The Hidden Heart. Candace Camp

attractive, even to think of the pleasure of bedding her. Less than a year ago, he remembered, his brother-in-law Devin had pointed out to him that it had been Caroline who had died, not Richard, and that no one expected him to never look at another woman.

      But, as he had told Dev at the time, he felt as if he had died, too, that night four years ago. Without his wife and daughter, his life was ashes, and every day held the same empty, lifeless round of activities, worth nothing except to say that he had made it through another day.

      How, then, could he now feel desire for another woman? Caroline was the only woman he had loved, could ever love.

      The dream had been an aberration, he told himself. It was bizarre and unreal and clearly the opposite of what he really felt. After all, he disliked the woman intensely. The desire, he thought, must have been spawned in some strange way by the intense anger he felt for Miss Maitland. He did not understand it, but that had to be the reason. It was the same sort of thing as the way one laughed sometimes when what one really wanted to do was cry or scream. It had to be. Anything else was impossible.

      With a sigh, he lay back down, turning onto his side, and set his mind to thinking of something, anything, besides Miss Maitland. Sleep, he found, was a long time coming.

      

      Richard sat in lonely splendor at the dining table the next evening. He looked down the length of the gleaming mahogany table and thought, not for the first time, how foolish it was to sit here by himself to eat at a table and in a room meant to accommodate a small army of people. A huge silver epergne graced the center of the table, filled with fruit, and silver candelabras, each as ornate as the epergne, were spaced down the length of the table, candles ablaze. Two footmen stood at the ready, should Richard require something not on the table.

      It would make more sense, Richard knew, to put a table in one of the small rooms downstairs and eat there, but Baxter, of course, would be horrified at the idea of his not dining formally. There were, after all, certain standards to maintain when one worked for a duke.

      Richard began to spoon up his soup. He wondered idly where Miss Maitland took her meals—in the nursery with her charge, he supposed. It must be difficult for her, he thought, living in that odd limbo occupied by governesses, where one was neither a servant nor a member of the family, especially for someone like her, who came from a good family and had even had her season in London. Surely she must miss the life she had once had—doubtless that was one reason she had turned so sour!