While the two of them argued, Jane looked ahead along the village street to the church and the vicarage beyond it. There was some activity outside the latter. Two gentlemen, one of them the vicar, were dismounting from horseback and handing the horses over to a servant’s care. The other gentleman was young, too, and taller than the vicar. He took a cane from the servant’s hand and leaned his weight on it, his back to the approaching gig.

But her sisters had seen the gentlemen, too, and both of them leaned forward, releasing the pressure on Jane’s arms but completely blocking her view ahead.

There was a chorus of greetings as the vicar handed first Louisa and then Edna out of the gig. At the same time he introduced them to Captain Mitford, his brother, and they exchanged bows and curtsies.

Then the vicar turned and extended a hand for Jane’s.

“And Miss Jane,” he said. “Last but by no means least.”

He helped her down. The door of the house was opening to reveal Amelia Mitford. She curtsied and beamed at Louisa, who swept through the gateway toward her, followed by Edna.

“Miss Jane,” the vicar said as they moved out of the way, “may I have the pleasure of presenting my brother, Captain Mitford? Miss Jane Everett, Robert.”

As Jane had her first look at the captain, she prepared to curtsy and murmur what was proper to the occasion.

She forgot to do either.

She had never set eyes upon him before. Of that she was quite certain. And yet she knew just as certainly that she knew him. Deeply. Intimately. Her breath caught. Her stomach muscles clenched. Her knees turned weak.

Had she been able to think rationally, she would have assured herself that her temporary paralysis was not occasioned by his looks, though he was certainly a handsome man. He was tall with dark hair and smiling blue eyes and a sun-bronzed complexion. He was broad-shouldered and narrow-hipped, his long, shapely legs accentuated by the close fit of his riding breeches and supple leather boots. He was also leaning upon his cane as if he needed it to support his weight.