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A full fortnight had passed since Belinda’s banishment to Devon.

Her departure from London had been a bitter one, fueled by her sister’s disappointment in her and by Roland’s embarrassment at having been caught up in her schemes.

She’d had to forgive Minty, who was getting near her time and was often prey to her emotions.

It had been much the same when she, too, had been with child. ..

The earl had been kinder and seemed to understand, but all the same, once the news of her misdemeanors had come out, he’d been tight-lipped.

Then there were the horrid consequences of her actions to consider.

Everyone else felt she should leave London for a while and get as far away from her victims and co-conspirators as possible.

Aylsham would deal with any repercussions.

The alternative to Devon—where her cousin lived—was to bury herself in work at Forty Court, and under normal circumstances, she’d have been happy to do so.

However, she wasn’t likely to meet any eligible bachelors while up to her elbows in orphaned children, was she?

Except on the odd occasion when a subscriber such as Piers Darvill visited them.

He was one of the most eligible bachelors in London, but not for her.

Definitely not for her. It was partly from fear of running into him again that she’d agreed to depart for Devon, to stay with the same relations who’d looked after her during her confinement.

Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Trago were a delightful couple.

They ran the inn that formed the hub around which the village of Buckleigh revolved.

In many ways, their simple, rural lifestyle was a breath of fresh air after the busyness and complexities of London life.

Here, one could pause and reflect, see things in perspective, and make resolutions.

Belinda’s most significant resolution to date was not to meddle in other people’s affairs, no matter how strongly she felt or how wrong the person in question appeared to be.

From now on, she wasn’t going to let her heart rule her head.

She was going to be even quieter, even more well-behaved, and immune to emotion—whenever possible.

Minty had packed her off to the country with a bagful of clinking bottles of nerve tonic, and Mrs. Trago was under strict instructions to ensure that Belinda took her regular dose.

It was as if she were being sent away to recuperate after a long illness, but it was a sickness of the mind, not of the body.

“It’s a shame we never had any children, Kitty,” her cousin was saying as they helped his wife with the breakfast things.

“The dray’s coming sometime this morning, and I could do with a strong lad to settle the barrels in place.

That cellar is so old and the angle so awkward, that I can feel my back every time I shift one of them.

And that Silas just can’t fold himself up small enough to get in around them. ”

“Can I help, Cousin Anthony?”

“No, Belinda—we can’t have you doing that sort of thing, fine lady that you’ve become. You don’t want to mess up your nice clothes.”

“I’m not made of spun glass you know.” Her cheeks pinked. “Forgive me. I didn’t mean to be rude. I could just put an apron on.”

“If you want something to do,” Kitty interjected, “you can help Maisie get the roast going for dinnertime and maybe see about making a syllabub or something to serve afterward. We get a regular crowd in on a Friday evening.”

Cooking. That was something where Belinda felt truly at ease. It would do her good—although sometimes, while waiting for something to boil, or blanch, or toast, her mind tended to wander.

As she left the scullery and headed to the kitchen, she had a splendid idea for how to help Cousin Anthony and the silent Silas, who did all the heavy work but was too big to fit into small spaces.

It would be the perfect job for young Tom Haggar.

If he was ready to leave his drunken sot of a mother, and his lowlife friends in London, he could make better quality companions in rural Devon.

He’d be useful at the inn, working with horses, shinning up ladders to fix things, and settling the new barrels in place.

He could squeeze around the tables when they were full, refilling tankards and delivering bowls of mutton stew and suchlike to the customers.

Belinda tied her apron in place and shook her head.

This was going to be a tough habit to break, trying to improve people’s lives, whether they wanted them improved or not.

She must leave Tom be, as she should have left little Oliver and his mother—and his father—alone.

How could she have misunderstood the situation so dreadfully?

She smote herself on the forehead. Stop wool-gathering, Belinda, and concentrate on the task at hand. Later, if it wasn’t raining, she might go for a walk. Exercise was good for the soul, and she rarely had a crisis of nerves while under the lowering skies that mantled the Dartmoor peaks.

“Are you helping me today, miss? That’ll save me fingers and feet!

” The kitchen maid, a girl of around twelve, bobbed an exaggerated curtsy, grinning all over her face.

Maisie was forthright and dependable—she lived in the village and got up at cockcrow every morning to come in and help with the cleaning, the cooking, and the lighting of fires at The Buckleigh Inn.

“There’s some meat to prepare, I understand. And I can help with the vegetables as well.”

“It’s a leg of mutton for this evening. I wouldn’t mind a hand with the neeps, begging your pardon. Their skins are so hard this time of year because they’ve been stored so long—I feel like I’ve broken my wrist every time I’ve peeled one.”

“Then let us share them, half-and-half. And maybe rest in between, and do something else, like start heating some milk over the fire for a syllabub.”

There was a patter of feet on the flagstone floor, and Ordulf the dog came in, swiping his tail rapidly back and forth, whacking Belinda’s skirts as he passed.

Maisie filled her lungs and yelled at the animal, at the same time flapping her apron. “Get out of the kitchen, you flea-ridden cur! Your breakfast is out in the yard like always—there’s nothing for you in here.”

Maisie had a difficult relationship with the Tragos’ hound.

Belinda, on the other hand, felt she could forgive him anything because he was great-hearted, and whenever she fancied a stroll, he was thrilled to accompany her.

Somehow, having him there beside her, wagging his tail enthusiastically as he poked his nose into the turf-covered stone walls, lightened her mood and made her feel safe.

“Do we have any rosemary, Maisie?”

“Just beside the chimney breast, miss. But there’s fresh in the garden if you’d rather.”

Fresh was always better when available, and it would give the mutton a delectable flavor.

