him.'
After another wistful glance at the gardens, Sunny obediently followed her godmother.
The eighth Duke of Thrnborough sampled a strawberry from one of the mounds on the refreshment table. 'Splendid flavor.' He reached for another. 'You've been getting remarkable results from the greenhouses.'
Justin Aubrey shrugged. 'I only give the orders, Gavin. It's the gardeners who do the real work.'
'But someone must still give the right orders, and it isn't going to be me.' The duke consumed several more strawberries, then washed them down with champagne. 'Relax, Justin. You've worked for weeks to make my fete a success, so you should try to enjoy the results. Everyone is having a cracking good time.'
'That's fortunate, considering that this little event is costing over two thousand pounds.' Money which could have been much better spent.
Gavin made an airy gesture. 'The Duke of Thornborough has an obligation to maintain a certain style. After I marry May, there will be ample money for those boring repairs that you keep talking about.'
Justin gave his brother a shrewd glance. 'You and Mrs. Russell have reached a firm understanding?'
Gavin nodded. 'We'll be making an announcement soon. A late summer wedding, I think. You can plan on fixing the roof directly after, so it will be right and tight by winter.' He cast an experienced eye over the crowd. 'I see that Katie Westron has a lovely creature in tow. It must be the Gilded Girl. I hear she's cutting quite a swath through London society. The Prince has already invited her to visit Sandringham.'
'Then her social reputation is made,' Justin agreed with barely perceptible irony. 'But who is the Gilded Girl?'
'Sarah Vangelder, the fairest flower of the Vangelder railroad fortune.' The duke’s tone turned speculative. 'They say she's the greatest heiress ever to cross the Atlantic.'
Justin followed his brother's gaze to where the heiress stood talking with three besotted males. As soon as he located her, his heart gave an odd lurch. Sarah Vangelder was the quintessential American beauty-tall, slender and crowned with a lustrous mass of honey-colored hair. She also had an engaging air of innocent enthusiasm that made him want to walk over and introduce himself. A beautiful woman, not his. The world was full of them, he reminded himself. Aloud, he said only, 'Very fetching.'
'Perhaps I should reconsider marrying May,' Gavin said pensively. 'They say Augusta Vangelder wants to see the girl a duchess. Should I offer her the noble same of Thornborough?'
Justin's mouth tightened. Though he loved his brother, he had no illusions about the duke's character. 'You'd find a young innocent a flat bore.'
'Very likely you're right,' Gavin agreed. His gaze lingered. 'Still, she's quite lovely.'
Three peeresses and two Cabinet ministers came over to pay their respects to their host. Justin seized the opportunity to escape, for the constant chatter was driving him mad. He would have preferred to be elsewhere, but he could hardly avoid a party taking place in his own backyard.
Avoiding the formal parterre where many of the guests were strolling, he made his way to the rhododendron garden, which had been carefully designed to look like wild woods. There was a risk that he would find some of Gavin's fashionable friends fornicating beneath the silver birches, but with luck, they would all be more interested in champagne and gossip than in dalliance.
Half an hour in the wilder sections of the park relaxed him to the point where he felt ready to return to the festivities. Not that anyone was likely to miss him, but he liked to keep an eye on the arrangements to ensure that everything ran smoothly.
As he walked through a grove of Scottish pines, he heard a feminine voice utter a soft but emphatic, 'Drat!'
He turned toward the voice, and a few more steps brought the speaker into his view.
It was the Gilded Girl. But that was too flippant a nickname, for the sunlight that shafted through the pine needles made her honey hair and creamy gown glow as if she were Titania, the fairy queen. He halted unnoticed at the edge of the clearing, experiencing again that strange, unsteady feeling.
A vine had snagged the back hem of Miss Vangelder's elegant bustled walking gown, and she was trying to free herself by poking with the tip of her lace parasol. Any other woman would have seemed ungraceful, but not the heiress. She looked playful, competent and altogether enchanting.
In the wooden voice he used to conceal unseemly feelings, he said, 'May I be of assistance?'
The girl looked up with a startled glance, then smiled with relief. 'You certainly can! Otherwise, my gown is doomed, and Mr. Worth will be terribly cross with me if he ever finds out.'
Justin knelt and began trying to disentangle her hem. 'Does it matter what a dressmaker thinks?'
'Mr. Worth is not a dressmaker, but an artiste. I'm told that I was singularly fortunate that he condescended to see me personally. After examining me like a prize turkey, he designed every ensemble right down to the last slipper and scarf.' She gave a gurgle of laughter. 'I was informed in no uncertain terms that any substitutions would be disastrous.'
The vine was remarkably tenacious. As Justin tried to loosen it without damaging the heavy ecru silk, he asked, 'Do you always do what others wish you to do?'
'Generally,' she said with wry self-understanding. 'life is easier when I do.'
Her skirt finally came free, and he got to his feet. 'I'm Justin Aubrey, by the way.''
'I'm Sarah Vangelder, but most people call me Sunny.' She offered her hand, and a smile that melted his bones.
