The disaster was well under way before they even left the stables.

Instructions were flying at her from Hugh and the two grooms. The gelding she was now to ride was younger and more energetic and needed a strong hand to stand still while Grace was helped up onto his back. She was nearly tossed before she was even seated.

The situation didn’t improve at all once they started. Grace knew from experience that all horses, even the most docile, try to show their independence when ridden by a stranger. She’d had no chance to befriend the new mount. They’d given her a riding crop to make up for the absence of a leg on the off side; but it was useless. The gelding constantly sprawled about, requiring continual pulling together. She couldn’t lower her hands, positioned as she was. And without the use of her right leg—which was hooked uncomfortably around the saddle’s crutch—she lost an invaluable tool for controlling the animal. Everything she’d been taught before was for nothing. She might as well have been perched atop a camel’s hump.

Clearly, she thought, she’d never given enough respect to those who’d mastered this dangerously awkward method of riding. The few times she’d been offered the chance to try, Grace never accepted. Her father wouldn’t allow it. And as a perfectionist, she’d never liked that “less capable” feeling when she was learning something new.

As their horses walked past a kennel and a number of barns, Grace leaned to the right to keep her balance, but her leg was quickly falling sleep. This wasn’t riding. There was no joy in it. This saddle had obviously been designed to torture women.

She enjoyed riding astride. She always had. To race across a meadow or down a country lane with the wind in your face, to sail through the air over wall or ditch, to move as one with the powerful animal between your legs was a joy unparalleled. Fashion be damned, she’d often worn men’s breeches while doing it. Today, she had no choice in the dress she wore, but she didn’t think it would all go this badly.

Despite everything, her pride wouldn’t allow her to appear weak. She wouldn’t complain. She would be the master of the situation. When they left the buildings behind and Hugh commanded his massive steed to “trot on,” she pushed her horse to a canter in an effort at looking proficient. Nearly falling off a half-dozen times before slowing the gelding to a trot, Grace shuddered to think how ridiculous she must have looked, lurching and swaying ahead of him like a drunken hussar.

There was no point in suggesting that they go to the village rather than the loch. Whatever she’d wanted, her plan changed when Hugh showed up instead of his sister.

Thankfully, the torture being inflicted on her legs and arse soon came to an end. After riding for a short time through what appeared to be an ancient forest of oak and fir groves, they reached a clearing of meadow grass dotted with wildflowers of yellow, white, and violet. Beyond a line of pines, she espied a glimpse of a narrow loch.

She was exceedingly relieved when he reined in his horse and suggested they dismount and walk a bit before heading back.

Grace watched her companion’s smooth dismount and looked down at the contraption she was clinging to. She had no idea how the blazes was she going to get down.

Hugh left his stallion and approached. “This will be easier than mounting.”

“That isn’t saying much.”

Her dignity called for her to make easy work of it. She’d dismounted from horses, saddled or bareback, thousands of times. She could do this. But she quickly realized she was to be foiled by a leg and a buttock that had lost all feeling.

“If you gather your skirts and release your knee, I’d be happy to assist you.”

He was standing very close, his hands extended, ready to help.

“I can handle this,” she said, sharper than she’d intended. She wanted to leap down with no assistance, but the gelding was becoming restless. Gathering the voluminous skirts in her hand was turning out to be a serious obstacle as she tried to free her leg from the saddle crutch.

“Before you do that, first release your foot from the slipper stirrup and loop.”

The skirts were beginning to frustrate her. Giving no thought to modesty, she hauled them up to her knee and kicked her foot out of the stirrup.

“Now remove your right leg from the crutch.”

Her leg wouldn’t cooperate.

Hugh waited as she made one last attempt to manage it on her own. Finally, he reached up and grasped her by the waist. Lifting her from the saddle, he gently lowered her to the ground.

Her right leg, dangling like a broken willow branch, collapsed under her as he set her down. As she struggled to balance on her other leg, the restless gelding, relieved of his rider, bumped her, and she fell into Hugh.

