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Charles had begged out of their customary morning ride together, pleading business in the form of the unexpectedly early arrival of a visitor to negotiate the purchase of some of their best horses. He had explained that the size and importance of the anticipated transaction was such that he had been reluctant to delay it. Then, Thunder had thrown a shoe on the way back from their late morning ride, and she had been forced to remain at the house for the better part of the day. This had delighted Aunt Celia, who had arrived on the scene at noon to share a hasty luncheon meal with Christie on the terrace before whisking her niece away to the upper chambers, where there would now be more time for her to hover and preen over the young lady as she worked at some of the early preparations for what was to be her favorite niece's formal introduction into society.
    Almeira soon returned with Aunt Celia and together they joined Madame Celeste in the sewing chamber, where an hour's worth of fussing, pinning, stitching and feminine babbling took place. Christie's role in all of this activity was the most silent while at the same time, the most physically active as she squirmed and wiggled, wiggled and squirmed, under the onslaught of sticking pins and clucking tongues. Made Celeste alternated between Gallic gasps over the beauty of the mademoiselle who could do such justice to her creation, and muttered declarations - in rapid French - that to be forced to work with one given to such highly charged energies was asking the impossible and should require a fee many times higher than the sum she was charging. Christie, whose fluency in French was excellent, owing to the many long hours spent with Madame Armand, had laughed gaily at this, for she was completely aware of the handsome sum this woman had already extracted from her indulgent father.
    When the session was over, an exhausted Celia insisted they all take a nap for the duration of the afternoon to rest up for dinner, at which a guest of Charles' would be joining them. Almeira, who appeared near collapse, took the suggestion gratefully, as did Madame Celeste, who muttered something about true creativity being possible only when the artist was not beset by fatigue, and Christie surprised her aunt by agreeing without protest for a change.
    Not that Christie could sleep. As she lay there in the dim, shaded bedchamber, her thoughts returned to the events of her post dawn encounter on horseback, and even as she tried to send them away, unbidden images of a tall, raven-haired, masculine figure on a dark horse entered her head. She saw him again, with that same lazy, mocking grin, returning her in helpless fury to her saddle following that shocking embrace. The act in itself had been enough to unsettle her, but what was even more disturbing was her memory of how she had felt at his touch. Even now, in the semidarkness of her room, her cheeks flushed hotly when she recalled that kiss, and there were all sorts of unaccountable, puzzling yearnings set off inside her, coupled with a queer feeling in the pit of her stomach as she imagined the warmth of a lean, hard male body close to hers. Her senses danced and whirled in dizzying confusion as she recollected the details of it. No one, nothing had ever caused her such emotions before, and she was caught up with wonder at how she could experience such unfamiliar feelings in a body she had somehow thought she knew throughly, having lived in it for almost eighteen years. So it had been with some degree of welcome relief that she had accepted the attentions and ministrations of her aunt and the others, allowing the fuss and bother of activities she found nuisance- worthy to fill up her mind for the bulk of the afternoon, gratefully letting them keep away the stray thoughts which now beset her.
    At last, there came the welcome knock of Almeira at her chamber door, and Christie gladly rose to begin bathing and dressing for dinner. Since there was to be a