It was the sharpest truth; she saw what it did to him and something inside her clenched. So she went to him and stood on tiptoe, for he wouldn't come down to meet her, and she kissed his mouth. “I will, I will love you.”

His arms came around her, trembling a little, unsure, and so warm and familiar and welcome. Lily kissed him again, and this time his head dipped and his arms brought her up and he kissed her back, a tentative kiss, a question. She sighed into his mouth and he slanted his head to kiss her openmouthed and deep and passionate, the kind of kisses she had dreamed of every night while he was away. His mouth, his smell, his hands on her body.

Then he pulled away and looked at her so fiercely that Lily trembled.

He said, “Three months, then. In three months' time, I'll ask you proper and you'll answer and then we'll be married. Am I worth three months' wait, lass?”

She pressed her forehead to his shoulder, breathing in the smell of him. Counted to three and then to ten, tried to organize her thoughts.

Three months. Three months of Missy Parker's questions and Nicholas Wilde's forlorn looks and gossip and jokes about the wedding lace her brother had sent. Three months of waiting and . . . wanting.

She said, “All's fair in love and war, do you remember?”

He laughed gruffly against her hair. “Aye.”

“Well, then,” Lily said, her hands sliding up his chest to lock around his neck. “As long as we're clear on that.”

He frowned down at her, one corner of his mouth twitching in an alarming way. For a moment Lily thought he was going to laugh at her, and then instead he gave her a dry smile.

“You're up to no good,” he said, running a hand down her back.

“Oh, aye, you can wager on it,” Lily said. She gave him her brightest smile and pulled away. “But first you'd best talk to my father.”

In the privacy of their chamber Elizabeth moved into her husband's arms and shuddered once, and then again.

“Do you think Hannah told the whole truth? Do you think he's out of danger?”

Nathaniel's hands made circular motions over her back. “She wouldn't lie about something like that, to save our feelings.”

“No,” Elizabeth agreed. “She wouldn't. Thank God. And Runs-from-Bears is there.”

They stood like that for a long time, and then Elizabeth said, “Do you think we can trust Lily and Simon alone?”

He gave a short and very surprised laugh. “That depends on what you mean.”

She pulled away a little to look up into his face. “You don't sound especially worried. It's your daughter's reputation we're talking about.”

“Is it? I thought that was pretty much shot. Don't make faces at me, Boots. I could remind you of some things that happened back before we ever got married . . .”

She pulled away and went to the window, where she wrapped her arms around herself and rocked back on her heels. “That was different. I wasn't in love with someone else when I . . . when I came to you.”

He was silent for so long that in the end she turned to face him.

Nathaniel said, “She's got a temper, and she's headstrong, I'll give you those things. But don't forget she's your daughter and mine too, and a better judge of character than both of us put together. She always has been.”

“That is true,” Elizabeth said. “Remember how she made a friend of Dutch Ton.”

“And Gabriel Oak.”

“And Gabriel Oak,” Elizabeth said softly. “But she misjudged Nicholas Wilde.”

“No, I don't think she did,” Nathaniel said. “The man is good at heart. You would have been satisfied, had you heard the things he said to her. An honorable man, in the end.”

“But a weak one.”

“You're a hard judge, Boots, but then so is your daughter. I don't think she'd have him now, even if he was free.”

She pulled away from him a little. “You want to believe that, Nathaniel, but is it true? She was so long attached to him.”

Nathaniel's mouth quirked at the corner. “Not that attached, or she'd never have got to this point with Ballentyne.”

“Ah,” she said. “Then you see it too.”

“Hard to miss, the way they look at each other.”

After a moment's thought Elizabeth drew in a deep breath. “And if she falls pregnant, and must marry Simon? Will you be so philosophical then? Ah. I see by your expression that you would not.”

“I don't like the idea, I'll admit that. But she's a woman grown, Elizabeth, and we have to let her make her own mind up. Have a little faith in her.”

“I do have faith in her,” Elizabeth said. “I truly do, but her temperament sometimes does get the best of her.” And then: “How long do you think we need leave them?”

That got her the kind of grin that he saved for times like this, when they were alone.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Don't look at me that way.”

He had already come around the bed to catch her by the elbows and pull her up close. “Don't look at you how, Boots?”

“Like that,” she said, when he had finished kissing her. “Like you want to swallow me whole.”

“I suppose I could stop looking,” Nathaniel said, backing toward the bed with her firmly in tow. “But I got a better idea. Close your eyes and I'll whisper it to you.”