Grace’s lips pressed against soft wool. Her arms were around him, clutching his riding coat. She smelled the fresh air and the man, and her mind emptied of all complaints. Her body filled with a feeling as old as womanhood. Time stood still. She brushed her cheek against his shoulder and allowed herself to savor the moment, fancying a dream that could never be. The pins-and-needles sensation in her leg hindered her from stepping away from him. He didn’t complain.

When she felt able to put her weight on that limb, she started to back up but the slight pressure of his hand on the small of her back made Grace pause.

Her gaze moved slowly up past the strong chin to his lips. She wanted him to kiss her. She looked up and was relieved to see a similar need in the depths of his gray eyes. He was staring at her lips.

His fingers softly traced the line of her jaw, and a delicious tremor rippled through her.

“Step away and I won’t kiss you.”

His voice was deep, inviting her to play. But the decision was hers. He was leaving it to her like last night. She could walk away . . . and for the rest of her life regret not experiencing this moment.

Grace rose on her toes and brushed her lips ever so softly across his.

She felt every muscle in his body stiffen. Emboldened, she looked up into his eyes and placed feathery soft kisses on his lips.

His mouth fell on hers, hard and fast, and when her lips parted in wonder and delight, he thrust his tongue deep into her mouth. He kissed her hungrily and without restraint, erasing any memory of the chaste kisses of her youth. Her body responded to the play of their lips. Desire like she’d never known erupted within her, racing like fire through her veins. She wanted more.

Grace found herself short of breath. Her heart hammered like the pounding of cannons. Hugh’s kiss was undoing her, melting her. She was like clay in his embrace, her mouth yielding to his mouth, her body molding to his body. She raised herself higher, and her arms encircled his neck. She felt rather than heard his groan of pleasure as her breasts pressed against his chest.

Fast. Think. Wrong. Inside of her, a battle raged. Now. Desire. Right.

She wanted the fires of passion to rule this moment, but it could not be. It was wrong. Hugh didn’t know the truth about her, and she was adding to her wrongs with what she’d started. It had to stop now.

Grace forced her trembling fingers between their bodies, and she pressed against his chest. He immediately ended the kiss and stepped back.

Her legs threatened to give out beneath her. Everything around her was a blur of colors. Her lips tingled with pleasure.

“I shouldn’t have kissed you,” she finally managed to whisper.

“No, it was I,” he said, his gaze still setting her body aflame even from two steps away. “But I don’t regret it, and I don’t think you do, either.”

Grace turned and faced the loch and pressed her hands to her fevered cheeks. She’d never imagined such a burning, explosive desire for someone. She’d never initiated a moment like this, and when she was in his arms, she would have given him far more than that kiss. Closing her eyes as a wave of mortification took hold of her, she searched her mind for a way to justify this sudden error in judgment.

Hugh moved away, leading the horses to a low shrub where they could graze on the meadow grass. She watched him secure the mounts and then stand gazing at the sparkling waters of the loch. He’d lost control for a moment, and she was surprised that she’d done that to him. Torn by conflicting desires, she forced herself to stand still and not go back to him and throw herself again into his arms.

When he finally turned and came back to her, he was the controlled and serious host she’d known.

“People find the path along the edge of the loch to be quite picturesque. If you’re not overtired, perhaps you’d like to stretch your legs.”

Grace resented the loss of the man who’d kissed her with such passion, but she was grateful for the gentleman who had retained a semblance of reason. She was a whirling dervish of contradictions, spinning crazily, unable to fathom whom she’d suddenly become.

The answers she searched for were not easy to find, at least not right now with the object of her longing standing beside her.

Hugh pointed out the way, and as they walked down through the trees toward the water, Grace forced herself to focus on her surroundings. If she talked, she wouldn’t dwell on what she’d done. She wanted to find something to steer any conversation away from her brazen behavior.

As they came out to a wide fringe of grass along the fore shore of the loch, her eyes took in the green forest rising from the opposite bank. The place was quiet, protected, peaceful.

“This is beautiful. I didn’t expect the woodlands to be so full of flowers.” She pointed to a blanket of bluebells that spread around them.

He looked at them as if seeing them for the first time.

