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on foot with her dog—unescorted. And she was obviously in deep mourning for someone.
    Good Lord,
he
had been terrified. How must
she
have felt when horse and rider erupted over the hedge a mere whisker from where she stood? Yet he had ripped up at her for walking and exercising her dog in a public meadow.
    After he had ridden into the stables at Robland Park and dismounted, he was still feeling considerably out of sorts. He made his slow way to the house.
    “Ah, you are back safe, are you?” Beatrice said, looking up from her knotwork as he lowered himself to a chair in the drawing room. “It concerns me that you insist upon riding alone, Ben, instead of taking a groom with you as any sensible man in your circumstances would. Oh, I know, I know. You do not have to say it,and I can see your brows knitting together in vexation. I am acting like a mother hen. But with Hector gone to London already and the boys back at school, I have no one to fuss over but you. And I cannot ride with you as I am still under physician’s orders to coddle myself after that chill. Did you have a pleasant ride?”
    “Very,” he said.
    She rested her work on her lap. “What has ruffled your feathers, then? Apart from my fussing, that is.”
    “Nothing.”
    She raised her eyebrows and resumed her work.
    “The tea tray will be here in a moment,” she told him. “I daresay you are a bit chilled.”
    “It is not a cold day.”
    She laughed without looking up. “If you are determined to be disagreeable, I shall make a companion of my knots.”
    He watched her for a short while. She wore a lacy cap on her fair hair. It offended him somewhat, though it was a pretty confection. She was only thirty-four, for God’s sake, five years his senior. She behaved like a matron—which was exactly what she was, he supposed. It was longer than six years since he had been wounded, and sometimes it seemed that time had stood still since then. Except that it had not. Everything and everyone had moved on. And that was, of course, part of his recently acknowledged problem, for he had not. He had been too absorbed in trying to put himself back together so that he could pick up the threads of his life exactly where he had left them off.
    The tea tray was brought in, and Beatrice set aside her work to pour them both a cup of tea and to carry him his, together with a plate of cakes.
    “Thank you,” he said. “I must smell of horse.”
    “It is not an unpleasant smell,” she told him without denying it. “I shall be back to riding myself soon. Thedoctor will be calling here tomorrow, for the final time, it is to be hoped. I feel perfectly restored to health. Relax there for a while before you go to change your clothes.”
    “Is there a widow living in these parts?” he asked her abruptly. “A lady? Still in deep mourning?”
    “Mrs. McKay, do you mean?” She lifted her cup to her lips. “Captain McKay’s widow? He was the Earl of Heathmoor’s second son and died three or four months ago. She lives at Bramble Hall on the far side of the village.”
    “She has a big, unruly dog?” Ben asked.
    “A big,
friendly
dog,” she said. “I did not find him unruly when I paid a call upon Mrs. McKay after the funeral, though he did insist in quite unmannerly fashion upon being petted. He came to lay his head on my lap and looked up at me with soulful eyes. I suppose he ought to have been trained not to do such things, but dogs always know who likes them.”
    “She had him in a meadow not very far from here,” he said. “I almost bowled them both over when I jumped a hedge.”
    “Oh, goodness gracious,” she said. “Was anyone hurt? But—you
jumped a hedge
, Ben? Where is my hartshorn? Ah, I have just remembered—I do not possess any, not being the vaporish sort, though you could easily make a convert of me.”
    “What the devil was she doing out unchaperoned?” he asked.
    She clicked her tongue. “Ben, dear, your language! I am surprised to know