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Belinda went out to enjoy a beautiful day very early one bright summer morning.
    She sat against the trunk of a tree, hidden by some tall bushes and breathed deeply, happy to be alive and to enjoy such a fine day, her book of poems idle on her lap as she gazed at her surroundings. She glanced at a group of linden trees that were blossoming, their heart-shaped leaves and fragrant, yellow buds opening up under the hot sun. She felt her own body changing like the blossoms of the linden trees and puzzled at these changes, a fear of the unknown suddenly gripping her. Shy by nature and solitary by circumstance, the slight swelling of her bosom presented a fearful change. She wished it were last year and these changes in her body not yet begun. They had been unnoticed by everyone, in any case, and for this at least she was thankful. She would never be a beauty like Roselle, she knew very well, and these changes, in the body of an ungainly girl such as she were even embarrassing.
    She brushed these unsettling thoughts from her mind and glanced at the fragrant laurel that swayed gently under the soft breeze. In future she would think of something else immediately that thoughts of her body invaded her mind as they were doing now. Better to ignore it than to be so terribly wracked by it. Of what good was it, anyway? She could do nothing to alter it. Better to take pleasure in her surroundings, which gave her such joy, than to dwell on unsettling thoughts.
    She was glad she could wring such joy from nature as she did, sometimes almost to the point of ecstasy. Yet she could see that most of the things she loved: books, poems, flowers, trees, water, sky, birds, sunshine, clouds, streams, music, art, etc., had not the same effect on many other people that they had on her.
    She lay on her stomach; the easy cut of styles brought about by the influence of the Napoleonic court, making this easy. A decade before, such freedom of movement would not have been possible with the stays, corsets and petticoats that women had now tossed aside, led by the Empress Josephine. However at war they may be with France, the latest fashion still came from there and it was followed slavishly.
    Belinda hardly heard a horse as its gait cut softly into the woody stillness. But a snort from the horse suddenly pierced her dreamy consciousness so that she sat up in alarm. She then crept up to the bushes and parting them a little saw Lord Richard Berrington stripping.
    Completely nude, he now walked to the stream nearby and as Belinda stared at him transfixed she saw his broad muscled back and well-formed legs and buttocks, unable to look away.
    She saw him dive into the deep part of the stream and swim across it. And as he emerged from the water she saw him shake the water loose from himself and put his clothes back on his wet body.
    Unable to pull her eyes away from his frontal nudity as he pulled his clothes on and feeling suddenly hot all over, she looked for the first time at his face as he did this and felt her breath burning down her throat. She saw his features clearly. Dark brown eyes, dark hair, well-formed lips, and an air of self-possession. He wore only a white shirt, brown breeches, and black boots to the knee.
    Belinda was never to look at another man again and see him as she saw Richard Berrington that morning. His face had been seared on Belinda's soul, as with a branding iron.
    That same day, her mother had announced at the table that Lord Berrington had returned from the front, summoned in great haste because of his mother's extreme illness. She had also stated the obvious facts: that he was still single, and an earl, for he had attained his majority during his first year in the Peninsula.
    No one had noticed the blush that stole up Belinda's neck as her mother's words brought an instant image to her mind of the young Earl of Berrington completely naked.
    She had known him the instant she saw him at the stream. Although she did not yet go to balls or