THE GUN KETCH

parlor to drink tea and get the card table ready. To be listened to, if I feel I have an idea they haven't. Not patted on the head and told 'tut-tut, there, there, little girl'! Even if it's but the one man who would listen to me, that would be enough, I think.'

'And no one is listening to you now?' Alan said, letting go her hand and dismounting. He held her mare's head while she got down, revealing a dizzying vision of a slim white leg above the tops of her riding boots for an instant as her gown and petticoats raked down the saddle.

'Burgess used to,' she said, taking his hand once more as they strolled to the south edge of the rolling, wooded hill to look at the splendid morning view. It was a little cloudy and gloomy yet, before the sun broke through, and the tiny dells among the downs were clotted with wisps of mist. 'And when I was with you, I felt that you did, or at least attempted to, Alan. But very few people now. Now, I listen, and I am told what I feel, what I should think.'

'Whom you should wed, perhaps?' Alan said, stopping them so she would turn to face him. 'Is that why you are so sad? I came down, expecting to see the pert lass I remembered, and I find you troubled and melancholy. Who is the right young man of whom your uncle speaks?'

'I have two wonderful choices in life.' Caroline gloomed again. 'Three, really. The last may be the most acceptable; it does not demand me living a lie. I may take service as governess to a widower's children. Mr. Byford, who rents the land and house we once had.'

'And the other two?'

'Between Embleton and Glandon Park, there is a family with more than one thousand fine acres,' she said with an impatient shake of her head. 'George Tudsbury, another widower, is in need of a wife. He's in his forties, with three children to raise, mostfortunately all of them girls, who may not inherit the land if a younger wife is living. He's a very good friend of my Uncle Phineas. Of much the same tastes.'

'Ugh!' Alan exclaimed. 'And again, ugh!'

'He, at least, is a decent man, Alan, with no vices. And no hard edges, such as Uncle Phineas. In that, at least, they differ.'

'May I assume that he is your uncle's preference?'

'No, you may not. There is also Harry Embleton.' She tensed. 'Mine arse on a bandbox!' Alan cried. 'Why, I met the bastard!'

'And what did you think of him, Alan?' Caroline teased, enjoying Alan's use of what she had come to know as his favorite phrase.

'Caroline, were I a London pimp, I'd have him wash first, and still charge him double for the insult to me whores!' Alan shouted. 'Oh, God, Alan, I do so enjoy talking with you!' Caroline laughed out loud, taking hold of his upper arms. 'You're just the breath of air that I' ve been needing! You're right, he is a… a bastard!' She took a deep breath, astounded by her own boldness. 'He's a cruel, cruel… a… God, if he were in the Carolinas, he'd be a Low Country slaver, no matter the quality of his birth. He's dull, he's… they have a library at Embleton Hall, hundreds of books, and I doubt he's read more than three in his entire life. It's all horses and hounds, politics and sport, who he insulted last, how he put someone in their place…'

'And you've expressed your lack of interest to your uncle, I take it?' Alan asked. 'Yet he still allows these gentlemen to call?'

'Insists upon it.' Caroline sobered once more. 'It matters not which I end up choosing, as long as I choose. He gains more land on either side. Or I may remain a spinster, earning my own keep, should I spite him.'

'Govemour won't back you?'

'Oh, Governour is all for Harry, they hunt and fish and ride together, God knows what all,' Caroline said with a wave of her hand, as though to drive away a pesky wasp. 'Thank God Millicent is for me. She has not pressured me in any way, much as she might care to have me as sister-in-law. I cherish her for deflecting some of Governour's insistences. He thinks that I am of an age to marry, and that beyond the two men, I have few other choices for a suitable match. Therefore, I must marry, and if I must, then Harry is the better, the richer, and the younger, and not as plodding as Mister Tudsbury, who merely wants a married governess for his living children. He points out that if I marry Harry, then either he or I end up with the two estates in time.'

'What a marvelous bloody bargain,' Alan glowered. 'And you the prize mare to seal it. Christ!'

