The door opened and he entered. She took one look at his scowling face, and a sinking feeling of dread came over her. With a sadness that came from a short lifetime of disappointments, she prepared herself for the worst. She had known it was too good to be true. Nothing so wonderful had ever happened to Joy, and it was not going to happen now, either.

From his face she could see the wedding had been canceled. He looked as if he'd eaten something that had made him ill. He was preparing himself to tell her that he didn't want to marry her after all. She steeled herself for disappointment, something she knew very well.

"We have a problem."

Her heavy heart was somewhere near her feet. She rose and gripped the back of a chair, trying to will away the tears she could feel burning behind her eyes.

"I understand," she said in little more than a whisper.

"Three of the ton's most voracious gossips are waiting beyond that door. Don't let them intimidate you. Do not volunteer any information. Let me do the talking. Just nod your head and agree with whatever I say." He didn't wait for an answer, but she figured one didn't need to answer a ducal order.

He picked up her pelisse and held it for her while she slipped it on. Then he handed her her hat and gloves. "If the situation gets too uncomfortable I want us to be able to leave quickly. If we must wait for the vicar, we shall do so at the chapel."

Joy exhaled with relief. The wedding had not been called off.

She smiled then, a great big brilliant smile that she couldn't have hidden had she tried. He cocked his head and searched her face, as if he saw something there he could not comprehend. After an uncomfortable silence her smile faded and she looked away, spotting Beezle still asleep by the fire. She closed the distance and picked him up.

His snoring ceased, and he slowly pried open one bored eye, then let his head fall back over her arm so he could stare at the duke, eyeing him the way a sly thief might eye a fat purse. The duke scowled and returned the animal's feral look. Joy lifted Beezle to her shoulder and he crawled up, settling into his favorite position, but instead of going to sleep, he pulled the pins from her knot of hair.

"Beezle! No!" She tried to grab the pins, but she wasn't fast enough. Her hair cascaded down her back, past her waist, and down to the backs of her thighs. She heard the duke take a sharp breath. Probably in irritation, she thought. She plucked the weasel off her shoulders and set him in the chair.

She retrieved the hairpins and then straightened, grabbing a handful of hair and twisting it into a coil around her hand. "He does that sometimes. He likes to play with hair, twisting it, braiding it, chewing it. This will take me a few minutes."

She walked over to the small dressing table and sat on the bench, watching in the mirror as she sectioned off a handful of hair and twisted it around her hand before pinning it at her neck. She was bent over, trying to wrap the very back section when she felt the duke standing behind her, watching her. He seemed fascinated by what she was doing.

"My hair is terribly long and takes so much time. I-"

"It's lovely." He reached out and lifted a strand, rubbing it through his fingers as if he had never felt hair before.

"Can you hand me that last section please, the one in the back?" She held her hand out, but he didn't move. It was as if he hadn't heard her at all. She waited, watching him and trying to read his expression. He continued to finger her hair. The only sound in the room was the crackle and snap of dry wood in the fireplace. The smell of burning oak and the stale perfume of the women who had sat here before her mixed with the scent of this man to whom she was so attuned. After a minute he glanced up and met her gaze in the mirror. He looked ill at ease, very ill at ease.

"Here." He handed her the section of hair and turned away, walking over to stand by the door and wait.

Joy stuck in the last pin, stood up, and crossed back to the chair. She put her hat on, tying the ribbons beneath her chin as she leaned to the right so she could catch his reflection in the mirror. He was just out of sight.

She tugged the ribbons into a lopsided bow and gave the crown of the hat a quick pat, watching the listing feather flop like a broken twig. The hat was a mess, but it would keep Beezle from picking her hair apart again. She picked up her snoring weasel, slung him around her neck, and joined the duke.

His back was to her, his hands clasped behind him while he rocked on his heels and stared at nothing.

"I am ready."

He turned but didn't meet her look, just reached out and, after a slight hesitation, clasped her elbow and opened the door.

A richly dressed red-haired woman almost fell through the doorway. Two women behind her grabbed her pistachio green skirt with both hands to steady her. There was a second of scuffling, the rustle of silk skirts, and then the three of them flowed into the room like a gaggle of colorful geese.

