The Homecoming: Novel of Early America, #1

Alphabet Regency Romances

The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane

The Playful Lady Penelope

The Haunted Miss Hampshire

The Wagered Miss Winslow

The Belligerent Miss Boynton

The Lurid Lady Lockport

The Rambunctious Lady Royston

The Mischievous Miss Murphy

Moonlight Masquerade

A Difficult Disguise

The Savage Miss Saxon

The Somerville Farce

Nine Brides and One Witch: A Regency Novella Duo

Historical Regency Romances

A Masquerade in the Moonlight (Enterprising Ladies)

Indiscreet (Enterprising Ladies)

Escapade (Enterprising Ladies)

The Legacy of the Rose

Come Near Me

Out of the Blue (A Time Travel)

Role of a Lifetime (A Time Travel Novella)

Waiting for You (Love in the Regency, Book 1)

Someone to Love (Love in the Regency, Book 2)

Then Comes Marriage (Love in the Regency, Book 3)

Just Good Clean Fun Regency Romances

The Straight-Laced Duke Selbourne;

The Just Good Clean Fun version of Indiscreet

The Bedeviled Viscount Brockton;

The Just Good Clean Fun version of Escapade

The Dangerous Mister Donovan;

The Just Good Clean Fun version of A Masquerade in the Moonlight

Historical Early-American Romances

The Homecoming

The Untamed

The Promise

Contemporary Romances

Can’t Take My Eyes Off Of You (D&S Security Series)

Too Good To Be True (D&S Security Series)

Love To Love You Baby (The Brothers Trehan Series)

Be My Baby Tonight (The Brothers Trehan Series)

This Must Be Love (Summer Lovin’ Series)

This Can’t Be Love (Summer Lovin’ Series)

Stuck in Shangri-La (The Trouble With Men Series)

Everything’s Coming Up Rosie (The Trouble With Men Series)

Find Kasey’s books here!

Dear Reader—

After dealing for so many years with the Regency period and elegant gentlemen and ladies of the ton, I’ve been asked by many why I’ve decided to uproot a few similarly sophisticated English creatures and plunk them down in 1763 Pennsylvania. I want to tell you why.

Have you ever ridden along a rural highway and looked deep into a stand of old-growth trees, and thought—just for a moment—that you may have glimpsed a proud Native American silently running through the shadows?

I have. Living in eastern Pennsylvania, once the home of the Lenni-Lenape or Original People, I probably couldn’t avoid it. I grew up playing in the small woods behind my house, digging for arrowheads and imagining myself to be an Indian chief.

Eventually I grew up, but around me the physical reminders—except for those that were bulldozed to make way for shopping malls—remained, and the memories lingered.

Then, several years ago, I was asked to compile a history of my township, Whitehall, Pennsylvania. That history began with the Lenni-Lenape, or Original People, and they fascinated me. The colonists who’d braved everything, dared anything, for the chance of living in a free country, fascinated me. I began to see the Lenape, as well as the shawanuk, or White Fathers, who had settled in the area. At times I could even hear them. They wouldn’t leave me alone.

The sites I visited, including the graves, the histories I read that detailed the massacres that had occurred here, how and why they had happened. How life as we know it today was founded on the courage, and sometimes the deceit, of those who came before us.

Over the years, I began to play the what if game all writers play. Slowly that game became my ruling passion. What if there was this wise Lenape brave... and what if he befriended a wealthy, mysterious English gentleman who had not so much emigrated to the Pennsylvania colony as he had fled there... and what if that gentleman suddenly found himself saddled with this fiery Irish wife...

And thus were born Lokwelend, and Dominick Crown, and one Miss Bryna Cassidy.

I hope you enjoy their story, set against the history of their times.

Oh, and one more thing. This Colonial America Trilogy was first published in the mid 90s. The books got some lovely reviews, for which I was and am grateful. But there was one review that bothered me. Not for me, but for what was said about one of my characters. The reviewer believed it impossible for Lokwelend to speak English so well, be so wise and articulate. Uh – sorry, but that reviewer was wrong. Capital W wrong. My research took me through dozens of books, memoirs, etc, and the English and other ministers and such who emigrated to America brought their educations with them, and taught the Native Americans that same educated English. The Lenni-Lenape were the thinkers, revered by other tribes, and their history was long and rich before a single white man landed on American shores. My Lokwelend is a composite of so many Native Americans quoted in so many writings of the day, and a shaman, a wise seer, to boot. He’s in my stories because, in real-life history, there was a Native American man who lived a solitary life beside the creek I use in the books, made welcome there by the colonist who had cleared and fenced off the land and believed that made it his.

