hour. It should be over by three."He lifted his eyebrows, an expression that brought a flood of memories. "You are anauthority on funerals, I find."

"I've attended a number," she said shyly. "With your mother.""Have you indeed. What a dutiful daughter-in-law.""It is no trouble," she said. "I enjoy them."He turned his head back to her. 'The devil you say. You enjoy this?""It is the way English people do things." Zenia stroked the muff. "It's very sad for the families, of course. But- well, it hasn't been anyone that I know who died.""Oh?" He made a wry face. "Did I not even rate a memorial service?"She kept stroking the muff, over and over. "There was a memorial.""Did you shed a tear, wolf cub?"She lifted her eyes. His old name for her seemed to echo in the chill air between them. Abruptly he looked away, out the window again, the gray light harsh on hischeekbones and his profile."You've been eating well," he said.Zenia was vividly aware that her figure had changed. Her breasts and hips were full and round, still shaped by Elizabeth's effect on her body, and none of her bones showed anywhere. It was no more than a candid observation, no different than she might say that he had been long in the desert sun-and yet she flushed. He had made Elizabeth inside her, changed her body and her life.

They sat like strangers. They were strangers.

"Everything is different now," she said.

He gave a sarcastic laugh. "Certainly. You're wearing a dress. Allah akhbar!"

"I will not speak Arabic," she said stiffly. "I am done with that."

"I see," he said. "Pardon me, Lady Winter."

He stopped the landau at the gate and got down, sending it on up the drive without him. Ahead, the coach that carried his mother and her daughter-in-law had already disappeared around the curve of the landscaped grounds. He had let her escape-or perhaps he had let himself escape-at the funeral luncheon, making no protest when she went into the other rig with his mother.

He stood looking at the iron gates emblazoned with the crest of Belmaine, ignoring the keeper. The man touched his forelock, went inside the porter lodge, and then tried to stand out of sight behind the curtains to spy. Arden didn't know him. He had never paid much attention to the servants at Swanmere. There was little point; under his mother's exacting requirements, the turnover was so steady that all the employees were known in the house by their position rather than their name. Engaging and dismissing were two of her prime pastimes.

He turned, walking up the drive until he came to a familiar tree. The rhododendrons had grown higher under it, but beyond their arching branches, the path still wound down through the wood. He pushed aside dew-laden winter twigs with his cane. His breath steamed and vanished in the cold air.

He stopped before he came in sight of the lake. He was not quite ready for that yet. Or the house; he was not ready for that either. He was doing it in stages.

There was a little taste of smoke in the air, and wet leaves, and perhaps the first edge of a frost to come in the night. He closed his eyes, breathing the winter in an English wood. If he could have lived all his life in a forest, he thought, like some hermit, or a fox in a hole, he would not have had to leave England.

He remembered that he had dug a burrow once in this wood, tunneling back beneath the great roots of an elm, a den so deep that he could crawl all the way inside and turn around and curl up like a woodchuck. He had lined it with a horse blanket and laid there for hours, pretending he was a bear. Or sometimes a mole, squinting up his eyes and trying to smell worms in the dark.

He's rather a furtive boy, madam, said one of his governesses. Perhaps a companion his own age would bring him out.

And so the repellent cousin three times removed came and spent a summer, jumping up and down on Arden's burrow so that the roof caved, and peaching on him when he tried to put the horse blanket back. Arden had learned how to fight that summer, and run away on a dare. He only got as far as the local tavern, but that was merely the beginning. He liked running away. He got devilish good at it. By the time he was fourteen, he'd joined the army, and only the bad luck of being recognized by a footman who had just been dismissed from Swanmere and taken the king's shilling had prevented Arden from marching away with the Eighty-second Foot.

He came to the elm, still standing on the crest of its steep bank, its roots running out through the leaves and soft soil. The tunnel was long vanished, but he sat down on the thick root that had formed a lintel over the passage.

He took off his hat and put his face down on his crossed arms.

He dimly remembered fragile, sun-kissed, dusty beauty- but she was utterly magnificent. The jet black silk, tight-waisted, with voluminously spreading skirts, the feathered bonnet, the net gloves and sable muff: all were formidably elegant. Her face was like ivory framed in this stylish black outline, cool and white, her dark eyes brushed with rich lashes, the curve of her cheek soft purity, her mouth calm perfection. She did not look like anyone he had ever seen before. She looked like a goddess of fashion and ice.

Between her and the dream in the desert, there was no remotest link. It dazed him to imagine he had made love to that stunning woman in black. He would not have had the presumption. In spite of her beauty, he thought that with the slightest effort, he could actively dislike her. He hated society ladies. He'd called her by his name for her, and she had only looked enquiringly at him, as if he had committed some faintly embarrassing faux pas.