"Oh! Your Grace!" The woman took great pains to brush her brocade dress instead of looking at the duke. "That horrid room out there is too stuffy. I was so overcome with weakness that I leaned against the door for support. Your Grace caught me by surprise."

"His Grace caught you trying to get an earful," he said under his breath.

Joy glanced up at him, biting back a smile. His Grace had made a jest. She expected to see some amusement on his face. She was wrong. He gave the woman the ducal glare, but she seemed completely unaware of it and of his comment. She was staring right at Joy, and she looked stunned.

The woman quickly overcame her shock and with one determined sidestep scanned Joy from the top of her head to her shoes. Joy knew instantly that this red-haired woman could, with one wee look, gauge her weight, height, and shoe size in less time than it took a kettle to whistle.

"Why, Your Grace, I don't believe I've met your... your-"

"Betrothed," he interrupted, ignoring the woman's sharp intake of breath. "Lady Agnes Voorhees, Lady Eugenia Wentworth, and Mrs. Claire Timmons, may I present Miss Joyous MacQuarrie."

"A Scot!" Lady Agnes gasped, clutching her throat as if she expected Joy to grow a second head. If it hadn't been for the duke, Joy might have tried to conjure one up for the rude woman.

Lady Agnes stepped back, and her two companions backed away, too, their faces revealing abject horror.

Joy watched them, wondering how they'd react if they knew she was a Scottish witch. She looked at the red-haired woman's nose, which was elevated so she could look down at Joy.

One wart, Joy thought. Perhaps I could just give her one wee wart.

Before she could even picture the image in her mind's eye, the duke placed her hand through his arm and rested a cool hand atop hers. "If you will excuse us, madam, we have a wedding to attend."

And he walked Joy through the doorway, pausing between the woman's two companions, who scurried aside as if met by the plague. He stood a good two heads taller than any of the three women, and he squared his shoulders and looked down at Joy. "Isn't it a shame, my dear, that your grandparents, the earl and the countess, were unable to be here."

From behind her, Joy heard Lady Agnes gasp. She stifled the urge to smile and before she could even venture a peek at the woman, the duke led her away, a distinct look of supreme satisfaction on his face. She looked up at him as they walked through the inn. He was staring straight ahead, his jaw firm with a duke's pride, his hand still rested atop hers, as if to provide some assurance and protection. At that instant it seemed to Joy as if her handsome duke had just grown a foot taller.

Chapter 7.

The little brownstone church with its high narrow white spire stood at the north end of the village of Cropsey where a small brook meandered through a deep gray copse of skeletal willow and beech trees. Framing the wide path to the arched chapel doors was a matching brownstone wall thick with frost-laden ivy, where only minutes before, a small wedding party had passed by, never noticing the cold air in their rush to start an impromptu wedding.

The same frost still rimed the surrounding grass, the trees, and the church roof. But inside, past the leaded-glass windows and the walnut pews, the gilded sconces and the white marble and brass baptismal font that sat near the mahogany pulpit, the only frost in the room was in the cold blue eyes of the bridegroom when he turned and saw the uninvited wedding guests.

Chattering like magpies they walked into the church just as the vicar began the ceremony. They settled themselves in the front pew, and the vicar raised his voice so as to be heard over the harping of Lady Agnes. By the time the intruders had quieted, the bride and groom were repeating their vows.

The duke slid his signet ring onto Joy's finger, then held her hand in his tight grip so the ring wouldn't fall off. She watched his face, but his expression did not reveal any emotion. The earl's speculative and drink-ruddied face stared at her from the duke's right side. She had caught Downe watching her more than once since the duke had called his friends into the retiring room to announce that she was to be his duchess, that the marriage would take place in an hour, and that they would serve as witnesses.

"What the Lord hath joined together, let no man put asunder."

A sob rivaling that of Sarah Siddons's Lady Macbeth blubbered from behind them. The duke's shoulders stiffened, and his jaw tightened. Joy couldn't help herself. She stole a curious peek over her shoulder at the party in the front pew.

