"Do I?" said Anne sweetly. "But then I am just the frustrated-spinster type, who has had her head turned by the practiced charms of a rake, am I not, Alexander? You should pity me, my lord, not be angry with me."

Merrick grabbed Anne's free arm and shook her until she caught at his lapels to steady herself. "Stop this!" he said through clenched teeth. "I have not seen this side of you before, Anne, and I do not like it. I will not have you behave this way before my family, do you understand?"

"Alexander," she said, still clinging to his coat, "there was a time when I was awed by your good looks and your title and obvious knowledge of the world. There was a time when I felt that if you did not love me or want me or even treat me with common courtesy, the fault must be in me. I have had much time to myself in which to think. You have kindly provided me with that time. And I have come to realize that you are a selfish and conceited man, who is not worthy of my love or even of my respect. I am your wife, as you say, and you will find that in all public ways I shall be obedient to you. I shall return to Redlands next week without a murmur of complaint. You need not fear that I shall cry and plead with you to take me to London. But in essential matters I am not part of you. I am a person in my own right, my lord, and you will not crush me again. I invite you to try."

She pulled free of his hands and moved away from the margin of the lake into the shade of the trees. Indeed, she was not as calm as she hoped she had appeared. She walked until she had reached the cover of the trees, and then she began to hurry, and soon she was running almost in panic farther and farther into the forest. He must not follow. She must not let him catch up to her and see that her control had broken. Fool! She must be the greatest fool in Christendom. All that she had said about him was true. If she had not been convinced of his overbearing arrogance before today, she had had ample proof in the last half-hour. He was insufferable. She hated him. How, then, could she love him so much? It was all physical, she told herself again and again, as if the repetition in her mind would finally convince her. If he were not so handsome, if he were not such a good lover, she would be free to hate him without reservation. She did not love him. She merely lusted after him. Her tears began to fall as she plunged deeper among the trees.

"We should get back to the others," Miss Fitzgerald said. "They will be wanting to eat tea and will be waiting for us. It would not be wise to delay. Even as it is, the rain may not hold off until we have finished our picnic."

"Oh," said Rose, pouting, "but Jack has promised to take us as far as the bridge, Ruby, so that we might walk to the center arch and see the house. I have not seen that view since I was quite a young girl."

"And now you are in your dotage," her sister said. "There will be plenty of other occasions for that walk, Rose."

"But goodness only knows when Jack will be here again," her sister argued.

"I have realized since returning here," Jack said, smiling down at Rose, "that I have much neglected my grandparents in the last few years. I am determined to mend my ways. There are many attractions to a stay in the country."

Rose blushed.

"Turn around here, Frederick," Miss Fitzgerald ordered, "and let Jack here take the oars. You are not accustomed to heavy work, and I would not wish to see you get blisters on your hands."

"Glad to row you along, Ruby," Freddie said, panting a little from his exertions. "Pleasant view from the water. I can row, y' know, as well as Jack. Can't do most things; don't have the brains. But rowing a boat is easy."

"Nevertheless, Frederick," Miss Fitzgerald said kindly, and the two men meekly exchanged the oars.

************************************

"Mamma," Kitty wailed, "the boat is rocking." She clung to the side with one chubby little hand and grabbed a handful of her mother's skirts with the other.

"There are waves on the lake," Davie said. "This is famous, Papa. It is like being pirates on the sea." He swayed his body from side to side, increasing the slight pitching motion of the boat.

"Sit still, my lad," his father said. "The wind is coming up and I have to row against it to get back to shore. The elements do not need your assistance."

"Kitty is frightened," Meggie explained to anyone who had not noticed. "I knew she would be. I should have stayed on the bank with her. Cousin Anne would have played with us. I like Cousin Anne."

Celia wrapped one end of her shawl around the shoulders of the tiny child who huddled at her side, and drew the rest of it more closely around herself. It was chilly out here on the lake, and the clouds were getting heavier and grayer by the minute. Stanley rowed steadily for the shore, while Davie sat in the middle of the boat, one hand on either side of it, swaying to the natural movement of the craft through the waves and trying his best to increase the size of the dips without appearing to do so.

On the bank, Addie, Hortense, and Peregrine had dragged the blankets farther back into the shade of the trees, where they would be more sheltered from the rising wind, and spread out the contents of the picnic baskets, despite the fact that neither of the two boats had yet returned and Merrick and Anne had not reappeared.

"Stanley has turned back, anyway," Prudence said, seating herself beside Addie. "There is plenty of food here for an army. I do not believe anyone will object if we have our tea."

By the time the first drops of rain began to fall, the only missing members of the party were the two who were on foot. Everyone had eaten his fill.

"I think we should go back to the house," Jack said. "In not many more minutes this rain will be heavy and we do not have a closed carriage even for the ladies. If Alex wants to play the romantic in the woods with his wife, I say we should leave them to it."

"It is a long walk back to the house, though," Prudence said dubiously. "I believe we should wait for them."

"You all go back," Freddie said. "I shall look for them and bring them safely home."

"Rubbish, old boy," Jack said. "They are not lost, you know, and the walk back to the house will be no shorter than if you are with them."

"It was a very kind thought," Miss Fitzgerald added, "but Jack is right, Frederick. You might wander into the woods and never find them. And while you are there, getting wetter and wetter, they might well be home already steaming before a warm fire. And as Jack says, they are not lost. Alexander grew up here, after all."

"Don't like to think of Anne getting wet," Freddie said. "A delicate little thing, y' know. I like her."

"So do we all," Miss Fitzgerald said, taking his arm and leading him in the direction of the closest gig, which had already been loaded with the half-empty picnic baskets and the blankets. "But she has her husband to take care of her. She does not need you, Frederick. And we do. The rain is already coming down quite steadily. You must keep the minds of us ladies off our discomfort by conversing with us."

Jack snorted inelegantly and maneuvered Rose along to the next vehicle, an equally open gig. There was one small delay, while Freddie insisted on running back to the boathouse with the two blankets "in case Alex should think of sheltering there," as he put it. The horses were put into motion without further delay and the carriages were soon bowling along the uneven path in a race against the increasingly heavy rain and cold, blustery wind.