"Really?" Justin said, amused by her artlessness.

"Really. In fact, there are grave suspicions that his papa was not married to his mama." She bit her lip guiltily. "You're dangerously easy to talk to, Lord Justin. I shouldn't have said so much-my mother would be horrified if the Admiral's dubious parentage became common knowledge." She grinned again. "Her own family has been respectable for at least a generation longer."

"Your secret is safe, Miss Vangelder," he assured her.

She gave him another entrancing smile that struck right to the heart. For a mad instant, he felt as if he was the only person who existed in her world. She had charm, this gilded girl, a quality as unmistakable as it was hard to define. He drew a shaken breath and returned his gaze to the winding path.

Though she had said lie was easy to talk to, in fact he found himself talking more than usual as they strolled through the park. He told her about the history of the estate, answered questions about the crops and tenants. Together they stood in the gazebo that was designed like a miniature Greek temple, and when they visited the picturesque ruins of an old monastery he described what the community would have been like in its heyday.

She was a wonderful audience, listening with a grave air of concentration that was occasionally punctuated by au incisive question. After she asked about the effects of the agricultural depression on the farm laborers, he remarked, "You have a wide range of interests, Miss Vangelder."

"Education is something of an American passion, so my father insisted that I have a whole regiment of tutors. Shortly before he died, he had me take the entrance exams to Oxford and Cambridge. He was quite pleased when I passed with flying colors." She sighed. "Of course there was never any question of me actually going to a university. That would have been shockingly bluestocking."