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created at Norford Hall.”
    “Never say so. You? A rambunctious child?”
    “I said no such thing,” she huffed, but her brown eyes twinkled. “It was always my sisters Julie and Corinthia who did the screaming—well, the loudest anyway. But your father was the instigator, you know. A day wouldn’t go by that he wasn’t teasing one of us, or chasing us around the house, or pulling his pranks on us. At least he finally outgrew those terrible tendencies.”
    Raphael wondered if he ever would. That was one habit he’d picked up from his father that he still enjoyed. He loved teasing his sister, Amanda. But then the darling was so gullible that he simply couldn’t help himself.
    “We’ll leave early in the morning,” he said as he rolled up his shirtsleeves and wiped his brow. “And don’t let on to Ophelia where we’re going. She still thinks we’re on our way back to London.” Then he finally had to ask as he glanced at the fireplace that was still roaring, “Are you really so cold, Aunt Esme?”
    “No, I just want William to feel useful,” she admitted in a whisper, in case the old man was eavesdropping. “He was talking about retiring. I’d miss the old boy too much if he did. We get so few visitors up here, so he doesn’t man the front door like he used to. But he does pile on the logs for me.”
    Raphael laughed. “Mind if I open a window for a few minutes?”
    She grinned at him. “Please do.”

Chapter Six
    I T HAD SNOWED DURING THE night, not enough for it to stay on the ground for long, though. But for a little while, it would be lovely. Which was another of Ophelia’s contrary opinions. She loved the snow, but she couldn’t tolerate the aftermath when it began to melt and became quite dirty. Of course, she was only used to seeing it in London after heavy traffic turned it to sludge. Hyde Park was usually especially pretty after a snowfall, but that never lasted long either, with so much soot in the city. But she’d surely be able to enjoy the snow this morning at least, before it began to melt.
    Her driver—it still amused her to think of the Locke heir as that—was waiting in the foyer for her. She’d donned her prettiest traveling ensemble just for him, the same one she’d worn for Duncan MacTavish when she’d tried to patch things up with him at that inn in Oxbow. With a white fur cap about her blond head and a powder-blue velvet long coat with a short cape trimmed in the same white fur, she knew she looked her best. The mirror upstairs said so.
    She’d dazzled Duncan in this outfit, though not enough to soften him up. The insult she’d dealt him by calling him a barbarian had cut too deep apparently. Such a tricky situation that had been, and one of her finer performances, if she did say so herself. She had wanted him to forgive her so they could get reengaged to put an end to the gossip, then end their engagement amicably, as they should have done with their original engagement. But she’d also wanted to assure that he didn’t revise his negative opinion of her too much and fancy himself in love with her like all the other men who met her. That wouldn’t do a’tall.
    She’d carefully balanced her contrition with his already bad opinion of her, and he’d offered her the perfect solution—her own conceit. His last remark had been “I dinna think I’d care tae be competing wi’ m’wife for her own attention.”
    That had annoyed her at the time, though she found it rather amusing now that she’d been extricated from that horrid match and could find amusement in things again. For instance, it was amusing that the handsome, wealthy Lord Locke was acting as her driver. It was rather nice of him, she supposed, or at least she’d briefly considered it so. But after she’d given it some thought last night, she’d wondered why the man would take on such an arduous task when he didn’t even like her.
    He’d made that abundantly clear in the few conversations they’d had