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seriously.
    Although he had spent as much time in her company that weekend as convention allowed, he had returned home and told his father he had met the girl he intended to be his wife. Now, only little more than a year later, they had returned from their honeymoon as deeply in love as it was possible for two people to be.
    Brook stood up and went round the table to put his hand under Harriet’s arm and help her out of her chair. ‘It’s time we retired,’ he said gently. ‘We have had a long day and a tiring journey … and …’ He broke off but Harriet was certain what he meant. The pressure of his hand on her arm, the look in his eyes, left her in no doubt that he wanted to make love to her. As always, her body sprang to life in response.
    Such was their love-making that first night in their new home that, three months later, Harriet realized that she was going to be able to give Brook the first of the many children he wanted – and that she wanted, too.

TWO
1864–1865
    H arriet lay back on the heap of soft white linen pillows and touched the empty space in the big four-poster bed, an ache in her throat as she struggled to keep the ever-ready tears at bay. The nurse, dozing in the chair by the window, fussed if she caught her weeping. After the first disappointing miscarriage Harriet had heard the doctor say it was perfectly normal for a mother to grieve if she lost the baby she had been carrying, but this was the third occasion and this time the baby had survived long enough for her to know it had been a son.
    Harriet now thought despairingly of the son Brook so much wanted when she had first become pregnant after their honeymoon. Although she had conceived again soon after, she had lost that one too, and before it had been possible to know if it would have been a boy or girl. Now she feared that, having miscarried for the third time, something must surely be wrong with her.
    The threatening tears dried on her cheeks as with her eyes closed, she relived the magical moment when Brook had asked her to marry him, and the moment she had first set eyes on him when she had been only fifteen years old. Tall and broad-shouldered, his dark hair matching the colour of his dark brown eyes.
    Harriet now drew a deep sigh – her bitter disappointment at this third miscarriage momentarily forgotten as memories of their courtship, Brook’s proposal and her father’s open admission that he could relax now the youngest of his five daughters was off his hands, flooded her memory. There had been no single stumbling block. Brook’s father was a baronet and after his death Brook would inherit the title.
    After their wedding, Harriet now reminisced, Brook had taken her to Italy for their honeymoon – first to Rome, then Florence, Sienna and finally Venice. Brook had laughingly insisted that every day they should see one – if not several – famous sights, to let their families know they had not spent all their time in their luxurious hotel rooms where he could make love to her.
    She must have conceived for the first time on the night of their return from honeymoon, Harriet realized. Recalling Brook’s pleasure when she had first told him they were to be parents, Harriet drew another long, tremulous sigh, her eyes filling once more with tears. Brook had assured her, like the doctor had, that young and healthy as she was, she would soon conceive again, but she had lost that baby, too.
    Tears began once more to drip down her cheeks as she thought how bravely he had received the news and insisted that she was in no way to blame; that possibly he was responsible for carrying out his lovemaking so passionately. Since then he had moderated his ardour and she was forced to see herself as a failure as his wife.
    Downstairs in the big, book-lined library, a cheerful fire burning in the fireplace, Brook sat opposite his father as both tasted the brandy Brook had told the butler to bring up from the cellar. Sir Walter Edgerton nodded his