Frey rode slowly up the driveway leading to Dominic's home. No, not Dom's home, he corrected himself-Wolfestone. Lord, but the entire estate had seen better days. He wondered what plans his friend had for it.

Somehow he couldn't see Dom settling down to contented domesticity. He'd never settled anywhere. The original rolling stone, that was Dom.

He dismounted at the front entrance and when no one came running to fetch his horse, he espied a couple of fellows working on repairing a window and gave them a whistle. One looked up and Frey gestured him to approach. The moment the man was close enough, Frey tossed him the reins.

'Take this beast to the stables, will you and make sure he's well watered and gets a good rubdown." He pressed a copper coin into the man's hand and horse and man trotted off happily enough.

Frey rang the doorbell. It was opened by an urchin, the same urchin who'd tried to make off with his luggage earlier, only now he had dirt on his nose and hair full of cobwebs. Frey wrinkled his nose fastidiously. "I'm here to see Lord D'Acre," he said.

"Sorry, 'e's not 'ere," the urchin said and made to close the door.

Reluctantly, for they were his second-best boots, Frey stuck a foot in the door and prevented him. "Listen, you scrubby bra-" Luckily he remembered he was now a vicar and as such was above squabbling with urchins. He reopened the conversation in a more dignified tone. "My son, I am here to visit Lord D'Acre. He is expecting me."

The urchin frowned. "I'm not your son and I told you a minute ago, Lord D'Acre's not 'ere."

"It's a figure of speech," Frey explained testily. "I'm the new vicar and I will come in and wait. I spoke to Lord D'Acre not an hour since and he invited me here. He told me he was on his way home." He pushed open the door and entered. He glanced around at the grim, gray hallway. Dom had told him conditions were spartan, but really!

He looked down his nose at the boy. "And who might you be?"

The child threw out his chest. "Billy Finn. I'm Lord D'Acre's personal gen'ral factotum!"

"Good God!"

The brat scowled at him. "You wouldn't talk to me like that if I 'ad me uniform!" he muttered.

"No uniform could lend luster to a boy with hair full of cobwebs," Frey declared austerely. "Now, conduct me to a sitting room and fetch me some refreshments."

The boy combed at his hair with his fingers, wiped his hands on his breeches, then sulkily threw open a door. "In 'ere, then."

"Such grace and style." Frey was about to enter the room when a soft voice behind him said, "Are you looking for Lord D'Acre? I'm afraid he's out at the moment."

He turned and coming down the stairs was a girl who seemed to Frey to be all softness and curves. She descended the stairs carefully, with an earnest expression that charmed him. She had a round, soft face with a quantity of brown curls, simply drawn back and pulled into a loose knot from which dozens of tendrils had escaped. She saw him watching her and blushed. Her hand went to her hair. "I'm sorry, things have been at sixes and sevens this afternoon and my hair is a mess-"

"You look charming," Frey assured her.

She gave him a doubtful look. "Billy, dear, would you please ask Mrs. Stokes to send us a pot of tea and some of her lovely lemon biscuits-" She turned to Frey. "Or would you prefer coffee? Or something stronger?"

'Tea and lemon biscuits would be delightful," he said, surprising himself. He hated tea. He watched her organizing the urchin. He supposed he'd have to get used to drinking tea. It was the sort of thing vicars were forced to drink.

"Please, will you take a seat?" she invited. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name."

He bowed instantly. "Humphrey Netterton at your service. I'm an old friend of Dominic's-Lord D'Acre's I should say."

"And I am Miss Pettifer." She saiS it as if he should know who she was. She held out her hand and he took it in his. Like the rest of her, it was small and very soft. Her eyes were brown and exactly matched her hair. Her skin was like cream.

They stood there, staring at each other until Frey recalled himself enough to fill the silence. He said, "I am also the new vicar of St. Stephen's."

"Oh." Her face crumpled. "I am v-very p-p-pleased to meet y-you," she managed and burst into tears.

There was only one course of action a man could take under these circumstances, Frey realized. He drew her against his chest, put his arms around her, and let her sob her little heart out all over his exquisitely arranged neckcloth.

