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first time around.’
    Olivia’s gaze was troubled. ‘Surely Papa would not force a match? I know that he can be very autocratic but, if you were unwilling, surely he would not persist?’
    Deb looked at her, but did not say anything. The silencewas eloquent. They were both remembering their father’s determination to marry all his children off advantageously, a determination that brooked no opposition.
    ‘If not cousin Harry, then someone else,’ Deb said bluntly. ‘You know that he will not be happy until he sees me safely—and legitimately—married.’
    Olivia grimaced sympathetically. She tilted the brim of her straw hat against the sun, which was creeping round the edge of the roof.
    ‘So what will you do? You cannot avoid returning to Bath for Guy’s wedding, unless you invent some fictitious illness.’
    It was on the tip of Deb’s tongue to tell her sister that it was not an illness she planned to invent but a fictitious betrothal. She just managed to hold her peace in time. Despite Olivia’s surprisingly broadminded stance on the subject of taking a lover, Deb knew that she would be shocked to know that her sister had advertised for a fiancé. It simply was not done. It would be time enough to tell Olivia what she planned when she had found a suitable gentleman, even then, she was certain that her sister would cut up rough.
    ‘I do not know what I shall do,’ she said, ‘though I am certain that I will think of something. Oh, if only there was not this annoying threat of invasion to add weight to Papa’s argument! It is most inconvenient.’
    Olivia laughed. ‘What is inconvenient? Bonaparte’s plans? Do you think that he should have consulted your convenience before he assembled his fleet off Boulogne?’
    Deb gave a little giggle. ‘No, of course not. How absurd you are! I merely mean that Papa does not consider it safe for me to be living alone with only Clarrie and the servants, for all that you and Ross are but a few miles away.’
    ‘You may come and live here with my blessing,’ Oliviasaid drily. ‘You would not be getting in anybody’s way and it would be nice to have someone to talk to.’
    Deb gave her a troubled look. ‘Truly, Liv, is it so bad? I know that there was a time when you hoped to give Ross an heir…’
    ‘Not much chance of that now,’ Olivia said, even more drily. ‘I have yet to learn that it is possible to conceive an heir when the husband spends all his time improving his estate and the wife spends all her energies on her garden. We may be designing a most elegant home, but we are not propagating a future generation to appreciate it—’
    She broke off, looking flustered for the first time in Deborah’s memory. Ross Marney had come through the folding French windows and out on to the veranda just as his wife was speaking. It was impossible to tell how much of the conversation he had heard.
    ‘Good afternoon, Ross,’ Deb said, seeing that Olivia was rendered temporarily speechless. She got to her feet. ‘May I pour you some tea?’
    Ross bent to kiss her cheek. He was of sturdy build, with black hair and intense blue eyes. When Olivia had first married him, Deb, then an impressionable sixteen-year-old, had had quite a crush on him. These days she could laugh at her girlish infatuations, but she still considered him a handsome man.
    ‘I think that you should allow your sister to dispense the refreshments,’ Ross said, with an unfathomable look at Olivia, ‘since she is complaining that that is all the propagation that she is permitted to do.’
    An awkward silence fell. There were two spots of colour high on Olivia’s cheekbones as she poured the tea. The spout of the pot rattled against the china as her hand shook slightly, and Deb felt a rush of sympathy. It was too bad ofRoss to make his wife feel so uncomfortable. He should have pretended that he had not heard.
    ‘We were speaking of our trip to Somerset,’ she said, trying once again to break the