“It’s a good time of year for that, I should think.” He indicated the path that ran along the water’s edge. “We can walk this way, if you like.”

Their voices sounded strained to her, both of them contriving to appear unaffected by the encounter.

“Viscount Greysteil. Is that a Scottish name?”

“It is. We are. My paternal grandmother’s title.”

“Did you grow up here?” she asked.

“Yes, we spent a great deal of time at Baronsford. Of course, I went away to school, but we still came back for the summer holidays. My father had his duties in Parliament, but the pleasures of the Season have never appealed to my parents.”

She recalled him giving them credit for his qualities of fairness and tolerance. How wonderful that a man of his age would think of his parents with such admiration. She wondered if the day would ever come that she could praise her father openly for what he’d given her.

“I should think this would have been a lovely place as a child.”

“As a matter of fact, this particular spot was a favorite place for us. All of my siblings and cousins swam right here as children.”

Grace imagined children playing in the grass that ran down to the fine pebbled beach. A nearby grove of trees hung out over the clear water, and in her mind’s eye they sunned themselves on the large flat rock a few yards off shore.

“Do you still have family nearby?” she asked.

He turned and pointed up through some trees. “In that direction, we’re an easy walk from the stables of Greenbrae Hall. That’s where my youngest uncle, David, and his wife, Gwyneth, live with their family for part of the year.” He pointed off in another direction. “As we walk a bit farther, you should be able to glimpse a stone tower house over the tops of those oaks. When he was a young man, Walter Truscott began to restore the place for himself.”

“Walter Truscott?” she asked.

“He’s my father’s first cousin, and he’s been Baronsford’s estate manager since before I was born. I’d be lost without him. The tower house now houses a charity project that my sister and Violet Truscott are involved with, but you can ask Jo about it.”

For Grace, to be rooted in one place and to use part of where you live for helping others was a dream. She would definitely ask Jo about it. Of all the women of wealth and position Grace had met in her life, she recalled no one who embodied the qualities of Hugh’s sister.

They reached a branch in the path, and he pointed to where it turned into the woods. “This path leads back to where we left the horses.”

They walked in silence as she struggled to find more questions. Her mind kept harking back to their kiss, and it was growing more difficult to ignore his presence with every passing moment.

She was relieved when they emerged from the glen and into the clearing. Not far ahead, the horses were in view.

Hugh broke the silence. “I’m afraid our ride was not what you’d hoped for.”

If he only knew it was far more than she’d ever anticipated.

“Being outside was what I needed,” she said. “I think this may be heaven on earth. The serenity of the water and the trees surrounding it. The smell of all these wildflowers.”

His gaze swept across the fields before them. Over a few breaths of silence, she imagined him trying to appreciate the scene as she did. The respite was short-lived, and his gray eyes again found hers.

“I was thinking of the saddle. I’d hazard a guess that in the life you can’t recall, you rode horses but not sidesaddle.”

His astuteness was commendable. “You could be correct.”

“Do you think it was the fit of the saddle?”

Grace was a more than able rider. Annoyance at her inability to adapt gnawed at her now, for she had no trouble riding cross saddle. It wasn’t the fit of the saddle, it was the dratted design of it.

“I couldn’t mount or get down without assistance. And I couldn’t stop thinking of how helpless I’d be if my horse bucked or reared.”

“That would be a complication.”

“Exactly. And how about jumping? Or galloping?” Her tone was sharp. She tried to soften it. “That barbaric device is ruled by fashion. It ignores the safety of the rider.”

She was surprised when he smiled, and her treacherous mind recalled their kiss.

“Men often complain about the spirit in a woman, but in you it is charming.”

He knew how to throw her off guard, make her forget what she wanted to say. A blush of warmth spread up her neck and into her cheeks. Grace stared at the tips of her boots poking out from beneath the dress. Spirit. Impulse. Desire. They all sprang from that place of passion within her.

“You’re like an Arabian,” he continued. “Spirit and intelligence bred together in a creature of great beauty.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment, seeing as you are a horseman.”

Arabians. She knew a great deal about the breed. She’d watched her own father help train Napoleon’s great warhorse, Marengo. Yet another conversation she didn’t dare have with him.

