“Children have to be taught respect.”

“Children?” This time he grinned and pinched her chin. “It was only last year.” When she laughed he hesitated a moment, then gave in to the need and pressed his cheek against hers. “I miss you, Brie. Hurry back.”

She rested there a moment, drawing in his scents, making him familiar. “I’ll try.”

He, more than anyone, understood that love had its own pressure. When he released her, his voice was light again, undemanding. “I’ve got to take the dogs back before they dig up the jasmine. Would you like me to walk you back?”

“No, I’ll stay awhile. I have a fitting this afternoon for my dress for the AHC ball. I don’t think I’ll enjoy it.”

“You detest it,” Bennett said cheerfully. “I’ll be done with Oxford and back for the ball.” Done with Oxford, he thought again. The idea was nearly too good to be true. “I can dance with you while I look over the girls and decide which one I’m going to devastate.”

She laughed. “I believe you have all the makings of a rake.”

“I’m doing my best. Boris, Natasha.” He called for the dogs and strolled out of the gardens with them scrambling at his heels.

She liked him. It relieved her to know it, to feel it. She might not remember the twenty years they’d shared together as brother and sister, but she liked the man he was today.

Sticking her hands in the pockets of her comfortable baggy slacks, Brie walked a little farther. The scents from the garden were mixed and heady, but not overpowering. The colors weren’t a rainbow, but a kaleidoscope. As she walked, she tested herself. Without effort, she could identify each plant. The same way, she mused, she’d been able to identify the artists of the dozens of paintings in the Long Gallery in the west wing.

The artists, yes. But not the subjects. Her own mother’s face would have been that of a stranger if Brie’s resemblance to her hadn’t been so strong. Looking at the portrait, Brie had seen where she’d inherited the color of her eyes, her hair, the shape of her face, her mouth. There was no doubt that Princess Elizabeth de Cordina had been more beautiful than her daughter. Brie could look at the painting and at the big, sweeping portrait of herself objectively and see this.

Princess Gabriella had been younger, twenty, twenty-one, Brie had decided. And she’d been rather spectacular in the deep violet dress she’d worn, its vivid pink sash a slash of heat. Looking at herself, Brie had wondered how she’d had the nerve to choose those shades for the sittings. And how she’d known they would be so effective.

But the face in her mother’s portrait had been breathtaking. Heartbreaking. She’d worn creamy white, and had held soft pink roses that had given her a dreamy, poetic sort of beauty. Bennett had her look, as well as the spark of mischief Brie was certain she detected in the painting.