Reading this book again, and the two that follow in the trilogy, I realized how much our world has changed, and how much it has remained the same. In how we think, how we look at others... the good, and the damage, that we do.

Itah! Good be to you!

Kasey Michaels

The first man who, having fenced in a piece of land, said,

"This is mine," and found people naive enough to believe him,

that man was the true founder of civil society.

—Jean-Jacques Rousseau

BOOK ONE

Planting the Seeds

If you can look into the seeds

of time, and say which grain will grow

and which will not, speak.

— William Shakespeare

Stranger in a strange country.

—Sophocles

Chapter 1

New Eden, Colony of Pennsylvania

1763

"Where is she?"

Dominick Crown had addressed this question to Alice Rudolph. She had entered the inn close on his heels, still slightly starry-eyed because Mr. Crown had actually helped her down from the wagon—treating her like a lady, and not just Truda Rudolph’s unwanted cripple. Quick as she could, Alice pointed toward the corner, and a small table occupied by the lone female who had arrived at the inn last night.

Not that she had been dressed like a female when she’d arrived. Oh, no. As Alice had told Mr. Crown when her mama sent her to fetch him this morning, the female had shown up on the mail coach, dressed all in breeches and a heavy redingote, and with a muffler tied high round her mouth like it was still the dead of winter. She had been masquerading as a young lad, that’s what she’d been doing—and carrying out her playacting fairly well until she’d heard all Alice’s pa, Benjamin, had to tell her.

Then she had screamed like a mad thing, calling Benjamin a damned liar and a few other things Truda Rudolph routinely called her husband but nobody else in New Eden had ever dared.

The female had cursed Benjamin Rudolph a blue streak, she had—until, of course, he’d cuffed her a good one on the ear with one of his hamlike hands. Then she hadn’t said anything at all; not even after Alice’s pa had picked her up from the floor, thrown her over his shoulder, and carried her upstairs. He’d dumped her on a bed, and then left it to Alice to undress the female’s limp body and see that lovely white skin, those perfect legs—so unlike Alice’s own—the lush beauty of the long, vibrant copper curls that had tumbled out from beneath the tricorn hat and hag wig that had previously concealed them.

No, Alice had not told Dominick Crown about any of that. And it wasn’t as if she had to tell him, either, not now that the female was sitting right in front of him. Sitting there all queenlike in the prettiest gown Alice had ever seen, her long, fiery hair piled all in curls, her back as stiff and straight as a poker as she sipped tea and dared, with those strange, almost colorless eyes of hers, for any of the men in the common room to so much as blink at her.

A rose among thorns, wouldn’t you say, Alice? I can see that a rescue is very much in order, and I thank you again for apprising me of the situation, Dominick Crown said quietly, and Alice nodded furiously, not understanding half of what the Englishman said, then disappeared into the kitchens.

Dominick motioned to Benjamin Rudolph, who was in his usual position behind the small wooden bar, wordlessly commanding the man to bring him a pint. He then nodded to the half dozen men who sat all on one side of the tables jammed into the low-ceilinged room, their backs to the fire. They had obviously positioned their chairs the better to goggle at the strange female.

Good morning to you, gentlemen, he said as he removed his dusty hat. He didn’t care that his one-sided smile told them he had employed the title in jest, or that he was aware that at least two of the men, the Austrians, Traxell and Miller, spoke little English.

Newton, he then added coldly, giving one particular man, Jonah Newton, a more personal reminder that he knew the tannery owner was only sitting in his chair, watching, rather than pursuing some greater vulgarity, because he had been warned that the damnable Dominick Crown was on his way to the inn.

Then, aware he had put off the inevitable as long as he could, Dominick started across the dirty wood floor. He halted, he sincerely hoped, a good fear-reducing four feet from the table where the young woman waited, her slim white hand holding the chipped, handleless cup poised halfway between saucer and mouth.

Good Christ, but she was beautiful! How long had it been since he’d been in the presence of a woman half so refined, one quarter so lovely? It seemed like a lifetime. In many ways, it was.

