LITMIR.BIZ

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and I had books and pretty dresses.”

      Cordelia released a slow breath. She hadn’t been sure if she would be able to gain the girl’s trust, and she had desperately wanted to. Perhaps it was because Ivy reminded her so much of Lydia. Certainly she needed no better reason than common decency to help the girl, and her persistence had pierced at least one layer of Ivy’s formidable defenses.

      “You can read and write?” she asked.

      Ivy snorted indelicately. “Of course.”

      “What of your father?”

      Ivy jumped up from the chair and began to pace the room, her motions abrupt as if she were resisting the urge to run away. “I don’t remember him at all,” she said. She reached inside the neckline of her shapeless bodice and drew out a silver pendant hung on a worn leather cord. “He left me this.”

      “It’s lovely,” Cordelia said. The silver emblem seemed to be a complex Celtic knot set with a vivid blue stone, but before she could examine it further Ivy pushed it beneath her dress again.

      “I think he must be dead,” Ivy said. She stopped to stare out the window, her fists clenching and unclenching at her sides.

      “And you had no other kin to take care of you,” Cordelia said.

      “None that I ever met.”

      Cordelia rose and went to stand behind the young woman. “Whatever happened to your father and mother, they must have loved you very much. They gave you an education, and the spirit to go on living when it must have seemed … almost too much to bear.”

      Ivy shook her head sharply. “I didn’t need anyone.”

      “And yet you came with Dr. Fleming when he offered you a home.”

      Ivy’s voice softened. “He was the first one who was ever kind to me. And the dogs loved him …” She pressed her hands flat against the window pane. “But ‘e di’n’t give me no ‘ome,” she said, lapsing back to rough rookery speech. “‘E sent me off to live wiv them farmers….”

      “Surely he did so only because he wanted what was best for you,” Cordelia said. She reached out but let her hands fall before she could touch Ivy’s rigid shoulders. “He saw only one part of you, Ivy. He couldn’t guess that you might be destined for something better than life on an isolated farm.”

      “I won’t go back,” Ivy said, low and intense. “They took me in because they owe Donal a debt, but they don’t like me. They think I’m a low, filthy thing.”

      “Did not Dr. Fleming provide you with a … suitable history so that the Porritts would be willing to accept you?”

      “You mean did he lie to them?” Ivy asked. “Of course he did. He made sure I was clean and had new clothes, and he told them a story that made Mrs. Porritt weep into her teacup. He paid them to treat me like one of their daughters.”

      “But you refused to play your part.”

      “Why should I have done? I hated it there.”

      “You did not reveal your true age.”

      “I didn’t want them to think that Donal misled them. And I didn’t want him to know.”

      “Why not, Ivy?”

      The girl scraped her fingers down the windowpane, drawing a frightful squeak from the glass. “I was afraid he would turn me away,” she whispered.

      “You know that he must be told.”

      “Yes.” Abruptly she spun on Cordelia, a wicked smile curving her lips. “I can’t go back to those silly farmers, anyway. I stole that dress from Porritt’s eldest daughter.”

      Cordelia swallowed her instinctive reproach. Thievery was quite likely the very least of what Ivy had been compelled to do in order to survive. Whatever misfortune had led to her fall from respectable life and her apparent loss of memory, her father had almost certainly been of the merchant class, perhaps even a banker or lawyer. Yet Ivy faced a long and difficult climb to regain the state of mind and appropriate behavior that distinguished a well-bred woman. Even the smallest criticism might destroy the fragile truce she and Cordelia had made between them.

      “It does not seem a good idea for you to return,” Cordelia agreed. “But perhaps there are alternatives.”

      “I want to stay here, with Donal.”

      Once again Cordelia suppressed her arguments. It would be unfortunate if Ivy had developed a tendre for Dr. Fleming, though not entirely unexpected. He had been kind to her, and he was not without attractions for a girl who had been living among the dregs of humanity for five or six years.

      At least Cordelia didn’t have to contend with an inappropriate attachment in the other direction. Dr. Fleming showed no signs of regarding Ivy as anything but a child. But before the girl could be made to accept her own best interests, Dr. Fleming must be brought to recognize the complexity and delicacy of the situation.

      “I know we do not yet know each other well,” Cordelia said, “but if you will trust me, Ivy, I believe I may be able to convince Dr. Fleming that it would be best for you to find a more agreeable home.”

      Ivy turned and regarded Cordelia through narrowed eyes. “At Stenwater Farm?”

      “That I cannot promise. But you may be sure that I will hold your concerns very much in mind.”

      Ivy weighed Cordelia’s offer as if it were a question of life or death. Indeed, it must be against her inclinations to trust any stranger, however well meaning. And yet Cordelia couldn’t help but believe that she could offer the girl something she must yearn for with all her heart: comfort, stability, and the constructive discipline that would restore her to her rightful place in society.

      “Very well,” Ivy said. Without another word she spun and ran for the door, light-footed as a fawn. Her spaniel raced after her.

      Cordelia gathered her composure as she collected the tea things and carried them into the kitchen. Something quite remarkable had occurred in the hour since she had followed Ivy to Stenwater Farm. Of course there were perfectly rational reasons behind her decision to involved herself in Ivy’s life; she firmly believed it was the duty of any decent person to assist those less fortunate. But there was also an element of irrationality in the situation that disturbed Cordelia, and all she could do was push such thoughts aside as she went to find Dr. Fleming.

      WHEN MRS. HARDCASTLE EMERGED from the house, Donal could see that something significant had transpired between her and Ivy.

      He had seen a hint of that change in the girl as she’d rushed out the door, flying past Donal with hardly a glance. But Mrs. Hardcastle’s face seemed to hold a kind of light he could not remember noticing before, a peculiar and exotic beauty that that had nothing to do with her rather ordinary features. And her eyes … those eyes he had seen in his dreams … revealed a hint of vulnerability that had a startling effect on Donal’s heart.

      He rose from his seat on the flagstone steps and held her gaze as she descended to meet him. He did not understand the unprecedented sense of familiarity that assaulted his nerves and turned his mouth too dry for speech. He knew Mrs. Hardcastle no better now than he had an hour ago, and yet she might have been an old and dear acquaintance, a friend in whom he could confide his deepest yearnings. He could share with her his visions of distant wilderness, his need to run in those faraway places, and she would understand. She would even shed those confining, torturous garments and run at his side.

      But she came to a sudden stop, almost as if she sensed his thoughts, and her eyes hardened to tempered steel.

      “Dr. Fleming,” she said, “I wish to discuss a proposal regarding Ivy’s future.”

      Donal shook off his daze and offered his hand to assist her down the remaining steps. “May I ask, Mrs. Hardcastle, what you and Ivy discussed?”

      She took his

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