The country wasn't like London, where bored married ladies of the aristocracy played musical beds and everyone turned a blind eye. In London a man could keep a mistress in a discreet house that nobody knew about and visit her whenever he wished.

In the country everyone found out about everything. And blind eyes were for beggars.

It wasn't respectability that bothered him. He couldn't care less what people thought of him, and in any case, few people ever blamed the man.

The woman, on the other hand . . .

He had few memories of his real mother; she'd died when he was a little boy. But he'd learned the word "whore" as a toddler, from hearing people fling it at her in the street, over and over, some to her face, and others behind her back. The earl's whore and her little bastard . . . That was Harry.

He wasn't a bastard at all, not legally. His natural father had bestowed a handsome dowry on his pregnant maidservant and the village smith, Alfred Morant, had married her well before Harry was born.

People still called Harry a bastard.

And when the blacksmith-Harry never used his name-when the blacksmith drank too much, which was often, he'd call his pretty blonde wife a bloody damned whore as well, and thump into her soft flesh with his huge, meaty fists.

The moment the man started drinking, his mother locked little Harry away so he'd escape the broken bones and bruises she suffered. A vicious kick had broken Harry's hip as a toddler. He carried the limp to this day. After that his mother took the beatings for him.

It was because Alfred loved her, Mam would explain to Harry afterward, weeping. Alfred had always loved her and wanted her, and he was just angry that the earl had had her first . . . But what could she do? He was the earl.

Mam had died when Harry was five or six. One blow too many and an unborn child died with her. "Whose child is this one, whore?" the smith had bellowed, even though Mam had never looked at another man. She never even left the house anymore-she couldn't face the village eyes assessing her bruises, the eyes that said she deserved every one.

After his mother's death, Harry's life had become much harder. The smith had kicked him out and he'd lived like a stray dog, on scraps from the other villagers.

Then one day Barrow, a groom for a great lady, had brought in a horse to be shod and found Harry bruised, half-starved, and shivering out the back. He'd brought him home as a gift to Mrs. Barrow, a childless, motherly woman, who'd taken one look at him and taken him into her warm heart.

The Barrows worked for Lady Gertrude Freymore, the earl's dragonlike spinster aunt. That austere lady had taken one look at Harry and realized the blood connection. Along with his half brother, Gabe, she'd raised him as a gentleman and when she died, she'd left him a legacy.

But Harry never forgot his beginnings . . .

He would never take a countrywoman as mistress. Marriage was his only option. He would write to his aunt as soon as he got home.

The thought warmed him. He had a home of his own for the first time in his life. And soon he would have a wife to warm it. And settle his . . . brains.

"T is a grand place you've got here, Harry, lad," Ethan exclaimed enthusiastically. As soon as they'd settled the horses into the stables, checked on the work that had been done in Harry's absence, and informed the new cook that there would be eight men to feed, Harry had taken Ethan on a tour.

"Those stables are magnificent. There's everything a man could want-even the remnants of a training track, if my eye doesn't deceive me."

"It doesn't," Harry said, grinning. "Lady Helen's maternal grandparents-this was their estate, you know-were famous for breeding Thoroughbreds. They bred and trained a number of winners in their day."

Ethan quirked his eyebrow. "Lady Helen, eh? And I gather she's a fine, pretty lass, this Lady Helen."

Harry blinked. "What makes you say that?"

Ethan shrugged. "You've only mentioned her about a dozen times in the last few days."

Harry scowled. "That's only natural-it's her home I've bought."

Ethan nodded solemnly. "Natural, yes, the very word I'd have used."

"Those fences will need to be renewed before winter sets in." Harry ignored the knowing amusement in Ethan's eyes and pointed at the offending fences. "Some of them are so rotted they'll splinter if a horse rubs against them."

"Indeed they will," Ethan agreed, sobering. "First thing in the morning I'll get a couple of the lads to go over all the fences and make an estimate of what we'll need."

"I've already done it," Harry told him. "The lumber should arrive tomorrow."

Ethan whistled. "You wasted no time, did you?"

Harry made an offhand gesture. "I want to get as much done as I can before winter sets in." The truth was he was burning up with unfulfilled desire and tramping around in the cold, muddy fields was just the thing to dampen any lingering . . . energy.

"What's that place?" Ethan pointed to a cottage on the edge of the estate, close to the village. "It looks deserted."

There was obviously nobody in residence; it was a chilly day and every other house in the village had smoke coming from the chimney. The garden in front of it was unkempt and ivy straggled up into the thatch.

Harry called one of the local men over. The day he'd signed the papers to purchase the estate, he'd returned and with the help of the vicar and Aggie had found half a dozen men to start work on the most urgent of the repairs. "What's that house?" he asked the man. "Who owns it?"