Lady Agnes was sobbing into her lace handkerchief while her beleaguered-looking husband tried unsuccessfully to give her a bit of comfort by patting her heaving shoulder. On her other side were her two friends-Mrs. Timmons, whose most memorable feature was her skin, which was as ruddy as oat flour, and Lady Eugenia, a black-haired mouse of a woman who was so small that at first glance one thought she was a child.

Both women stared at Joy as if to memorize her every feature. She suddenly felt like a butterfly specimen pinned to a board, but she had no time to worry because the duke squeezed her hand firmly enough to get her attention. She turned back just as the vicar congratulated the duke and then turned to her.

"Best wishes, Your Grace."

Joy waited for her husband to answer. After a long silence she looked up at him. He nodded toward the vicar, who was looking at her expectantly. The duke slipped his arm around her and leaned down. "Scottish?"

The intimate sound of that name whispered down at her turned her blood to warm honey. She looked up at him.

"He is speaking to you. You're a duchess now."Feeling her face flush bright red, she averted her eyes and mumbled, "Thank you.""Oh! What a lovely day!" Lady Agnes wedged her way past the viscount to stand barely a nose length from Joy. "Such a pity your family could not be here." She waved her handkerchief in front of Joy's faceand then leaned even closer, her face instantly feral. "Who are they, my dear?"

"Your Grace," the duke corrected her, his voice ice and steel and his arm holding Joy protectively close.It was Lady Agnes's turn to step back. Joy was sure anyone else would have run out of the kirk inDevil-fear in the face of that cold tone. Lady Agnes had more gall.

"Why-why, of course. Forgive me, Your Grace. I know how unnerving a wedding can be, don't I,Henry dear? I have married off three daughters."

"Bought husbands for them," the earl of Downe said to the viscount Seymour in a loud whisper.Lady Agnes didn't hear him because she was still rattling on. "And it was not that long ago that I myselfwas married."

"Forty years at least," muttered Downe."Of course my family attended the ceremony, and my mother-""The dragon," the earl said under his brandied breath."She sought to ease my nervousness, but then, your mother is not here, is she, my-Your Grace?"Lord Henry must have seen the duke's eyes turn as lethal as a raiding laird's, because he tugged on his wife's arm and her two friends began to back down the aisle."This wedding is private. You may leave by those doors." The duke nodded toward the church entrance."Well, I nev-""Time to leave, dearest." Lord Henry clamped a hand over his wife's mouth and pulled her down the aisle, her indignant muttering muffled by his hand.

Only when the doors closed behind them did the duke turn back to Joy. His look softened a bit. "Weneed to sign the register. Then I promise we shall leave as swiftly as possible.""Your Grace?""Alec.""Alec," she repeated, the sound of his name doing odd things to her insides. "Here." She handed him back the ring. "I am afraid I will lose this."

He stared at her outstretched hand; his ring was so large it took up a good portion of her palm. He tookit and slid it on his finger. "I shall see about another ring as soon as possible.""I don't need one if-"

"You are the duchess of Belmore. You will wear a ring befitting your station." He took her elbow and led her toward the altar. She had hoped he would give her a ring; it would serve as a reminder that this wasn't a dream. A ring was real, something she could touch and hold, something that would show the world they were married.

They went up the steps to the altar and toward the right, near the pulpit, where a cleric stood with pen and ink. He wrote something, then turned the vellum book toward them. Joy stared at the entry: His Grace, Alec Gerald David John James Mark Castlemaine, duke of Belmore, of the Belmore Parish, and Joyous Fiona MacQuarrie of Dervaig, Scotland, a Protestant, were married in Cropsey Chapel by license this day, the thirtieth of December in the year 1813 by me, Jonathan Potsworth, vicar. This marriage was solemnized between us: The cleric handed the pen to the duke. He signed the register, then dipped the pen in the ink and handed it to Joy. Her hand was shaking like a birch branch in the wind. She was almost tempted to grab her wrist with her other hand so she could sign legibly. She took a deep breath and signed her name. Then her husband handed the pen to his friends to witness. The viscount signed and turned to congratulate the duke and gallantly wish Joy the best. She liked this man. Nervous and fidgety as he was, he had kind eyes and a sincere smile.

"Please, Your Grace, call me Neil. I'm sure we will be fast friends."

