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left.
    James stared after her, noticing almost too late the details he’d not seen before. Her straight, slender back as she marched down the hill. The curve of her hips and the hidden length of her legs wading through last year’s knee-high meadow grass. Her hair was a rich brown hue, streaked red by the strengthening midday sun.
    Her eyes had been, what? An amber-brown, flashing with temper, he recalled. Not a beautiful woman, but striking all the same. And memorable. Especially when she smiled.
    Only the reminder that she was married with a child of her own made him look away from her departing form. But even that took an act of strong self-will. It was dallying with too many women that had landed him in his current situation; he couldn’t afford to resume that sort of activity here, especially with the entire countryside watching his every move.
    Then again, if he didn’t find some sort of outlet for the frustrations besetting him, God only knew when and where he would explode.
    Meanwhile, there was his hooligan daughter to deal with.
    Muffling a curse, and feeling far older than his thirty-four years, he collected his grazing animal, heaved himself into the saddle, and started after his child.
     
    “Was that Himself?” Helen asked when they were halfway down the hill.
    Lost in her own thoughts, Phoebe was slow to respond. “Yes. But his proper name is James Lindford, Viscount Farley. If he should ever address you, you must curtsy to him and say ‘my lord,’ and use your very best manners.”
    Helen digested that as they wended their way down the hill. Ahead of them crickets, gnats, and other buzzing creatures sprang up in an insect cloud, while the dried stalks of last year’s grass swished against their skirts. “His girl, that Izzy girl, she doesn’t use very good manners. And she’s a liar, too, isn’t she?”
    “I’m afraid so. But I think she only acts that way because she hasn’t been taught any better.”
    “Does that mean her father isn’t a very good father?”
    It would seem not. But all Phoebe said was, “I’m not sure what the situation is between them.” She was curious enough, however, to want to find out.
    “I wonder where her mother is.”
    Her mother, who was not Lord Farley’s wife. So far as anyone knew, the viscount was still a bachelor. And yet he freely claimed Izzy as his daughter. That meant Phoebe’s first guess was right: the girl must be natural born.
    Like Helen.
    Phoebe’s sympathy for the unhappy little girl immediately increased. Given her wild appearance and appalling behavior, could it be that the child had not been a part of Lord Farley’s home until recently?
    To Helen she said, “Judging by her accent, the girl and her mother probably lived in London.”
    “In London? Oh, maybe she knows my mother!”
    Phoebe reached down and gave Helen a hug. Her niece’s ever-present longing for her absent mother was a constant source of pain for them both, and it fomented a simmering resentment in Phoebe’s chest. She would never understand Louise’s utter neglect of her daughter. Never. “I’m afraid it’s not likely they know one another, sweetheart. London is a huge place, you see, as big as a hundred Swansfords. Maybe even a thousand.”
    “A thousand?”
    Phoebe nodded. “Say, how about a piggyback ride down the hill?” Anything to distract Helen from the subject of London and a mother who never came to visit.
     
    Izzy didn’t come for apple tarts the next day, much to Phoebe’s disappointment.
    “I’m glad she didn’t come,” Helen said as she licked the sweet residue of a tart from her fingers. “She’s mean and I don’t like her.”
    “What she did was mean. But I’m guessing she’s not always mean. It’s probably just that she doesn’t have any friends around here.”
    “I don’t have any friends and I’m not mean.”
    “You have me.”
    Helen giggled. “That’s different. You’re my aunt.” Then her face puckered in a thoughtful