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her death hit both the young women hard. For years she had been a kindly presence in their lives, and they had not known how much they would miss her once she was gone. But grief is not forever, and when their year of mourning was finished, to Fancy’s surprise she discovered that Ellen had grown up and had turned into an exquisitely lovely young woman.
    Suddenly everything that she had been denied Fancy wanted for Ellen. She wanted her to have a grand London season, to go to balls and soirees, the theater and rides in Hyde Park, and to mingle with fashionable and sophisticated people. Fancy’s tidy fortune and a title would ensure that no door would be shut to Lady Merrivale, and as her sister, Ellen would reap and enjoy the benefits.
    If Fancy had dreamed of a grand match for Ellen, she had never given voice to it—she only wanted her sister to be happy—but she would have been less than human if her heart hadn’t swelled with pride when, not a fortnight after their arrival in London this past January, the eldest son of the duke of Montrose began to pay marked attention to Ellen. Unfortunately, the duke’s heir had been an unprepossessing young man, and while Ellen had viewed him kindly, her interest had been immediately sparked by a tall and decidedly handsome gentleman visiting from the Colonies, a Mister Jonathan Walker.
    A little frown knitted Fancy’s forehead. She should be overjoyed that Ellen seemed to have fallen in love with a man of Jonathan’s stature. He was in many ways a maiden’s dream: tall, handsome, wealthy, and charming. In fact, Fancy could not think of one thing wrong with him. Not even the fact that he was a colonial—privately, she thought
that
the most fascinating thing about him, and even more than Ellen she had hung spellbound on his words when he had spoken of the Colonies and the life that he lived there.
    So why, she wondered vexedly, did she have this tiny niggle of discomfort in the back of her mind? Was it because she sometimes caught Jonathan looking at her with an expression in his deep blue eyes that shouldn’t have been there? Did she really suspect that he would have preferred to pay court to her rather than her younger sister? Was it because it was only after she had gently made it known that she was
not
interested in a second husband that he had shown an interest in Ellen? Mayhap Ellen was right: though there was not nearly the wide gap between Ellen’s eighteen and Jonathan’s thirty-six as there had been between her and Spencer, Jonathan was many years older than Ellen. Fancy flushed guiltily, suddenly admitting to herself that some of her reservation lay in the fact that at times, she also found him just a little
too
charming. Almost as if he were presenting an attractive facade and hiding his true character.
    Beside her, Ellen stirred and said gaily, “Oh, here come Jonathan and Simmons now!”
    Fancy glanced over her shoulder and stared intently at the tall, strikingly handsome gentleman approaching them, a warm smile curving his lips. He was followed by his manservant, Simmons, a small, olive-skinned man who the few times she had been in his presence had made Fancy uneasy.
    In deference to shipboard conditions, Jonathan was not wearing a powdered wig, but his dark hair had been pulled back into a queue, and in his deep blue double-breastedjacket and buff breeches he looked very stylish. There were clocks on his silk stockings and silver buckles on his shoes; the ruffles on his fine linen shirt were profuse, and he carried an amber cane in his left hand. Reaching the two women, with Simmons standing respectfully in the background, Jonathan bowed very low and said, “Ladies, a good morrow to you! And I must say that when I escort you from the ship, I shall be the envy of every man in our great Colony of Virginia today.”
    Ellen blushed, and a reluctant smile tugged at the corners of Fancy’s mouth. Dryly she said, “And you, sir, are far too fulsome with your