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had loved Artane for as long as he could remember, been enormously proud of his heritage, and, thanks to his mother, been humbled that one day the care of all that heritage and stone would be his. He found himself smiling at the memories that just looking at the place stirred in him. How many times had he come charging out the front door of the keep itself as a boy, wooden sword in hand, prepared to defend his hall from imaginary foes and the odd tourist or two?
    How many times had his father chased after him just as enthusiastically, bellowing threats of punishment for Stephen having picked the locks on glass cases to liberate various sharp objects in order to practice with them?
    As time had gone on, he’d come to realize that that wasn’t the sort of thing that the future earl of a very solvent, very visible castle was supposed to be doing, so he had pursued a more traditional path of academia.
    In medieval studies, of course.
    His parents thought, wrongly of course, that he’d put away those boyhood dreams of being a knight-errant. It was ridiculous, when one looked at it logically, for a man of his maturity and stature to be involved with sharp, pointy things. Then again, he was a fair horseman, so perhaps it was equally as silly to be taking his own very expensive jumpers and sending them flying over poles indiscrete distances off the ground.
    He pushed away from his car and walked across the courtyard, then jogged up the steps to the front door. He steeled himself for comments from his parents over the condition of his shirt and where he’d been over the weekend. Perhaps he would tell them he’d been playing an especially vigorous game of cricket. He opened the door and found his mother standing in front of the fire.
    “Stephen, darling, what’s happened to the front of your shirt?”
    Stephen sighed and shut the front door behind him.
    D inner
had been held for him along with the after-dinner conversation. After he’d made his way through both and assured his parents he had been behaving in a manner above reproach allweekend long, he gathered his gear from his car and took himself off to his bedroom. He set everything down, then noticed the envelope on the dresser. He flipped it over, then cursed at the sight of the seal on the back. Kenneworth, unfortunately, no doubt extending an invitation he knew already he would absolutely refuse for a variety of reasons he didn’t care to examine at present.
    He did unbend far enough, however, to allow himself to enjoy thoughts of David Preston enduring a few hours on Scottish soil, having the arrogance beaten out of him. He was rich, not overly ugly, and had a penchant for collecting gorgeous women and then tossing them aside when he was finished with them. If Stephen had had a sister, he wouldn’t have allowed her within ten miles of the blighter. Why others in England didn’t follow that same sensible plan, he didn’t know.
    He was tempted to just chuck the invite in the rubbish bin, but his curiosity got the better of him. He popped the seal and pulled the invitation out to read it. A house party, fancy ball dress, shooting, drinking, eating: the usual fare. Should he accept, it would require a tuxedo on his part. He wasn’t sure why Kenneworth had included him, given the animosity that existed between their families. He wasn’t even sure he could be trusted in a shooting party not to shoot his host when his host was David Preston.
    And the thought of an entire weekend spent watching the man chasing some poor girl who hadn’t the sense to see through his ploys was simply more than Stephen could take.
    No, he wouldn’t do it.
    He leaned against the dresser and checked the texts he’d ignored earlier on his phone, then he sighed again. Messages from not one but all three of the women he was currently dating, telling him each assumed he would be accepting Kenneworth’s invitation. The only positive thing about that was at least they knew he wasn’t seeing any