"Thank you, my lord. Neil it will be, but you must call me Joy."

"Surely a name selected by the gods, and very appropriate." He kissed her hand and smiled.

Meanwhile, the earl was weaving over the book. "Hold the bloody thing still, Seymour."

The three turned and looked at the earl. She hadn't thought it was possible, but he was even drunker now than he had been earlier. Neil grabbed his friend's shoulder and steadied him, being careful not to apply pressure to the slung arm. The earl rested the sling on the register lectern and scratched a drunken scrawl across half the page, sideways.

He straightened his back, teetered a bit, then gave her a lascivious leer while rocking slightly. "I'm Richard, and I would like to kiss more than your hand."

Alec's arm tensed and she glanced down at his hand. It was in a white fist. She looked up. His face had not changed, did not look the least concerned. His fist told her that his face lied.

A second later Richard's eyes rolled back and he slumped against a column. The only thing holding him upright was the viscount.

"Best get him to a room before he passes out. Not up to snuff, passing out in a church." He tugged on the earl's good arm.

"Need a drink." Richard rummaged through his coat with his good hand. "Where's m' brandy?"

"Gone." Neil helped him walk the few steps to the side door.

"Wait." Richard dug his heels into the carpet. "Belmore can't abandon us here." He pulled his arm out of Neil's grip and turned back, giving them an insolent grin. "What would people think?"

"He's made arrangements to rent Hobson's horses," Neil told him. "We'll ride back to London in the morning." He turned to Joy. "Have a pleasant wedding trip, Your Grace. This is destiny, you know. The fates chose you, and now everything is right." He looked at the duke. "Even if Belmore here refuses to believe it."

"I need a bloody drink!""Stifle it, Downe. You are in a church for God's sake.""I don't believe in God. The only good thing he ever created was brandy!" He jerked his arm away from the viscount.Neil grabbed him again and helped him walk out of the church."Is he always like that?" Joy asked.Alec looked at her, then glanced back at the door. "Of late. He didn't used to be. People change." He grasped her arm. "The carriage is waiting.""Wait, please. Where is Beezle?" Joy looked around, frantic."Henson has him.""Your footman?""Our footman."They walked through the doors and directly to the carriage where Henson immediately opened the door and pulled down the carriage steps. Beezle clung to his back and was happily chewing away on the

footman's queue."Your Grace," he said, bowing as if it was perfectly normal for him to have an ermine weasel clinging tohim like a leech.

Joy plucked Beezle off his back. "Thank you, Henson, for taking care of him.""Certainly, Your Grace."Joy glanced at the footman. His hair hung loose outside the ribbon that had previously tied back his queue. She looked at her familiar. He was sleeping in her arms, innocently sleeping. Joy dismissed it, knowing how fascinated her familiar was with hair, and let the servant help her inside. Her husband barked a few orders while she settled Beezle and herself onto the seat. The duke joined them, and a few minutes later they were off.

Four long and relatively silent hours later the carriage slowed and turned, then ambled through a guarded gate and down a long drive flanked by majestic old elms and pollard trees. Joy watched with silent curiosity as they passed massive tree after massive tree.

She had studied her husband for the last silent hour, not daring to again ask if they were almost there- he had seemed irritated after the sixth time-and wondering how close they actually were to Belmore Park. To her delight he had volunteered the information as they passed through the last quaint little village. Belmore Park was right outside this village, he'd said.

She had pressed her nose to the cold window to watch the timbered houses and rustic high-roofed thatched cottages pass by. She'd caught a glimpse of a wee burn edged with hazel trees. They'd trotted past a tall white kirk high on a hill with a spreading hawthorn tree perched nearby. Black smoke had billowed into the winter sky from an open smithy where a cumbersome ancient wagon stood in disrepair behind an old and weather-stained wall. Village dogs had barked a loud, continuous harangue when they passed the village green where a group of curious children stopped playing to point and gaze in awe at the carriage.

It had been nearly an hour since they left the village children to resume their game of blindman's buff in the common, and every minute since had seemed an eternity, especially since she was so terribly eager to see her new home.