If it had been her alone, he would have stood up now and turned and walked away from Swanmere. There was no more a legal marriage between them than pigs could fly. She was an actress indeed; she could transform from a Bedu boy to a vulnerable female to Lady Winter, but he could strip her of this new pretense in an instant.

And yet he did not walk away. They said he had a daughter. He was not, having seen what a remote stranger this woman was, instantly ready to accept her child as his own. But he did not deny that it was possible. He could remember the fact of having lain with her-he just could not in his mind transform the fact into the living existence of a child of that ephemeral union.

She had been a virgin. That was one of the more powerful imprints of the memory. He had never taken a virgin before. And he had not had a woman since.

A startling spike of desire ran through him. He lifted his head and contemplated the trunk of a tree. After such a long abstinence, he was living continually at a low-level smolder, but to meet it so suddenly and intensely, touched off by the thought of her -his own reaction unnerved and annoyed him.

He hurled a pebble and watched it strike the trunk and bounce back. Then he dusted the dirt from his hands and stood up. He could not put it off forever.

As he walked along the path, he could see the house appear through the trees. The lake reflected a gray sky, sheer silver with a long leisurely V spreading in the middle where one of the black swans paddled. Beyond, the handsome facade of Swanmere dominated the long rise of lawn, a white precision of form and adornment, tall pedimented windows and pilasters and urns in a calibrated sweep of majesty.

Arden stopped. His breath seemed to condense in his chest. His mouth and jaw hardened.

So long. So long it had been. And yet it looked the same. Always precisely the same. Huge and cold and flawless.

He closed his eyes and gave a silent, aching laugh. The elm tree and vanished burrow seemed more like home.

For a ridiculous moment, as he started down the path that circled the lake, he wished he had Selim at his side. The silent laugh escaped in an outraged chuckle. Selim! His mouth lifted in a sneer, and he thrust the tip of his cane deep in the damp ground as he pushed off.

Zenia had gone directly to change, not pausing with Lady Belmaine in the saloon. Let her tell Lord Belmaine that his son had finally come-Zenia wanted Elizabeth.

She interrupted her daughter in a game of nesting spoons together between her chubby fingers. Zenia dismissed the nurse and caught the child up in her arms, pressing her face into Elizabeth's tummy, making bubbling noises. Elizabeth laughed and grabbed for Zenia's hat plume. The leading strings on her blue-and-white pinafore dangled as Zenia carried her.

Elizabeth did not live in the nursery. Zenia could not bear to be separated so far from her. They slept together in Zenia's own bed, and the adjoining chamber held a crib and playthings and a cot for the nurse. Lady Belmaine did not approve of this arrangement, Zenia knew, but neither she nor Lord Belmaine seemed to take any deep interest in their granddaughter. Lady Belmaine had not favored Elizabeth since her birth, because she was not a boy, and Lord Belmaine's only comment had been that he was not much of one for babies, but he thought her a charming child-a remark that somehow implied that he would take a look at her again when she grew up, but probably not before.

Zenia did not mind. Elizabeth belonged to her. She was glad she had not had a boy -she well knew that Lord and Lady Belmaine would have exercised their authority to the utmost with a boy, and never allowed her to keep him with her to spoil and adore and cherish. But they let her do as she pleased with Elizabeth, as long as she did not take her daughter away from Swanmere. And on the baby's first birthday, the earl had called Zenia into his study and showed her the papers that made Elizabeth his sole heiress outside of generous jointures for Lady Belmaine and Zenia. "The title will go into abeyance, of course," he had said, sitting behind his great desk, never lifting his eyes from the papers before him, "but I have arranged that the entail shall be commuted. When she marries, her husband must take the Mansfield name, and with that proviso her male issue inherits. I need not subject you to the legal details, as they are rather tedious, but you may be assured that the girl will have everything."

He had been very cold and businesslike when Zenia had thanked him. "You need not thank me." He had looked up at her at last with his pale blue eyes. "Bluntly, madam, I have waited this long to be entirely certain that the child is my son's. But the resemblance is incontestable. That being the case, this is simply the proper and fitting way in which things must be left."

At the time, Zenia had not agreed that there was any resemblance at all, though she would never have dared say so. Now, she knew what the earl meant. And somehow it chilled and frightened her. He had come back, this man who was Elizabeth's father, and somehow in spite of utterly different features and coloring, she looked like him.

Zenia carried Elizabeth into her room and bounced her down on the bed. "You're mine," she said, wiggling her daughter's feet. "Mine, mine, mine. Isn't that right?"

"G' dow'!" The toddler immediately rolled over and maneuvered herself to crawl off the edge. She was a wayward and strong-willed child, inclined to tantrums if she was thwarted. Zenia caught her before she fell off the high bed, rolling her three times over to the bedstool, where Elizabeth very cleverly managed to climb down herself. She instantly headed back for her spoons, giggling wildly as she avoided Zenia's pass at catching her.