'Now you see why I have been so downcast,' Caroline sighed. 'And why I was so looking forward to your visit! When you wrote to say that you had first to visit in Devon, I was almost beside myself. But now you're here, and for a few weeks, at least, I shall feel more at ease. The dashing Alan Lewrie could cheer up the dead!'

'I'll do all in my power for you,' Alan vowed. 'I'll sing songs, I'll play the merry-andrew and be your court fool, if that's what it takes! Shall I do a handstand?' He laughed, trying to balance on his palms, and ended up rolling flat on his back. 'I know,' he suggested, getting to his feet quickly, 'what if I climb this damned oak and fetch you an acorn or two?'

She was almost shrieking with laughter as he tried to scale the stout trunk to the lowest boughs. 'Come down here, at once! Oh, Alan, not an acorn, I beg you!'

'Bloody squirrel, then!' he huffed, springing at the tree once more and clawing his way up about six feet off the ground.

'William Pitt fetches me quite enough squirrels, thank you! Do come down, Alan! I'll settle for a leaf! Just a leaf!' she cried, in stitches at his antics. 'I'll take one that's fallen. My kingdom for a fallen oak leaf! God, but you do look foolish! Is that the way you scale the rigging on your ship?'

'I'm graceful as a bloody monkey!' Alan crowed, and began singing a suggestive chantey called 'The Holy Ground.' He finally dropped to the ground and scooped up an entire pile of oak leaves and brought them to her, dribbling a trail behind him. He knelt at her feet and heaped them round her boots. 'For you, my lady, queen of the hill! Oak leaves for your kingdom!'

'Arise, Sir Knight! I dub thee knight of my realm!' She giggled, touching him on both shoulders. He stood, and there was not a handspan between them, and they stopped laughing. She looked up at his face, uttered a tiny, hitching litde sound that sounded like a sob, and threw her arms around his neck. Her cool lips pressed upon his, her breath warm and clean on his mouth, and he put his arms around her, lifting her off her feet to drape against him. She felt so light, so slim and completely encirclable in his arms, and Alan's head spun with the scent of clean hair and soap, of the light, citrony and balsamed tinge of the Hungary Water she had dabbed on.

Burgess, forgive me, but I think I want to tup your sister! he thought. And what your family thinks of me after that, bedamned!The sound of hooves interrupted them, two sets of hooves at the least, of horses being urged up the hill to them, and he set her down and stood a little back from her, full of regret that the moment had passed. His groin was on fire, and his heart was pounding such as he had never experienced with common lust, or the fine edge of expectation before consummation. Caroline Chiswick made him dizzier and woozier to hold and kiss than anyone he had ever known!

And I've had my share now, haven't I, so I ought to know, Alan told himself. Damme to hell, but I think I'm in love with her, not… not just afire to have her! Damme if I ain't been toyin' with the thought of her since '81!

Caroline brushed his cheek with her gloved hands, and stepped forward for one last, too-brief, open-mouthed kiss, then took a few steps away, composing herself to see who was coming.

'Have they sent someone after us?' he asked softly.

'I don't know… Heavens, it might be something wrong with Father! I can think of no other reason. Dear God, no! Alan, pray for him, a short prayer to spare him, now!' she commanded in a fret.

Two riders topped the rise, and Alan, turning to look at her, could see the tension still in her pose, for it yet might be bad news of Mr. Sewallis Chiswick. But the light in her eyes, and the joy on her face that he had put there a minute before fell away like an extinguished sunset when she beheld who led the pair of horsemen.

'My dearest Caroline!' the Hon. Harry Embleton exclaimed as he drew rein to lord over them from horseback. 'Your uncle said he thought you might have come this way. Had you forgotten that he had given us permission to take a morning ride together this day?'

'Good morrow, Mister Embleton,' Caroline nodded coolly. 'And good morrow to you, Mister Lane. You have met Mister Lewrie, I think.'

'Mister Embleton, sir,' Alan grinned, touching the right side of his cocked hat in greeting like a casual salute to a deck-officer. 'And I believe I met Mister Lane, Douglas Lane, is it, yesterday, at the Red Swan? Your gamekeeper,