She was tall, her eyes almost level with his. He had assumed that they would be blue, but the color was nearer aqua, as deep and changeable as the sea. He drew a shaken breath, then bowed over her hand. Straightening, he said, 'You should not be here alone, Miss Vangelder.'
'I know,' she said blithely, 'but I was afraid that if I didn't take the initiative, I'd leave without having a chance to really see the gardens.'
'Are you rating them for possible future occupancy?' he said dryly. 'I regret to inform you that my brother is no longer in the marriage mart,'
'I simply like gardens, Lord Justin,' she said crisply, her aqua eyes turning cool. 'Are you always so rude?'
So the exquisite Miss Vangelder had thorns. Suppressing a smile, he said, 'Always. I took a first in rudeness at Oxford.'
Her expression instantly transformed from reproval to delight. 'You have a sense of humor!'
'Don't spread such a base rumor around. It would utterly ruin my reputation.' He offered his arm. 'let me escort you back to the fete.'
As she slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow, she asked, 'Could we take an indirect route? I particularly want to see the famous water garden.'
He knew that he should return her before her chaperon became concerned. Yet when he looked into her glorious eyes, he found himself saying, 'Very well, Miss Vangelder.'
As they started down the pine-needle-carpeted path, he was very aware of the light pressure of her hand on his arm and the luxuriant rustle of her petticoats. And her perfume, a delicate fragrance reminiscent of violets…
He took a deep, slow breath. 'I assume you are related to Admiral Vangelder?'
''You've heard of my grandfather?'
'It would be surprising if I hadn't.' He held a branch aside so that she could pass without endangering her deliriously frivolous hat. 'He was one of the great American success stories.'
'Yes, and something of a robber baron, as well, though he was always a darling to me. I miss him.' She chuckled. 'He liked people to think that he was called Admiral because of his magnificent yachts, but actually, he got the nickname because his first job was tending mules on the Erie Canal.'
'Really?' Justin said, amused by her artlessness.
'Really. In fact, there are grave suspicions that his papa was not married to his mama.' She bit her lip guiltily. 'You're dangerously easy to talk to, Lord Justin. I shouldn't have said so much-my mother would be horrified if the Admiral's dubious parentage became common knowledge.' She grinned again. 'Her own family has been respectable for at least a generation longer.'
'Your secret is safe, Miss Vangelder,' he assured her.
She gave him another entrancing smile that struck right to the heart. For a mad instant, he felt as if he was the only person who existed in her world. She had charm, this gilded girl, a quality as unmistakable as it was hard to define. He drew a shaken breath and returned his gaze to the winding path.
Though she had said lie was easy to talk to, in fact he found himself talking more than usual as they strolled through the park. He told her about the history of the estate, answered questions about the crops and tenants. Together they stood in the gazebo that was designed like a miniature Greek temple, and when they visited the picturesque ruins of an old monastery he described what the community would have been like in its heyday.
She was a wonderful audience, listening with a grave air of concentration that was occasionally punctuated by au incisive question. After she asked about the effects of the agricultural depression on the farm laborers, he remarked, 'You have a wide range of interests, Miss Vangelder.'
'Education is something of an American passion, so my father insisted that I have a whole regiment of tutors. Shortly before he died, he had me take the entrance exams to Oxford and Cambridge. He was quite pleased when I passed with flying colors.' She sighed. 'Of course there was never any question of me actually going to a university. That would have been shockingly bluestocking.'
At least she had been well taught, like most English girls, his own sisters had received the sketchiest of educations. Only Alexandra, who loved to read, had a well informed mind. The man who married Sunny Vangelder would be lucky in more ways than one.
Justin had chosen a path that brought than out of the park's wilderness area right beside the water garden. It was an elaborate series of pools and channels that descended across three levels of terraces before flowing into the ornamental lake.
Sunny stopped in her tacks with a soft exhalation of pleasure. 'Exquisite. The proportions-the way the statues are reflected in the pools-the way the eye is led gradually down to the lake. It's masterful. And the grass surrounding it like green velvet. How do the English grow such perfect grass?'
'It's quite simple, really. Just get a stone roller and use it on the lawn regularly for two or three hundred years.'
She laughed and gave him a glance that made him feel as if he was the wittiest, handsomest man alive.
His heart twisted, and he knew that he must get away from her before he started to act like an utter idiot. 'I really must take you back now.'
'I suppose so.' She took a last look at the water gar den. 'Thank you for indulging me, Lord Justin.'
Their walk had taken them around three sides of the palace, and it was only a short distance to the Versailles garden where the fete was being held. As they approached the festivities, a tall man saw them and walked over swiftly. It was Paul Curzon, who had gone to Eton with Justin, though they had never been more than acquaintances. Curzon had been active in the most social set, while Justin had paid an unfashionable amount of attention to his studies.
After giving Justin a barely civil nod, Curzon said, 'Lady Westron has been wondering what happened to you, Miss Vangelder.'
Justin glanced at his companion and saw how her face lit up when Curzon spoke to her.
