Just as Livia was about to explode with impatience, Marcus muttered, “I saw Miss Bowman playing rounders in her undergarments.”

Livia stared at him blankly. “Rounders? Do you mean the game with the leather ball and flat-sided bat?”

Marcus’s mouth twisted impatiently. “It occurred during her last visit here. Miss Bowman and her sister were cavorting with their friends in a meadow on the northwest quadrant of the estate, when Simon Hunt and I happened to be riding by. All four of the girls were in their undergarments—they claimed that it was difficult to play the game in heavy skirts. My guess is that they would have seized on any excuse to run about half naked. The Bowman sisters are hedonists.”

Livia had clapped her hand over her mouth in a not-very-successful effort to stifle a fit of laughter. “I can’t believe you haven’t mentioned it before now!”

“I wish I could forget,” Marcus replied grimly, lowering the stereoscope. “God knows how I’m going to meet Thomas Bowman’s gaze while the memory of his un-clothed daughter is still fresh in my mind.”

Livia’s amusement lingered as she contemplated the bold lines of her brother’s profile. She did not fail to note that Marcus had said “daughter,” not “daughters”— which made it clear that he had barely noticed the younger one. Lillian was the one he had focused on.

Knowing Marcus as she did, Livia would have expected him to be amused by the incident. Although her brother possessed a strong sense of morality, he was the farthest thing from a prig, and he had a keen sense of humor. Although Marcus had never kept a mistress, Livia had heard the rumors about a few discreet affairs—and she had even heard a whisper or two that the outwardly straitlaced earl was decidedly adventurous in the bedroom. But for some reason her brother was disturbed by this red-blooded, audacious American girl with raw manners and new money. Shrewdly Livia wondered if the Marsden family’s attraction to Americans— after all, Aline had married one, and she herself had just wed Gideon Shaw, of the New York Shaws—was holding true for Marcus as well.

“Was she terribly ravishing in her underclothes?” Livia asked craftily.

“Yes,” Marcus said without thinking, and then scowled. “I mean, no. That is, I didn’t look at her long enough to make an assessment of her charms. If she has any.”

Livia bit the inside of her lower lip to keep from laughing. “Come, Marcus …you are a healthy man of thirty-five—and you didn’t take one tiny peep at Miss Bowman standing there in her drawers?”

“I don’t peep, Livia. I either take a good look at something, or I don’t. Peeping is for children or deviants.”

She gave him a deeply pitying glance. “Well, I’m dreadfully sorry that you had to endure such a trying experience. We can only hope that Miss Bowman will stay fully clothed in your presence during this visit, to avoid shocking your refined sensibilities once again.”

Marcus frowned in response to the mockery. “I doubt she will.”

“Do you mean that you doubt she will stay fully clothed, or you doubt she will shock you?”

“Enough, Livia,” he growled, and she giggled.

“Come, we must go and welcome the Bowmans.”

“I don’t have time for that,” Marcus said curtly. “You welcome them, and make some excuse for me.”

Livia stared at him in astonishment. “You’re not going to…oh, but Marcus, you must! I’ve never known you to be rude before.”

“I’ll atone for it later. For God’s sake, they’re going to be here for nearly a month—I’ll have ample opportunity to placate them. But talking about that Bowman girl has put me in a foul mood, and right now the thought of being in the same room with her sets my teeth on edge.”

Shaking her head slightly, Livia regarded him in a speculative way that he did not like. “Hmm. I’ve seen you interact with people that I know you dislike, and you always manage to be civil—especially when you want something from them. But for some reason Miss Bowman provokes you excessively. I have a theory as to why.”

“Oh?” Subtle challenge lit his eyes.

“I am still developing it. I will let you know when I’ve come to a definitive conclusion.”

“God help me. Just go, Livia, and welcome the guests.”

“While you hole up in this study like a fox run to ground?”

Standing, Marcus gestured for her to precede him through the doorway. “I’m leaving through the back of the house, and then I’m going for a long ride.”

“How long will you be away?”

“I’ll be back in time to change for supper.”

Livia heaved an exasperated sigh. Supper this evening would be a heavily attended affair. It was the prelude to the first official day of the house party, which would begin in full force tomorrow. Most of the guests had already arrived, with a few stragglers due to arrive soon. “You had better not be late,” she warned. “When I agreed to act as your hostess, it was not with the understanding that I was going to handle everything by myself.”

“I am never late,” Marcus replied evenly, and strode away with the eagerness of a man who had suddenly been spared from the gallows.

CHAPTER 2

M arcus rode away from the manor, guiding his horse along the well-traveled forest path beyond the gardens. As soon as he crossed a sunken lane and ascended the incline on the other side, he gave the animal its head, until they were thundering across fields of meadowsweet and sun-dried grass. Stony Cross Park possessed the finest acreage in Hampshire, with thick forests, brilliantly flowered wet meadows and bogs, and wide golden fields. Once reserved as hunting grounds for royalty, the estate was now one of the most sought-after places to visit in England.