Belinda picked up a cabbage knife and stepped outside into the kitchen garden.

Here, protected by high walls, the plants were making another attempt to flourish, having endured a chilly spring thus far.

Soon there would be coltsfoot, hyssop, sage, and savory.

The roses that trailed along the wall would start thinking about blooming, and the fancy giant asparagus in the corner, of which the Tragos were so proud, would raise its spiky head and add a touch of silver to the varied hues of the kitchen garden.

Belinda glanced at the sky—there always seemed to be more than one level of cloud hanging over Dartmoor and its environs—there was high cloud, stretched thin and taut, and middling cloud, billowing like a ship’s sails, edged with yellow and stormy-looking.

There was cloud that seemed to be right on top of one, shapeless and misty, that could soak one to the skin when walking on the tors.

A waft of wood smoke from the kitchen fire reminded her not to tarry—she had work to do. Cutting a thick sprig of rosemary, she returned to the kitchen.

“Still cold is it, miss?” Maisie crouched on the floor by the open hearth which was still in use, despite having had a new range installed beside it. She was blowing the flames with a pair of bellows.

“It’s warming up a bit, Maisie. How’s the fire going?”

“It’s drawing just fine.”

A little curl of smoke wafted toward Belinda.

She smiled. “Everything smells much better out here in the countryside than in London. I don’t know what people burn there—but much of it isn’t wood.

Coal seems to be the most popular choice for fuel.

Sometimes the smoke hangs in a cloud over the city, hurting the back of your throat. ”

“I don’t know why people want to be in the city in the first place.

All that hustle and bustle—it gives me a headache just thinking about it.

But I do know what coal smoke smells like, as it’s not all countryside around here, as you know.

Over Tavistock way, and on into Cornwall, there’s all those mines, and ore stamps, and furnaces, and pumps, and engines and I don’t know what. Smelly, and noisy, too.”

Belinda pushed her sleeves up and started peeling off rosemary leaves.

“I don’t know much about such industries. Perhaps I should try and learn and then I’ll have something to talk about when I go back to Forty Court. Or London—when they’re prepared to have me back.”

“Oh, she’ll want you back, will Miss Araminta—I mean, Lady Lamb. No! I mean the countess as she is now. Imagine us having had a future countess staying here, in this very inn, I gather! When the baby comes, she’ll want somebody there who knows all about it.”

Belinda’s mood of bland contentment collapsed. The fortress she’d erected to protect her from the pain of losing her baby—which had happened in this very building—was easily weakened.

“Excuse me just a moment, Maisie,” she said, hoping the girl wouldn’t notice her distress. “I haven’t had my dose this morning.”

She escaped to her bedchamber which, thankfully, was not the one where she’d had her lying-in and been forced to watch the pathetic little bundle being whisked away from her.

Flinging open the cupboard, she uncorked a bottle and without bothering to measure it, took a swig of the nerve tonic.

Then she gazed round the room, with its tidy bed and hand-sewn counterpane, the rickety floor, the tiny fireplace full of shoes because she had nowhere else to put them, and the thick glass window.

There was so much comfort to be found here, yet it seemed nothing could fill the void left by the loss of her beloved William and, later, their tiny son.

Through the bubbled glass of the window, she could see the tower of the village church, and the tops of a few ancient gravestones, tilted at various angles by the march of the centuries.

Little Adam had been buried there, in consecrated ground because she’d arrived at Buckleigh in widow’s weeds, and no one had known that the baby was conceived out of wedlock.

Belinda took a bracing breath. It was long past time. She must go there, now.

Throwing a cloak over her shoulders, she trotted down the stairs to the kitchen. “I’m just heading to the church for a moment. I’ll finish the mutton and supervise the syllabub when I get back—I promise not to be long.”

Maisie looked puzzled but nodded her assent, and Belinda left via the back door to the garden, where she gathered some early valerian flowers and a few violets into a little nosegay.

White clouds billowed from all the chimneys in the village, filling her nostrils with the scent of wood smoke.

People were busy with their daily occupations, but there was still a feeling of community, with everyone greeting everybody else so cheerfully.

In London, one was lucky to be greeted at all; and even if a stranger was friendly, one’s inclination was to tense up and clench a hand over purse or pocket.

Belinda pushed open the creaking gate and made her way up the overgrown cobbled path and across the grass to the outer edge of the graveyard. There was Adam’s grave, marked by a simple gravestone, bearing only the boy’s initials— A. C. —and the date of his demise.

Tears blinded her eyes as she knelt, and touched the little stone, so pale and fresh amongst the lichen-covered monuments of Adam’s fellow departed. With trembling fingers, she began arranging the flowers in a spray at the foot of the stone.

The gate creaked again behind her, as some other villager came in, perhaps to sweep the paths or to honor a dead ancestor. They would leave her alone, she was certain, as they were bound to understand that she was grieving and didn’t want to be disturbed.

The tears were rolling down her cheeks and she felt as if she was melting and shriveling inside. But she was dragged out of her grief when a male voice close at hand—a voice that sounded all too familiar—said, “Good morning.”

She got to her feet and turned, stared up at the gentleman before her, then dashed the tears from her eyes.

It couldn’t be! What was he doing here, in this tranquil churchyard in a village in the middle of nowhere?

“Mr. Darvill?” Her voice shook and grief clogged her throat, more powerful even than her shock at being confronted by her nemesis.

“They told me I’d find you here. Oh, great heavens, whatever is the matter, Belinda?”

She had no idea why it chose to happen then, but it was as if her heart had shattered into a million pieces, and the next instant, she was in Darvill’s embrace, sobbing out her misery against his chest.