As they walked, Grace wouldn’t trust herself to look at him, for fear she would force him to take her into his arms again. And then where would she be?

“It is a compliment.”

She couldn’t allow herself to be distracted by his charm. She still owed him an apology. She attacked his character. When Anna brought in a breakfast tray, she told Grace the story of Baronsford’s new blacksmith, the man she’d later seen when she walked down the stables. The viscount had seen to it that an injustice was corrected. The story only added fire to her feelings of guilt.

“I need to ask your forgiveness, m’lord,” she said. “I was out of line in the library. My manners, the violence of my expressions, the memory shames me even now. I had no right to be critical of you, who have shown me nothing but kindness. And I spoke out, knowing of all the good that you have wrought. For me to equal the plight of one group against another that has been enslaved for generations reveals artlessness and ignorance in my own character. That ‘spirit’ you referred to just now betrayed me. I spoke out when I shouldn’t have spoken. I was critical when I should have been commending you.”

He took hold of her elbow, making her stop. “You were speaking the truth. And you directed my attention to a blind spot that I hadn’t realized I possessed.”

“I jumped to a conclusion based on a handful of articles.”

“Once I had a chance to think through what you said, I found that you were right. I didn’t become a judge to advance my social or political status. My goal has always been to make my rulings fairly and without partiality. And it troubles me to see where I’ve failed.”

The same man who’d taken her into his arms so passionately moments ago now stood before her without a shred of arrogance or vanity. She could not possibly have been more impressed by Hugh Pennington.

“But you haven’t failed. I believe my disappointment and frustration was really directed at the law and society, and not at you specifically.”

All immigrants struggled, one way or another. Grace and her father were no exception. She was the daughter of an Irish father and a Scottish mother who had lived their lives on the losing side of wars against the English crown. With his days in the battlefields behind him, Daniel Ware worried about the security of his only daughter’s future. She wished she could share her own experience with Hugh now. Fear of outsiders existed everywhere she’d ever lived, including America, a curiosity considering that was a newly settled nation of outsiders. But she couldn’t tell him.

“Thank you for speaking up, but I wish to put last night’s disagreement behind us.”

Grace was thankful for his cordiality. She’d like nothing better.

“Would you mind if we walked the horses back?” he asked when they reached the animals.

“That would be lovely.” She eyed the saddle with exaggerated scorn.

A great weight was lifted from her shoulders. The smell of the firs filled her senses as they walked.

“I’m still stunned, however, by the capacity of your mind,” he said, interrupting her thoughts. “The exactness of your memory. The ability to recite text flawlessly. Dates. References. How could you remember them all so precisely?”

For a change, she could be honest. “It appears that what I read stays with me, just as I see it on the page.”

They emerged from the shade of the forest and walked out into the open meadows. In the distance, the towers and turrets of Baronsford rose solidly against the azure sky.

“I’ll never forget your first words were the recitation of the lines of a poem.” They turned onto the lane.

“Wasn’t it a ballad?” she teased.

Looking over at him, she saw his expression darken. His eyes were locked on an open carriage approaching them. He pulled their horses to the side of the lane.

“I apologize for this intrusion, in advance.”

Before Grace could reply, the shrill voice of a woman pieced the air, ordering the carriage to stop.

“Lord Greysteil,” a robust older woman squealed with delight. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am to find you here!”

He ripped the hat from his head and raked his fingers through his hair. His annoyance was evident.

“We just left Baronsford after a lovely visit with your sister. And to find you here! We were positively wretched at the thought that we might miss seeing you and your . . . oh my, your lovely guest. Will you be so kind as to introduce us to the young lady?”

Grace looked from the speaker’s face to her companion. Suddenly, a wave of illness swept over her. She knew this woman. Six years ago, on the day Napoleon’s son was baptized at Notre Dame Cathedral, dignitaries from all over the Continent, including a small delegation from England, had traveled to Paris.

And now Mrs. Mariah Douglas, a member of that party, sat in this carriage, a world away, her keen gaze fixed unwaveringly on Grace’s face.