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Charles, do you?"
    Charles fought with himself silently, then nodded.
    Sedge sighed. "Then stay here for the next two months and tell everyone back in the States that your pregnancy is progressing beautifully. I'll report that the two of you were glowing pictures of expectant parenthood during my visit here, and-" he paused, studying them for any signs of weakening resolve-"over the next two months I will find you a newborn baby to call your own. I promise you, no one will ever know the child wasn't born here."
    Charles and Elizabeth stiffened in shock. "Let us discuss it," Charles finally said. Sedge nodded and left the porch.
    Sedge waited nearly an hour without word. He made a gourmand's grimace as he sipped strong Brazilian coffee among the colorful tiles and rustic woods ofthe preserve's aviary. Dozens ofinjured or orphaned macaws and parrots eyed him from soaring perches.
    A fledgling macaw, one of the hyacinths, fluttered down and sat on his coffee hand. The electric-blue youngster was no more than a foot tall, then. "Oi," the bird said. Even its Portuguese accent was perfect. A native Brazilian.
    "Hello to you, in return," Sedge said. "You must be the amazing Mr. Darcy, about whom I've heard so much."
    "Oi."
    "Speak the Queen's English, not Brazilian Portuguese, you."
    "Oi."
    "All right, then. Oi."
    Charles and Elizabeth entered the room. "We want a baby," Charles said.
    Sedge nodded his approval. "You'll give some unwanted child a wonderful new life."
    Elizabeth's throat worked. "Our baby was a girl, Sedge. With ..." she raised a tired hand to her hair. "Red hair. Like mine." Her voice broke. Charles put an arm around her. She leaned against him.
    "A newborn girl with red hair it is, then," Sedge promised. "I shall find the best."
    Kara
    The present
    "I should have known they'd save the birth certificate," Sedge said wearily. "I urged them to destroy it, and they swore to me that they would."
    He rode beside me in f=ull winter tweeds and a mohair sweater, as if prepared to hunt down a stag on the heath of some ancestral estate or to chase me should I decide to nudge my Thoroughbred's flanks and bolt. The cold lay on me like a thick glove. I wore jodhpurs, boots and a thick sweater. No hat, no gloves.
    I wanted to be numb.
    "Perhaps they intended for me to find it, some day. Perhaps they intended to tell me I was adopted."
    "And thus to admit to the world-not to mention the contentious and often competitive Whittenbrook family-that they'd lied about the birth of their child? They felt they saved you from a life as an unwanted baby. They felt they could offset their guilt by giving you the best life, the best opportunities, any child could desire. And they never wanted you to luiow the truth."
    "Then why did they keep the adoption papers?"
    "Frankly, I doubt they expected to die. Ever." He smiled sadly. "Thus, they couldn't imagine the papers would be left behind for you to discover." He hesitated, then: "I wish you could have seen their faces when I presented you to them in Brazil. It was love at first sight. It truly was."
    "Did you purchase me for them? How much did I cost? Was I a bargain?"
    "Please. It was, in many ways, a routine private adoption. I made some discreet inquiries via certain connections. I spoke to adoption attorneys across the United States. My liaisons informed me that an appropriate baby, healthy and newborn, was available in a small town in northern Florida. After that, the process was relatively simple."
    I wound my hands tighter in the leather reins. My bay gelding, a fine hunter-jumper from Uncle William's stables, tucked his elegant head at my subtle command. I had, after all, trained in dressage with the head of the Brazilian Olympic Equestrian Team. I was a Whittenbrook. Whittenbrooks could sit a horse. At least, the real ones could.
    "Did I have a given name?" I asked quietly. "Aside from `Unnamed Female Child?"'
    "Your biological parents gave you up immediately at birth. They did not