"You do, sir," the man said. "Used to be the estate manager's house, but when the money run out, 'e didn't stay on. Well, 'e wasn't from around here-a foreigner, 'e was, from up Leicester way, I do b'lieve. Nobody lives there now, 'cept spiders, I reckon."

Harry thanked him and the man went back to work. Ethan stared at the cottage with narrowed eyes. "Mind if I have a look at it, Harry?"

"Of course not. Though I don't see why you're so interested."

Ethan didn't answer. He was halfway to the cottage. Curious, Harry followed him. There was a wooden gate that groaned as they pushed it open, and weeds in the front garden, knee-deep.

Ethan prowled around it, peering into the diamond-paned windows, squinting up into the deep eaves, and stripping ivy off the walls to examine the surface beneath. "Do you have a key?" he asked Harry.

"I'm not sure." Harry pulled a bunch of keys from his pocket and examined the front door lock to see if any of them might fit.

"No need," Ethan said suddenly. He'd tried the door and it just opened; it was on a latch. The two men went inside. It was dusty and there were cobwebs, but otherwise the air was sweet, with no smell of mildew or damp. The stairs creaked a little under the two men's weight, but there was no sign of rot.

"It's exactly what I need," Ethan said, as he inspected the last of the three bedrooms. Like the main house, the cottage was solid and only in need of superficial repairs. "Will you sell it to me?"

"Of course, if that's what you want," said Harry, surprised. "But why do you want to buy a cottage? It's not as if you need a house of your own."

"Ah, but I will," Ethan said, picking at some flaking whitewash with his thumbnail.

"I assumed you'd bunk down in the big house, as we did at the Grange. What's the point of a house with ten bedrooms otherwise?"

"I don't mind where I lay me head, as you well know," Ethan said. "But a wife expects to be mistress of her own home. If I had a snug wee cottage all ready, it might tip the decision in me favor."

"A wife? You don't have a wife."

"Aye, but I told you I was doin' some serious courtin'," Ethan reminded him. "And since you're talkin' about getting a lass of your own, I'll need me own place. Two wives under the one roof? Not on your life, boyo."

"No, I take your point-but who is this mystery woman, Ethan?"

Ethan winked. "Wait and see. Don't you worry about my love life-you go off and do some serious courtin' of your own. What about this Lady Helen of yours?"

"What about her?" Harry said, instantly defensive. "I told you I only met her for a few hours. It's nonsense to assume she means anything to me. Why should she? I hardly know her. I merely mention her from time to time because she has left her imprint on this place. From what people have told me, she single-handedly kept half a dozen families from starvation last year when the crops failed so disastrously, so it's hardly surprising if her name keeps coming up. Anyway she'll be in London by now, showing some old lady the sights and reading to her, and taking tea." His vehemence surprised him and he cleared his throat and looked out of the window.

Ethan gave him a long look. "Aye, I can see you haven't given the lass any thought at all. Not a bit."

"That's right. Now, I'll just go and see how those men are doing," Harry mumbled and marched out of the cottage, leaving Ethan and his annoyingly smug expression behind.

Ethan just didn't understand. His frustrating courtship was causing him to imagine everyone else was in the same state.

Harry had no time to think of women; he had an estate to get back into shape. And when he had time, he would pop up to Bath where Aunt Maude would have found him a suitable bride. No trouble at all.

For the next two weeks Harry and Ethan raced to get as much outdoor work done as they could before the first snows arrived. They mended fences, repaired outbuildings, and replaced broken slates on the roof. Inside the house a team of local women and men scoured the house from top to bottom, leaving it bare and clean.

Harry and Ethan worked like demons, snapping out orders as though they were back in the army. The estate workers soon found no one could slip shoddy or slapdash work past them. Harry and Ethan were hard taskmasters but since they worked the hardest of anyone, nobody minded. The failure of the harvests the previous year and the closing down of the big house meant most of them had faced the prospect of a very bleak Christmas. And possible starvation.

Now, with employment, and solid currency in their pocket at the end of every week, there was a feeling of renewed hope in the air as they settled into a routine of hard, satisfying work.

At the end of the third week Harry received his first visitors. He had no idea they were coming; one minute he and Ethan and the head groom, Jackson, were at the front of the house discussing whether an impending bank of clouds betokened snow, and the next minute two sporting curricles hurtled through the front gate, not slowing for a second as they negotiated the narrow entrance, one hot on the heels of the other.

Once inside, the second vehicle, a black and yellow curricle pulled by a pair of matched bays, swung out and tried to pass the other. They traveled at breakneck speed, jostling for first place, sending the freshly raked gravel of the drive flying.

"God a'mighty," Ethan declared. "He's never going to pass him. He'll overturn-"

"Lay you a pony he wins," Harry said.