She sobbed against him, quivering in his arms like a little mouse. He held her and patted her back and made soothing noises. Her curls tickled his nose. He inhaled the scent of her. She smelled of... he frowned, trying to place the scent. Something sweet and uncomplicated... like soap and... pansies? Did pansies have a scent? He wasn't sure, but that's what she reminded him of, a pansy.

"I'm sorry," she managed to say on a hiccough after a few moments. "I don't know what came over me."

"There, there," he soothed. "You said things had been at sixes and sevens."

She looked up at him, her eyes swimming. "My father is very ill. The doctor is with him."

His arms tightened around her. "Hush now, I'm sure everything will be all right."

"I-I think h-he's going to-going to-." She could not say it. Her full lower lip quivered.

Without thought Frey cupped her chin, tilted her face up, and kissed her gently. She tasted of sweetness and peppermints.

"It will be all right."

She blinked and gave him a watery smile. "You're very k-kind, but I fear the worst. Papa has been asking to's-speak to a m-minister for days. I think he wants to make his p-peace with God, b-before... before..."

She looked at him with tragic eyes. "And now y-you are here and he can and's-so I fear he will d-die soon." Her face crumpled again, and she sobbed anew into his neckcloth. It was ruined anyway, Frey thought, rubbing her back in soothing circles.

Poor little soul. If her father was dying...

Good grief! He was the minister who was expected to help Miss Pettifer's father make his peace. Frey swallowed. He'd never given comfort to the dying before. He hoped she was mistaken.

She clutched at his sleeve. "Will you do something for me, please?"

Frey found himself saying yes.

"I don't want you to see Papa yet. I am afraid... afraid, that once he has spoken to you..." She broke off, unable to go on.

That he will give up the ghost, Frey supplied silently. "Yes, if you think it's best, I will stay away. But if he starts to fail, you know I must go to him."

She nodded, tearfully. "Yes, of course. Thank you." She looked a little guilty. "He is bedridden, so... he will not know you are here unless anyone tells him. But I promise you if he-if the worst-"

Frey took her hand. "I know." He closed his eyes to pray for her father's rapid recovery.

Instead, he found himself remembering the taste of those soft, sweet lips...

He hadn't meant to kiss her. He didn't know what had come over him, actually. It was most uncharacteristic. Thank God she hadn't reacted badly. It would have been frightful if she'd set up a screeching.

Come to think of it, she'd hardly reacted at all. His technique must be slipping.

Well, of course the girl hadn't reacted, he told himself. Her father was dying. What did a kiss from a relative stranger matter when she was facing the unimaginable. He knew how he'd felt when his father had died. Poor little thing. His arms tightened around her.

She was so wonderfully soft...

Chapter Twelve.

Thou strong seducer, Opportunity!

JOHN DRYDEN.

Grace reached the shore of the lake and began to climb out. He moaned and she turned to see what was the matter. He moaned again.

"Are you in pain?" she called.

"Agony," he said, but he didn't look like a man who was ill. His golden gaze roamed over her, gleaming with enjoyment. She clapped her arms over herself, striving for modesty. 'Turn your back."

"Not humanly possible."

She turned her back and scrambled for her clothes. He moaned again. "Like a peach wrapped in tissue paper," he said when she bent over.

She snapped upright, holding her clothes against her. "Will you stop that nonsense?"

"It's not nonsense, it's poetry. You are living poetry." He began to wade out of the water and she got a glimpse of what she must look like to him. His drawers were almost transparent, clinging to his body, as he said, like tissue paper, only not around a peach...

She tried not to stare, but could not help herself. It was not material bunching after all...

"Stop there," she croaked.

His eyes glimmered with amusement. "Willingly," and promptly posed for her like a Greek statue, changing poses rapidly. Only none of Lord Elgin's marbles looked a bit like this man. He was bigger, more masculine, and he lived and breathed. The taste of him was still in her mouth.

"Stop it," she spluttered with reluctant laughter. "Cover yourself."

"Can't. My drawers need to dry first, otherwise when I return to Wolfestone they will be all wet in certain places and people will wonder what on earth I have been doing." He looked at her and added, "And they will see damp patches on your dress, too, and they will add two and two..."

