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serene, any possible emotion in her light brown eyes hidden by lowered lashes. "It's Jessie's first night home."
    Harrison leaned back in his seat, the carriage jerking forward as the coachman gave the horses the office to start. "Well, if he's not, it'll be his loss, for he'll miss seeing how beautiful you look."
    She rewarded him with a radiant smile that lit up her entire face. She did look unusually pretty tonight, Harrison thought, her full cheeks flushed with color, her light brown hair worn in clusters of curls falling fashionably from a center part, with the back looped up.
    She had been promised since birth to the heir of Castle Corbett, and although the specific identity of that heir had changed over the years as first one brother, then the next died, Philippa's general destiny had never altered. If the death of either Cecil or Reid Corbett had caused her any distress beyond the sorrow to be expected at the premature death of a friend, she'd never shown it. She had accepted Warrick as her future spouse with the same equanimity she had shown toward first Cecil, then Reid.
    But Warrick, Harrison knew, was not so sanguine about receiving his late brothers' betrothed along with the rest of the family inheritance. He was to have formally asked for Philippa's hand in marriage when she turned eighteen. Yet Philippa's eighteenth birthday had come and gone several months ago, and Warrick hadn't said a word.
    It was an unfortunate thought, for it reminded Harrison that, while Jesmond had accepted his own proposal more than two years ago now, he had not yet succeeded in making her his wife. Instead, she had insisted on sailing off to attend that ridiculous school of hers. Sometimes, he found himself wondering uneasily what kind of an effect her studies and her time away might have had on her. He was sure of her, of course. He had always been sure of her. She wasn't deliberately, provocatively wild or rebellious, like Warrick. But she did have a streak of unpredictability, of almost accidental nonconformity, that caused him no small amount of concern whenever he was honest enough with himself to admit it.
    "You're gripping that walking stick as if you'd like to strangle it," Philippa said, the carriage bumping and swaying as it turned out of the drive and onto the main track. "You've been laboring under such a torment of anxiety and impatience these last few days, I'll never understand why you didn't simply go with Warrick to Blackhaven Bay and meet Jessie when she came in."
    Harrison glanced at his sister, then swung his face away quickly, his gaze carefully fixed on the rolling green pasture- land, his cheeks heating with a rare betrayal of discomfort. A part of him had wanted desperately to be there this morning, to catch that first, longed-for glimpse of the woman he loved, to touch his fingertips to her soft cheeks, to see her lips part in a welcome smile. And yet he'd been secretly relieved when Beatrice Corbett had gently suggested he come to supper this evening instead. Because the truth was, there existed a dangerously ungenteel, almost animalistic undercurrent to his feelings for Jesmond. On a windswept beach, with the sun hot on his skin and the pounding surge of the waves crashing around them, he could well have forgotten himself and allowed his passion for her to overwhelm him in a way that might frighten her, and would certainly publicly embarrass him. Amongst the cold marble and stiff brocade of the Cor- betts' punctiliously correct drawing room, he would be in no danger.
    "Really, Philippa." He let his voice sharpen with a quick spurt of irritation. "Jesmond has just traveled half the way around the world. I would expect you of all people to understand her mother's desire to allow her some time to recover."
    Philippa laughed softly. "I would likely need half a year, at least, to recover from such a journey. But not Jessie. When did you ever know Jessie to need to rest after anything?"
    The carriage was already