‘So,’ continued the soft voice, ‘if not the blacksmith’s daughter, who, then?’

At the gently mocking tone, she raised her chin defiantly. ‘I’m Dorothea Darent. Now will you please release me?’

The arm around her moved not one whit. A slight frown creased her captor’s brow. ‘Ah…Darent. Of the Grange?’

A slight nod was all she could manage. Conversation was a major effort while held so closely against him. Who on earth was he?

‘I’m Hazelmere.’

A blunt statement of fact. For a moment she thought she had not heard aright. But that face, arrogant amusement deeply etched in the lines about the strong mouth, surely belonged to no one else?

She had heard the rumours. Their old friend, Lady Moreton, whose estate encompassed these woods, had died while they were at Darent Hall. Her great-nephew, the Marquis of Hazelmere, had reputedly inherited Moreton Park. The news had set the district abuzz. In a small county backwater the possibility that one of the acknowledged leaders of the ton might be the new owner of a major local estate was, in any circumstances, likely to generate a certain amount of curiosity. When the person in question was the Marquis of Hazelmere the curiosity was frankly rampant.

The rector’s wife had primmed up her mouth in a most disparaging way. ‘My dear! Nothing on earth would induce me to acknowledge such a man! Such a shocking reputation! So notorious!’ When Dorothea had, not unnaturally, asked how this reputation had been gained, Mrs Matthews had suddenly recalled to whom she was speaking and rapidly excused herself on the pretext of passing around the scones. At Mrs Mannerim’s she had heard such charges as gambling, womanising and general licentiousness laid at the Marquis’s door. Although she was inexperienced in wider society, common sense was her forte. As Lord Hazelmere continued to grace the ton presumably the gossip, as usual, was exaggerated. Besides, she could not imagine the eminently respectable Lady Moreton having a licentious great-nephew.