Grace bit her lip indecisively. She wanted to be securely covered from head to toe, right now, but he was right.

"As I see it, you have two choices-you can take off your wet clothes and put the dry ones on over a naked body." He looked at her from under his brows. "In which case you will have to somehow hide your underclothes as you walk up to the house. I could put them in my pocket and carry them for you."

There was no way in the world she was giving him her underwear.

"Or you can sit in the sun and let your underclothes dry and then you can get dressed. That's what I'm doing." He stretched out on the grass and she steadfastly avoided looking where she most wanted to look.

"Very well, I'll do that, too," she decided. He patted the grass beside him, but she shook her head. "No, I'll sit over here." She sat down on the other side of a bush where she felt securely screened.

"Ah, like Pyramus and Thisbe," he said. "How sad."

"Not at all like them," she retorted. "We are not star-crossed lovers!"

"But we are lovers," he said and stepped around the bush.

She sat shielding herself from him, knowing it was futile after what they'd done in the lake. She was silent for a moment, then said, "I can't."

He sat down a short distance away from her. "It's all right, I know. You're not ready for me yet. I can wait."

She shook her head. "There's no point waiting, I'm not going to change my mind."

He just smiled. She shivered inside. It wasn't from cold. Or fear. She turned her back on him. She could still feel his warm gaze slipping over her like a touch, a caress, but at least she couldn't see him. She sat on the fresh green grass, hugging her knees, rocking back and forth. Her emotions were in turmoil.

They were not really star-crossed. Melly didn't want him, but her betrothal was still official. Grace wanted him, but he acted like a free man, and he wasn't. That disturbed her.

What did he want? To make love to her, yes. A few moments of passing pleasure, yes. But what else?

She didn't know him very well, and what she did know wasn't encouraging. He didn't want a home. He didn't want children. Ever.

There'd been no talk of marriage between them. Or even love. He'd called her "my love" once, but that was just an endearment, and he'd been in extremis at the time.

Her breasts still tingled from his caresses. She hunched over them.

He thought she was a hired companion. Men had a double standard toward women of different classes, she knew. For all she knew he might be just wanting to tumble her as lords had tumbled servant girls for centuries. Droit du seigneur.

Of course she could tell him who she really was; there was no need to keep up the imposture now that Sir John was so ill. But she didn't want to. Yet.

She'd never been in this position before, where a man reacted to her, to Grace herself. Not to Miss Merridew, a diamond of the ton, or Miss Merridew, heiress, but to simple, ordinary Grace, a girl who'd grown up in a cold, miserable house, and who, like her sisters, had nourished herself on dreams.

But dreams could deceive.

Two of her sisters had allowed their dreams of love to deceive them. Both Prudence and Faith had made disastrous mistakes at first, mistaking their own deep yearning for love as the real thing and falling for men who were unprincipled rogues.

They'd let their dreams of love blind them into taking terrible risks, giving themselves and their happiness into the hands of unworthy men. Both their lives had nearly been ruined forever. Luckily they hadn't, but it made Grace wary.

She was not yet ready to take the same risk. Not for a man who she'd only known a few days, and who, despite his soft words and caressing ways, might turn out to be just another untrustworthy rake.

She needed more than soft words and tender caresses. The taste of ecstasy he'd shown her in the lake couldn't be allowed to affect her.

Or that when he kissed her it felt like he was a man who'd come out of a desert and she was his first taste of water...

No, that couldn't be allowed to matter.

He might seem to be the embodiment of all her secret dreams, but she couldn't trust her feelings yet. Not while he remained betrothed to Melly. Not while she knew so little about him.

"I have other plans," she told him at last. She rose to her feet and went behind a bush to don her dress.

"Do you want help with your corset?" he asked.

"No, thank you," she said crisply. She had, in fact, left off the corset when she decided to come swimming but she didn't want to alert him to the fact.

As she emerged, fully dressed, he said, "Ah, I see you've left off the corset. How delightful." He'd dressed very rapidly, too.

She crossed her arms across her breasts and fought the blush.