Zenia let her go, untying the black ribbon on her bonnet. Her fingers were not quite shaking, but they were still clumsy. He was back. He had come back alive. She threw the bonnet on her bed and rang for her maid.

The girl who attended her was silent but for a brief question of what ma'am would like to wear. Zenia stared into her wardrobe. All of the gowns were black or gray or lavender-at the end of a year Lady Belmaine had supposed, in her calm way, that Lord Winter's widow would not care to go entirely out of mourning. At first Zenia had not minded, but lately, she had begun to think wistfully of colors like the other ladies wore.

That was before they had learned that she was not, after all, a widow. Or even a counterfeit widow. Zenia had had two weeks to become accustomed to it, and still she had felt as if something was clutched about her heart, stifling its ability to beat. And the moment she had heard his voice in the church-she was surprised that she had not crumbled into a thousand quivering pieces.

He had taken a week longer to come than expected. A week longer in which to wonder how he would look, what he would say, whether he would denounce her openly as a fraud. Lord Belmaine said nothing of that to her; he had simply nodded to her and murmured, with a slight acidity, that they were all gratified by the news that Lord Winter had not after all met an untimely end. He seemed so unconcerned about his son's arrival that he thought nothing of suddenly plunging most of the great house into a state of repair and renovation, closing wings and giving over bedrooms to painters and carpenters. They were hammering now in the chamber beside hers.

Dressed in the least morbid of the dusky lavender gowns, with a small lace cap and her hair pulled back to fall in curling ringlets behind her ears, she hugged Elizabeth.

She covered her daughter's face with desperate kisses in spite of wriggles and protests, and put her down. Zenia walked out of the room before her legs could fail her and descended the stairs.

Swanmere was the sort of house she thought her majestic mother must have grown up in. There was a great fresco, a tumble of activity among gods and goddesses and lesser creatures that cascaded all across the walls and ceiling of the grand staircase. At the foot, standing unsmiling beside a painted spaniel, a servant waited to escort her to the saloon they called the King of Prussia room, named for some visit of state a century before. He opened the tall door, bowed, and closed it behind her.

Lady Belmaine ceased speaking in her level, modulated voice, that tone that could sting with such discreet, unerring accuracy, and cast a glance at Zenia.

"Ah," Lord Belmaine said pleasantly. "Here is your wife."

The room seemed to be a hundred miles long. Zenia walked forward, her feet silent on the carpet, past gilt furniture and straw-gold drapes, to where Lord Winter stood leaning casually against one of the white columns that flanked the windows at the upper end of the room. She stopped, managing to look as high as his plain dark waistcoat for a moment, and sank into a curtsy.

"Never mind the formality," he murmured dryly. "We've met."

She lifted her eyes.

"I want to see my daughter," he said.

CHAPTER 14.

"She is sleeping," Zenia said quickly.

'Then I'll go to her." He had an implacable air, standing up straight from the pillar. "If you will pardon me."

Zenia felt a wave of anxiety. He seemed too ruthless; his expression too hard and unfeeling; she thought that he would frighten Elizabeth. As he walked past her without a look, she turned hastily to follow.

"She is not in the nursury, my lord," she said as he mounted the stairs. "She stays in my bedchamber."

He stopped with his hand on the carved banister, looking back at her. "Where is your bedchamber, Lady Winter?"

Zenia flushed at the question and the implication in his eyes. "On the second floor. The westernmost."

He seemed for a moment to consider that. "I see."

He turned, going up before her two steps at a time. In her voluminous skirts, she could not follow quickly enough to keep up. "My lord-please!" she called. "If you would wait-" But by the time she had reached the top of the grand staircase, he had disappeared up the back stairs to the uppermost floor.

She met the nurse in the hall. The woman was closing the door, but she paused as she saw Zenia and dropped a curtsy, smiling. "Her papa!" the nurse whispered, with a bouyant look. "Perhaps they will do better alone for a moment, ma'am."

Zenia ignored her, pushing open the door. She was in time to see Lord Winter lower himself onto the floor cross-legged next to Elizabeth. The little girl looked up at Zenia. She said, "Mama," with a smile, gave Lord Winter a brief distrustful glance, and turned back to her spoons.

"What is that?" Lord Winter asked, bending over Elizabeth's lap, his back to Zenia.

"Mah," Elizabeth said.

"She can't talk yet," Zenia said firmly. "She's only eighteen months."

"Spoons," Lord Winter said, tapping the silverware as if she hadn't spoken.

'"Poo," Elizabeth said.

"Spoons!" he said.

Elizabeth handed them to him. He accepted the spoons and held his forefinger between the handles, making them chatter against one another. Elizabeth burst into a smile. She grabbed the spoons back, and then handed them to him again. He rattled them, and she seized the silverware, instantly offering it back again. '"Poo!"

