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no idea she had grown so lovely, and with womanly wisdom showing in her eyes.”
    Seth studied Juleah's face deeper and discovered how quick his heart was to beat. “Yes, except there is no true smile there, but a sadness.”
    Stowefield pinched his eyebrows together. He drew off his spectacles, held them out before him, and leaned in for a closer examination. “I had not noticed.”
    “You can see it in her eyes. She may have smiled for Mr. Brown, but the expression in her eyes shows pretense.”
    “You may be right. Most likely she was bored sitting. Or, she may have been thinking of some unrequited love.”
    Seth turned away. His manner was cool, but beneath it, his blood raced. It disturbed him that Juleah's image had such a strong effect upon him. Her beauty and natural allure were undeniable, and he thought about the possibility he might meet her in England … if he were to go.
    “Caroline mentioned your niece in her letter,” he said.
    “Yes, they are great friends,” Stowefield replied. “If you do go to Britain, perhaps Juleah will be of comfort to you also, as she is to your good sister.”
    At this, Seth stiffened and set his mouth. His genial smile vanished, and he could feel, down to his marrow, the cold and pained look that flooded his eyes. “I doubt there's a woman so lovely or modest, or graced with enough womanly wisdom to be of any comfort to me, sir. Women do not wish for friendship in a man.”
    Stowefield let out a laugh. “On the contrary. My late wife was my best friend and I hers, right from the start of our courtship.”
    “My father spoke the same of my mother. I hope I’m as blessed, but I doubt it.”
    He excused himself, and wished Mr. Stowefield and his guests a good night. He went upstairs to the guest room and pulled off his boots. That night, Seth lay in bed staring at the pattern the moonlight made against the ceiling. He thought to no end, torn between two worlds.
    He needed to see his sister again to be sure she was well and to set his affairs in England in order. It was his duty. Then he envisioned those yearning eyes that belonged to Juleah Fallowes.
    Frustrated with it all, a prisoner to obligation and conscience, he asked what care did he have for England, for his grandfather's estate, for the love of a woman?

3
Ten Width, September 17, 1784
    I love thee, I love but thee with a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold and the stars are old
And the leaves of the judgment book unfold
    —Bayard Taylor
     
    A knot gripped Seth's stomach. After a long sea voyage, he stood on English soil in the port town of Penzance in Cornwall, in the land of his ancestors, long dead, long forgotten. The sun ruled the zenith, touched upon his face. Its caress warmed his skin, chased off the chilly wind that blew across the southern harbor, but that was all.
    After he handed up his ticket to the coachman, he stepped inside the bleak interior of the coach. He was glad to see he was the sole occupant, with as much room as the cabin he slept in crossing the Atlantic. Only this smelled of people instead of seawater.
    He pulled off his tricorn and set it next to him. The whalebone buttons on the bands of his breeches were cold against his knees. He hoped his cloak would keep him warm into the night.
    The door shut, and Seth, seated to the right and forward, leaned toward the window. A magenta light peeked through the clouds, while veils of mist fell over frost-laden fields. From the chimneys of houses blew smoke from hearth fires.
    What kind of reception would he receive at Ten Width? A strange name was this for a manor. He had been told Ten Width was founded upon rich farmland, banked by thick forests teeming with game and a blue lake to the east. The house was old, built in 1603. Originally, the acres were ten miles in width, thus the name Ten Width.
    Would he find the house in ruins? Crumbling walls, no doubt, broken windows, lichen-covered stone, airless, unused rooms smelling of age.