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The boys studied the grass, drawing imperceptibly closer together. Then Joe looked up. “We’re sorry, Miss T, that we spoiled the scene. We liked the fightin’ part.”

“And we forgot our lines,” added Ben.

“Sorry we didn’t listen,” said Tim.

Honoria smiled at them and thanked them for their apology. They turned warily to Raven.

“With me, now,” he snapped. “Leave your coats here.”

The boys exchanged worried glances but did as they were told.

“I’ll bring the miscreants back shortly, Honoria,” he said. “Could you find Cassie for me?”

“They’ll be fine, won’t they?” Honoria twisted the ends of her shawl as if she feared for their lives, so Raven’s stern face must be having an effect. Raven leaned close and whispered to her, “They will be wet, very wet.” He saw the comprehension dawn in her eyes.

“March, lads,” he said.

He herded them to the edge of the lake. “Shoes off,” he ordered.

“Are ye goin’ to drown us?” Joe looked resigned to his fate.

“Like they does to dogs?” Tim’s chin quivered.

Raven recognized in the small shaking voice, his own small voice as an unwanted boy, lost in London, to be used for the most disagreeable work and then discarded, until Wenlocke had invited him into a gang of hearty survivors. He laughed at himself. He was turning into a Wenlocke himself these days.

“You can swim, right?” Raven looked at each in turn.

Three heads nodded.

“Good,” he said, moving to the edge of the lake. “It’s wise to cool off after a fight. Who’s first?”

Ben shoved Joe forward. Raven swooped, lifting the boy high in the air, and tossing him into the lake. He landed with a great splash and came up sputtering and laughing and swimming. Then the other two came forward. In minutes they were flinging water at each other, and Raven, thinking of Cassie, missed the moment when they decided he would be their target.

With a sudden flurry of action, they sent great scoops of water his way, and left him soaked from his chin to his knees, his shirt clinging.

“Out now,” he roared. It was a mock roar, but it did the trick. He led them back to the dower house. They chatted and laughed, describing moves in their water battle, their friendship restored.

Cassie stood at the door with Honoria beside her. Cassie smiled at him with the sort of smile that said she saw through him, and he wanted her so intensely, that it stopped him in his tracks.

“Oh dear,” Honoria said, “Let’s go round to the kitchen, boys.”

“Are there cakes, Miss T?” asked Joe.

“Once you dry off.” Honoria herded her small charges away.

Raven’s throat was dry, his body barely held in check in its desire for her. “Meet me,” he said in a voice roughened by his body’s need, “at the fountain in an hour?”

He could live an hour without her, couldn’t he?

“Yes,” she said.

*

Raven found Cassie sitting on the stone parapet that surrounded the sunken fountain, dipping a sprig of lavender in the water. The golden light of an early autumn afternoon streamed down on her, and her inner light shone out, sweet and unwavering. Again, he had that experience of seeing her, really seeing her. He stopped to catch his breath. Her dark hair was wound in a low knot at her nape, her lashes lay across her smooth cheek with its faint flush of warmth, and her nose, that slightly upturned, slightly damaged nose spoke of her sense and her fearlessness. Insects caught in the light shimmered in the air, and the edge of her white collar and the brim of her bonnet shown bright with a hint of the passion in her that he had just begun to discover. She did not hear his approach over the sound of the fountain.

As he came nearer, she looked up and smiled a welcome. He came and stood before her. She patted the stone beside her. He sat.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said, her expression turning grave. “That I should tell you the true story of my dreadful Season.”