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“Lord Darfield?”
    “From the time I left the ship, apparently I was never farfrom his thoughts,” she said wistfully, and looked out the window. “My first year at school in Rome, he sent me a violin. He is a great lover of music, you know, and thought it would be very nice of me to learn to play.”
    Stunned, Sam was almost afraid to ask. “Did you?”
    “Certainly! And the times when I despaired of ever mastering the silly thing, Papa would tell me that Michael … Lord Darfield … was so looking forward to hearing me play, I would try even harder. And he would send little trinkets, too,” she said, flicking one of the amethyst earrings dangling from her earlobes. “He sent
these
on my sixteenth birthday. When I was bound for Egypt, he sent me a history book on the Egyptian culture, so I would know what to expect. I am particularly grateful to him for that, for certainly I would
never
have expected what I found there!”
    “Lord Darfield sent you those things,” Sam stated doubtfully.
    Abbey seemed oblivious to his surprise and smiled warmly. “He’s quite thoughtful, isn’t he?”
    Sam frowned. “But you never saw him.”
    “Well, not in
person
. But he kept in constant contact with my father.”
    In disbelief, Sam stared at the foolish young romantic, who was quite oblivious to his astonishment. Surely she could not be so naive. Something was terribly wrong. Sam had known Michael Ingram since they were young men. Never once had Michael mentioned a word of Abigail Carrington, until a few days ago, when he had requested Sam’s presence at Blessing Park to assist him in an “indelicate matter.”
    That matter, as it had turned out, was an accursed
agreement
, which Michael had been forced into at the age of nineteen so that he might borrow money and pay the debts his father had amassed. Michael had turned to Captain Carrington, seeking out the very wealthy captain in a desperate bid to save his family from complete ruin.
    The captain had been more than happy to oblige. The agreement they reached stipulated that if Michael had not repaid his debts in full by the time Captain Carrington died, hewould take Abigail Carrington to wife. What at one time had seemed a rather innocuous arrangement to care for an only child had turned into a nightmare for Michael. At the time he signed the agreement, he had been unaware of the importance of a simple clause that stipulated any other debts incurred by Michael or his family against Carrington were subject to the same terms until all debts were paid in full. Michael did not know, until two months ago when the papers arrived, that his father had borrowed repeatedly from Carrington. As Michael explained it to Sam, he could no more extract himself from the agreement than he could remove his own skin.
    “The agreement is explicit, Sam. My solicitors have reviewed the documentation and advise me it fully supports the claim that our debts were never repaid in full, despite the fact that I could have given the captain double what was owed. It would seem that my father gambled and drank away the entire family fortune not once but twice,” Michael had explained bitterly, “and neither he nor the captain ever saw fit to tell me. I would expect as much from Father, but not Carrington. He never told me of the accumulating debt.”
    “But surely there is a way out! Are there no male relatives?”
    “A son of a cousin somewhere, but it hardly matters. In the most legal sense of the word, the agreement is rather tight. Carrington was very artful in crafting the settlement of his estate to depend upon its execution. The captain tied so many other financial transactions to this marriage that I would have several creditors after my assets were I to try to remove myself.”
    “What are you saying, there is nothing you can do?” Sam asked incredulously.
    Michael sighed and shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s worse than that. I had thought that I could delay the