He reached her first and lifted her, planting a kiss on her forehead, with all the exuberance of the six-year-old she’d taken into her heart.

Laughing, she told him to put her down.

“Why ever are you answering your own door?”

Here comes the scold. Having reached his majority and taken over the responsibility of the estate, the dear lad had begun trying to manage her. That was but one of the reasons she’d left Twisden Manor.

“Where is the footman? We need him to fetch in our trunks.”

We?

Looking past the broad shoulder she saw another figure approaching and…

Good God. Heat swamped her and flamed in her cheeks. Dark eyes shot darts at her over a grimly set, thin-lipped mouth. The palpable sternness of Wes’s companion sent a shiver of awareness through her. It was a familiar shiver, one she’d indulged during her tedious days at Twisden Manor when she’d found herself fighting off mad imaginings.

Wes’s laughter shook her tongue loose. “My goodness, sir,” she said. “You bear an uncanny resemblance to—”

“Old Ebenezer Twisden,” Wes said. “Yes, it is as if the old Warden has come back to life, Mother. As soon as I laid eyes on him in Brampton, I knew he must be a relation. And do you know who he is, Mother?” He laughed again. “I’ve written to Granny to tell her. She’ll be in alt when she reads the news.”

A man of perhaps forty, he was about the same age as Wes’s ancestor, the Warden in the painting at Twisden Hall who’d been in the King’s service for many years when that portrait was done. This new incarnation of Ebenezer wasn’t a particularly tall man, not as tall as Wes, but he still towered over her.

Old Ebenezer cleared his throat.

“But of course,” Wes said. “Where are my manners? Mother, may I present my cousin, Major Augustus Kellborn. Gus, this is my dear stepmother, Lady Twisden.”

While she curtsied, managing not to wobble, he dipped his head, never taking his gaze away.

Good holy heavens.

“We had a good meal at the last inn stop,” Wes said, “but a cup of tea and a few biscuits wouldn’t go amiss while the servants ready our rooms.”

“Your rooms.” She blinked. Wes expected her to take in him and this handsome cousin who made her skin tingle but... There is no way. This was her home. It was true that Wes had stepped in and helped her with the estate agent when he fussed about leasing the house to a widow living alone, but she’d made it clear to Wes that she paid the rent. He knew, too, that she wanted…needed some time away. She’d explained all that when she concocted this plan to spend the season in York.

Sighing, she led them into the drawing room. “I fear I have no spirits to offer you, but I can bring up some of my elderberry wine, or if you have a flask, you must feel free to imbibe. Make yourself comfortable and I shall return directly.”

Fleeing the parlor, she paused on the backstairs, pressing a hand to her pounding heart. Augustus Kellborn was the stuff of every naughty dream she’d entertained about Ebenezer Twisden. Attired in his flowing dark wig, long coat, breeches and high boots, Ebenezer Twisden had pinned his gaze on her through countless dinners with Sir Melton and his endless stream of tiresome, rowdy guests. Long ago, Ebenezer had served one of the Border Wardens, rounding up rievers and imposing the Crown’s law. Family legend said he was a fierce and brutal warrior. One could see it in his eyes.

She had, at first, been intimidated by Ebenezer’s image, and then intrigued, and then she’d begun imagining the virile fighter stepping out of the painting and shoving his sword into Jeremiah Ripton’s belly. Repeatedly.

One could see a similar strength of will in Major Kellborn, and she knew of his heroism from tales told by her mother-in-law.

What a ninny she’d been, and what a ninny she was being now. She’d give the men tea and the names of the best inns in York. Cousin to her late husband though he may be, Major Ebenezer could not give her household of women countenance, and she’d rather he took his skin-tingling, heart-hammering, cheek-heating virile male presence elsewhere. It would be harder to turn Wes away, but she must at least try.

He needed to speak to William, later, when Mrs. Beecham and the rest of the family had retired. But first, a breath of air, damp though it might be, was in order, before he made his vulgar but necessary inquiry.

In the garden, the herb-scented air filled his lungs but didn’t clear his head or comfort his heart. Beecham’s death followed too closely on his own father’s passing two years earlier. In fact, he still grieved his mother’s passing several years before that.

A rain-slicked flagstone path snaked through well-tended beds of herbs, vegetables, and flowers to the shed at the back, partially concealed by an overgrown elm tree. He moved toward a sheltered bench on the small patch of grass, passing the raised beds filled with vegetables and the medicinal plants the Beechams’ eccentric cousin, Ann Strachney, raised for her concoctions of tisanes and teas.

A plop of water landed upon his nose, and the heavens suddenly reopened with gusto. Before he could retreat inside a sudden cry from the vicinity of a tall elm had him rushing there.

A ladder teetered, a half-booted foot searching for purchase under a black skirt.

“Stay still.” He reached, but the ladder teetered again, and an armful of skirts plopped onto him, knocking him flat on his back, almost knocking the wind from him.

A grubby hand pushed back a wet tangle of light brown hair. Ann Strachney’s eyes widened, her already pink cheeks darkened, and her lips—just as pink, surprisingly lush—formed a perfect O.

Gad, she was lovely. An oval face, porcelain skin, and eyes the color of a stormy sea. How had he not noticed? Another lock of hair fell, she wriggled, and his male parts stirred. He clamped a hand on her to get her to stop.

“Oh,” she said, getting the word out. “I’m so sorry. I was…” She waved a hand. “The tree branch. The green house…”

He lifted his head and stopped her chatter, his lips soft against her own.

The wind gusted and glass exploded. He yanked her head down and cradled it in his hand and inhaled the scents of flowers and springtime, honey and bees. The hot breaths on his neck, the press of her breasts against his chest roused him more.

She mumbled, tickling him.

“What did you say?” he asked. “Are you alright?”

***

A battle raged within Ann Strachney, or a strange, unfamiliar mêlée of nerves and blood, tingles and shivers, and a hot pooling of… what was this? She was stretched atop a muscled chest, her nose buried against hot flesh that smelled of starch and shaving soap, and a large weight pressed against her back. A tree branch or… oh. It was a hand and it had started to move, and she didn’t want it to stop. Steam ought to be rising from her wet hair and gown. She ought to be melting.

Errol was holding her. Errol Robillard, the handsome, teasing boy who’d grown into a braw charming man. He was stroking her back. And a minute before he’d looked into her eyes and… what she saw there she didn’t recognize.

But she liked how it felt. She didn’t want it to stop.

“Are you injured?” he asked, sounding more himself.

Was she? How could she possibly tell when she was lying atop a gentleman…

“No,” she said, pushing herself up on her forearms. Errol grinned up at her, eyelids drooping wolfishly over eyes that had gone impossibly black. He’d lost his hat, and his tawny curls stuck out like the start of a lion’s mane.

Heat flooded her cheeks yet again. He was, as usual, impossibly handsome, but this was something more.

“I beg your pardon. But thank you for… for breaking my fall. Are you injured?”

He raised up on his elbows. “How could I be injured by you falling on me, Mouse?”