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“I know, dear, and I am the biggest boor for taking you to task for it. Now, off with you. And while you’re downstairs, why don’t you ask Cook to bake some of those jam tarts I’m so partial to. I’ll wager Chrissy would like them, too.”

“I already have,” she said with a watery giggle and another sniff. “They should be done by now.”

Leona laughed and hugged her. “What would I ever do without you? I’ll be down directly. Just be sure you and Chrissy leave a couple for me!”

After the door closed behind Maria, the smile Leona maintained for her friend’s benefit faded.

She sagged back against her dressing table and ran a shaking hand across her throbbing temples.

Despite her brave words to the contrary, Leona knew she was ill.

Slowly she turned around to study her reflection in the mirror.

Feverish blots of color stood out on her high cheekbones, and her eyes were glassy. She sneezed again.

“Dear Lord, let me get through this day, then I promise I shall stay abed for a week,” she murmured.

Then she straightened, a determined expression firming her pale lips.

“I know my duty. That comes before all else. And I shall see justice done!” She turned away from the mirror and pulled angrily at her dressing gown, tossing it aside.

“How long do you think it will take my Uncle Nigel to get here? He can ride like the wind, my uncle can. Nuit—that’s his horse; it means night in French.

My grandmother’s French, you see. Actually, she’s not my real grandmamma.

My real grandmamma died when Papa was a baby.

She came to take care of Papa, but my grandfather fell in love with her and married her.

Isn’t that romantic?” Chrissy paused to sip her hot chocolate.

Leona repressed a laugh. Since she’d come downstairs to join Chrissy in the parlor, the child had been talking incessantly, all the while hopping from subject to subject.

With her temples throbbing and her head feeling like a block of wood, Leona was hard-pressed to follow her young guest’s rapid conversation.

It was fortunate she was not expected to respond.

She inhaled the steam escaping from the herbal tea Maria had prepared.

She could not identify the herb. Leona wondered if Maria tossed together all the herbs beginning with the letter C, hoping one would work.

Though Maria created wonderfully smelling wet and dry potpourris, she was not an herbalist. Still, it did seem the concoction was beneficial, for Leona’s ragged breathing had eased.

Guiltily, she raised her head to listen to the child.

“. . . one of Nuit’s get, but Uncle Nigel says any foal fathered by Nuit would be too big for me. He says he’ll get me my own horse when I improve my seat. But how can I improve if I must forever ride Rosebud? She’s just a pony!” Disgust curled Chrissy’s lips.

This time laughter escaped Leona. She realized she’d missed part of Chrissy’s conversation; however, it was not difficult to fill in the missing pieces.

Chrissy was horse mad. Leona could appreciate that, for she remembered herself at Chrissy’s age.

For her, it had been particularly agonizing since her older brothers were given horses of their own at ten while she’d been relegated to her pony until twelve.

She gathered from the bits and pieces of her young guest’s monologue she’d been able to string together that Chrissy was an only child without even cousins to compare to.

Judging from the conversational tidbits the girl had mentioned, Leona learned that Aunt Lucy, a diamond of the first water according to Chrissy, was engaged to be married and that Uncle Nigel was, to his niece, a hero of every peninsular battle fought, a sportsman par excellence , and not a person to cross.

How did Chrissy say it? “When he sort of closes his eyes and looks at you through the slits, you know you’re in trouble! ”

Her grandmother she described as gentle and understanding.

She tucked her into bed at night and sang an old French lullaby to her.

It was an important ritual to the child and sorely missed.

Leona wished she’d known that last night.

Though she didn’t know any French lullabies, an old English one might have helped soothe the frightened child she’d turned over to Maria’s care while she went to the inn.

Curiously, for all her volubility, Chrissy made no mention of her parents other than the mention of her father last night at Lion’s Gate. Leona tried once to question her about her parents, but the sad, haunted expression on the child’s face made her quickly change the subject.

She gathered Lord Nevin was ill. What could his illness be?

Consumption? That was what typically sent people to Switzerland for long periods of time.

Leona shuddered inwardly at the thought.