Madam? Dominick Crown, at your service. Flourishing his worn, dusty hat in his right hand, and feeling more than slightly ludicrous, he made the young woman an elegant leg, the sort he had mastered in his youth but not had much reason to practice for nearly seven years, since his arrival in this fairly benighted community. And you are Miss Cassidy, I presume? he asked as he straightened once more, aware of both his rough clothing and her unsmiling refusal to extend her hand or in any other way return his greeting.

He didn’t actually blame her. After all, Alice had found him already out in the fields, and he had pulled on his deerskin jacket, mounted his horse, and headed straightaway for the inn, choosing speed over respectability when told of the Cassidy woman’s predicament. Leaving a gently bred female alone in Benjamin Rudolph’s common room for any length of time was nothing short of an invitation to disaster, and he hadn’t been of a mind to fatigue himself with having to bare-handedly beat anybody into a jelly this morning.

The young woman’s chin lifted a notch at his greeting, which was quite a remarkable feat, as she already held herself as high as a queen, for all that she was a mere scrap of a thing. When she finally spoke, her voice was cool, and cultured, and entirely devoid of either maidenly awe or mannerly respect. Yes, Mr. Crown. I am Miss Cassidy. Miss Bryna Cassidy. The only question, sir, is how you presumed to know my name, as we have not been formally introduced.

Dominick motioned toward the empty chair across from her. At her slight nod, he sat himself down just as Rudolph slammed a mug of ale on the table.

Pardon my informality, Miss Cassidy. But, as I doubt there is anyone save you and I in this small community who is actually aware of the niceties of social convention, we would have had a long wait for anyone to step forward and do the pretty. But, by way of explanation, Alice Rudolph informed me that you had introduced yourself here yesterday evening as being one Mr. Sean Cassidy. I merely took the chance that, although you are quite obviously an audacious fibber, you are not an extraordinarily inventive one. Although I would have laid down a goodly sum to have seen you in breeches.

The cup hit the saucer with an audible crack. Bryna Cassidy leaned forward, her eyes narrowed in fury. You insufferable dolt! Give me at least a modicum of credit, if you will. Or would you have had me travel here from Philadelphia, alone, without disguising myself in some way? I had thought to fashion a false wart for the end of my nose, but a score of warts and even a rash of running sores wouldn’t be enough to dissuade animals like those leering hyenas over there.

Dominick spared a moment to glance over his shoulder at the leering hyenas, then smiled, spreading his hands wide to show that he, at least, was harmless. I see your point. However, I wouldn’t have condoned your traveling unaccompanied at all, Miss Cassidy, especially since you are aware of the less than desirable element running rampant here in the colonies. But then I am not in charge of your comings and goings. Now, had I been your father, I would have—

He frowned, seeing the sudden sorrow in her oddly intriguing eyes, darkly lashed, yet curiously colorless in a way that had first seemed gray, then had flashed a clear, light green when she had defended her descent into breeches. Yes, well, we’ll leave that for the moment, shall we? I gather from Alice that you’ve already learned about the raid?

She sat back against the rude wood of the chair, her posture still that of a gently bred female, but suddenly seeming so young, so small, so utterly vulnerable. He gave a slight cough and quickly took a drink of ale, wishing himself out of this conversation, out of this inn, and miles from what looked to be a further complication of his already complicated existence.

Yes, Mr. Crown, I’ve heard. And in the bluntest of terms. My aunt and uncle, Daniel and Eileen Cassidy, were brutally murdered by savages not three months ago, she said quietly. My young cousins, Joseph and Michael, are also dead. Hacked to death the same as Uncle Daniel and Aunt Eileen, I believe Mr. Rudolph said.

Her gaze was still steady, although he could see tears shining in her once more pale gray eyes, and her small, firm chin had begun to quiver. He felt instantly protective of her, which immediately made him angry, with her or with himself, he wasn’t sure.

Cousin Brighid, she continued doggedly, "just sixteen, and my dearest friend in all the world, has been taken by those savages, to be raped and abused. Yet not you, nor any one of those gentlemen over there, has so much as lifted a finger to try to rescue her in all these three months. And little Mary Catherine— she hesitated, drawing in a long, shuddering breath —only five years old—whom the innkeeper laughingly called the dummy—is with you. You, Mr. Crown, the grasping, greedy Englishman who barely hesitated an instant before taking claim to my uncle’s beloved farm. History has ever been so, hasn’t it? The English seeing anything Irish and assuming it their God-given right to steal it."

I’m sorry. Dominick winced even as he heard himself mouth those two woefully inadequate words. Rudolph is an ass, if you’ll excuse me for being frank. I wish you could have learned about your family some other way.

