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aloud, but from that moment, she would always think of him as Sebastian.
    “Would it be too great a liberty for me to call you Rebecca…in private at least?” His penetrating gaze softened until it seemed to caress her face. “It is a fine name—soproud and strong, yet lovely too. It seems a shame not to use it.”
    To hear her name on his lips provoked an unsettling mixture of pleasure and trepidation. No one had called her anything but Miss Beaton in such a long time it was almost as if they were two different people. “Miss Beaton” would never consent to such familiarity of address from a man she barely knew. But “Rebecca” felt quite well acquainted with Sebastian. Though not as well as she would have liked.
    “You may call me what you wish.” She resisted the urge to bow her head and cast a glance upward at Sebastian through her lashes. She had seen giddy girls behave that way around their admirers when she’d accompanied Hermione to the Assembly Rooms in Avoncross. She was far too old to flirt, even if she’d had the temperament for it. “Was that all you wanted to ask me?”
    Sebastian hesitated a moment as if he’d been so lost in contemplation of her that he’d forgotten what he meant to say. “Yes…er…no! It was another matter entirely.”
    He inhaled a deep breath, then plunged ahead. “Though we have known each other a very short time, my dear Rebecca, I must tell you how much I have come to admire your sincerity and good sense.” He was making a romantic declaration! Forcing herself to keep breathing, Rebecca gave her leg a discreet pinch to wake her if she was dreaming.
    “Y-you are too kind.” She still could not bring herself to call him by his Christian name. Perhaps when she gave him her answer…
    Sebastian’s husky, rueful chuckle was even sweeter music to her ears than the gurgle of the fountain. “That is something else I have never been accused of before.”
    Instinctively, she rose to his defense again. “Then your acquaintances must be blind to your true character.”
    “Or perhaps,” he suggested, “I am a better man when you are around.”
    What finer compliment could he possibly pay her? “It would make me very happy to think so.”
    “Then let me return to my question…my request.”
    “Of course.” The prospect of a stable future stretched before Rebecca, as inviting as the verdant Vale of Avoncross. Security of situation and affection was something she’d always craved. Now, just when she’d begun to despair of ever gaining it, her dream seemed poised to come true.
    “I need you,” Sebastian murmured, “to become my ally.”
    “Ally?” That was an unusual term for a wife. Though perhaps, given Sebastian’s preoccupation with military matters, it should not be too surprising.
    “Precisely!” Sebastian made it sound as if the suggestion had come from her. “My ally in the effort to end my brother’s imprudent betrothal. I want you to use your influence to persuade Miss Leonard to break it off.”
    Even as she chided herself for imagining he could ever want anything else from her, Rebecca felt as if Sebastian had pushed her over the edge of this serene terrace garden to hurtle down the steep cliff.

Chapter Four
    W hat had come over Rebecca?
    As his request hung in the air, unanswered, Sebastian tried to fathom the sudden change he sensed in her. A moment ago, she had seemed so amenable, as if she knew what he meant to ask before he uttered a word. Then an invisible door had slammed shut between them.
    Had she expected him to say something different? Sebastian could not imagine what. He thought he had signaled his intentions quite clearly.
    Rebecca stepped back and turned away from him, directing her gaze toward the pastoral beauty of the view. “You expect me to persuade Hermione to break her engagement to your brother?”
    “I hope you will agree to assist me.” An undercurrent of aversion beneath her words made Sebastian reconsider his plan. At