests.”

“You will make the apology, Forester,” Uncle Stanley said, “if you do not want me to knock every tooth in your head down your throat.”

“And make it quick, Clarence,” Wrayburn said, sounding more irritated than ever. “I want my tea even if it does have to be taken in a roomful of people, most of them very young. And silly, I do not doubt.”

Clarence looked at Katherine before allowing his eyes to slide off to one side of her.

“I am sorry, ma’am,” he muttered.

Jasper moved his face half an inch closer.

“With abject humility, Clarrie,” he said in the same quiet, pleasant voice. He was slowly swinging Katherine’s bonnet by its ribbons.

“I beg you will forgive me, ma’am,” Clarence said, his eyes darting at her and then away again. “What I said was uncalled for.”

“How lovely it is,” Katherine said before Jasper could object further, “that Charlotte is to have her family about her for her birthday the day after tomorrow. Do come inside, all of you. You look very weary, Mr. Wrayburn. May I take your arm?”

He still looked irritated, but he allowed her to do so and they proceeded up the steps. Jasper offered his arm to Lady Forester, raising one eyebrow as he did so.

So here he was welcoming Clarrie and his mother beneath his own roof. Because Katherine had asked him to be civil. And because they had had the forethought to bring Wrayburn with them.

Perhaps the moon was made of cheese after all.

Clarence had a new, quite unbecoming bend in his nose. If he did not want another, he had better learn to keep his tongue clamped between his teeth, by Jove.

Jasper hoped fervently that he would not do so.

Provoke me, Clarrie, he thought. Please?

But there had already been provocation enough. There was no need for more.

All there was need of was the right time and place.

The conversation in the drawing room had obviously been lively enough to prevent anyone from noticing the arrival of a new traveling carriage beneath the window. It was still merry with the sort of chatter and laughter only the very young were capable of producing.

Charlotte at first looked thunderstruck when she saw her aunt and cousin appear in the doorway. Then she got to her feet and hurried across the room.

“Lady Forester and Clarrie have come to join in your birthday festivities, Char,” Jasper said.

Katherine noticed that Stephen had also got to his feet, his hands balling into fists at his sides, his eyes fixed upon Sir Clarence.

“Aunt Prunella?” Charlotte smiled at her and curtsied. “Clarence?” She nodded to him with an only slightly fading smile. “How lovely!”

“Charlotte?” Lady Forester looked about the room as if she were gauging the ages of all the gentlemen present. They paused for a moment upon Stephen. “We have come to rescue you.”

Katherine caught Stephen’s eye and shook her head slightly. But Meg already had one hand on his arm, and his hands had relaxed at his sides.

“And here is your great-uncle too, Charlotte,” Katherine said.

“Great-Uncle Seth?” Charlotte’s eyes widened, and then she smiled radiantly. “You have come to see me? You have come for my birthday?”

He looked sourly at her.

“So you are Charlotte, are you?” he said. “And a parcel of trouble you have been to me, girl, though I daresay you are not to blame for that. You are a pretty enough little thing.”

She blushed.

“Oh, thank you, Great-Uncle,” she said. “You must be tired. May I pour you a cup of tea?”

What she ought to have done was offer to introduce him to everyone else in the drawing room. But it appeared that she had done the right thing.

“One small splash of milk and two spoonfuls of sugar, slightly heaped,” he said.

“Let me have the pleasure,” Katherine said while Charlotte went darting off to the tea tray, “of introducing everyone to you, sir. And to you, ma’am, and to you, Sir Clarence, if there is anyone here you do not know.”

She proceeded to do so even though outrage over the arrival of two of them warred for the main part of her attention with a terrible awareness of how she looked-and of how Jasper looked without his coat and with her bonnet still dangling from one of his hands. She did not believe she had ever felt more uncomfortable in her life. She also had a ghastly urge to burst into laughter. She dared not look anywhere near Jasper’s face.

Civility, though, had been preserved. How they had managed it, she and Jasper, she did not know. But she felt somehow as if they had just passed one of the first great tests of their marriage and their position as lord and lady of Cedarhurst.

She could not pretend to be delighted by the unexpected, and uninvited, arrival of three new guests. She could not pretend that she had not been deeply insulted by the words Sir Clarence Forester had uttered out on the terrace. And she could not pretend either that for one shameful moment when Jasper had left her side to stride over to him, she had not hoped he would knock him senseless and evict him from his land without further ado.

But civility had called for better, and they had both risen to the occasion. She was proud of them both.

Katherine forced herself to relax as afternoon turned to evening-especially after she had finally been able to escape to her room to change her dress and repair her appearance. There was really nothing to which Lady Forester and her son could take exception. Almost all the female guests were girls more than young ladies. Almost all the male guests were well below the age of majority and were boys more than men. Even Sir Nathan Fletcher, who was a friend of Stephen’s from university, was only twenty-one. Stephen himself was not quite that.

And the young people were very well chaperoned indeed. The Countess of Hornsby, Mr. and Mrs. Dubois, Uncle Stanley, Miss Daniels, not to mention Jasper and Katherine herself-all of them kept an eye upon their own charges and everyone else’s. No, Lady Forester would have nothing about which to object.

She found something anyway.

It happened in the drawing room after dinner, just before the gentlemen joined the ladies. Someone in the group of young ladies that had gathered about the pianoforte mentioned the fete and the ball. The older ladies were gathered about the fireplace, conversing about something else.

“Mr. Shaw and Mr. Thane,” Hortense Dubois said, “are going to join in the tug-of-war at the fete. I do not know if any of the other gentlemen will find the courage to join them. I can scarcely wait to see it.”

“I would join in myself,” Jane Hutchins said, “if I could be sure of being on the winning side.”

There was a gust of girlish laughter.

“Girls-ladies-are not allowed,” Lady Marianne said, pulling a face. “We might get muddy. Men have all the fun.”

“But just imagine, Marianne,” Araminta Clement said, “losing the pull and being dragged into a mud bath. In one’s best dress.”

“But everyone who is to be in the tug-of-war and in the mud wrestling,” Louisa Fletcher said, “is to bring old clothes to wear. And then, if they get muddy-or when they get muddy if they are wrestling-they are to swim in the lake to clean themselves and change into their good clothes.”