Her humorless smile blighted him. "Why? Would it have hurt less then, Mr. Crown? I think not. Quick and clean. That’s the way to sever an arm; to break a heart. The captain of the Eagle took an unconscionable amount of time dithering about with meaningless sympathies and maddening inanities before at last informing me that my father had gotten himself roaring drunk and fallen overboard two nights before we docked in Philadelphia harbor. It took Captain Bishop nearly ten minutes to tell me what I knew in an instant, that I was about to disembark in a strange country, alone, with my only chance for sanity residing in the hope of somehow getting myself to the comfort of my father’s brother Daniel."

She picked up her teacup once more, lifting it to her lips and taking a sip before closing her eyes for a moment, then opening them again, to look at him levelly. All the misery in the world was visible in those two eyes. She seemed to be holding herself so tightly, reining in her emotions with such determination, that if someone were to touch her, Dominick imagined she would shatter into a thousand small, pain-lashed pieces. Thanks to Mr. Rudolph’s bluntness, she ended quietly as she put down the teacup, it took less than an instant to know that, with Uncle Daniel also gone, I am now even more alone than before. And I can assure you, sir, I hurt none the more or the less for Benjamin Rudolph’s quick telling.

Christ, Dominick swore quietly, turning in his chair to once more look over at Jonah Newton and the others. They were still just sitting there, grinning and staring, like bettors waiting for the cockfight to commence.

See here, Miss Cassidy, he said, rising and holding out a hand to her. If you don’t mind, I think it might be best to continue this conversation at my estate. I give you my pledge as an English gentleman that you will be safe there. I’ll see that Rudolph loads your luggage into the wagon, and I can tie my horse to the back. One of my staff will return the wagon later, not that I’m overly concerned on that head. At least then you can see Mary Catherine, and she can see you. Who knows? She might even talk to you.

Bryna looked at his hand for long moments, then placed hers in it and stood up, proving that his assessment of her size was correct, for she measured no taller than his shoulder. My bags are already packed, Mr. Crown, and waiting, as I should like above all things to go to my cousin. And then, Mr. Crown, we will discuss mounting a rescue. Or did you think I would leave the baby and Brighid here with these barbarians when I return to Ireland?

* * *

Dominick Crown wasn’t all that huge. Tall, yes. Obviously strong. But not the total savage he had appeared to be when first he had entered the inn, raised his head after navigating his way beneath the low lintel, and skewered her with a single look.

He had still reminded her of an all-powerful giant as he’d crossed the room toward her, dressed so outlandishly, almost barbarously, in tan, ankle-length leggings gartered just below the knee. A ridiculous double-collared and fringed jacket, which looked as if it had been fashioned with a knife, was cinched at his waist by a multicolored sash, thus nearly concealing the pale blue and quite dirty homespun shirt that showed dark with sweat. He wasn’t even wearing boots, but a sort of slipper made of some soft leather.

She had seen drawings of such attire in books she had read about the colonies before ever leaving Ireland, and knew Mr. Crown’s ensemble to be constructed from the hides of some animal or other. Perhaps that of a deer? Yes. His clothing was barbarous.

But not nearly so barbarous as the man himself. His long, midnight black, unpowdered hair was tied at his nape with a thin strip of leather, a crude device that had not proved sufficient to keep several locks from escaping to hang down straight on either side of his deeply tanned, rather handsomely chiseled face. His eyes were just as black beneath straight, slashing brows, and although they seemed to laugh as he spoke, they revealed nothing of the man she now sat beside on the rough plank seat of the Rudolph wagon.

A man who seemed infinitely well suited physically to play the savage, that was Mr. Dominick Crown, for all his courtly bows and cultured English speech.

And if it hadn’t been for that cultured English speech, and his promise to take her to Mary Catherine, Bryna would have declined his invitation. Not that the idea of remaining at the inn seemed any less dangerous than making her way, alone, through an endless forest that was probably knee-deep in bloodthirsty Indians.

Why had Uncle Daniel come here? Yes, life had been hard in Ireland, but surely not so terrible that he could have considered this desolate wilderness a near paradise, as he had written in his letters to her father. And now this paradise had taken not only Uncle Daniel’s dreams, but his very life—and the lives of his beloved family.

And for what? For what?

If this primitive wilderness was the freedom Uncle Daniel had spoken of, the opportunity he had chased with as much enthusiasm as her father pursued a winning streak at cards—well, she was having none of it! Her malleable English mother had followed wherever Bryna’s loving but feckless father had led. Aunt Eileen and the children had followed where Uncle Daniel led.

