her courage to ask those few words.

"Yes!" He slid around the table to her side. "I just have something on my mind. But are you all right? You

look ready to swoon."

She grabbed hold of his hand as if it were a lifeline. "If you had something to say, you would say it,wouldn't you?"He smiled. It didn't quite reach his eyes but that was fine once he said what she wanted to hear. "Yes, of course I would."

Her heart resumed its normal beat. Colors, shapes, objects returned to what they should be. He didn'tknow.But she could tell him.Tess grasped his hand tightly. She looked up at him. "Brenn-"At that moment the postboys tramped into the common room and gave Brenn the sign that the coaches were ready. "Tess, the time has come."

She pushed aside the confession she'd just been about to make. Later, she would tell him-but not now.She wouldn't spoil his homecoming for him.Willa was already settled in the luggage coach. Brenn handed Tess up into their coach, pa.s.sing to her the hamper with Miles inside. Clarence and Tim hopped on their horses and without flourish they were off.

The day was overcast. Rain threatened but did not come. Occasionally they pa.s.sed a farmer's wagon orsomeone walking on foot but otherwise they saw no one on the road.Tess asked to see the drawings in Brenn's portfolio. She spread the pen and ink drawings out between them, running a finger over the proud dragon weathervane sitting on top of the cupola. "This house looks amazingly modern for its age. The windows are a nice size."

"Hmmm, yes," Brenn agreed noncommittally.

She glanced at him. He was staring out the window, lost in thought. Outside the coach, the terrain was changing from rolling hills to the steeper landscape of the Black Mountains. The curves in the road became sharper; the lack of decent springs in the coach more noticeable.

"What of the servants?" Tess asked. "I imagine many have been in the service of the earl of Merton for generations."

That question roused Brenn out of his contemplation. "There aren't any."

"No servants?" Tess glanced at the large house in the drawing. "I would think an estate of this size would have a host of servants running it."

"My uncle was eccentric. He didn't like people around." He stretched out his long legs before admitting, "The house is the worse for his pigheadedness. It needs quite a bit of work. I, ah, took a bit of license with the drawings."

"Oh," Tess wondered what he meant by that. "Well," she said with determination, "we'll set it all to

rights. I'll hire servants from the village."That caught Brenn's interest. She could almost see him relax, as if he'd feared her questions. He laced hisfingers with hers. "Yes, together we'll set it all back to rights, won't we?"

"Together," she promised. "Tell me about the village."

"It's called Erwynn Keep, after the house. The site of the house and the village both date to before the Middle Ages."

"What is the history?"

"Nothing dramatic. This part of Wales is secluded, almost a world of its own. The events of history bypa.s.sed Erwynn Keep. The main house was built close to six hundred years ago as a nunnery," he added with a smile. "It was confiscated during the Reformation and that is when the first earl took control in the name of Henry the Eighth. For two hundred years, an earl resided there until the family decided it preferred London. My father's father was the first to move back."

He took the drawings and paged through them until he found one of the landscape. It showed a wooden bridge over a bubbling spring and the rooftops of a village built into the sheltering haven of a mountain. The paper, a smaller rectangle than the others, was curled and yellow.

"I didn't draw this picture," he said.

"Who did?"

"My father hung it on the wall of every house he lived in. Looking at it is what made me decide to try my hand at drawing."

"And you found you had talent."

He shook his head. "Not my father's talent. I used to study this picture and wish I could put myself in it. This is the village from the vantage point of Erwynn Keep." Leaning toward her, he gestured to the bottom of the picture. "You walk over the bridge and around a bend and there is a long drive off the road. Huge pines with their boughs dripping needles line the drive like sentinels. Father said that in the autumn, you can walk knee-deep in those needles as if they were snow.

"You'll walk a fair distance and then you will start to see a flash of the lake between the trees. The drive curves around and there you are with the whole valley laid before you and in its heart is Llyn Mynydd."

"Llyn Mynydd?"

"Mountain Lake."

"And the house?"

