Chapter One

      ‘Mr Winterley is very handsome, isn’t he?’ Mary Carlinge said with a wistful sigh.

      ‘If you ask me, he’d be more at home in London and the haut ton must be flocking back there for the Little Season by now,’ Rowena replied warily.

      ‘Don’t try and change the subject, Rowena Westhope. You’re four and twenty and in full possession of your senses, so how can you not be intrigued by a young, rich and well-looking gentleman like that one? I don’t know how Callie Laughraine managed to drag to him to church again this morning, but I’m grateful to her even if you’re not.’

      Rowena eyed the tall, dark and, yes, very handsome gentleman and felt a shiver of something she didn’t want to think about run down her spine. ‘He’ll certainly need to be rich, as he’s bought the old Saltash place and it’s almost a ruin. I suppose he is good looking, but he’s far too vain and haughty for me to admire him because he was born that way.’

      ‘Either you’re a saint and belong in a nunnery, or you’re a liar, my friend,’ Mary murmured as Mr Winterley glanced in their direction, then let his gaze flit past as if they weren’t worthy of it.

      ‘And you’re a wife and mother, Mary Carlinge, and should know better.’

      ‘I may have wed Carlinge when I was hardly out of the schoolroom,’ Mary said blithely, sparing her husband of six years a fond but dismissive glance, ‘but your Mr Winterley is still worth a second look, then a third and fourth for good measure.’

      ‘He isn’t mine and he knows he’s attractive and well-bred and a fine prize on the marriage mart a little too well for my taste,’ Rowena replied as coolly as she could when the wretched man’s unusual green eyes flicked back to eye her speculatively.

      She had thought herself all but invisible in the shadow of an ancient yew tree,