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all, knew how to make a person think she cared.
    They’d just crested the hill that afforded passersby a first view of Clifton Manor when Carter heard the tiniest of sighs from Miranda. She was looking out over the land, her expression one of a person far away in thought. Surprisingly, a tear traced its way down her cheek. The cold had once more brought hints of pink to her cheeks and the tip of her nose. Was the sting of winter air making her eyes water? Or was she crying?
    They continued to walk. Carter watched her, baffled. Miranda’s eyes wandered in his direction, but the moment their gazes met, she looked away, but not before Carter saw uncertainty and embarrassment sweep across her face.
    “Are you unwell, Miranda?”
    She waved her gloved hand as if to dismiss the concern she heard and swiped at the tears coursing down her face. “I am perfectly—” She sighed again. “I suppose I am a little . . . emotional. I—” She wiped at another tear. “I was feeling . . . disappointed, is all.”
    In him ? Carter tried to convince himself he didn’t care. “You wanted to visit longer with the Miltons?” Carter hoped it was something as easy as that.
    “I wanted to hold the baby,” Miranda said in a tiny, sad voice.
    “The baby?”
    “But she was asleep.”
    “And that is why you’re crying?” That didn’t make a lot of sense.
    “I am sure I seem ridiculous to you.” She sounded instantly defensive.
    Her words two days earlier came back to him in a rush: Why must you mock me with every word ?
    “It isn’t ridiculous at all,” Carter heard himself reassure her. So much for trying to make Miranda as miserable as she’d made him.
    She looked at him for a moment before looking away again, surprise showing on her face. She didn’t say anything else as they continued to walk. Had she expected to be laughed at?
    She’d told him he’d changed, and she obviously hadn’t meant it as a compliment. Had he really changed so much? He didn’t like to think of himself as unkind or mocking, but Mr. Benton had seemed to come to the same conclusion.
    “I am glad to hear you like babies, Miranda,” Carter said when the silence had become too uncomfortable to allow. “The Duke and Duchess of Hartley will be arriving tomorrow, along with their two children. The youngest, Henry, is only two or three months old.”
    She looked up at him with anxious eyes and an endearingly wind-nipped nose, and Carter felt the ice crack a tiny bit where he’d built it up around the part of his heart that still belonged to Miranda. That would never do. Civility between them was a must, but vulnerability on his part was strictly forbidden.
    “I imagine over the next few weeks you’ll have ample opportunity to hold little Henry,” Carter said, pulling his gaze back to the landscape.
    “Do you really think the duchess would let me?” She seemed to doubt it.
    “I am most certain she will.” There was the tone of indifference he’d momentarily lost.
    “Would . . .” She hesitated. “Would you ask her for me?”
    His first inclination was to refuse so she’d feel some of the rejection she’d heaped on him three years earlier and so she would realize which of the two of them had the power in their relationship. But he couldn’t do it. Perhaps he was simply bowing to the need for peace. Perhaps he wasn’t as indifferent to Miranda as he’d thought.
    “I will ask,” he said.
    She didn’t seem particularly moved by his gracious offer.
    They walked on in silence. He’d undertaken that day’s outing in hopes of building enough of a rapport between them to keep the house party from falling to shambles. Between her complimentary words to the Miltons about him and the attractive touch of pink in her cheeks, he’d actually grown a bit more uncomfortable. His three-year-long determination to think the worst of the woman who had callously discarded him was taking a bit of a hit. He very much worried that by allowing Miranda even