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Jon, if pushed, was entirely capable of laying Gerald flat on his back, guest in their house or not.
    Cathy ended the waltz with a flourish, thankful that it was over. But before she could get to her feet she felt a swathe of soft cashmere drop over her shoulders. Startled, she looked around to find Jon standing behind her, regarding Gerald with a smile that could only be described as tigerish.
    “I thought you might be growing chilly,” he said, transferring his attention to her afterhe was certain that Gerald had gotten the message.
    “Thank you, darling,” Cathy replied meekly, wrapping the shawl around herself so that it covered the most extreme parts of her décolletage and rising as Gerald silently melted away. “I was a trifle cold.”
    She took Jon’s arm and allowed him to lead her back to her chair, all the while silently congratulating him on his self-control. He could be violently jealous, which Cathy forgave because she knew that it sprang from a deep-rooted insecurity bred by his earlier dealings with women. But she was hopeful that he was at last becoming convinced that her love for him was unshakeable, and his restraint in the face of tonight’s provocation seemed to bear out this hope.
    Jon remained at her side for the next forty minutes or so. Cathy had to smile at the spectacle of Gerald taking extreme care to stay well out of their way. But he was wise to do so, she had to admit. Jon as an opponent could be more than formidable. . . .
    “Miss Cathy.” Petersham stood at her elbow. Cathy blinked as she looked up at him. She had been miles away.
    “What is it, Petersham?” Cathy’s first thought was that Cray must be ill. Nothing less than that would induce Petersham to interrupt when they had guests.
    “There’s a man here with a letter for you, Miss Cathy. He says it’s urgent.”
    “A letter?” Cathy repeated stupidly, feeling her heart begin to thump. An urgent letter could only mean that something was wrong. With a muttered word of excuse she got to her feet, following Petersham into the hall. As he had said, a man was waiting for her. Cathy paid scant attention to his voluble explanation as she took the letter with shaking hands and, tearing it open, scanned the contents. As she read, she turned as white as the paper in her hand.
    “What’s wrong, sweetheart?” Jon had come to stand in the doorway between thedrawing room and the hall. He was frowning as he probed Cathy’s pale face. She looked up at him, her eyes tragic.
    “Oh, Jon, it’s—it’s Papa,” she choked, throwing herself into his arms and feeling them close comfortingly about her. “They say he’s dying! I must go to him!”

two

    E ngland was certainly cooler than South Carolina, but that was about all that Cathy could say for it. It was raining as they drove through the streets, that dreary, never-ending drizzle so common to London in late September. Cathy, seated in a hired hack with Cray on her lap and Martha occupying the seat opposite, shivered as she huddled into the soft fur trimming of her cranberry wool pelisse. The steady clop-clop of the horse’s hooves on the cobbled streets, the splash of the carriage wheels as they rolled through countless puddles, seemed to her to be the loneliest sound in the world. Does the whole country smell of worms? Cathy wondered dismally. Taking some comfort from the child’s drowsy weight against her, she cuddled Cray closer. With every fiber of her being she longed for Jon.
    He had had to stay behind at Woodham, of course. With the cotton so near to harvest it would have been pure folly for him to leave. Cathy knew that, had even pointed it out to Jon himself when he had suggested accompanying her. But the real sticking point, the incontrovertible fact that had caused Cathy to almost implore him to stay at home, was this: in England, Jon was an escaped felon, convicted of piracy and murder. If caught, he would be summarily hanged.
    “We’vestopped, Miss Cathy.”