He shuffled through the drawings, pulling out the one of the front of the house. "It sits atop a crag of land jutting out into the lake. The house sits on top. On a clear day, the image of the house is reflected on the water." He edged closer. "Tess, there is no water clearer than that of Llyn Mynydd. You can see straight to the bottom, and the fish-!" He measured a span of air with his hands.

He lowered his voice. "When I first rode to Erwynn Keep, I got off my horse and walked the distance from the bridge to the house. It all seemed so familiar...and then I realized it was because all the stories my father had told me as a child had originated in this house."

"Even the one about the lady in the lake?"

He smiled. "Especially that one. Another story Father told me was of the Tylwyth Tegs who danced every night on a bridge; the movement of their tiny feet is what creates the bubbling of the stream."

"Tylwyth Tegs?"

"Fairy people." He tapped the drawing of the bridge with one finger. "This is the bridge he spoke of. I knew it the moment I stood upon it and heard the sound of the stream over the rocks. Later, I asked one

of the shepherds if he had heard of the Tylwyth Tegs. He told me he'd even seen them dance." Brenn's eyes twinkled with laughter. "It was like coming home, Tess, to a place where I knew I belonged."

She took his arm. "Let us walk the distance, too. I want to see Erwynn Keep as you first saw it."

She expected him to be pleased. Instead, for a moment, he seemed ready to deny her request and then

he kissed her, once on the forehead, the second time on the lips.

Pa.s.sion rose up inside of her, just as it did every time he was near. She realized with a shaky start that he was her home. Wherever he was, was where she was meant to be.

"I love you," she whispered.

"I know you do, Tess, and a lucky man I am." But he didn't tell her he loved her.

Brenn didn't know if walking the path leading to Erwynn Keep was a good idea. He needed her to be in the best mood possible before finally confronting her with the truth.

However, she was adamant especially after her first glimpse of the picturesque village.

Erwynn Keep's village seemed to have been frozen in time. Roses in full bloom climbed the stone fences and up the gray stone walls of the cottages with their slate roofs. A person could easily imagine knights in shining armor and fine ladies riding through its narrow street.

Tess breathed out a sigh of satisfaction.

Cedric Pughe, the blacksmith, was not at his forge but his wife stood alongside the road talking to a

neighbor. Her children played with several others. They all stopped and stared as the coaches drove past, scattering a group of chickens who had ventured out onto the road.

Word of Brenn's return would spread through the village in no time.

At the bridge, Brenn signaled Tim to halt the horses and climbed down from the coach before helping

Tess down.

"What is it, my lord?" Tim asked.

"Take the coaches on," Brenn ordered and gave him directions.

The expression on Tim's face let it be known that he thought they were a bit daft to be wishing to walk

the last mile, but Tess laughed adventurously. She'd let Miles out of his basket and he followed them.

She stepped onto the wooden planks of the bridge with antic.i.p.ation in her eyes. "This is the bridge where fairies dance."

She untied her bonnet and removed it before tilting her head and listening. Water burbled over the rocks

beneath the bridge as the stream made its way to Llyn Mynydd. "I can hear them," she whispered.

A quacking started and she bent over the stone wall railing to watch baby ducks swim around their

mother. Laughing, she turned to him. "This is really a lovely place. I was so afraid that it would be like

that other village, but it's not. It's not like any other place I've ever been."

She leaned back against the railing. "What we need is a swan swimming with the ducks. Would that not be the loveliest thing, Brenn?"

For a moment, Brenn couldn't speak. In the soft light of a dreary, overcast day, she was like a ray ofsunshine shooting through the clouds. The children had stopped their playing and craned their necks tolook at her. He could see their mouths turning to round O's of admiration.

At this moment, Tess was like a child herself, full of enthusiasm and the joy of life. "Come," she demanded, already starting up the road. "Show me everything."

He followed with less eagerness.

Wildflowers budded in the gra.s.s along the side of the road. She paused to pick some and giggled when Miles decided to chase a b.u.t.terfly.

Her shoes weren't the best for walking but she didn't seem to mind. She took his arm and the two of

them strolled as if they were in Hyde Park and not the heart of Wales.

He remembered walking this distance the first time; then, he had been a battle-weary soldier. As if in sympathy, a pain shot through his leg.

"Are you all right?" Tess asked.