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as his wandering took him farther from the business district and deeper into the bastions of wealth.
    Daniel suspected these magnificent edifices gleaming with gaslights and crystal windows and hidden in the shadows behind trees and shrubberies larger than the city park would rightly be called mansions. He'd lived off and on in a mansion during these last few years, but it in no way compared to these. The mansions around Natchez, Mississippi, were falling into ruin and decay, destroyed by the war, the economy, the lack of manpower to keep them functioning any longer. Obviously, no such destruction had touched Cutlerville, Ohio.
    Daniel leaned against a wrought-iron fence in front of the largest of these symbols of wealth. He could see a polished open carriage in the drive. The front door was open, and he could catch a glimpse of a chandelier glittering in the foyer. All the lamps in the house must have been lit, for light twinkled from every window. Back in the section of town from where he had just come, the cost of oil for a single lamp was prohibitive. Gaslights were unthinkable.
    He had been told the house with the stone pineapples on the gateposts would be the Mulloney mansion. He could see the pineapples at the end of the street. The house and yard took up the entire block. This was it, then, the house where his family lived, the house whose portals he had been forbidden.
    He had just enough beer in him to wonder what would happen if he walked up that drive and announced himself at the door. He liked to imagine the chaos that would ensue. Leaning his shoulder against the cold iron fence, Daniel remembered all those years of wondering, the years of waiting. To a child, a week was forever. He had endured years, the childhood equivalent of eternity. By the time he had learned some speck of the truth, he had developed a facade of indifference.
    But curiosity had always been a strong component of his character. He couldn't help but be curious about a family that had so much it could afford to throw away one of its sons.
    Just that much knowledge of the people behind this gate made him worry about the merry little imp he had met on the train. People who could throw away their own child wouldn't think twice about ignoring a bright and lovely woman whose only purpose was to bring them more wealth. Daniel hated to think of that happening. Even Evie would agree with him if she knew.
    Straightening, Daniel shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the carriage, willing its occupants to descend from the house. He wanted to know at least what they looked like before he started digging into their lives.
    But no one came out, and his empty stomach was beginning to protest. It was time to get back to the real world.
    He was a journalist, had learned at the hands of some of the best. He knew just how to go about digging into the Mulloney family. He hadn't been certain when he came here that he would bother, but now he had an incentive other than himself.
    He would make certain that Peter Mulloney was the kind of man Georgina Hanover ought to marry. And he would find out just what kind of people the Mulloneys were before he made the decision to acknowledge them as his relations.
    Hands in pockets, staring through the iron gate separating him from the family he had never known, Daniel thought he might just ride out of Cutlerville, Ohio, without ever telling them who he was.

 
     
     
    Chapter 4

     
    The announcement was made. There would be no turning back now.
    Georgina looked up at the handsome man whose arm she held and tried to will herself to feel happiness. His smile was warm as he turned it on her. She gave him a vapid smile in return. If she didn't have a thought in her head, Peter wouldn't notice.
    The pale blue gown her mother had chosen for her had a deep square neckline that cut scandalously low across her bust, and Georgina had felt Peter's glance in that direction more than once during the evening. She wasn't certain