Chapter One

      “I beg your pardon,” Anne Darlington said, finally looking up from where she was kneeling on the stone floor, her hands full of the grimy edge of Sally Eddington’s woolen petticoat.

      She was stitching up the hem of the offending garment so that it wouldn’t drag on the ground as the child walked. Her concentration on the task, which she was attempting to perform while six-year-old Sally was still wearing the petticoat, had prevented her from hearing the first part of the message the headmistress had sent.

      “It’s your guardian,” Margaret Rhodes said importantly. “Come to take you home for Christmas.”

      “How nice for you, Sally,” Anne said. She took one very large and hurried stitch and then looped the needle through and tied a quick knot. She broke the thread with her teeth before she added, “I didn’t know you were leaving today.”

      In all honesty she hadn’t even known Sally had a guardian. Anne distinctly remembered that the little girl had spent the previous holiday at school. There were only a handful of students who did that, and since Anne herself had always been one of them, she certainly knew who the others were. And most of their stories as well.

      The loss of a mother, usually in childbirth with the next, too quickly conceived baby. A father’s remarriage, perhaps. Or his disinterest.

      Anne supposed she herself might fall into that latter category, but her father’s disinterest was something she had stopped thinking about a long time ago. She was actually grateful for the upbringing he had provided her, even if it had never included his presence. And just this week Mrs. Kemp had offered her a teaching position here for the next school year.

      Then she would never have to leave, Anne thought contentedly, automatically straightening Sally’s skirt and smoothing with her hands the carrot-colored frizz that surrounded the little girl’s freckled face.

      “But I’m not,” Sally said, her eyes round at the thought.

      “Not her, you big silly,” Margaret said. “It’s you he’s come for.”

      Anne turned her head, looking full at Margaret for the first time. “For me?” she repeated in astonishment.

      “And Mrs. Kemp says you mustn’t keep him waiting.”

      Anne opened her mouth to protest, and then closed it again. After all, whatever was going on, it offered to be different from her normal afternoon routine of wiping noses and hearing lessons.

      Either the girls were having a joke or there had been some mistake in who had been called for. In either case, going along would prove more entertaining than what she was presently doing. If it were a prank, then the others would enjoy a laugh at her expense, nothing she was averse to. And if it weren’t, the mistake would probably have been straightened out by the time she reached the headmistress’s office. Until then…

      “Well, of course, I won’t keep him waiting,” Anne said cheerfully. “Come from London, I suppose.”

      “I don’t know about that,” Margaret confided, “but he arrived in a bang-up rig with four of the primest bits of horseflesh I’ve ever seen.”

      “If Mrs. Kemp hears you talking like that, my girl,” Anne warned, “you’ll be the banged-up rig.”

      She lightened the rebuke with a smile and then ran down the wide hallway with the younger girl at her heels. Not setting a good example, Mrs. Kemp would have said, especially for someone about to become a teacher.

      Since the headmistress wasn’t by to say it, however, Anne didn’t see any reason not to run off the excess energy the recent weather’s confinement had produced. She would be so glad when spring arrived and the woods and fields were again available for roaming.

      She slowed to a sedate walk as she neared the open door of the school’s office. Working by feel, she tucked a few tendrils of hair back into the neat coil from which they had managed to escape and straightened the shoulders of her linsey-woolsey dress, brushing her hands over the bodice. Then she cast a quick glance behind her to evaluate Margaret’s appearance, knowing that in Mrs. Kemp’s opinion it, too, could usually be improved upon.

      She was right. The younger girl’s flannel pinafore was unbuttoned. Anne turned and, still walking backwards, attempted a couple of quick adjustments to the ten-year-old’s attire.

      Margaret’s widening eyes should have been a warning, but she didn’t notice them until it was too late. Anne backed into something quite solid and heard a soft gasp of response.

      Someone, she realized belatedly when she whirled around. Someone very tall. And dressed in what even such a provincial as she knew to be the height of fashion, from his gleaming tasseled Hessians to the broad shoulders of an expertly cut coat of navy superfine. Considering the weather, there would no doubt be a multicaped greatcoat and a tall beaver hat residing safely in Mrs. Kemp’s office.

      “Oh, dear,” she said. “I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

      He certainly appeared sturdy enough that she couldn’t possibly have done him damage, but that gasp had sounded pained. And there was something in the tightness of the lines around that beautifully shaped mouth that also spoke of discomfort.

      It was not until the mouth tilted, destroying that ridiculous notion that Anne looked up and found his eyes. They were hazel, and they were smiling as openly as were his lips.

      Smiling eyes. She had read the phrase once in a novel, that strictly forbidden pastime carefully concealed from Mrs. Kemp, of course. She had never quite known what it meant until today. Until now. And her heart began to beat a little irregularly.

      “I believe I have managed to survive your charge,” he said. “It is customary to look in the direction you’re treading, however. Just to prevent bowling over the un-suspecting.”

      Anne laughed. “Only think how boring it should be to always look where one is going. I confess that I much prefer to back my way through life.” She longed to add, “One meets such interesting people that way,” but she couldn’t decide if that would sound sophisticated or simply fast.

      And while she was trying to resolve that dilemma, the hazel eyes left her face and settled, still smiling, on Margaret’s. Anne swallowed her disappointment and turned to look at her young friend as well. Margaret’s brown eyes were still stretched. Indeed, they had widened enough to be outright rude as she stared, openmouthed, at the visitor.

      “Hello,” he said.

      “’Lo,” Margaret mumbled.

      The self-important air of confidence with which she had delivered her message had disappeared. Of course, Anne could hardly blame her for that. They were neither very often exposed to someone who was so obviously Top of the Trees.

      “I’m not quite sure how this should be done,” the elegant gentleman was saying, “but I have satisfied Mrs. Kemp as to my identity and my legal position as your guardian. She has agreed that we may leave as soon as you’re ready. Since I gave you no warning, I should imagine it will take you some time to pack. I hope you will make as quick a work of that as you can, however, because the weather is worsening by the moment.”

      Margaret said nothing, her eyes and mouth continuing to gape unbecomingly as he talked. When he had finished, and the silence yawned empty for a few seconds, she reluctantly pulled her gaze away from his face to look at Anne.

      “It’s not me you want,” she said, pointing a trembling finger. “It’s her. That’s Anne Darlington.”

      The