The Earl of Rutherford was aware as soon as he opened the library door that someone was there before him. He could see the faint glow of a single candle set somewhere behind the door. He frowned and was glad that he had approached the room and turned the handle with some stealth. He had not wanted to wake any of the sleepers of the house. It was past midnight. He held his own candle at arm's length away from the door opening so that it would not be seen from inside the room unless the occupant were looking exactly in his direction, and began to close the door as quietly as he could. He certainly did not relish the thought of another dull encounter with his host.

Before the door was quite shut, however, there was the thud of a falling book from inside the room and the sound of a mild exclamation. In a distinctly female voice. Rutherford could not resist the temptation to ease the door open again and peer cautiously around it. A moment later he had stepped quietly into the room and was closing the door slowly behind him.

What good luck! The little gray governess.

But she was looking neither very gray nor very uninteresting at the moment. Quite the contrary, in fact. She was wearing only a white nightgown. The blue shawl she must have worn downstairs had been flung onto a table beside her. She was stretching up to replace a book on a high shelf and revealing to his delight two small bare feet and one very trim ankle. Her hair-that light brown mass that was usually scraped back from her face and confined ruthlessly into a large bun at the back of her head-was hanging loose. It reached to her waist and even lower, tilted back as her head was. It was shiny, thick, and wavy.

He had suspected for the past week that she was not the gray creature that one tended to take her for at a superficial glance. The rather loose, shapeless dresses she wore, unadorned gray and covering every inch of her except her hands and head, did a good job of conveying an impression of sexlessness. Indeed, they helped her almost disappear into the background entirely. And her hairstyle, demurely lowered eyelashes, and unsmiling face suggested no femininity whatsoever. But he had suspected.