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she said, looking around the rose arbor. Luckily old vines and branches were woven so thickly between the lath slats that it was unlikely anyone had glimpsed them standing in the arbor. And no one could think that she would set up an illicit meeting with the gardener amidst the roses. Not in the winter, anyway.

“If you leave, no one will know the worst. I’ll write the employment agency in Bath for another gardener immediately.”

“I won’t be going anywhere,” he said. His voice was almost casual, as if he lacked interest in the whole subject.

“Yes, you will!” Esme said, starting to feel a bit annoyed.

“As I said, I’m having a dinner party, Sebastian. Carola is coming, and her husband Tuppy—you know Carola. Helene will be here.”

“You could cancel the dinner.” His hands had slid down her back and were making little caressing circles that felt so good she almost swayed at the knees.

“Absolutely not. Why on earth would I cancel my dinner because you decided to leave Italy and come reside in a place where you are not welcome?”

His hands had reached her waist—or where her waist used to be—and now he slowly brought them together in the front.

“This is quite improper,” she pointed out. But she didn’t move back or take his hand away.

“Ah, God, Esme,” he whispered. “You’re forty times more beautiful now, you know. Your body is entirely different.”

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James

“That’s true,” she said rather glumly, thinking about her formerly slender limbs.

“Motherhood suits you,” he said. “This suits you.” She looked down fleetingly and saw bronzed hands caressing her belly. It made her feel a treacherous wave of warmth in her knees, so she moved back sharply and buttoned up her pelisse.

“I would prefer that you found another position,” she said sharply. “No! What I mean is, would you please return to Italy without further delay? You must see how embarrassing it is for me to have you here. My reputation is gravely compromised simply by having you on my land at all.”

He stood there, hands at his sides, and smiled at her. “I can’t leave, Esme,” he said simply. “Now, more than ever, I can’t leave.”

“I told you,” she said sharply. “This babe is Miles’s!”

“I could never doubt it,” he said. “I don’t know much about these matters, of course, but you are close to the shape my cousin was when she birthed a child.”

She nodded. “So, you see, you must leave.” She swallowed and looked at him with her heart in her eyes. “I don’t want to be Infamous Esme any longer, Sebastian. I just want to be plain Lady Rawlings, a widow raising a child. So please . . . leave.”

He shook his head. “You needn’t come to the garden and see me, but I will stay here.”

“You’ll ruin my reputation!” she said, her voice going rather shrill. “Someone from the dinner party will recognize you.”

“I doubt it,” he said calmly. “I shall make certain that no one approaches me. I can’t say that I ever met a gardener outside those on my own estate.”

She had to admit the justice of that statement.

“Good afternoon, Lady Rawlings.” He even touched his Fool for Love

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cap, the way a gardener would. And then he turned his back and returned to his book and rose branches. Slope sprang to open the door as his mistress toiled her way up the slope from the rose arbor. Lady Rawlings was a great one for traipsing around the estate even when it appeared she might drop that babe at any moment. He politely averted his eyes when it became clear that she was once again suffering from a lowness of spirits.

Odd, that’s what he called all those tears. In the ten years since Lord Rawlings married, his wife had visited the estate two or three times at the most. Instead Rawlings came with his fancy piece, which she was, for all one had to address her as lady. Lady Childe indeed. No better than she should be. Under the circumstances, he wouldn’t have expected the missus to show quite so many tears at the master’s passing. More than Mrs. Slope will do, Slope thought gloomily. Probably dance on my grave, that wife of mine. Mrs. Slope had incurred her husband’s disapproval that very morning by announcing that she had joined a Ladies’

Improvement Society started by Miss Pettigrew, the lady schoolteacher. Every red-blooded man in the village and thereabouts knew that the society was nothing more than an opportunity to stir up trouble.

Slope took his mistress’s pelisse, handing her a freshly laundered handkerchief as he did so.

“Thank you, Slope,” she said mistily.