Her voice was soft and yet it filled the room with vibrant intensity. The words may not have pleased John’s father, but they foreclosed any further disapproval. The old lord bowed graciously and took the lady’s hand. Together they strolled farther into the great room, pausing before the fireplace. John moved along behind them, his manner outwardly deferential. Within, his heart was seething. The woman’s manner and appearance were the most wonderful he had ever known, a thousand times more wonderful than he had imagined possible. She trailed behind her an attar of roses. The firelight made her skin glow. Her beauty made the dank old room blaze with light.

At a signal from his father, a piper began to play on the balcony. The tones were stirring, some Scottish air at once beautiful and fierce. Miriam turned and looked upward. “What is that instrument?”

“A bagpipe,” John said before his father’s mouth could open. “It’s a Scot’s device.”

“Also Breton,” his father snapped. “That is a Breton piper. There are no Scotsmen in Hadley House.”

John knew differently, but he did not contradict.

They ate a brace of grouse, high and sour, followed by lamb, pudding and trifle. John remembered that meal well because of how surprised he had been when Miriam did not partake of any of the food. Course after course went past untouched. It would not have been polite for them to inquire why their guest did not care for the food, but at the end of the meal John’s father seemed sunken in dismay. When she at last took some port he brightened.

No doubt he had been afraid that his physical appearance was so unpleasant to her that she was not going to stay the night. John almost laughed aloud when he saw how his father grinned when she drank, his loose dental plates making it look as if he had a mouthful of stones.

During the course of the meal, Miriam had glanced twice at John and both times had communicated such warmth and invitation that he himself was greatly encouraged.

When the evening ended he went to his room full of eager anticipation. He dismissed Williams at once, dropping his clothes off, tossing his wig aside, standing at last naked. He went close to the grate, warming first one side of himself and then the other, and then jumped into bed. The sheets had been swept with a fire brick until they were warm and so the bed was quite comfortable. He lay sleepless, astonished that he had taken to his bed without his nightclothes, deliciously excited. On the nightstand he left three gold sovereigns gleaming in the candlelight.

He lay listening to the wind and the rain, warm and safe beneath his quilts, waiting. Hours passed. His body, fixed in the tension of extreme excitement, began to ache with need.