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this to your mistress and—’
    ‘For God’s sake, no !’ Shaking, she forced her voice to calm. ‘My—’ She’s your mistress, not your aunt ‘—Lady Faringdon would blame me, not Godf—not him. I’d be sacked. Please, don’t!’
    ‘What is your name?’
    It nearly choked her, but somehow she got the hated name out. ‘Selina Dering, my lord.’ And bobbed a curtsy.
    Another voice broke in. ‘And what, may I ask, is going on here?’

Chapter Two
    V erity wished she could turn to stone at the sound of Aunt Faringdon’s voice. Or at least to ice so that she wouldn’t feel anything. The soft voice bit deep.
    ‘You, Selina! Take yourself off. Presumptuous girl! Go to your room!’
    Lady Faringdon turned to Lord Blakehurst, all honeyed smiles. ‘I must beg your pardon, Lord Blakehurst. That sort never know their place. I hope you were not too inconvenienced.’ She bore Lord Blakehurst away, casting a look over her shoulder at Verity that promised dire retribution on the morrow.
    Verity retreated to the stairs and raced up to her dark, chilly little room. Closing the door behind her, she leaned against it, shaking in the cold blackness. Eyes tight shut, she saw again the face of her rescuer. Familiar eyes stared back haughtily. Eyes that comforted her dreams, that she’d never expected to see again in the waking world. The moonlight had never revealed their colour. Burning amber. He hadn’t recognised her.
    Don’t think of him.
    Verity prepared quickly for bed in the dark. Shivering, she lit her tallow candle, took her father’s journal from under her pillow and got into bed.

    She couldn’t hide from the truth.
    Lord Blakehurst, Celia’s supposed suitor, was her Max.
    Dazed, she let the book fall open where it would. The start of the Waterloo campaign and her father’s first reference to ‘…my new Brevet Major, Max B. I shall not call him anything else here. His family name and degree have not the least significance in what lies before us. He is, however, a gallant lad, and one I shall be happy to rely on when we finally face Bonaparte. I have good reports of his intelligence and courage from his previous commanders…’
    That was the first of many references. Apparently Colonel Scott had become very much attached to the younger officer. Almost like a son. She shut her eyes, remembering that tiny, dead baby sharing her mother’s grave…no, she mustn’t think of it, mustn’t remember her father’s return the next day…
    ‘I think Mary would approve him and Verity would like him. He has a gentle way with women and children.’
    A few of the things William Scott had written about Max’s way with women should have brought a blush to his daughter’s cheeks, but Verity had come to the conclusion that young men were young men the world over. And apparently all the women Max had entertained in Brussels had been more than willing. It did not appear that her father had thought the worse of Max for his youthful sins.
    Hungrily she read on through her father’s account of the weeks leading up to Waterloo. Max was mentioned regularly. In the five years since she had first read this journal, he had come alive for Verity in a way she could not quite understand. She knew his expertise with horses and his fondness for dogs. She knew he hated tea and how he liked his coffee. She even knew how he liked his eggs and bacon. And that he was perfectly capable of cooking it himself.
    Above all his kindness and thought for an orphaned child glowed in her memory… a gentle way with women and children …
    He was as real and precious to her as life itself. And theMax she had found in her father’s journal reassured her that the man who had planted bluebells on a suicide’s grave, guarded her sleep and left her a decent breakfast, was not a figment of her imagination. In the past five years he had been her only friend, his very existence her only comfort as she cried herself to sleep. And now he was here, in the