"Your son may well be your business, Lord Praed, but if you think bullying him will overcome his fear, then you've even less understanding of children than it appears… and that's saying something," she stated with lamentable lack of finesse.

"You know nothing about it, madame," he said furiously. "You push your way into my life without so much as a by-your-leave and then assume you have the right to dictate-"

"That is not so!" Gabrielle interrupted, outraged. "I didn't push my way into your life-"

"Into my bed, you did," he interrupted in turn.

"Well, that wasn't without so much as a by-your-leave!" They were getting rather off the point, but Gabrielle found herself simply following his lead, perfectly prepared to give as good as she got.

"I will not tolerate your interference with my son."

"So what were you going to do, beat the fear out of him?" she threw at him with ringing scorn. "That's what your father would have done, I imagine. Ensured that you were more frightened of him than the horse!"

A pulse throbbed in Nathaniel's temples and a dark flush spread over his high cheekbones. Yet he made no immediate comeback to Gabrielle's searing challenge and she waited uneasily through a long, tense silence. When he finally spoke, his voice was flat, no trace of the previous emotion.

"Yes, he would have, but I'm not about to follow his example." He turned away from her and bent to throw another log on the fire. There was a heaviness in the room, the residue of the bright, sparking fury that had flown between them.

"I could never hurt Jake," Nathaniel said, leaning one elbow along the mantelpiece, staring down at the fire. "It would be like striking Helen."

Gabrielle could think of nothing to say. The statement was too confiding, too intimate.

Nathaniel raised his head from his forearm and looked across at her. His expression was bleak, suddenly open and vulnerable, and then it closed again like the oyster over its pearl. He pushed himself upright. "I must ask you to excuse me. I have work to do."

It was a curt dismissal. Without a word she walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Nathaniel stood glowering for a minute, tapping his fingernails on the mantelpiece. Then he strode to the bookshelves and removed the volumes of Locke's Treatise on Government, revealing the safe. He spun the tumblers and opened the door. Taking out the papers, he slipped them into the breast of his coat and replaced them in the safe with a sheaf of documents from the secretaire relating to estate business. Perfectly innocent material for any prying eyes. He plucked a silver hair from his temple and carefully inserted it between the door of the safe and the rim before closing the door. Satisfied that the hair was invisible from the outside, he replaced the books and left the library.

Gabrielle, still disturbed by that angry exchange, went up to her apartments to change out of her riding habit. She passed the housekeeper coming down the stairs with an armful of linens.

Gabrielle paused. "What time does his lordship dine, Mrs. Bailey?"

"At six o'clock, ma'am. His lordship keeps country hours here. He sees Master Jake in the library at five-thirty, in general, and then dines afterward."

"I see. Thank you."

"I'll send Ellie up to help with your dressing, my lady. She's ironed your gowns. They were rather crumpled from the cloakbag."

"Yes, I'm not surprised," Gabrielle said without blinking an eye, even as she wondered what Ellie and the housekeeper had made of the britches keeping company with the more respectable items of clothing in the cloakbag. "I'm expecting the rest of my traps to be sent on in the next few days, so I'll be most grateful if Ellie can do what she can for now with what I have with me."

"Of course, my lady." Mrs. Bailey went on her way, as curious as ever about the Comtesse de Beaucaire. A proper lady she was, despite certain odd items of clothing in her meager luggage, but what was a proper lady with a wedding ring doing in this scandalous situation? The gossip would be all over the county in no time. Not that it would trouble his lordship any.

Since her arrival that morning, Gabrielle had had little opportunity to examine the apartments allotted her. There was a large, sunny bedchamber with heavy winter velvet hangings to the bed and windows, a Turkish carpet on the highly polished floorboards, a fire burning in the grate beneath an elegant carved mantelpiece. Adjoining it was a small boudoir, carpeted and curtained in rose velvet like the bedchamber, furnished with a chaise longue, several armchairs, and a delicate Queen Anne secretaire. Here, too, a fire burned in the grate.

A door in the far wall connected the boudoir with his lordship's apartments. Had these been Helen's rooms? On one hand, it seemed obvious that they had been, but on the other, Gabrielle couldn't believe that Nathaniel would have installed his mistress-of-the-moment in the apartment of his late, beloved wife. He was a forbidding and frequently ill-tempered man, but he had a sensitivity that perhaps truly revealed itself only during his lovemaking. She knew he would not have insulted his wife's memory.

She suppressed any further curiosity about the late Lady Praed. It had no bearing on her reason for being there… as did any further interference in Lord Praed's relationship with his son.

She would remain in her apartments until six o'clock, leaving Nathaniel to conduct his daily interview with Jake in private.

Thus resolved, Gabrielle greeted Ellie's arrival and the offer of hot water for a bath with heartfelt enthusiasm. She had no idea how Nathaniel would behave af-tet the afternoon's unpleasantness, but she would leave him to set the tone.

At half past five she was sitting in the bay window of the boudoir, watching the dusk roll in from the river, listening to the loud cawing of a flock of rooks settling for the night in a stand of conifers at the end of the garden. Nathaniel's family estate was beautiful, flanked on one side by the Beaulieu River meandering through tidal marshes to the Solent, the wide body of water between the mainland and the Isle of Wight, and on the other by the primeval majesty of the New Forest.

They'd ridden that afternoon in the Forest, crossing the gorse- and heather-strewn common land into the broad rides beneath the centuries-old oaks and beeches. It was not a part of the country Gabrielle knew, but she felt its tug and had seen in Nathaniel's relaxed, peaceful expression that this distinctive contrast of sea and forest ran in his blood.

A soft tap on the door disturbed her reverie. Unsure whether she'd really heard it, she turned her head toward the door. The tap came again, more of a scratching than a definite signal.

"Come in."

The door opened slowly. Jake stood there, his hand still on the knob, a serious expression on his face, his round brown eyes solemn. He was very clean and tidy, his starched white shirt with ruffled collar buttoned onto his nankeen trousers and his hair glistening damply from judicious wetting to keep it lying neatly on his forehead.

"Jake?" Gabrielle rose and crossed the room. "This is a surprise." She smiled down at him. "Come in."

Jake shook his head. "I have to go to the library." But he still stood there, holding the door, staring down at his feet in their buttoned boots.

"Your papa will be waiting for you," Gabrielle agreed, glancing at the clock.

"You coming too?" He raised his eyes from the floor. "To see Papa?"

Nathaniel had forbidden Miss Primmer to bring the child to him, Gabrielle remembered. Was Jake really so shy of his father that he couldn't face him alone? It was ridiculous. And yet, perhaps not. Children could be intimidated by many things, and Nathaniel, except in certain very specific instances, was not an inviting person.