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She will have her hands full after tomorrow. And you go to bed too. I have the key to the hunting parlor and can let myself out.”
    “Perhaps I can light more candles for you, sir?” There was an almost-childish eagerness in the old servant’s question.
    “No, thank you. One candle will do. I just need to see the house by myself, if you please.”
    “Very well, sir.” Perkins straightened to attention, though he was grinning and the tip of his nightcap hung behind his ear like a giant, misplaced earring. “Mary and I will be waiting tomorrow to give you the full report and show you the house again. Will Lady Hanbury be coming with you?”
    Who? Oh, he almost forgot he had acquired a wife earlier today. Naturally, Perkins knew about their nuptials, since Stanville had stayed here for a week.
    “I do not think so, Perkins. Not tomorrow.”
    Perkins bowed again and turned to go, but before disappearing in that mysterious way servants had of vanishing into the woodwork, he suddenly seemed to remember something.
    “My best wishes for your happiness, sir,” he said and, with a smile, evaporated around the staircase.
    “Thank you, Perkins,” Percy muttered.
    For a moment, he’d completely forgotten about Letitia. He didn’t want her in his thoughts tonight. There would be plenty of time, his entire life, in fact, to remember about Lady Letitia Hanbury’s happiness.
    Alone again, he looked around.
    The walls above the staircase were completely empty, and so was the long gallery once adorned with paintings. He had not expected anything else, yet a sharp stub of regret twisted in his heart like a knife. He could buy any paintings, but not the family portraits. What had Stanville done with them?
    Most bedrooms remained partially furnished, some pieces under dust covers. Stanville must have stayed in the state bedroom. Its furnishings consisted of a splendid old bed and a few hastily added pieces to provide his lordship with a modicum of comfort in the house he had raided of its belongings years earlier. Somehow, Stanville had not removed the richly carved bed, but the elaborate canopy Percy used to admire for its embroidered battle scenes was gone.
    Without realizing it, Percy slowed his step as he walked toward the eastern end of the house. There, at the other end of the gallery, were his parents’ rooms.
    He stopped when he reached the narrow passage that separated their apartments from the gallery, leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.
    It all came back in an instant.
    He was five again, standing in the same dark corner of the passage, hoping no one would notice his presence. He was not supposed to be here, but he’d slipped out of the nursery after his nanny fell asleep in her chair while he was playing with his soldiers.
    He wanted to see a brother or sister whose arrival had been expected for months by his jubilant parents. Percy was their only child, and they were beside themselves with joy when his mother was expecting again. He had been expecting too. He wanted to see the baby who would share with him the empty nursery and maybe would grow fast enough to become a playmate. He longed for the company of another child. Although his father had begun taking him along when riding around the estate, the sporadic contact with other children in the village was not enough. He wanted someone who would be there all the time.
    He also missed his mother. He had not seen her since she had retired to her bed after breakfast the day before, suddenly taken with pain. Since then, the entire household had turned upside down. Servants were riding out in a hurry and coming back with strangers. He was not allowed out of the nursery, but watched carefully from its windows whenever sounds from the driveway reached the top floor.
    On the second day of confinement, the walls began to crush down on him. Once he’d even made it downstairs before being ushered upstairs by a very upset Mrs. Dale. Apart from the frustration with the