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say something about a brandy, and smiled as his sister told him that his nose was already bulbous from drink.
    Darlie saddled his big black stallion, Ashes, then offered him a leg up. “You have a care now, my lord,” he said, and Burke was startled to hear the title.
    â€œI will,” he said and smiled at the old man who’d hefted him onto his first pony’s back.
    He rode to regain the feel of his boyhood home. He hadn’t been back for nearly four years, and that visit had been at the death of his father. Not a happy stay and he’d left as quickly as was decent. Now he was back again, this time to bury his brother and to become the eighth Earl of Ravensworth. A damned earldom. It was something he didn’t want, had never wanted. He was no longer free.
    Burke rode down the long, curving lime-lined drive with its high, immaculately trimmed yew bushes on either side. At least Montrose had kept the estate up. He rode the perimeter of Drummond land, heading unconsciously eastward for the small lake that nestled like an exquisite emerald at the boundary of Drummond and Leslie land. Bunberry Lake was precisely as he remembered it from a good fifteen years before. It wasn’t smaller, as things tended to be when one grew out of childhood. In fact, it seemed more precious simply because it had survived, would survive long after Burke had cast off his mortal coil.
    He dismounted carefully from Ashes’s broad back and tethered him to a maple branch. He breathed deeply. There were lily pads, willow branches dipping nearly to the surface of the still water, and daisies carpeting the ground, blooming wildly under the warm spring sun.
    He sat back against the thick trunk of an oak tree. Lazily, he pulled up a blade of grass and chewed on it. He listened to frogs croaking and wondered if it was some sort of mating ritual. He listened to a hummingbird screech angrily at an intruder. And he listened to the sweet quiet that surrounded him, and savored it.
    Then Ashes raised his head, sniffed the air, and whinnied.
    Still Burke didn’t move. So someone was coming. He had no intention of leaving his comfortable spot. He’d been here first, after all.
    Then he saw her. She was riding a chestnut mare and she was laughing, at her mare’s antics, he supposed, for the horse was prancing and dancing sideways. He could not see her face because a scarlet-plumed hat covered her hair and curved about her cheek. Her riding habit was a brilliant green, and as her mare did a particularly smart side step, he saw a booted foot. He wondered who she was. She had an excellent seat. He waited for her to notice him.
    When she did, she paused but an instant, then waved to him, calling out in her pure, sweet voice, “How do you do? Are you the new earl? You are, are you not? After all I can see that you are wounded and the new earl was hurt, I heard, and you have the look of a hero, although you are the first I’ve ever seen. Yes, well, my name is Arielle and I am not really trespassing on Drummond land. Indeed, this brief patch is Leslie land, or at least it should be if it isn’t.”
    During this guileless speech, Burke rose slowly to his feet. “Come here,” he called to her. He carelessly brushed off his buckskin riding breeches and straightened his dun-colored jacket.
    She nodded, the scarlet plume caressing her cheek. She carefully guided her mare through the shallow end of the lake some twenty-five yards away. Then she cantered toward him, coming to a graceful halt. She looked down at him and smiled, extending a gloved hand. “I am Arielle Leslie, my lord.”
    â€œAnd I am Burke Drummond.”
    â€œMajor Lord Ravensworth,” she said in good humor.
    â€œYes, that’s true. Would you care to join me for a while? We can make it neutral territory for a time, neither Leslie nor Drummond land.”
    â€œAll right,” she said and dismounted without waiting for any