"Done," said Ethan, staring as the bays strained and the curricle pulled forward, grazing the wheels of its rival. The light, high-sprung vehicle bounced and swayed perilously. The driver laughed and urged his team faster. "He's mad."

"It's Luke," Harry said. "You know he doesn't care if he lives or dies. And Rafe knows all his tricks. They've been racing each other for years."

Rafe Ramsey and Luke Ripton were his two closest friends after his brother, Gabe. They'd all gone to school together, they'd joined the army together, and together, somehow, they'd survived eight years at war.

"They're both mad," Ethan declared.

"Magnificent, just magnificent," Jackson murmured in a reverential tone. "Such beautiful movers. I ain't seen such high-blooded lovelies bowling up the drive of Firmin Court since Miss Nell's mam were alive. It does my old heart good to see them, it does."

"Those bays are particularly fine, aren't they?" Harry agreed. "Though I think the blacks might have the edge in stamina."

"Aye, very powerful shoulders," Jackson agreed.

"They're still stark, starin' mad," Ethan repeated. "They'll break both their fool necks."

Harry squinted. "Is that a new curricle Rafe's driving, Ethan? Very nice, don't you think?"

Ethan glanced at him. "You're still mad, as well."

Harry grinned. It wasn't the first time he'd been called mad; they all had. He, Gabe, Luke, Rafe, and their friend Michael had been called the Duke's Angels, for their names and because they rode dispatches for Wellington.

After Michael's death, their nickname had changed to the Devil Riders, possibly because of Wellington's habit of exhorting them to "ride like the devil" or because after they'd lost Michael there was a new edge to their willingness to take risks. At that time none of them particularly cared whether they lived or died.

The two curricles sped along, neck and neck, heading toward the front of the house.

"Holy Mother of God, that lunatic's going to put them up the front steps," Ethan gasped and leapt to the side. Jackson muttered an oath and hurried after him. Harry folded his arms and waited. He'd seen this particular maneuver of Luke's before.

As expected, at the very last moment, Luke hauled his horses back and they snorted and plunged to a stop, steam coming from them in clouds, a bare six inches from the steps. The second curricle pulled up beside it three seconds later.

There was a sudden silence, broken only by the horses stamping and blowing for air. Several grooms who'd come to watch the race hurried forward to take the reins. The two drivers, both in elegantly cut, many-caped driving coats and high, curly-brimmed beavers descended their vehicles in a leisurely fashion.

Luke affected a start when he saw the second. "Rafe, my dear boy-you've arrived, at last!" He yawned. "I thought you'd never get here."

Rafe, six foot tall, whipcord lean and elegant to the fingertips, pulled off his driving gloves and unknotted his white silk scarf with leisurely movements. "Dreary timing, I know. I was held up on the road by a most tedious fellow in a black and yellow curricle, a positive slug-as slow as a wet week he was, I promise you." He pulled out a quizzing glass and leveled it in ostentatious surprise at Luke's black and yellow curricle. "By Jove, I do believe the slug was you, Luke. What sort of cattle are you driving these days?"

Chuckling, Harry went to greet them. Ethan, too, came forward with a wide grin, saying, "As hey-go-mad as ever, I see. Peacetime life too tame for you, then?"

Rafe Ramsey raised a sardonic eyebrow. "Hey-go-mad? I? You are mistaken, my dear Ethan. It is my friend who is mad; I merely indulge him. My only problem is that I'm near faint with thirst." He gave Harry a meaning look.

"Oh indeed," Harry chuckled. "You poor feeble creature, come inside and I'll pour you a reviving draught."

"In that case, I feel a faint coming on, too," Ethan declared.

"And me, for I won," Luke reminded them.

"I know, I just won twenty-five pounds on you," Harry told him.

Luke's jaw dropped. "A pony? You only bet a pony on me?" He gave a disgusted snort. "At least Rafe wagered a monkey."

"Ethan, you're a man of fine judgment." Rafe stared down his long nose at Harry. "And you bet against me, Harry, my old friend? I'm wounded, deeply wounded."

Harry grinned, unaffected by his friend's nonsense. "As soon as I saw you had a new curricle, I knew it would take the edge off. You might risk your fool neck but a new curricle? Not likely!" Chuckling, the friends entered the house while Jackson supervised the grooms ushering the magnificent beasts into his tender care.

They were just inside when Rafe turned to Luke. "Did you forget the basket from Mrs. Barrow?"

Luke cursed and ran lightly back down the steps to fetch a large wicker basket from the curricle.

"From Mrs. Barrow?" Harry asked, puzzled. "My Mrs. Barrow?"

"Yes, that good lady has sent you an enormous basket of foodstuffs. Apparently you're living in the direst conditions in some foreign county and like to fade away to a shadow."