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his obvious pride was the least of Beth’s issues against him.
    She had concluded even as a little girl that he was a troublemaker and a good-for-nothing. Just because the Montclairs had considerable wealth and resources, she didn’t believe it gave Edward the social advantages that he seemed to so boldly claim. And wield about.
    Edward’s father must have similar impressions about his son, she concluded a bit smugly. No doubt this is the reason Edward is now with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, with the hope that discipline and order will knock some sense of a worthwhile, productive gentleman into him!
    Rather more vigorously than necessary, Beth pulled the pins from her hair, shaking it loose and brushing it out, all the while casting further criticisms of her unwanted chaperone at her reflection in the mirror. “He thinks he’s superior to everyone else!” she muttered.
    She couldn’t help remembering her first encounter with Edward Montclair, sitting in church with his parents. Beth had watched him from across the aisle trying to provoke an answering smile from Margret, who had not responded to his attempts at flirting. After service the sisters had turned their backs on him when he approached, giggling together about how foolish he was to try to elicit a smile from an older girl.“He should know better,” they’d agreed with the great assurance of the young.
    Beth banged the brush down on the washstand and shook herself in an effort to regain some composure. But she went back to her list of accusations. He’d also chased her—just her—with a dead lizard he found behind the church. Her Sunday school classmates had insisted that he was sweet on her, of all things. Her trembling fingers fumbled with the buttons of her shirtwaist as she prepared for bed.
    Oh, how Beth had spurned him back in those days. She had abandoned conversations with others if Edward joined the group. Had refused to even acknowledge him when he called out her name. And on one occasion at a church social when she was quite young, she had dared stamp her foot at her mother’s instructions to sit next to the infuriating youngster. Inexplicably, Mother had acquiesced, and a triumphant Beth was allowed to scoot into a chair safely away from her tormenter.
    Beth paused as she hung the shirtwaist in the tiny closet and studied the memory further. For the first time, it struck her as odd that Mother had given in. She certainly could not recall other times when a flash of willfulness had caused Mother to concede. Had Mother known? Could she possibly have understood a young girl’s feelings about the matter? Yet Edward was here, thrust back into Beth’s life at a most inopportune time.
    Surely this can’t be Mother’s doing , can it? Beth had sometimes suspected that her mother and Mrs. Montclair secretly played matchmaker between Edward and her—hoping to tie their families together even further through matrimony. And no doubt Mother is intrigued by the “nobility” of the family , Beth acknowledged ruefully. It certainly didn’t matter to her.
    But Edward had said Father was the instigator of theseunfortunate circumstances. Perhaps blaming Mother is unfair . Beth determined to push the conflicted feelings out of her mind for the time being. She pulled her nightgown over her head and . . . Oh my! It was far too early to retire for the night. The sun was still rather high in the sky, and the porter had not yet arrived. And here she stood, mindlessly ready for bed. In utter frustration, Beth reached for her clothing and hurried to replace her attire before a second knock at the door.
    “I’ll tell you one thing,” she mumbled to no one, “if he calls me Elizabeth the Great just once more, I shall not speak to him again—even if it means I don’t speak to him for the entire remainder of the trip!”
    When the porter arrived to make up Beth’s bed, she was seated comfortably in her cabin, the picture of serenity. She was even able to