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sometimes finds it difficult to accept her position in life."
    Wide green eyes stared up at him. "Her position?"
    "As a woman," Jon said. "She's overly headstrong and independent."
    Sarah gave him a cool, crisp smile. "And you think she should be less assertive? Better yet, a servile creature without an opinion of her own?"
    "Josephine is entitled to her opinions," Jon said. "It's her manner of expressing them that concerns me. She's far too forthright and outspoken."
    "Forgive me, Governor," Sarah said in a clipped, dry tone, "but I fear I too have been outspoken. After all, Josephine is your daughter, and you have a perfect right to be an autocratic, overbearing father if you so choose."
    Jon cocked a brow. "When I deliver my daughters to the altar," he said, "I can assure you they will be" —his gaze dipped to Sarah's bosom again— "untouched. And if it takes an autocratic, overbearing father to accomplish that goal, then that's exactly what I'll be."
    Sarah's lips tightened angrily. So the man based his wrong assessment of her character on the fact that she wore a stylish gown. Or... had the dreadful scandal followed her here? To her surprise, and alarm, he brushed a finger along her jaw and said in a low, suggestive tone, "Innocence, however, is only for my daughters. I prefer an experienced woman.”
    Shocked by the man's implication, Sarah struggled to think of a proper retort, one that would exonerate her virtue while putting him in his place. But before she could respond, Esther appeared, accompanied by a small, gray-haired woman who stepped with a lively gait. "I would like to present our mother, Lady Cromwell," Esther said, directing the dowager Viscountess to where Sarah slowly stood to receive the older woman.
    Lady Cromwell stared first at Sarah's gown. Then she raised the gold-rimmed spectacles that were attached to a gold chain pinned to her bosom and propped them on her nose. Her brows arched, and her thin lips gathered with distaste as she scrutinized Sarah's dress more thoroughly. Then a glint of fire came into her eyes, and she said, "My daughter informs me that you are removing to Victoria, Miss Ashley. Why, may I ask, have you chosen our city?" Her cool tone seemed unusually husky for such a frail looking woman.
    Sarah caught the jaded overtones and noted the spark of challenge in the woman's eyes, and wondered again if the scandal had made its way from San Francisco. Or if, perhaps that old harridan from the ship, Harriet Galbraith, had already come to call. Trying to dismiss that uncomfortable thought, she replied, "With the goldfields up north drawing so many people to the area, I feel that in Victoria there are many opportunities for success."
    Lady Cromwell's eyes narrowed, and she gave her a brittle smile. "Unfortunately, the best claims in the Cariboo have been taken," she said. "When those play out, there will be another exodus from the city. As in '59, stores will close, merchants will leave, and Victoria will slip into an economic depression. But even if that does not happen, certainly your American cities with their wealth of modern comforts offer more than our meager colonial outpost?"
    Sarah looked into a pair of cool, unfaltering eyes. "I'm afraid our modern cities also attract problems," she said. "Swindlers, rowdies, and overcrowded streets."
    "But we have all that right here in Victoria with the prospectors," parried Lady Cromwell.
    "Yes, I see that you do," Sarah admitted, trying to hold her voice steady, feeling a growing unrest in the face of the woman's blatant hostility. As gracious as Esther had been on the ship, Sarah had not expected anything less from her mother. Struggling to hold her voice calm, she said, "But when the goldfields play out and the prospectors move on they should leave behind a prosperous city."
    Lady Cromwell pinned her with an icy glare. "They will leave behind a city populated by greed-driven Americans."
    Esther took her mother's elbow. "Come, Mother. Dinner