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through the lonely years, giving the illusion of love and acceptance.
    And now, in one day, just when she needed him the most, he had been destroyed. By what uncanny coincidence of fate had she imagined a man who was physically identical to her guardian? She doubted that she would ever be able to resurrect Alistair with his kind eyes and his platonic love that was completely centered on her. The stiff manner, the sneer, and the disapproving air of the Earl of Raymore would always intrude.
    She hated him. Perhaps that was unfair. He had, as Sylvia said, acted with politeness. He had said and done nothing discourteous or unkind. Even when he had noticed and questioned her limp, he had not said anything to disclose disgust. But because he resembled Alistair so closely, she was unusually sensitive to the hard core of dislike that she was quite sure he felt for both of them. And he had no reason to feel that way. He did not know them. They had not imposed their presence on him. He had summoned them. Yes, she hated him.
    Tomorrow she would go to him and ask to be sent back home. He surely would not refuse. He was a physically perfect man and he obviously cultivated beauty around him. His house was furnished with tasteful objects and priceless works of art. He was known for the first-class musical talent that he engaged yearly to entertain his friends. He must agree that she could merely be an embarrassment to him. She must convince him that she would never impose upon him in the future. He could forget her very existence.
    He had been right about the doctor, though. He had been drunk, just like everyone else who had gathered on her father’s estate for the hunt. The hunt was an annual affair, her aunt had told her much later, but was more an excuse for an orgy of drinking and feasting than a sporting event. Rosalind had been at home with her parents. She lived mostly with her uncle and aunt, the Earl and Countess of Raymore, because her parents traveled almost constantly. But their times together were very intense. Her mother had taught her to sing, her father to ride. She remembered them as a vibrant couple, whom she had loved passionately, though she realized now that they had been very selfish people.
    On that particular occasion, Rosalind’s father had insisted that she ride, although she was far too young to join the hunt. He had urged her, laughing, toward a fence higher than any she had jumped before. She could almost remember the sound of her own laughter as she had spurred her pony toward it. She could not remember anything else except the tedium of days and weeks spent in the house and, later, the garden, while her leg healed beneath the splints.
    Everyone had laughed and teased her when the splints were first removed and she had limped and hopped excitedly around the house. But Rosalind could remember her father’s towering rage when it became obvious that the limp was involuntary and when someone—her mother?—had measured her legs. She was not now sure if her father really had gone and horsewhipped the doctor, or if she had just made up that detail to satisfy her child’s imagination.
    But her father had insisted, cruelly almost, that she overcome her terror of climbing back into the saddle again. Only later, after his death, would she thank him for his foresight.
    “We will make of you the finest horsewoman in the damned county, my little Rosalinda,” he had promised, “and everyone will see you as a creature of grace and beauty.” He had fingered a shiny lock of black hair lovingly as his gaze strayed to his wife.
    They had both died of the typhoid a year later while visiting her mother’s relatives in Italy. Rosalind had not suffered outwardly. She had never seen a great deal of her parents. But inwardly something had been lost. The first of her dreams had died.
    And now a second, she thought grimly, picking up her brush again and tackling her mane of black hair once more.
    ***
    The Earl of Raymore was