But at the time, all Devon had known was that he was being left behind. Thus he’d waited until the trunks for the upcoming journey were sitting in the front hall and he’d opened the largest one, removed one of his mother’s voluminous gowns and stuffed it beneath the settee in the front sitting room, and then paid his brother Chase a shilling to close the trunk and lock him in.

Moments later an unsuspecting footman had carried the trunk to the waiting coach and strapped it on the back. Neither Devon nor Chase had thought of such mundane things as food or air. Within thirty minutes of rumbling out of the long drive, Devon had begun to realize the shortfalls of his plan.

He became increasingly hot, the air stifling and then thin, and all the while he was aware of a horrid need to relieve himself.

By the time the first hour had passed, he’d begun to panic and tried to gain the attention of the coachman, but the noise of the creaking, swaying coach and the clopping of the horses concealed the thumping of his small fists on the trunk lid. No one heard him.

It was a good thing the trip to London was a mere three hours, though by the time Devon was discovered, he was ill from the heat and the confinement. It took almost two days before he could get out of bed.

Of course, he’d been thankful for his convalescence as it prevented him from receiving the switching that should have been his. As his father would later say when the incident was brought up, “Devon’s determination will be both the making and the breaking of him. God only knows which.”

Now here he was, not in London, but in a clearing in the forest, looking at what had to be Kat Macdonald’s cottage, and that same determination that had caused him to ride in a trunk all the way to London was urging him forward.

The sun shone on the house and lit the clearing until he almost expected the door to fly open and little men in matching tunics to come tumbling out, turning buttercups into gold, or making mushrooms into sweet cakes, or some such nonsense.

“Either that or seven beautiful maidens,” Devon said to himself, trying to remember the fairy tales his mother had so delighted in telling. Something about seven pairs of shoes and dancing…He frowned. Whatever the tale, he’d forgotten most of it. Not that it mattered. It was all childhood nonsense anyway.

Devon urged Thunder across the clearing. The gelding frisked and frolicked, prancing as if afraid of the splotches of sun that trembled across the ground in unison with the breeze. They were only about halfway to the cottage when Devon realized they had an audience.