One

"I hear he is quite hideous," Louisa Crookshank said, her tone complacent. She bit into a plump hothouse peach. The juice dripped down her fair skin, and she rubbed it away, shaking back golden curls as she did so.

Any other female would have looked quite unkempt, Marianne Hughes thought as she watched, but Louisa, even with her hair straying into her face and juice stains on her chin, managed to look as beautiful as always. Among Bath Society, she had been dubbed the Comely Miss Crookshank, and it was likely her biggest misfortune.

"So why in the name of heaven are you contemplating his suit?" Louisa's aunt by marriage, Caroline Hughes Crookshank, asked, sounding as usual slightly harassed. "Evan, put down that rock, and do not throw it at your sister!"

The small boy tossed the missile, anyhow. His aim was off. The pebble hit the dove-gray skirts of their houseguest, but there was little strength behind the pitch, and it bounced harmlessly away. Marianne smiled and moved her feet away from the path of an even smaller boy, who was pushing a wooden carriage pulled by two wooden horses. As much as Marianne loved her sister-in-law and her children, Caroline's brood were a trifle unpredictable. Because the day was so fair, they were sitting outside by the rose garden, having tea on the lawn and letting the children run up and down the gravel walkways.

"Because Lucas Englewood jilted her, of course." Cara Crookshank, who was eleven, reached for another scone.

"He did not jilt me!" Louisa snapped. "And I shall box your ears if you again utter such a falsehood!"

"Only because he never proposed, but you thought he was going to." Cara plunged ahead, despite frantic signals from her mother to desist. But although she grinned at her older cousin, the child took the precaution of retreating behind her aunt's chair.

"Act your age, Louisa," Marianne murmured as Louisa jumped to her feet, seeming ready to put her threat into words. "You are approaching one and twenty, not twelve."

Louisa sat down again, but her perfect features twisted into a frown.

"I care nothing about Sir Lucas. He's barely more than a child—"

"He's two years older than you," Cara muttered, but this time, mercifully, her cousin did not hear.

"I should like to meet someone more mature. Anyhow, why should I settle for a mere baronet when I could have someone whose title is inferior only to a duke's? Perhaps I have a fancy to be a marchioness. And I'm told he's ridiculously wealthy."

"You don't need money. And you still have to look at him," the younger child argued.

"Cara, that is unkind," her mother scolded. "You know what the vicar says about beauty lying inside a person, not out."

But the vicar did not have to contemplate an ugly face over his morning tea, Marianne couldn't help thinking; she had met the vicar's plump, pretty wife, who was quite adorable with her round red cheeks and sweet smile. Then she scolded herself for being as shallow as Cara—besides, because of her tender years, the child had an excuse; Marianne did not.

Caroline finished her lecture, adding, "Since you have all finished your tea, I think it is time the children went back to the nursery. I shall check on them and on the baby before I change for dinner."

Cara pouted, but she turned toward the house. The next oldest sibling was made of sterner stuff.

"But I wanted to play another round of bowls with Auntie Marianne," Evan wailed, waving his handful of pebbles.

"Later, we will have another game," Marianne promised as their mother wavered.

Fortunately, the governess, Miss Sweeney, who had all the firmness their doting mother sometimes lacked, said, "Come along, now. And drop those stones, Master Evan."

Copyright © 2004 by Cheryl Zach and Michelle Place.