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it must be vastly important if he was willing
to forfeit his bachelorhood.
    Unable to come up with any logical explanation, Briony wandered
across to the escritoire in the corner of the room and sat herself down.
Throughout her life Lady Ashworth had been an avid letter writer. Briony had
seen her sitting before the fine piece of French furniture on countless
occasions, writing missives to her relatives and numerous friends.
    Sooner rather than later she and Luke Kingsley were going to
have to get together in order to sort through Lady Lavinia’s personal effects,
she told herself, after opening one of the drawers to discover piles of letters,
neatly tied together with lengths of ribbon. Picking out one of the bundles at
random, she noted the direction was written in a childish scrawl. They were from
her nephew, written when Luke had been away at school. She quickly discovered
another bundle penned by him when up at Oxford and another pile sent during his
years in the army.
    Curiosity got the better of her and she began to read them in
strict chronological order. The light was fading fast by the time she was
reading the very last letter he had sent to his aunt from London dated a month
before her death.

    …I hope during your impromptu visit to the capital late last year
I succeeded in setting your mind at rest, that you no longer believe everything
the gossipmongers circulate about me. You could do no better than trust your
instincts, Aunt Lavinia, and be sure I shall never bring dishonour to the proud
name I bear…

    An odd thing to have written to his aunt, Briony decided.
Evidently Lady Ashworth had been concerned about the numerous rumours
circulating with regard to her nephew—his excessive gambling, not to mention his
womanising. That was possibly why she had made that unscheduled stop in the
capital after visiting her friend. One thing was certain, though—the letters had
revealed how very fond of his aunt he really was. There was no mistaking
that.
    So why had he never made the effort to pay her a visit in
recent years? Lady Ashworth, as far as Briony was aware, had seen him on three
occasions only since he had sold his commission and had left the army, and that
was because she had gone to the trouble of paying short visits to the capital
herself. Furthermore, why was it that a gentleman who wrote in such fond terms
to his aunt could not even put himself out to attend her funeral?
    Increasingly Luke Kingsley was becoming something of an enigma.
Quite unfathomable!

Chapter Three
    ‘Y ou may kiss the bride,’ the vicar had
invited, his benign, lined face beaming with delight, Briony all too vividly
recalled. And for one heart-stopping moment she had thought Luke had meant to
exert his rights as a husband and do precisely that! But, no, he had kept his
word and, after staring fixedly at the curve of her mouth for endless moments,
had merely raised her left hand in order to press his lips lightly against the
plain gold band he had slipped on her finger a short time before. But would he
continue to keep to his part of the bargain now the knot was tied? That was the
all-important question.
    Raising her head slightly, she peered through her long lashes
down the length of the table at her sole dinner companion. For perhaps the
hundredth time since the ceremony had taken place earlier in the day, the
thought that she must surely have been utterly insane to have gone through with
it once again filtered through her mind. What did she know of Luke Kingsley,
after all? Next to nothing, if one disregarded the gossipmongers’ tittle-tattle.
Even though he had visited the Manor several times during the past month, she
knew little more about him now than she had when he had paid that first
unexpected call, after his very long absence.
    Yes, he continued to remain an enigma. No, more, she decided, a
dichotomy. She had seriously begun to suspect there might be two distinct and
quite opposite personalities locked inside that