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miss is programmed to do."
    "You might care to marry someday, though," George Bonham said. "And for that you need society."
    "And how would a fox-hunting gentleman fit into our travel schedule? You know their entire existence revolves around the hunt seasons, race seasons, Cowes, Mayfair, Scotland in the fall…" Her voice trailed off. "I
like
the freedom of our life," Flora added with firm conviction.
    "If your mother had lived… perhaps she could have better explained about the necessity—"
    "For what Papa?" Flora interposed. "Propriety? Fashionable custom? You told me yourself Mama ran off with you the day after she met you." Flora smiled. "She'd approve of my life, as you well know. Didn't she always accompany you abroad? Wasn't I born on a freighter off the China coast? My disregard for rules can probably be traced to Mama's emancipated inclinations."
    "She
was
a darling," the earl fondly recalled.
    "And you never found another quite like her in all the ladies who have so ardently pursued you over the years." At fifty-six the earl was still a handsome man. Tall, lean, tanned from years out of doors, his sun-streaked sandy hair only lightly touched with gray at the temples, he'd always attracted female interest.
    "No," he quietly replied. "Your mother was very special."
    They'd had this conversation, or a variation of it, often over the years, her father's concern for her happiness a constant. And each time she'd reassured him, genuinely content with her peripatetic life.
    "If I ever find someone I care about in that unique way, Papa, I'll marry him, but since I can't have children,

there's no pressing reason to marry someone simply to be married."
    "Perhaps the doctors are wrong."
    "A dozen of them in countries as far afield as Greece and Turkey? I doubt it. The virulent fever in Alexandria that summer nearly killed me. I'm fortunate to be alive."
    "Amen to that." The earl still shuddered at how close he'd come to losing his sixteen-year-old daughter that steamy Jury. She'd hovered near death for almost a week, and only the skill of the Greek and Arab doctors had saved her.
    "And consider, Papa, the cast of suitors in my life. They're all well-bred and charming but hardly impassioned or interesting enough to touch my heart."
    "Not even the Comte de Chastellux?" her father queried with a faint smile. "Your walk in the garden at Judge Parkman's caused some comment."
    She found herself blushing. "I'm old enough to do as I please, Papa," she softly remonstrated, "regardless of strangers' comments."
    "I've no argument, darling," he quietly reassured her. "Your independence is as important to me as it is to you. And if your mama were alive, she'd have you quoting all her favorite female authors on gender equality. I was just wondering if Adam Serre might have touched your heart a bit more than the London blades."
    She didn't answer for a moment, trying to understand herself precisely why he attracted her so. The obvious physical reasons didn't account for the intense degree of his allure. "I think he may have touched some emotion…" she slowly declared, "although I'm not sure what or why." Her smile shone for a moment in the lavender twilight. "He's unutterably handsome, you have to agree."
    "All your suitors are handsome," her father said.
    "He's not a suitor."
    "Perhaps that's the attraction," the earl suggested, his tone cautionary. "His reputation is thoroughly wild."
    "Papa, surely not that tone from you, when Auntie Sarah says your rakish ways were what attracted Mama."
    Lord Haldane grinned. "Ummm," he teasingly murmured. "Is it too late to caution you to prudence?"
    "Years too late, I'm afraid," Flora answered with a wide smile. "And you know as well as I do that my fortune protects me."
    "As it did your mother. Which is precisely why she saw that you had control of it."
    "Dear Mama knew the merits of the title 'heiress.' So any or all of Virginia City may gossip till doomsday while I do as I wish."
    "As long as