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with me. We can hire an overseer for this place.”
    “Never,” burst Alex. “Besides...” He took a moment to put his thoughts in order. “Perhaps it’s not so bad as you might think. At any rate, I am about to test the waters. I plan to attend a ball in York tomorrow night. With any luck, I expect I might be treated quite decently.”
    “Lady Perry’s?” When Alex nodded, Douglas frowned and declared, “You’re asking for trouble if you go.”
    Alex shook his head. “Don’t forget, twenty-five years have passed since the tragedy. Old feelings fade.”
    “Do they?” Douglas’s mouth twisted skeptically. “I know you’d like to think so.”
    Alex touched his brother’s arm with brotherly affection. “Ah, Douglas, you have borne the brunt of all this.”
    “You’re well aware how I grew up ostracized,” said Douglas, “as was all the family, you included, although you don’t remember the worst of it. If feelings around the countryside have changed, then I’m happy for you, Alex. But as for me...” Douglas’s gaze swept over his mansion ”...there lies the symbol of everything dark, sinister, and tragic in my life. I don’t give a groat if those stiff-rumps in the ton have forgotten. My feelings will never change.”
    Alex sighed. “You do remember Lady Perry?”
    “Of course I remember her. She was in love with Gregory. She was devastated when the tragedy occurred. I heard that when word came Gregory had died, she was well-nigh inconsolable.”
    Alex asked, “Did she also send you an invitation to her ball?”
    “Yes, although I don’t know why, since I’ve always ignored her invitations. But she has been most kind to the Belingtons all these years—one of the rare few who has.”
    “Then come with me, Douglas.” Alex’s eyes shone with excitement. “I was hoping you might go. You could see for yourself how attitudes have changed. You might even enjoy yourself. You might —”
    “Never,” Douglas interrupted. “It would be an act of the greatest disloyalty to my father and Gregory if I were to engage in social contact with the very people who caused their ruin.”
    At a loss, Alex did not reply. They brought the horses to a walk again. Alex frowned as they rode along, casting his eyes downward as if a problem weighed heavily on his mind. Finally he spoke. “I don’t know how to tell you this.”
    Douglas returned a detached shrug. “Whatever you want to say, just say it.”
    Alex turned his mount toward Douglas. They both reined in their horses again. “In London I met a young lady at Almack’s. Even before I met her, I was attracted, having seen her at a distance many times. When we were introduced, it was if I was powerless to resist.” A great smile lit his face. “When we danced and talked, I knew without question I had met the only woman on earth I shall ever love.”
    Douglas was silent a moment, taken aback by his brother’s ebullient candor. Finally he asked, “Are you sure? As I recall, you’ve been struck by Cupid’s arrow before, only to find she was not the love of your life after all.”
    Alex shook his head firmly. “She’s the one. The only one. I shall love her until the day I die. She’s at home now. She happens to live close by. In fact, very close. She—”
    “No!” Douglas’s eyes widened with a mixture of dismay and disbelief as the realization struck him whom Alex must mean. “I don’t want to hear this.”
    “But you will hear it,” said Alex, going against his essentially quiescent nature and not backing down. “She is Miss Alethea—”
    “Don’t make me hear this.”
    “Linley,” Alex said forcefully. “You will hear me this time. Yes, Alethea Linley. I know how appalled you must be, but there you have it. Shall I make it crystal clear? I, the son of the late William, Lord Belington, brother of the late, notorious Gregory, have fallen in love with—perish the thought!—a Linley. I am serious, Douglas. I want to marry the