For ten rounds, the spoons went back and forth, Elizabeth punctuating every exchange with an emphatic, '"Poo!" Then Lord Winter held up the pair and brought it chattering up to her face, catching her nose between the bowls.

Elizabeth yelped with pleasure. She seized a spoon in each hand and waved them at his face, crawling forward. She trundled herself into his lap and shrieked joyfully when he toppled backward, carrying her up in his hands so that she sailed above him.

Zenia bit hard on her lower lip. She had a passionate desire to rush up and snatch Elizabeth away. She was a difficult child. Everyone said so. No one had ever played on the floor with her daughter but her. No one else could make Elizabeth laugh so happily.

"She should take her nap now," she said.

"Go away." Lord Winter wriggled Elizabeth and swept her in wide circles and dives above him as she giggled and hiccuped. She was growing too heavy for Zenia to do that easily anymore.

Zenia leaned her back upon the door. She was not going to leave Elizabeth alone with this man. This stranger. "She will be sick if she continues to hiccup in that convulsive manner."

Elizabeth made a plunging descent, her squeals of laughter echoing from the walls. For an instant she lay facedown against his shoulder, nuzzling against him. He lifted his hand and cupped her head, his long desert-hardened fingers spread amid the honeyed curls as hiccups rocked her.

Zenia took a step forward. "She is inclined to emotional paroxysms if overexcited. I really think it would be better if-"

"Don't you have a ball to attend? Some calls to make?"

Elizabeth tired of her momentary stillness and pushed up to her feet. She looked down at her father with such a glow that Zenia's heart wrung. With pudgy arms outspread, Elizabeth pitched forward and let her dead weight fall onto his chest.

"Ummph!" he said, with a grimace that his daughter thought hilarious. She did it again. And again, and until he held her off, turning onto his side with a stiff, painful move. "Allah yesellimk, beloved. Let's try something else."

"Do not speak Arabic to her, if you please," Zenia said. "It will confuse her. She is not to learn Arabic."

He lay still a moment, while Elizabeth tried to reach him past the length of his hold. When her struggles began to grow frantic, he leaned forward and brought her up close, burying his mouth in the lace beside her ear and muttering something that Zenia could not hear.

Zenia frowned, and then walked to a chair and sat down. Her daughter and Lord Winter paid her no mind, playing on the carpet. They progressed to blocks, the viscount lying propped up on his elbow as he built a tower for Elizabeth to hurl down. After several steeples had gone to pieces, she abruptly turned and came to Zenia, crawling into her lap and reaching for her collar button.

Zenia felt a flood of mortification. Elizabeth lay down, snuggling in anticipation. Lord

Winter sat up and turned toward them."Mama," Elizabeth said insistently, "Mama!" reaching again for her buttons andpressing her face into Zenia's breast.

Hastily, Zenia reached for a towel and spread it over her shoulder and Elizabeth. Shelooked down, unbuttoning her dress underneath. Her daughter, batting the towelaside, contentedly began to nurse.

For a long time, Zenia was too chagrined to raise her eyes. She felt all her face andneck burning with embarrassment. "You need not stare," she said angrily."You'll have to forgive me. It's an unprecedented moment in my life."She pressed her lips together, keeping her face down."She's beautiful," he said quietly."I suppose you think she is much too old to be nursing still.""I can't say that I've thought about it at all.""Lady Belmaine disapproves."

"Well, then. I approve, out of mere perversity."Zenia allowed herself to peek through her eyelashes up at him. He was sitting on thefloor, his ankles crossed, his elbows about his knees. His fingers were interlocked ina strong, easy grip.

"Who named her?" he asked.

"She is named for Miss Williams," Zenia said, with a touch of defiance, "and myaunt Lucy.""Miss-ah. Your mother's maid. My parents raised no objection?""No.""And she was christened as a Mansfield?""Yes." Zenia drew a deep breath. Her milk was growing more scanty. Elizabeth gave up suckling and sighed sleepily. "Yes, she was."

Zenia rebuttoned herself and looked up. He was gazing at her, an unnerving stillnessin his face."Everyone thought you were dead," she said. "Your father insisted on it. And I did not wish my daughter to be-without a name."The question hung between them, unspoken. Will you take it away from her? Shewas afraid to ask it. She did not know him. And it was not his daughter only-it washer, Zenia, that he must accept. She could remember clearly all his biting opinion of women:-most especially deceitful women. She could see that he detested his ownmother. And yet he had played with Elizabeth, he seemed to like her.A new and horrific thought burst into Zenia's mind. Could he somehow keep Elizabeth and not her? Could he send her away from her daughter?"I came near to dying," he said in an even voice, watching her.Zenia remembered a darkened saddle, and blood on the white hairs of a camel. She remembered him running toward her; the rough thrust as he shoved her into the