"What happened?" Mrs. Lawrence burst out. "Alexandra, your face—dear God, what has happened?"

"Your daughter saved my life, Mrs. Lawrence, but in the process, she suffered a blow to her face. I assure you it looks much more serious than it really is."

"Please put me down," Alexandra said urgently, for her mother seemed about to swoon. When Jordan complied, she decided to belatedly make the introductions and thus restore some semblance of decorum to the atmosphere. "Mother," she said in a quiet, reassuring voice, "this is the Duke of Hawthorne." Despite her mother's gasp, Alexandra continued in a polite, matter-of-fact tone, "I came upon him when he and his coachman had been set upon by bandits and I—I shot one of them." Turning to Jordan, she said, "Your grace, this is my mother, Mrs. Lawrence."

Silence reigned complete. Mrs. Lawrence seemed to be struck dumb and the squire and his wife continued to gape, their mouths slack. Embarrassed by the total silence in the room, Alexandra turned with a bright relieved smile as Uncle Monty tottered into the room, swaying slightly, his glassy eyes testifying to an evening spent secretly imbibing his forbidden Madeira. "Uncle Monty," she said a little desperately, "I've brought home a guest. This is the Duke of Hawthorne."

Uncle Monty leaned heavily on his ivory-handled cane and blinked twice, trying to focus on the face of their guest. "Good God!" he exclaimed in sudden shock. "It is Hawthorne, by Jove! It truly is." Belatedly recalling his manners, he executed a clumsy bow and said in a hearty, ingratiating voice, "Sir Montague Marsh, your grace, at your service."

Alexandra, who was embarrassed only by the awkwardness of the prolonged silences and not by her shabby house, ancient servants, or peculiarly behaving relatives, smiled brightly at Jordan, then inclined her head toward Filbert who was shuffling into the room bearing a tea tray. Ignoring the fact that she was probably committing a grave social faux pas by introducing a nobleman to a mere footman, she said sweetly, "And this is Filbert, who takes care of everything which Penrose does not Filbert, this is the Duke of Hawthorne."

Filbert glanced up in the act of putting the tea tray on a table and squinted nearsightedly over his shoulder at Uncle Monty. "How do," he said to the wrong man and Alexandra saw the duke's lips twitch.

"Would you care to stay for tea?" she asked the duke, studying the suspicious glimmer of laughter in his grey eyes.

He smiled, but shook his head without a trace of regret. "I cannot, moppet I've a long journey ahead of me and before I can resume it, I will have to return to the inn and meet with the authorities. They will require some sort of explanation for tonight's debacle." Directing a brief nod of farewell at his watchful audience, Jordan looked down at the beguiling face turned up to his. "Would you see me out?" he invited.

Alexandra nodded and led him to the front door, ignoring the babble of voices that erupted behind them in the drawing room, where the squire's wife was saying in a shrill voice, "What did he mean 'back to the inn'? Surely, Mrs. Lawrence, he cannot possibly have meant Alexandra was there with—"

In the hallway, the duke paused and gazed down at Alexandra with a warmth in his grey eyes that made her entire body feel overheated. And when he lifted his hand and laid it tenderly against her bruised jaw, her pulse leapt in her throat. "Where—where do you go on your journey?" she asked, trying to delay his leavetaking.

"To Rosemeade."

"What is that?"

"My grandmother's small country estate. She prefers to spend most of her time there because she thinks the house 'cozy.' "

"Oh," Alexandra said, finding it quite difficult to speak or breathe because his fingertips were now deliciously sliding over her cheek, and he was looking at her in a way that struck her as being almost reverent.

"I'll never forget you, poppet," he said, his voice low and husky as he bent down and pressed his warm lips to her forehead. "Don't let anyone change you. Stay exactly the way you are."

When he left, Alexandra stood stock still, reeling from the kiss that seemed branded into her forehead.

It did not occur to her that she might have just fallen under the spell of a man who automatically used his voice and smile to charm and disarm. Practiced seducers were beyond the realm of her experience.

Dishonest rakes and practiced seducers were not, however, beyond the experience of Mrs. Lawrence, who had fallen victim to just such a treacherous charmer when she was scarcely older than Alexandra. Like the Duke of Hawthorne, her husband had been outrageously handsome, with suave manners, beautiful clothes, and absolutely no scruples.

Which was why, when Alexandra awakened the next morning, it was to see her mother storming into her room, her voice vibrating with fury. "Alexandra, wake up this instant!"

Alexandra wriggled into a sitting position and pushed her curly hair out of her eyes. "Is something wrong?"

"I'll tell you what's wrong," her mother said, and Alexandra was shocked at the virulent rage emanating from her mother. "We've had four visitors this morning, beginning with the innkeeper's wife, who informed me you shared a bedroom there with that low, conniving seducer of innocents last night. The next two visitors were curiosity seekers. The fourth visitor," she enunciated in a voice shaking with pent-up wrath and tears, "was the squire, who told me that, because of your scandalous behavior last night, your state of undress, and your general lack of modesty and sense, he now considers you beyond the bounds of a fit wife for his son or for any other self-respecting man."

When Alexandra merely stared at her in visible relief, Mrs. Lawrence lost control. She grabbed Alexandra by the shoulders and shook her. "Do you have any idea what you've done," she screamed. "Do you? Then I'll tell you—you've disgraced yourself beyond recall. Gossip has stretched everywhere, and people are talking about you as if you were a slut. You were seen being carried into an inn in a state of undress and you occupied a bedroom alone with a man. You were carried out of that same inn a half hour later by the same man. Do you know what everyone thinks?"

"That I was tired and needed to rest?" Alexandra suggested sensibly, more alarmed by her mother's pallor than her words.

"You fool! You're a bigger fool than I ever was. No decent man will have you now."

"Mama," Alexandra said with firm quiet, trying to reverse their roles as she had needed to do so often in the past three years, "calm yourself."