she will allow you to call her Freyja just as she will call you Prue. She is going to be my wife.'
Now, why the devil had he added that?
Prue smiled her wide, guileless child's smile at each of the Bedwyns in turn and repeated their names quietly to herself so that she would not forget them. When Joshua had finished introducing them, she looked at him and laughed.
'And this is Josh,' she said, having noticed that he had not been introduced to anyone.
'And I am Josh,' he said, smiling tenderly at her and setting one arm about her shoulders.
'And you have come home.'
'And I have come home.'
'And you have brought Freyja,' Prue said. 'I like Freyja. I like everyone. I like Eve best, though. Except Josh. I love Josh most in the world. Except for Chass and Constance and-'
'Prudence!' her mother said a little more faintly.
Joshua chuckled and caught Freyja's eye. She was not looking cold or haughty or shocked or repelled or any of the things he might have expected. She was gazing fully at him, a light of sharp curiosity in her eyes.
His aunt led the way into the house. Eve hurried forward and took Prue's arm, a kind and very genuine smile lighting her pretty face, while Aidan strode across the terrace to fetch the children. Morgan and Alleyne had already stepped inside. Joshua offered Freyja his arm.
'She has always been a child,' he said. 'She always will be.'
'And you love her,' Freyja said.
'She is made up of love,' he said. 'There is nothing else in her but love. How could one give back to her anything else but love?'
'Josh,' she said with a sigh, 'this is something I really did not need to know about you.'
'Sweetheart,' he said, laughing softly, 'did you think me incapable of loving? How unsporting of you.'
CHAPTER XVI
The pillared hallway was two stories high with marble friezes and marble busts that would be worth examining more closely some time. The stairway with its wide, gleaming oak stairs and intricately carved banister was in a separate chamber. The drawing room to which the Marchioness of Hallmere led them was a large, square, elegantly classical apartment with an ornately sculptured marble fireplace, silk-paneled walls with gilded trim, a high, coved ceiling painted with scenes from Greek mythology, and a deep bay window with a breathtaking prospect down over the valley and out to-ward the sea.
Freyja did not immediately notice the view, but from the moment she stepped inside the house she realized that it was far grander than she had expected. Yet it was a place to which Joshua had never wanted to return.
Lady Constance was waiting in the drawing room. She smiled with genuine warmth at Joshua and at Freyja. The other lady with her, slender almost to the point of thinness, brown-haired with a long, oval face and large, beautiful, sad eyes, was her younger sister, Lady Chastity Moore. The slightly portly, somewhat balding gentleman with shirt points so stiff and high that he had to move the whole of his upper body when he wished to turn his head, was introduced to the newly arrived guests as the Reverend Calvin Moore, Joshua's second cousin.
The heir, who had been sent for, Freyja supposed.
It was Joshua who made the introductions, not his aunt. Indeed, Freyja noticed with interest, his whole manner had changed as soon as they set foot inside the drawing room. The room became almost visibly his. He became lord of the manor. He invited them all to be seated after the introductions had been made or to look out at the view from the bay window. He asked his aunt if she would be so good as to have tea brought up.
'Prudence,' his aunt said, her sweet smile belying the venomous glance she darted at her youngest daughter, 'return to Miss Palmer in the nursery immediately.'
'Oh, no,' Joshua said, the Marquess of Hallmere to his fingertips, 'Prue may stay for tea, Aunt.'
The girl flapped her hands in excitement, and Lady Chastity took one of them in her own and drew her sister down beside her on a love seat.
'Absolutely,' Eve agreed, seating herself close to them and beaming at both. 'We came here to see Joshua's home and to meet the members of his family who live here. Prue is one of those.'
'A splendid view indeed,' Alleyne commented after strolling into the bay window. 'I suppose the beach on this side of the valley is a private one, Joshua? Part of the estate? I envy you.'
'I still want to paint the sea,' Morgan said-she was standing beside Alleyne. 'But I want to paint this valley too and the house and the park on the hillside. It is a good thing you are to be my brother-in-law, Joshua. I may have to visit you here several times and at different times of the year before my palette has been satisfied. Oh, Freyja, all this is to be yours too.'
'I daresay this is sheep country, is it, Joshua?' Aidan asked. 'Your farmland is above the valley? I look forward to viewing it with you and to chatting with your steward.'
Freyja was ignoring the view beyond the window for the moment. She was very deliberately viewing the room, standing in the middle of it and turning slowly.
'It is a magnificent apartment,' she said in her haughtiest voice. 'I daresay I will wish to change some of the furnishings and draperies after we are married, Josh, but those are minor matters. I shall very much enjoy entertaining here. I daresay you enjoyed it in your day too, ma'am.' She smiled graciously at the marchioness, who smiled sweetly back but was saved from having to reply by the arrival of the tea trays.
The Bedwyns, Freyja thought, had made their point.
Joshua was talking with his second cousin.
'It is a happy chance that you should be at Penhallow at just the time I have brought my betrothed and some of her family to see the home that will be hers after we wed,' he said. 'It must be nearly ten years since I saw you last, Calvin. You decided to take a vacation in Cornwall, did you?'
