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wandering?”
    The two half brothers bore little resemblance to each other. Their height and black hair were the most obvious paternal traits they shared. Barnaby took after his mother, his swarthy skin and black eyes coming down to him from the Cherokee ancestry in her background. Ironically, Luc, the illegitimate brother, looked like the Joslyns, having been blessed with the azure eyes and patrician features of his father’s family. While Barnaby looked like a tough brawler, with the size and muscle to match, Luc appeared every inch the aristocrat, from his elegant lean form to the haughty nose and beautifully chiseled mouth. Barnaby was generally reputed to be the steadfast one, while Luc lived a reckless, vagabond life, earning his keep at the gaming tables—much to Barnaby’s irritation. Barnaby had attempted to share their father’s estate with Luc, but Luc had inherited the stiff-necked pride of the Joslyns and would have none of it. As he had snarled at Barnaby, “If our sire didn’t see fit to name me in his will, I sure as the devil don’t intend to take your charity!” It was an old argument between them, and the years had not lessened the intensity of it.
    Luc would have dug his heels in about removing to The Crown if Emily, her lovely face anxious at the discord between the two brothers, hadn’t stepped in. “Please, Luc,” she said, “won’t you allow your brother to share some of his good fortune with you? Windmere, the title, none of it comes directly from your father.” She grimaced. “Well, I suppose it could be argued that if not for your father being who he was, Barnaby wouldn’t have inherited the title and Windmere, but my point is that he didn’t inherit it from your father. He inherited from his great-uncle.” She smiled warmly at him and asked gently, “How would you feel if positions were reversed? Won’t you allow him to help you just a little ... or is your pride too great?”
    Luc looked down at her, thinking idly that pregnancy agreed with her. The baby wasn’t due until late December, early January, and there was a certain roundness to her figure and the unmistakable glow that pregnant women exuded. At this moment, he wished he didn’t like her so much or that she wasn’t such a clever minx. She’d put forth the one argument that left him with no defense.
    Giving in gracefully, he’d flashed her that grin known to cause many a woman the most delightful heart palpitations and murmured, “To please you, Lady Joslyn, I will accept your husband’s kind offer.”
    She’d grinned back at him. “Emily, if you please. Every time someone calls me Lady Joslyn, I find myself looking about for the viscountess, forgetting that I am the viscountess.”
    “And a very pretty viscountess you are at that,” said Barnaby, the love he felt for her open and obvious. She smiled at him, her gray eyes reflecting back her deep love for him.
    The matter had been settled, but as he slipped into the Dower House this October night, he knew that wounding Barnaby’s or Emily’s feelings or not, he was going to have to find his own place. Gliding up the curving staircase to his bedroom, he sighed again. The Dower House was simply too big, too grand for someone like him.
    At least, he thought with a smile, he had managed to rid himself of all the servants Barnaby had thought were necessary for his comfort. Walker, Mrs. Spalding, Jane and Sally, once Emily’s staff at The Birches, all now worked at Windmere for Barnaby and Emily. Walker had replaced the nefarious butler, Peckham, who had been hand-in-glove with Nolles, and Mrs. Spalding had taken over the duties of her sister, Mrs. Eason, the cook, after Mrs. Eason had decided, with a generous pension from Barnaby, to retire near her daughter in Brighton. Of the original servants he’d started out with only Alice, once a scullery maid, but now cook and housekeeper, and young Hinton, ably filling in as valet and butler, remained. Despite the size