Again her heart went out to the delightful, talkative child who sat on the stool before the fire licking jam from her fingertips and jumping like a noisy cricket from subject to subject.

"Aunt Lucy’s getting married this spring to Uncle Nigel’s best friend in the whole world.

Uncle Nigel tells David he’s making a mistake to marry Aunt Lucy, but David just laughs.

He says one day Uncle Nigel will fall in love, too.

Uncle Nigel then gives David one of those looks like I told you, where his eyes are almost closed, and says Bah!

David quietly smiles and ignores him.” Her brow furrowed, and her bow-shaped mouth puckered.

“Sometimes, I don’t see how he could be Uncle Nigel’s best friend.

Uncle Nigel hardly ever laughs or smiles.

He is too serious, Grandmamma says. But I think he’s sad. ”

“Sad?” From all Chrissy said, sad seemed the last word to describe Nigel Deveraux. “Why sad?” Leona asked, curiosity creeping through the dull heaviness in her head.

“Because of Castle Marin,” Chrissy succinctly answered, leaving Leona mired in more confusion.

“But—”

“Listen!”

From outside came the sound of a horse stamping its hooves against crackling ice.

Chrissy set down her cup and saucer with a loud clatter and ran to the front window. “He’s here! He’s here!” Clapping her hands, she jumped up and down, then twirled around, her young face alight with happiness. She raced for the cottage door.

“Wait! You don’t have any shoes!” Leona struggled to untangle herself from the nest of blankets Maria insisted swaddling about her.

“Leona Leonard, you stay right where you are!” Maria ordered from the low parlor entrance. “Chrissy, give him room to come in and close the door. You’re letting in a draft, child. Remember Leona!”

“Oh, piffle, Maria,” protested Leona.

“Uncle Nigel! Uncle Nigel!”

Chrissy launched herself at the tall, dark gentleman who ducked his head under the lintel to enter the cottage. He caught her and lifted her high in his arms. “Chrissy!” his deep voice cried, exalted.

“I thought I’d never see you again!” Chrissy wailed. The child, who moments before had been laughing and happy, laid her head on his broad shoulder and burst into tears.

Pain ravaged the gentleman’s bluntly carved features. He closed his eyes tight against his own tears and buried his face in Chrissy’s hair. “Oh, Chrissy, Chrissy,” he moaned against her neck, her name wrenched from his soul.

As Nigel Deveraux had ridden up to the neat thatched cottage situated in the middle of a small glade, he’d been afraid to hope, afraid to believe the three-week-long nightmare might be ending.

The only other time in his life he’d felt as helpless was when his brother Brandon told him of his disease and his desire to enter a sanitarium in Switzerland to seek a cure.

That night Nigel drank until he passed out.

When he awoke, he repeated the procedure until three days passed into oblivion, and his brother came to say goodbye, confident in Nigel’s ability to manage the family.

The day he learned Chrissy was gone, somehow spirited away into the English countryside, he’d become wild.

This time there was no descent into an alcoholic fog.

He’d been responsible for her well-being, and he’d failed.

Duty and responsibility weighed heavily on Deveraux.

They always had. The feeling of helplessness clawed at his insides, feeding and growing on fears long buried.

The agony twisted deep when he realized that merely paying the ransom was not enough.

For some inexplicable reason the kidnappers wanted the money from Brandon’s hand.

They wanted Brandon to come back to England and die without a drop of blood spilling across their hands.

What could anyone have against gentle Brandon?

A more giving and kind man never walked the earth.

Or was the revenge against himself? The one thing Nigel feared more than his own mortality was that he should live to inherit the earldom.

But no one knew of that deeply hidden fear. Thankfully it eased as he held Chrissy and let the reality of her safety consume him.

Tears welled in Leona’s eyes. She dashed them away with a handkerchief and pushed the last of the blankets off her legs.

She hadn’t cried in years, and this was certainly not the time to start again.

She stood up shakily. Maria took the gentleman’s curly brimmed beaver hat from his fingers and gently pushed him toward the parlor.

Instinctively he ducked his head under that lintel as well.