A Moment in Time

Lady Marcella sighed with the air of one martyred. How did one explain to a man about these things? Tretower Wells was not Bath. It could not even compare to Bath. It was a new watering spot, just opened to guests this summer, in which her husband, Sir William, and several other gentlemen whose wealth and titles stemmed from their success in trade, had invested. With Brummel's declaration that Bath was passe, these gentlemen and their families had all nocked to Tretower Wells, much to the distress of their ladies.

The wives of the investors were all of one mind. That their sons and daughters marry young women and gentlemen higher up on the social ladder, not each other. What good was money if it could not buy you what you most desired? Now, alas, months of careful planning was gone awry, for Tretower Wells, in the Black Mountains of Wales, was hardly a hub of society. Indeed, it was quite at the ends of the earth.

'Thank God Olympia is already betrothed or we should completely be ruined,' Lady Marcella declared. 'Honoria is, after all, only seventeen, and we have at least another year before I must really worry.'

'You need never worry about Honoria where men are concerned,' her husband remarked wryly. 'She attracts them like bees to a flower.'

'Do you not also have the responsibility of your orphaned niece, Miss Katherine?' ventured Sir William's mousy wife, Lady Dorothea.

'Honoria must be considered first,' Lady Marcella replied firmly with maternal interest. 'Dear Kitty is an heiress, after all, and despite the fact she is an American, a most desirable catch for any young man of good breeding. Actually,' Lady Marcella continued archly, leaning over to confide in Lady Dorothea, 'I am considering her as a possible partie for our eldest son, George. Perhaps, however, I should seek a wife with English wealth for George. He and Kitty do not seem particularly enamored of each other.'

'Do they not like each other?' queried Lady Dorothea, eager for a bit of juicy gossip.

'Oh, indeed they do, for cousins,' Lady Marcella said, 'but I am not certain they would make a good match as a husband and wife.'

'What about matching her with one of your younger sons?' asked Sir William, getting into the spirit of things. He and his wife were childless, but they took a great interest in the Bowen children.

'Impossible!' Lady Marcella replied. 'AnsCom is studying for the church. It will be some time before he can take a wife. Darius is in the army. His regiment is to be posted to India soon. An American wife would not do for Darius at all. As for Nestor, his career with His Majesty's navy almost precludes his having a wife, although he may someday take one; but he is several years younger than dear Kitty. No, it will be either George or some other acceptable gentleman, but alas, we are not at Bath. There are no acceptable gentlemen I might consider for either Honoria or Kitty.' She sent her husband a black look. 'I vow they will wither on the vine here this summer, poor dears!'

'It appears to me that none of them are withering at all,' Sir Rumford replied spiritedly. 'They were, in fact, quite looking forward to their outing.'

'Where are they off to?' Lady Dorothea inquired curiously.

'Up the mountain,' he told her. 'There is some sort of local legend about a ruined castle atop the ridge, and they are to meet up with several of George's friends from Oxford who have been riding about the countryside. They will return with the children later for a stay of several weeks here at Tretower Wells. Quite nice young fellows, they are. Olympia 's betrothed, Sir Halsey Halstead, and two others, Sir Frederick Galton and Sir Thomas Small. Perfectly eligible, both of them, m'dear, or had you forgotten?' he grinned at his wife.

'They are indeed eligible! You are correct, Rumford! I had quite forgotten that Freddie Galton and Tom Small were coming to Tretower Wells.' Lady Marcella had brightened considerably.

'Sir Thomas Small? Isn't he Baron Lindell? Why, he came into his money when he was just five years old. Raised by a spinster aunt. I went to school with Emily Small,' Lady Dorothea said excitedly. 'He's fabulously wealthy, y'know! Has properties in India and the Americas as well. The money comes from tea, and furs, I'm told, not to mention huge holdings in land.'

'Indeed?' Lady Marcella said, almost purring, her blue eyes dancing with interest. 'We have only met him twice. Once at Oxford, and once when George brought him home between terms. He is a handsome young man, rather dramatically so, I thought. I was not aware of his most excellent background, my dear Dorothea. How kind of you to enlighten me. He is certainly a very possible match for our Honoria. He is not betrothed, is he?' she asked anxiously.

'I have not heard of it if he is,' Dorothea Thorley replied, delighted to have known something that her formidable friend did not.

'Then perhaps it is better I did not send a chaperone along with the children,' Lady Marcella decided out loud. 'They will feel freer to get to know one another in a more informal setting. Oh, I do hope Honoria will not do anything unseemly to put this worthy gentleman off,' she fretted.

'Do not distress yourself about Honoria, my dear,' her husband said. 'She is just a bit high-spirited. Most gentlemen find that charming in a young girl.'

Lady Marcella looked once again in the direction that the riders had gone, but the shaggy little Welsh ponies were long out of sight. She frowned.

'Why, I vow I can actually feel Mama worrying that she has let us go without a proper chaperone,' Miss Olympia Bowen said as they trotted along.

Her siblings laughed, and then her brother Anscom said, 'I believe I should censure you for such an unfilial thought, my dear sister.'

'You're no parson yet, Anny,' Olympia replied tartly.

'And I should not be at all had not George been so discourteous as to be born before me,' Anscom Bowen replied mischievously.

'Do not blame me,' George Bowen replied. 'Have you any idea at all the difficulties involved in being the heir? I should just as soon study for nice quiet Holy Orders, Anny, as be responsible for Bowenbrooke House in London, and Bowenwood Manor in Worcestershire, and of course, first and foremost, by appointment to His Majesty, Bowen's Best, the Tea of Royalty.'

The riders laughed again, and then Miss Honoria Bowen said, 'And do not forget, Georgie, that Mama is counting upon you to marry some wickedly rich and fecund young heiress.'

'Rich and fecund heiresses are usually horse-faced. I must have a pretty wife, or none at all,' he told them. 'It's only fair.'

'I am quite insulted, George,' their cousin Miss Katherine Williams said. 'I am most wickedly rich, although I do not know if I am fecund, but I am certainly not horse-faced.'

'Then marry me, Kitty, and put an end to all our troubles. Mama will be looking for a husband for you as soon as she has settled Honoria, I warn you!'

'Dear George!' Kitty reached out and patted his hand with hers. 'You deserve a girl who loves you unabashedly, and I deserve a man whom I can love forevermore. Neither of us is that person for the other, and well you know it.'

'You are a most unrepentant romantic, dear Kitty,' Olympia told her.

'Do you not love Sir Halsey then, cousin?' Kitty probed.

The Honorable Miss Olympia Bowen blushed to the roots of her short chestnut-brown hair, but said boldly, 'I most certainly do love Halsey! He is the best of men!'

'Then will you not allow me the same good fortune as you yourself have found?' her cousin asked.

'Love! Love! Love! Is that all you silly creatures are going to talk about?' demanded Lieutenant Darius Bowen, of His Majesty's Bengal Lancers. 'This castle we're off to see was, I am told, in a most perfectly and naturally fortified setting. It was, so legend says, never successfully captured in a war.'

'Then why is it deserted, little brother?' George Bowen asked.

'I've absolutely no idea,' Darius answered with a shrug. 'The family probably gained properties in the lowlands, and decided to come down off their mountain in a safe century. Why on earth live in such an out-of-the- way place if you didn't have to, I say!'

'Mr. Tretower, the original owner of the wells, says that the castle once belonged to a family of sorcerer princes,' Honoria told them. Honoria, like her father, and youngest brother, was a blond with huge, ingenuous blue