Richard Adair, seventh Earl of Brampton, was not quite sure whether he was feeling just uncomfortable or actually bored. Neither was a feeling he usually allowed himself to be trapped into. He lifted the delicate china teacup to his lips, only to discover that it was empty. He set it down in the saucer and placed both on the table beside his chair.

He looked across the drawing room to his companion, who appeared to be quite comfortably engrossed in her embroidery. His eyes traveled with some distaste to the little lace cap that she wore on her brown hair, which was drawn smoothly back from her face and coiled in heavy braids at the back. How old was she, for God's sake? Brampton wondered irritably. Twenty-six? Twenty-seven? She behaved as if she were a maiden aunt in her dotage.

His eyes wandered over the placid face, eyes lowered to her work, surprisingly long, dark lashes fanning pale cheeks, the straight, short nose, a mouth that could be described as sweet, but was certainly not inviting. Would one call her face heart-shaped? he wondered idly. Or was that glamorizing it too much?

He watched the rise and fall of her slight breasts, which were flattered by the high waistline of her blue muslin day dress. He looked at her little feet, set neatly side by side in their dark-blue slippers. Altogether, he concluded silently and bluntly, she was not much of a prize.

Margaret Wells paused in her work and raised her eyes to his. He was jolted back to reality, suddenly aware of his ill-mannered silence.

"What do you hear of your brothers, my lord?" she asked, her voice low and melodic, but totally lacking in the type of inflection that could capture his interest.

"My mother received a letter from him just one week ago," he replied. "He is still in Spain, enduring the rain and the mud and the constant marches from place to place, but so far has escaped injury."