Morgan Bedwyn, the dark young beauty, curtsied to him and looked him over with frank, dark eyes. Lord Alleyne, the dark-haired young man, looked amused. The fair-haired giant was Lord Rannulf, the gorgeous redhead, his wife, Judith. The pretty, brown-haired lady was Eve, Lady Aidan Bedwyn. Her husband was the dark, dour man, who looked as if he might have spent a year or ten in the military. The children, Davy and Becky, belonged to the latter couple.
'So that is why you dashed away to Bath without a word to anyone just when we were expecting Aidan and Eve and Ralf and Judith to arrive,' Lady Morgan said to her eldest brother. 'You heard about the betrothal and went to see for yourself. Why is it that Wulf hears all the interesting stories and we do not?'
Lord Rannulf was shaking Joshua's hand with a warm, firm grip.
'This is sudden,' he said, grinning. 'But we Bedwyns have a recent history of sudden betrothals and marriages. Why would Free be different?'
'Hallmere?' The dark, granite-faced Lord Aidan Bedwyn shook his hand with a nod but no smile.
His wife was hugging Lady Freyja again, tears in her eyes.
'I am so happy for you, Freyja,' she said. 'I knew it must happen soon.'
The little boy had wormed his way between Joshua and Freyja and was pulling on the skirt of her carriage dress.
'Aunt Freyja,' he said, and tugged again. 'Aunt Freyja, I brought my cricket set with me.'
'Hey, rascal.' Lord Aidan suddenly looked almost human as he reached down to scoop the child up and deposit him astride his shoulders. 'Let your aunt get her foot inside the house before pestering her to play with you. Besides, this is not the season for cricket. We will find something else energetic to do tomorrow.'
'But cricket it will be first, in season or out,' Lady Freyja said, smiling up at the boy and even winking at him. 'I want you on my team, Davy. I'll hit a six in my very first over at bat.'
Joshua looked at her with some interest. She played cricket? He might have known it.
'May I play too?' he asked. 'I am a famous bowler and have been known to prevent a single six being hit for a whole inning-or even a four.'
'Ha!' she said.
The boy was laughing with delight and Lord Aidan made himself look entirely human by smiling.
'I suppose,' he said, 'any season is good for cricket if the Bedwyns say it is.'
'Perhaps,' the Duke of Bewcastle said without at all raising his voice, though all of the boisterous Bedwyns fell silent to listen, 'we should step into the house and gather for tea in the drawing room in half an hour's time?'
'The master has spoken,' Lord Alleyne said with a low chuckle after Bewcastle had preceded them all into the house. He set one arm about Lady Freyja's shoulders and hugged her to his side. 'I am happy for you, Free, if you are happy. And you, Hallmere. We had better file inside like docile lambs.' He strode off ahead of them.
'Whew!' Joshua said, grinning down at Lady Freyja and offering her his arm.
'I have decided,' she said, looking at him haughtily as she took it, 'that I will call you Josh. I refuse to 'my lord' you, I do not wish to call you Hallmere, and Joshua is too biblical. You may call me Freyja.'
'Or Free, as your brothers do?' he suggested.
'Or Free,' she agreed. 'But only as long as we are betrothed. Until Christmas at the latest.'
'I will make free with Free until then,' he said.
She cast him a sidelong look, which assured him that she had not missed either the pun or the double entendre.
They ascended the steps and entered the house. Joshua found himself in an impressive medieval great hall complete with an oak-beamed ceiling, a gigantic fireplace large enough to roast an ox in, whitewashed walls bedecked with coats of arms, banners, and weapons, a minstrel gallery above an intricately carved wooden screen, and a massive oak table filling up much of the floor space.
It looked like the perfect setting for a feast and an orgy.
The christening was to take place two days after her return home, Freyja discovered, and it was to be a grand affair indeed. After the church service late in the morning, all the guests were to proceed to Alvesley Park, home of the Earl of Redfield-and of Kit, Viscount Ravensberg, too-for dinner and a party that would probably last into the evening.
Rannulf and Judith had come all the way from Grandmaison in Leicestershire, where they lived with the Bedwyns' ailing maternal grandmother, whose heir Ralf was-he and Kit had always been best friends. And Aidan and Eve and the children had come because they were not far away in Oxfordshire and because, according to Aidan, he had been away at the wars for so many years that he had missed a decade and more of family and neighborhood events.
It was all going to be a severe trial, Freyja decided. She dreaded the day even with the added security of a betrothed to take along with her. It was stupid to have allowed herself to be so discomposed by an ancient passion-it was four years since she had fallen desperately in love with Kit Butler, and it had lasted for precisely one month. But, of course, there had been the added bother of last year and all its hideous embarrassment. She had behaved badly. She had made an idiot of herself. She had ended up practically begging Kit to give up Lauren in order to marry her and then slamming her fist into poor Ralf's jaw, perhaps because Kit's had not been available at that precise moment.
She would think of tomorrow when tomorrow came, she decided the morning after she arrived home. And she would think of the problem of Josh after tomorrow was over. He was in her debt, she had decided, despite all the walks and rides in Bath. After all, he had enjoyed those walks and rides too. So he owed her his escort for tomorrow. After that she would find some way of drawing him into a ghastly, very public brawl, and she would break off the engagement. She had no intention of waiting until Christmas or later, as Wulfric had suggested. It would be unfair. And she might find it harder to do if she allowed more time to elapse. He was quite alarmingly attractive. That was in addition to his good looks, of course, which had not escaped notice among her family.
