wiles that aging and unattractive spinsters will employ when more genteel methods have failed to net them an eligible husband. If you are not very careful, Lady Freyja Bedwyn will trap you into compromising her virtue and you will find yourself forced to offer for her.'
His lips twitched as he thought of the inn room in which he had first encountered Lady Freyja and of yesterday's hot embrace on the white rock up in the hills. He wondered if she would appreciate the joke if he were to tell her what his aunt had just said-or would her wrath know no bounds?
'Oh, you may smile, Joshua,' his aunt said, looking frail and weary. 'But do not say you have not been warned.'
'I will not, Aunt,' he promised.
'I can scarcely believe,' she said, 'that Constance is already three and twenty. How times does fly. She should have been married long ago. I should have grandchildren to comfort my old age. But tragedy has kept the poor girl unwed this long. Albert died just when she ought to have been making her come-out, and since then my health has been too fragile to enable me to endure a Season in London. Then, just when I thought that perhaps I was recovering enough strength to do what was right for both Constance and Chastity, Hallmere suffered his heart seizure and died. Now I do not know when my dear girls can be expected to settle in life. And as for Prudence . . .' She sighed piteously.
There was a rather lengthy pause during which Joshua knew exactly what was coming, though he was powerless to prevent it.
'It is time you considered marriage, Joshua,' she said. 'You are eight and twenty, and you are Hallmere now. It is your duty to produce a male heir for Penhallow. And it is your duty to provide for your cousins since you are their legal guardian-except for Constance, of course, who is of age and has come into her portion. It is time you put behind you these years when you have been sowing your wild oats, as the vulgar phrase would have it. I do not begrudge you that time or that wildness, Joshua, though Albert never showed any inclination to desert his home or his father or his sisters-or his mother. But I beg you now to remember your duty. And I beg you too not to resent this gentle reminder from the aunt who has loved you and nurtured you all your life.'
'Except for the first six years, Aunt,' he said quietly but firmly, 'when my mother and father were still alive.'
'May God rest their souls,' she said. 'Do you have a possible bride in mind?'
'I do not,' he said. 'But I will inform you as soon as I am betrothed, Aunt. It will be some considerable time in the future. And I have exercised my guardianship over Chastity and Prue-I have left them undisturbed at Penhallow with you. Constance too.'
'I know you love them, dear Joshua.' She regarded him with sad, fond eyes-until they lit up, apparently with a sudden idea. 'How absolutely delightful it would be if you were to conceive a tendre for Constance. It would not be at all surprising. She is a sensible, dutiful girl, and she is in good looks, is she not? She has always been fond of you-and you of her, I remember. How perfectly . . . right it would be for you to marry the sister of your wards. I cannot imagine why I have not thought of this before now.'
'Constance is my first cousin, Aunt,' he pointed out.
'Cousins marry all the time,' she said. 'It is a sensible thing to do, Joshua. It keeps titles and lands and fortunes in one family, as well as duties and responsibilities.'
'I am not about to turn either you or Constance or my other cousins off penniless, Aunt,' Joshua said, 'even if I had the power to do so. There is really no need for you to foist one of your daughters on me.'
'Foist.' She spoke faintly and wilted back into her chair. She produced a black-bordered handkerchief from somewhere and raised it to her lips. 'I offer you my dearest Constance and you accuse me of foisting her on you? But you were ever ungrateful, Joshua. You were a difficult boy to raise, and then you shamed your uncle by spurning his generous hospitality and going to live in the village to work as a carpenter. And then you came back and forth to the house, supposedly to visit Prudence, and . . . Well, I try not even to think of the shameful vulgarity of your behavior. And when Albert went to confront and reprimand you . . . But I have made every effort to put the painful memories behind me and to forgive you. It is the Christian thing to do and has ever been my way. I have been prepared to believe that five years must have matured you, made you a better person. I have trusted you sufficiently to offer you my own daughter. Yet you speak of foisting?'
She had shriveled into what seemed like half of her usual self-a trick she had always had of drawing pity and remorse and ultimate acquiescence from anyone who had been foolish enough to try thwarting her will. She dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief.
'I daresay,' he said, 'Constance has no desire to be foisted upon me either, Aunt.'
'Constance has always been a dutiful girl,' she said. 'She will do as I advise. She knows that I always have her own good at heart. And how could any girl not wish to be the Marchioness of Hallmere? I shall relinquish the title to her without any reluctance at all. I shall delight in the title of dowager.'
Joshua got to his feet. 'I would not talk of this as if it were a foregone conclusion if I were you, Aunt,' he said firmly. 'You would doubtless be doomed to disappointment. Constance ought to have been allowed to stay for this discussion. I am convinced she would disabuse you once and for all of the notion that we will marry. You must not upset yourself, though. I have informed you before that I have no intention of returning to Penhallow to live. It is your home. You may live there in peace for the rest of your life. My cousins may live there for the rest of theirs if they do not marry.'
If by some strange chance he ever did marry Constance and take up his residence at Penhallow, he thought, his aunt would have to go. She doubtless did not have the imagination to realize that.
She gazed pitifully up at him, her eyes brimming with tears.
'You were always a hard, unfeeling boy, Joshua,' she said. 'But I will not take offense. And I will not despair. I will consult Constance, and she will agree with me that a marriage between the two of you is the only decent way in which you can atone for your past actions.'
There, Joshua thought, he had allowed her after all to get under his skin like a sharp and jabbing needle. He was angry when he ought to have kept his feelings aloof, even amused. She was going to try to wear down Constance's defenses, if she had not already done so, and then use his fondness for his cousin to make him feel guilty for resisting her suggestion-her utterly preposterous suggestion.
The trouble was he was stupidly afraid. The woman was the very fiend for getting her own way.
'There is a concert at the Upper Rooms this evening,' he said. 'Will you wish to go?'
