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river Avon, its green lawns running down to the water. Henry Lindley greeted his brother warmly and hugged his sister, exclaiming over her beauty effusively.
    “We’ll have to find you a fine husband,” he teased her.
    “Where?” Autumn demanded. “Certainly not in the England of today, unless, Henry, you expect me to wed a sober-sided Puritan.”
    “Heaven forfend!” her eldest brother exclaimed.
    “Is mama here yet?” Charlie asked his sibling.
    “She arrived two days ago and is already well ensconced in the dower house,” Henry answered. “God’s blood, Charlie! I have never seen her so despondent. When you sent word you were coming, I rejoiced. Perhaps your presence, and that of Autumn, can cheer her up.” Then, suddenly, the Marquis of Westleigh looked about, saying, “Where is Bess?”
    “That is why we are here,” the duke told his elder brother. “Freddie and I were in Worcester. Roundheads, led by that devil, Sir Simon Bates, invaded Queen’s Malvern one morning. Bess, and my majordomo, Smythe, were killed in cold blood. Autumn shot the trooper who did it.” Then he continued to tell Henry in detail what had transpired that terrible day.
    “Sabrina and William?”
    “Saw nothing, thank God! I am taking them all to Patrick, and then I shall join the king,” Charlie said quietly.
    Henry nodded. “I understand,” he said. “You have no choice now in the matter. Ahh, Charlie, I am so sorry!”
    “Sorry for what?” Their mother, Jasmine Leslie, entered the room, and immediately her daughter flew into her mother’s embrace.
    “Mama!” Autumn burst into tears.
    “What is this? What is this?” Jasmine demanded, first hugging her child and then setting her back to look into her face. The now Dowager Duchess of Glenkirk was as beautiful at sixty as she had been at forty, but the look in her eyes was bleak.
    “Come into the Great Hall,” Henry said, “and Charlie will tell us everything, Mama.” He quickly instructed his servants to see the children to the nurseries with his own brood, and bring wine and biscuits for his family. His wife, he explained, was not home, being out tending to some sick tenants, but even as they settled themselves in the Great Hall of Cadby, Rosamund Wyndham Lindley hurried in with a smile, greeting her guests and fussing at her servants to bring the refreshments in a more timely fashion.
    “They do take advantage of Henry,” she said with a twinkle. Rosamund was Henry’s second wife, and the mother of his children. The marquess’s first wife, his beautiful cousin, Cecily Burke, had died six months after their wedding, when she fell from her horse as she took a particularly high jump, breaking her neck. Cecily had died instantly, and Henry had gone into shock, refusing to leave Cadby, seeing only his brother, Charlie, and his older sister, India, as he mourned his young wife.
    Two years after Cecily’s death, the Marquess of Westleigh was invited to the wedding of the Earl of Langford’s heir. Charlie, who had also been invited, prevailed upon his elder sibling to go.
    “You can’t mourn forever,” he said bluntly. “Mama certainly never did.”
    So Henry Lindley had gone to the wedding at RiversEdge and, to his astonishment, met the girl who was to be the love of his life. Rosamund Wyndham was, at almost sixteen, not ready to consider marriage, but the Marquess of Westleigh knew what he wanted. God rest his sweet Cecily, but he was finally ready to get on with his life. He courted Rosamund with a mixture of charm, humor, and determination. Unable to resist him, Rosamund wed Henry Lindley shortly after her seventeenth birthday. She had ruled his heart and his house ever after.
    They were barely settled about the roaring fire when the dowager duchess, mentally counting heads, said, “Where is Bess?”
    “She is dead,” Charlie told his mother, and then proceeded to relate the entire tale.
    When he had finished Jasmine Leslie looked at her youngest