This afternoon she had sat hand-in-hand with Mrs. Mitford. And she had felt a strange welling of affection, bordering upon grief.

As if Mrs. Mitford really had been her mother once upon a time.

Perhaps she ought to try remembering more of what she had so ruthlessly suppressed all those years ago.

Or perhaps not.

At this precise moment all her attention was focused upon the man with whom she walked. She wished she had not taken his arm. She had walked thus with any number of gentlemen, but she had never before felt this…this awareness, this heat, this difficulty in breathing normally, this frantic need to say something to break the terrible tension which no doubt she was the only one feeling.

She did not like the feeling at all. She could actually hear her heart beating, as if it were lodged in her eardrums.

“It is a lovely day,” she said with bright cheerfulness as they passed between the gates into the park.

“It is,” he agreed.

“It has been a lovely summer.”

“It has.”

“I suppose,” she said desperately, “it does not compare favorably to India, though.”

“If you refer merely to degree of temperature,” he said, “you are quite right. I love India, but there is nothing lovelier than a fine summer day in England. It is where my heart belongs, for this lifetime at least.”

“You are expecting more than one lifetime, then?” she asked him, relieved to feel amusement.

“Oh, certainly,” he said, sounding equally amused. “How else are we to learn all there is to learn from life? And how else can life be fair, as we all feel it ought to be but as it seems so often to be decidedly not?”

“These are strange beliefs,” she said, “for a man whose brother is a clergyman.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “they can remain our secret.”

They both laughed.

She could feel the warmth of his arm through the sleeve of his coat. She could smell his cologne. She felt ever so slightly dizzy.