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to defend this land. Even I can sympathize with them, and I could not begin to know your heart as deeply as the Lord does.”
    “You sound very sincere and certain, Miss Murray.” He did not seem to think less of her for it, as Marian had feared he might. “Why is that, if you don’t mind my asking?”
    She was not in the habit of discussing her beliefs, especially with a man she scarcely knew and hadn’t muchliked at first. Yet there was a kind of openness in the way he regarded her that assured Marian of his honest desire to understand.
    “Cannot a God who is infinitely large also be infinitely small and infinitely close?” she ventured, trying to put complex, profound ideas into words that seemed inadequate to the task. “Just as the salt water that makes up the great ocean is not so different from our sweat and tears?”
    This whole conversation was becoming altogether too intimate for her comfort. And yet she felt compelled to disclose one final confidence. “Perhaps that sounds foolish to you, but I have felt the loving closeness of God in my life. Never so powerfully as when I needed His presence the most.”
    What had made her tell him such a thing? Marian regretted it the moment the words were out of her mouth. She had never liked talking about her past, particularly that part of it. In all the time she’d known Cissy and Dolly’s father, she had hardly told him anything about herself. Yet here she was blurting out all this to Captain Radcliffe, whom she’d met only a fortnight ago.
    A spark of curiosity glinted in the depths of his granite-gray eyes. If she did not cut this conversation short and make her escape, she feared the captain might ask her how she’d come to be so alone and in need of Divine comfort. If he did, she was very much afraid the whole painful story might come pouring out. That was the last thing she wanted.
    “I really must go now.” Lowering her gaze, she bobbed the captain a hasty curtsy. “Cissy will be worried what’s become of me and Dolly will be driving poor Martha to distraction with her mischief.”
    Before Captain Radcliffe could say anything that might detain her a moment longer, she rushed off to seek sanctuary in the music room. Only when she was quite certain the captain had gone elsewhere did she venture out and fly back up the servants’ stairs to the nursery. Yet even as she took care to avoid him, an idea concerning Captain Radcliffe began to take shape in her mind.
    Though the captain denied the power of prayer, Marian wondered if he might not be the answer to hers. A man like him would make an ideal guardian for Cissy and Dolly—far better than their profligate aunt. Once that inquiry was over and he returned to his ship, she would be left to care for the girls in familiar surroundings.
    All day she mulled the notion over as she and the children relished their renewed liberty in the house and gardens. The more she considered her idea, the more certain she became that it would be an ideal solution.
    That night when she knelt by her bed, Marian prayed fervently. “Lord, forgive me for misjudging Captain Radcliffe. I see now that he is a good man. Please let him be absolved of all the charges against him and permitted to return to active duty on his ship…but not before I can persuade him to challenge Lady Villiers for guardianship of Cissy and Dolly.”
    How exactly was she going to persuade him of that, Marian asked herself as she climbed into bed, when the captain did not want to have anything to do with thegirls? Perhaps she could pray for him to come up with the idea on his own, but this was too important a task to leave up to the power of prayer alone.

Chapter Four
    W hat had Miss Murray meant about having been alone with no one to whom she could turn to but God?
    While Gideon ate his solitary dinner that Saturday evening, he reflected on his last conversation with her and the unexpected turn it had taken. How had his thanks for her defense of him led