“I’ve come for my hat, of course. Warned you not to steal it.”

Thatwasn’t what she expected to hear, and even though she recognized he was teasing, she angrily marched into Lucy’s room, dug the hat out of her sack, and came back to throw it at him. He picked it up, approached her, and handed it back.

“There. Now I’ve given it to you and you can keep it this time.” He no sooner said it than he yanked her into his arms, whispering, “But I’m keeping you. God, Danny, don’t ever put me through such hell again.”

He was squeezing her so tight she couldn’t breathe, but for a moment, she didn’t care, just savored the feeling of being surrounded by him. But then reason returned and she pushed away. He let go, but he didn’t let her move so far away that he couldn’t grab her back in an instant.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” she told him.

“I shouldn’t have had to. And I would have been here sooner, but the people around here thought it amusing to misdirect me for half the day.”

“I wouldn’t have been here anyway. I only just got back m’self to get my things to take to my new job.”

“You can forget about any new job. You’re coming home with me where you belong.”

Danny groaned inwardly. She’d never heard anything so nice.Where you belong. Good God, she’d known this would be too hard, if he tried to talk her out of her resolve.

She turned around, had to force the words out. “I’m not changing my mind, Jeremy. I want more for myself than you’re willing to give me.”

“If you hadn’t run off so quick—”

She gasped, swung back around to cut in, “I didn’t run off. I told you what would keep me there, but you ignored it. You let me go!”

He tsked at her. “Bowled me over, dear girl, is what you did, proposing like that. You really need to remember that you aren’t wearing pants anymore. I was bloody well in shock if you must know.”

“The devil you were. You knew it was going to happen. It’s not as if I hadn’t warned you previously what my goals wereand that I’d be leaving soon to accomplish them.”

“But your ‘soon’ was years off in my mind.”

She snorted. “Then maybeyou need a dictionary.”

“Perhaps, but all I really need is you. Come home—”

“Don’t!” she choked out, tears welling up in her eyes. “Just go, Jeremy. You didn’t miss an opportunity to talk me into staying, if that’s why you’re here. It wasn’t going to happen and still isn’t. So just go.”

“I’m here to apologize and to discuss marriage.”

“To whom?”

“To me, of course, you silly girl.”

She took a swing at him, aiming for his eye. She was furious. But he ducked, exclaiming, “Bloody hell, what’d you do that for?”

“That’s nothing to joke about, Jeremy Malory. That was so bleedin’ cruel, I can’t believe you said that. Get out. And don’t come looking for me again.”

Instead of complying, he yanked her to him again, hard. And his arms wrapped around her completely so she couldn’t do any more swinging, the scoundrel. Nor was he the least bit repentant.

He said in a jaunty tone, “Was that a yes?”

She squirmed to get at his eye again. He chuckled. “Bear with me, luv. I’d never planned to propose marriage to anyone, so of course I was destined to muck it up. But you should know me well enough to know this is one subject I wouldnever joke about.”

She went very still. He was right, he’d never joke about that. But she still couldn’t believe he was serious, had to ask, “Why? I know you don’t want to get married, ever. You’ve made that very clear. So why would you consider it now?”

“Because you’re stubborn. Because it’s what you want and I want to make you happy. Because I love you. Because the thought of going on without you rends me to pieces and I’d rather not experience that again, thank you. Because I want to wake up with you every morning, not just when I get lucky. Because you’re everything I could want in a woman, Danny, so why wouldn’t I want to marry you? Well, that’s what I asked myself, and now we both have the answer. I didn’tknow I was in love with you until I thought I’d lost you. I would have figured it out eventually, but I’m rather glad to know it now rather than later. So will you marry me and let me be your family?”

She leaned back, staring at him in wonder. “You really mean it? You love me?”

“More than I can possibly express in mere words.”

Anthony’s voice intruded behind them as he and James walked through the door. “They told you not to interrupt them. Deuced embarrassing to hear that mush, ain’t it?”

Jeremy turned, grinned at his father and uncle. “Congratulate me. She’s agreed to marry me.” But he whispered to Danny, “You will, right?”

“Yes,” she whispered back, nearly bursting with the most profound happiness. “Most definitely.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” James said. “Don’t think that even remotely occurred to Jason while he was having his tirade. It does solve the dilemma, however.”

“What dilemma?”

“Jason knows who she is, lad.”

“That she comes from here?”

“No, who shereally is.”

Chapter 50

LATE-SUMMER WILDFLOWERS FILLED THE FIELDSalong the road through Somerset. It was far from London, a full day of riding plus half the next morning. Danny didn’t notice most of the journey. She was in such a daze, her emotions ripped asunder.

There was the happiness. She’d never experienced anything like it. Jeremy loved her. He was going to marry her. He was going to fulfill all her dreams. It was almost more than she could bear, might have been, if the fear didn’t counter those emotions. But the fear was overriding everything else.

She was afraid it wasn’t true, that Jason Malory was mistaken. She was afraid if it was true, that her mother wouldn’t still be alive. She’d last been known to be living in Somerset on her grandmother’s estate, but no one had seen her since she’d retired there fifteen years ago. She could be dead, they could be making this journey for nothing. But Danny was also afraid that if Evelyn Hilarywas still alive, she wouldn’t accept Danny as her daughter. There was no proof, other than some vague resemblance. Why would a great lady, the daughter of an earl, the widow of a baron, accept some street waif as her own blood?

James Malory had come with them. He’d insisted. “The chit requires chaperoning, now that you know who she is,” he’d told his son.

