So she had gone away for a few months and then come home. Her father had made her excuses well. No word of her indiscretion had ever been disclosed, no hint or insinuation of it whispered over the years. Shelford was a small place, and she was notorious for her triple jilting, but not even the most scandalous gossip had ever connected her name with Trevelyan's.

Not even his family had known. Madame de Monceaux had spoken often of her bewilderment and grief, and his grandfather cursed the boy to damnation for his capricious desertion of his family. Callie felt heavily to blame. After she was allowed to return, she had quietly done everything she could for their welfare, but the occasional pheasant or basket of fruit from Shelford Hall was a poor recompense for the loss of a son.

Callie gathered her shawl about her, sitting up as the carriage turned in at the gates of her home. She looked out the window at the fields along the drive, their dim, silvered expanse dotted with the dark humps of sleeping cattle. The Hall was a high black shape, a few windows glowing softly here and there along the length of its regular facade.

The coach rolled to a stop. Lanterns glinted on the broad stairs as Shelford's footman opened the door for her. Callie unclasped her fingers, aware of a secret lift of her spirits as she stepped down from the carriage. Trev had come home. She was needed at Dove House early in the morning. But she made no request for a mount to be ready or a maid to be prepared to accom pany her. She would rise before dawn and walk by the back way to his den of iniquity, so that she would not be seen in the village.

In truth, Trev might be a practiced villain, but she feared that he had not required much practice to lead her astray.

Three

Three

IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE TO HAND CALLIE INTO A CARRIAGE without skeletons rising up to point accusing fingers at him. Trev had been exquisitely polite as he bid her good night. Fortunately there was little moonlight, so both of them could direct their full attention to the mundane matter of safely negotiating her way onto the steps. He watched the carriage lumber into the darkness of the narrow, tree-choked lane.

He was beset by skeletons in Shelford. His mother, whom he had neglected beyond shame. His sisters, lost to scarlet fever, lying in graves he had not visited. His grandfather, unmourned and full of condemnation, rising up like some vengeful character from a play by Shakespeare. And Callie—shy, passionate, a very much living reminder of one of the more reprehen sible moments in a notably careless career.