Still peering out the window, she spotted what appeared to be glassy water past the tall border of pollard trees. She moved her head, eager to get a better look, but the carriage passed a low wall, then turned through a smaller set of iron gates decorated with the ducal crest. A heartbeat later a huge home loomed before her gawking eyes.

They halted in front of a tall columned portico with cream-colored limestone steps and thick carved stone balustrades fanning outward from the steps like welcoming arms. There was a quick fluttering flash of someone in the beveled-glass sidelights that framed the enormous polished walnut doors. They opened, and a rush of green and gold liveried footmen came down the steps.

Met with all the pomp and circumstance awarded to a conquering monarch, she thought, watching as the footmen lined up like guardsmen on either side of the steps. Joy expected them to break out the trumpets at any second. Instead, the carriage door opened and her husband, the laird of the manor, descended, then turned to help her down. She placed her hand in his and paused. Just the touch of his hand could turn her heart over.

"This is our home, Belmore Park." There was pride in his voice, the first emotion she sensed that he did not try to hide.

She looked up and her mouth fell open. Completely awestruck she craned her head back to take in all of the palatial glory of her new home.

It was three stories tall and completely made of pale stone with what appeared to be near a hundred huge pillastered leaded-glass windows. Duart Castle also had glass, but nothing like this, and the castle windows were small, little more than old arrow slits in the tower rooms where she had lived. The glass, as rustic and old as the castle itself, was thick and wavy and filmed with the salt of the sea. But here there was so much leaded crystalline glass that at first glance the windows looked like diamonds set in pale stone. She wondered how this house would look in spring with the sun shining on all that glass. It would be almost like a magic spell-a thousand stars sparkling in the light of day.

"This is incredible." Her eager eyes scanned the facade and the four three-story angular bays that stood out, giving an impression of depth.

"It was built by Sir John Thynne, after the original house burned down. See the balustrade along the roof?"

Joy followed his hand to the roofline of the house where an ornamental railing bordered the flat roof.

"And those domed buildings and chimneys?"Her eyes were drawn to the pepperpot domes, heraldic beasts, and exotic chimneys and strapwork thatcreated the whimsical image of an ironwork ball dancing across the skyline. She counted fourteen elaborately designed chimneys with ornamental turrets with finial beasts prancing atop them. Fourteen ofthem visible from the front alone!"The buildings with those domed roofs are small banqueting rooms that can be used for dinner parties.""Dinner parties? On the roof?""The view is quite pleasing."Dumbfounded, she just stared at him. After a second she looked back up at the roof. Quite pleasing?

She would have wagered she could see clear to Scotland from that roof.He led her up the steps, past the stiff footmen who lined it, and into the entry. Her stomach knotted atthe sight that greeted her. Her astonished gaze followed the chessboard-marble floor to the staircase,then up and up to a gallery with an intricately worked brass banister. Decorative plastered columns rose... and rose and rose... upward to a painted ceiling surrounded by more plasterwork and tall glasswindows."It's painted.""Hmm?""The dome in the ceiling. It looks like an oil painting."The duke followed her look. "Oh, that? It's a fresco. Louis Laguerre did them. They are scenes from the life of Julius Caesar.""Oh, that?" he had said. As in, "Oh, that old thing?""The staff is waiting."She turned and looked behind her toward the center of the great hall, where a large number of servants -close to a hundred of them, she surmised-waited to pay homage to the laird, her new husband. Panicked, she looked at him. He seemed completely oblivious to the fact that he was leading her over to meet a hundred people.

She, who couldn't even remember an incantation, was expected to remember their names? Such folly she had gotten herself into this time-and without even using her magic. She whispered, "Oh, my goodness."

He paused and looked at her, his expression puzzled. "Is something wrong?""How will I remember their names?""Their names?" He gave the eternal line a cursory glance. "They are servants. They are employed by me.

You needn't know their names.""Of course I do."

"Why?""They are people.""Of course they're people, but they're servants first and foremost.""Oh, I see," she said, even though she didn't see at all. It seemed heartless to think of them as servants instead of people. She changed tack, hoping he'd see her point. "Were they born into their positions

here?""As a matter of fact, some of them were. It is an honor to be employed by the duke of Belmore. Theyare paid well and have the prestige of saying they work at Belmore."