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asked.
    “She knows all about it,” Jack informed her smugly, “I have her blessing.”
    “Good gracious, Jack,” Rosie regarded him quizzically, “Have you been flirting with Mrs Glover?”
    His hand tightened convulsively on her waist.
    “No, I have not, you abominable girl! Is flirting all you think me fit for?”
    Rosie looked roguish, “Oh, no, I suspect you might have other … uses.”
    “Come here and kiss me,” it was low, masculine growl.
    “You are very imperious, my lord,” Rosie leaned back as his arms tightened around her.
    “Not I,” he laughed back, “’Tis the mistletoe … do you not know that legend demands you cannot refuse a kiss while standing directly under it? And, if a maiden should remain un-kissed while there is mistletoe in the house, she will not find herself a love in the coming twelvemonth. I am doing you a kindness, sweetheart. I could not bear to see you unloved …”
    “Oh, well … in that case …” and, pressing close up against him, Rosie happily lifted her face to his.
    She wanted to freeze this precious time and shut out the rest of the world.
    News filtered through of the Jacobite withdrawal, skirmishes in Cumbria and the loss of Carlisle marking their passage to Scotland. The new year – 1746 – arrived and the unspoken knowledge that Jack must soon leave hung heavy over them all. Tom joked that it wasn’t just Miss Rosie who had fallen in love with him. Jack had cast a spell over the whole household.
    ***
    Sir Clive spent an hour with Mr Delacourt on his next visit to The Grange. However, despite careful questioning, he failed to discover any more about the mysterious visitor. Rosie joined them briefly. Although her beauty struck her would-be suitor afresh with its vibrancy and she smiled as sweetly as ever, she was distant and distracted. She evaded his efforts to speak to her alone, and he resisted the impulse to drag her by her hair to the nearest bedchamber and teach her a woman’s place. Of ‘my cousin Jack’ there was no sign.
    Disgruntled, Sir Clive took his leave and walked round to the stables to collect his horse. The stables were built in three blocks around a central courtyard, and he hesitated as he realised that Jack, Harry and Tom were there. Beau had stretched himself out nearby and was gnawing contentedly on a marrowbone he had inveigled from Mrs Glover. Jack, stripped to the waist - an ugly, very fresh scar marring the smooth sinews of his left shoulder - lifted and lowered a bag of feed in his left hand. Harry, seated on a barrel, encouraged him to keep going and push his muscles further and harder. Tom supervised the feeding of the horses and interpolated an occasional word of advice.
    “Damn it, Tom!” Jack laughed, showing even, white teeth, “I’m still as weak as a kitten.”
    “Give over, my lord, it is only a few short weeks since I took the King’s bullet out of you. These things take time,” Tom chided.
    Beau noticed Sir Clive first and gave a single warning bark. Unsure of how much he had heard, Tom cursed under his breath. Jack bowed slightly in the visitor’s direction before slipping his shirt back over his head and Harry rose to busy himself with the curry comb.
    It was too late, however. Sir Clive now knew exactly who ‘my cousin Jack’ was. There had been rumours a-plenty in Derby since the invasion, but one story bandied about freely in the taproom of The Crown came back to him now. Hoskins, the landlord, had been holding forth to a group of his regular customers, “Aye, I have it on good authority that a fine lord, friend to the prince himself, no less, was left for dead by a young redcoat right there on Swarkestone Bridge,” he had turned to refill Clive’s glass, “The Guard’s captain said he cannot have left the area so badly wounded as he was. ‘Tis a certainty he is either dead in a ditch from his wounds, or holed up nearby with rebel sympathisers. I’d not want to be in their shoes should he be found