«‘Tisbut excitement at seeing you, Wolfe. When you didn’t answer Lady Victoria’s letter, I was afraid you had forgotten me.»

«How could I forget the redheaded elf who plagued me by sewing my sleeves shut so neatly that the stitches didn’t show? The elf who switched salt for sugar and laughed with such delight at the faces I made? The elf who hid in a haystack during a storm until I found her and promised to hold the thunder at bay?»

«Which you did quite well.» Unwittingly, Jessica moved closer to Wolfe as she had in the past, seeking the reassuring warmth of his body, the shelter of his strength. «Quite well indeed.»

«A matter of timing rather than control over the elements,» Wolfe said dryly, easing Jessica away from his body. «The storm was spent.»

«I called you Talks Back To Thunder for weeks afterward.»

«And I called you Hay Maiden.»

Jessica’s silver laughter drew approving glances from nearby dancers.

«Your laugh would make a stone smile,» Wolfe said.

«I have missed you, my Lord Wolfe. Surely you did not have to absent yourself for so long. The duchess’ heart healed within the half-year. You could have returned.»

«I’m not a lord. I’m the viscount’s savage, the bastard son of a Cheyenne woman and Lord Robert Stewart, Viscount of —»

Jessica’s small hand covered Wolfe’s mouth, cutting off his words. The gesture was as old as her understanding that his lack of legitimate birth laid him open to the same caustic thrusts from the English aristocracy that Jessica’s commoner mother and titled Scots father did.

«I won’t have you belittle my very best friend,» Jessica said firmly. «Elves have magical abilities. Youaremy Lord Wolfe. If you will save me from the ice storm outside, I will save you from the lecherous duchesses inside.»

Smiling, Wolfe looked over Jessica’s carefully coiffed head to the black night beyond Lord Stewart’s windows. Sleet gleamed dully with reflected light.