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Amelia DeVere, owner of Natherbury Fell. She managed to hire a new maid—a youngster with more enthusiasm than skill—but the girl had potential.
    With that done, she turned her focus to the house. The third floor was almost a total disaster. What rats and rodents hadn’t damaged, the weather and the leaky roof had finished off.
    The second floor wasn’t much better. There were no leaks in her room, but two of the five guest rooms were untenable, and the Treadways had taken the only one with a functioning fireplace. Given the cold winds and incessant rain, she couldn’t blame them. The one in her room also worked, but tended to belch smoke if the wind blew from the southeast. Which it was prone to do. A lot.
    There were two “comfortable” rooms on the ground floor and she took one for her office. The other she used in the evenings, but found herself unusually exhausted at the end of the day. London would have been astounded and disbelieving at the news that the Incomparable Amelia would actually be going to bed early every night.
    Alone .
    Did she miss her town gaiety?
    She asked herself that question one night after her new maid had left and she was about to slide beneath the laundered covers of her almost-comfortable bed. She caught a glimpse of herself in the stained mirror that Treadway had salvaged and brought to her room.
    She looked…tired. Which she was, since she’d spent the day trying to clear out one of the perhaps-usable guest rooms. She needed help with the furniture, of course, but she was quite capable of sorting through old linens, several hundred years of utter junk and one or two usable pieces. Although the fur tippet she’d uncovered turned out to be inhabited and Mrs. Mouse did not take kindly to having her home upended.
    There was a minor brawl but Amelia won, thanks to a long handled broom which she used to push the fur all the way to the back of the deepest closet she could find.
    The time had passed at least. She wasn’t bored—yet. But it became increasingly obvious that she was working with no true goal. She had no friends, nor did she have plans for inviting anyone to Natherbury.
    So why am I doing all this?
    The reflection in the distorted glass had no answer.
    But as she fell asleep, one came to Amelia. Because you have nothing else left to do with your life. And you brought it on yourself.
     
    *~~*~~*
     
    Ian McPherson headed north from London at about the same time Amelia was struggling with the perils of owning a tumbledown estate.
    He’d not given up on the DeVere ruby, but managed to push its owner to the back of his mind for several weeks, focusing on other matters. But every now and again, the damned woman would intrude. He’d spy someone with hair like hers, or hear a laugh that might have been hers.
    In spite of the tiny jolt such occasions caused him, he managed to exist quite well without any contact. He was, he told himself, not in the least bit affected by the lady’s beauty or her wiles. Of which she had more than he could name.
    His research and line of investigation into the theft had brought him into contact with many of Amelia’s friends. And a few of her lovers.
    Yes, she had been indiscreet to the point of scandal, and was lucky to have survived the Ton’s censure as long as she had. Her parentage was an asset, but now that her brother was assuming the DeVere reins, Amelia’s life had changed.
    Banished to the north, they said. Even as sympathetic faces and regretful smiles answered his questions, Ian could sense an underlying glee that the one-time Queen of London Society had been brought so low. Gossip was the life-blood of the upper classes and Amelia was once again the topic uppermost on their minds.
    She had stolen too many eligible bachelors, attracted too many roving-eyed husbands, and probably destroyed more than a few lives while doing so.
    There was no doubt in Ian’s mind that the lady had been—was even now—a siren of impeccably honed