Jeremy hadn’t liked hearing that, and Danny would have snorted herself if she weren’t in such an emotional daze. They didn’t know for certain who she was yet, they were only guessing. Just because the tragedy associated with Evelyn Hilary closely matched her own meant nothing. It could merely be coincidence.

“The lady wasn’t there when her husband, Robert, was murdered. They had come to London for a brief visit, but she was called back to Somerset. Her grandmother had taken a fall, or something like that. The murders made all the papers, were assumed to have been committed by a madman who broke into their London house and went on a rampage of killing. Her husband, Robert, and several servants were killed. Their daughter and her nurse were never seen again, but the blood left behind suggested they’d both been killed as well and dragged off. That those bodies had been disposed of, yet the others left behind, was what prompted the madman conclusion. There was simply no rhyme or reason for such slaughter.”

“Why is it you didn’t recognize her?” Jeremy had asked his father. “Weren’t you in London during that time?”

“Well, it was rather romantic actually,” James said. “I recall being disappointed that I never got to meet Lady Evelyn. But as it happens, she had the shortest season on record, attended all of one party, which was where Jason happened to meet her. Apparently Robert Hilary was already acquainted with her and followed her to London to propose. She accepted and returned home the very next day. And they settled down on his country estate in Hampshire, where they had one daughter. Occasionally they visited London, but they didn’t actually socilize when they were in town, which is why so few people remember Lady Evelyn.”

Danny heard all of this with only half an ear. It sank in, but she couldn’t really relate it to herself, not yet. The fear wouldn’t let her.

Jeremy offered her comfort just by his presence, but more, he kept an arm around her for the entire journey. Without that, Danny would probably have fallen to pieces. The closer they got to Somerset, the more tightly the fear choked her. If she had been thinking clearly, she would have been running in the opposite direction.

The estate they finally arrived at was magnificient, three stories tall originally in the main block, with shorter wings off to the sides, dark gray stone covered with ivy. It spread out over immaculate lawns dotted with stately old oaks. It shot Danny’s fear up a dozen notches. She’d never seen a building so big that someone actually lived in.

They weren’t going to be let inside. Danny was glad when she heard that, that Lady Hilary didn’t receive visitors, for any reason. The butler was quite adamant. The name Malory meant nothing to him.

The door was about to be closed in their faces when Jeremy got annoyed and dragged Danny around in front of him—she’d been hiding behind his back. “I believe the lady will want to see her daughter,” he told the man.

The butler, a rigid fellow, paled by slow degrees as he stared at Danny. Finally he said in a shaky voice, “Come inside. My lady is in the garden behind the house. I’ll direct you—”

“Just point the way,” James said, still irritated with the fellow.

She wasn’t in the garden. One of the workers there pointed them to the skating pond just beyond a stand of trees, saying the lady often walked there.

Danny was holding back and had to be dragged along by the hand. She finally dug in her feet altogether. Jeremy stopped, lifted her face to his, saw how pale she was, and put his arms around her.

“I can’t do this. Take me home,” she pleaded with him.

“What are you afraid of?”

“She’s going to hate me. She isn’t going to want someone like me for a daughter. It’s too late for her and me to be a family.”

“You know that isn’t true, but you’ll never know for sure unless you face her.” And then he added in a tender tone, “And if it is true—you still have me.”

She melted against him. Her happiness, lingering beneath the fear, pushed forward again, surrounding her, giving her back some of her courage.

She let him lead her through the narrow stand of trees to the other side, where James had stopped to wait for them. Jeremy made an attempt to distract her, asking, “You don’t recognize this estate?”

“No, none of it. It seems too big for someone to live in it.”

“Actually, it’s rather small.”

“Liar.”

“Really, nice and cozy.”

She snorted at him, but then she caught her breath. A field of flowers spread out before the pond, and in the field walked a lady with white-gold hair.

“Oh my God, it’s my dream, Jeremy. Ihave been here—with her.”

He had to drag her forward again, her feet simply wouldn’t move of their own accord. James preceded them. Neither of them were going to let her avoid this.

The lady was walking slowly through the flowers, her back to them. She was so deep in thought, she didn’t hear or see them approaching.

James’s first words startled a gasp from her, and she swung around. “Lady Evelyn, allow me to introduce myself. James Malory, at your service. You met my older brother Jason many years ago.”

“I don’t recall, but more to the point, I don’t receive visitors. Please go away, sir. You are intruding on my privacy.”

She turned away and walked on. She’d barely glanced at James, didn’t glance at Jeremy at all, nor notice Danny hiding behind his back. She was serious about not receiving and didn’t inquire why they were there or how they had gotten past her butler.

“Can we leave now?” Danny whispered in a trembling voice.

James heard her. “Bloody hell,” he swore softly, then called after the departing lady, “We didn’t come all the way from London to be dismissed out of hand. Ignore me as you will, but you might want to take a gander at my future daughter-in-law. She bears a striking resemblance—to you.”

The lady turned around again. She didn’t appear at all surprised by James’s remark. Instead she appeared quite furious now.

“Don’t take me for a fool, sir. I assure you I am not so gullible anymore. Do you think you are the first to come here to try and foist a daughter on me, in an effort to lay claim to my husband’s estate? The first instance devastated me. The second attempt I was wary, but still willing to believe I’d found my daughter. After the third attempt, I lost all hope. Do you know what it’s like to lose all hope?”

“Can’t say that I do. But we aren’t here to convince you of anything. There’s no need. The wench is soon to be a member of my family. We take care of our own, so she needs nothing from you.”

“Then whatdo you want?”

James shrugged. “I imagine she wanted her mother back. I’m beginning to think she’ll do better without one.”

The lady stiffened. Danny snarled at James, “Don’t be assuming things for me, mate. And don’t be insulting her either.”