But Bryna Cassidy had suffered enough at the whim of men and their dreams. From this day forward, she would direct her own steps, follow her own path. The very moment she had Brighid and Mary Catherine safely in hand, they could board ship in Philadelphia, leaving this tragic land and its cold memories behind them forever.

I abhor this country, Bryna said feelingly as one of the wagon’s wheels found an unusually deep rut in the dirt road and she was nearly pitched from the seat.

Dominick Crown turned his head and smiled at her, showing her both his straight white teeth and the small lines that appeared next to his eyes. His smile made him look less a savage and more approachable—if she were idiot enough to be taken in by straight white teeth and laughing eyes. Which she wasn’t. She might be her mother’s daughter in many ways, but she was not the sort to trust her destiny to a handsome face.

Abhor it, do you? Which, of course, Miss Cassidy, entirely explains your presence in it, he responded after a long moment in which she glared at him in what she knew to be real hatred directed toward both him in particular and the male of the species in general. He then once more turned his attention to the horses, who were showing a marked tendency to drift toward the side of the roadway, where clumps of tender spring grass seemed to wave an invitation to them.

I was never to reside anywhere save the relatively civilized confines of Philadelphia, Mr. Crown, Bryna informed him coldly. She wished she didn’t feel compelled to explain herself, her chin quivering only slightly as she remembered her father’s promises, her father’s unrealistic dreams and schemes, all of which centered on either the throw of the dice or the turn of a card.

Papa suffered a few slight reverses of fortune in London during the past years, since my mother’s death, she continued stiffly, not believing it a sin to lie in order to protect her father’s memory. Business reversals—unwise investments—you understand. In the end, we were forced to accept Uncle Daniel’s kind offer that we reside in his home in Ireland, both before and after Uncle Daniel’s family departed for the colonies last year. We remained in residence there until such time as we could sell the property and bring the proceeds here, where my uncle was to use them to patent the land he had traveled to England and claimed under a warrant granted to him from... from—

From Thomas Penn, no doubt, Dominick said, son of William, and the most rascally, pernicious piece of mischief to have ever mastered the bending of laws to the benefit of his own deep pockets. He has a long legacy of deceit and dishonor in dealing with the Lenni-Lenape, the Indians native to this land, and the Lenni-Lenape, sadly, have equally long memories.

The savages who murdered my family, you mean? You will, of course, excuse me if I do not find it necessary to demonstrate any sympathy toward them. Bryna looked off into the forest to both her right and left, once more nervously aware that the trees were so dense, the underbrush so thick, that it would be impossible to spot a band of attacking Indians until they were on top of the wagon. You see, I doubt anything this Mr. Thomas Penn could have done warrants the slaughter of innocent women and children.

Dominick smiled again, the action carving slashing lines into his thin, chiseled cheeks. Remind me to tell you of a little ruse of more than five and twenty years ago called the Walking Purchase, Miss Cassidy, the consequences of which, in large part, led to the massacre of your family. Then you will be more able to judge the depth of Thomas Penn’s perfidious nature.

Yet you are also a landowner, so obviously you deigned to deal with the man?

He shrugged. I wanted land, and the Penns were selling. Thomas is back in England these many years, old and fat and happy, I presume, and counting his money. I, thankfully, dealt directly with a Penn relative, and a far fairer man than Thomas. I met John Penn here, in Pennsylvania, when I patented my own land several years ago, and again when I patented your uncle’s land. Your uncle’s and that of two other properties adjoining mine and, as a result of the recent raids, suddenly without tenants.

I see. Bryna’s heart was pounding hurtfully in her chest, and her lips were stiff, so that she could barely force out her words. How fortuitous for you, sir, that so many should die.

He was no longer smiling, and Bryna knew she had gone too far. Yes indeed, Miss Cassidy, he said shortly, his precise English more clipped, more formal than before. I took advantage of what could only be called a tragedy, knowing that my own property was spared an attack because I’d had the foresight to build myself a nearly impenetrable fortress, extending the hand of friendship to the natives while prudently arming myself as well.

And prudent as well, you say? I vow, sir, I grow more impressed by the moment. Bryna shivered, so intense was her hatred for this man that her blood ran cold.

Please, Miss Cassidy, he said, his tone relaxing slightly once more. I suggest we cry friends for now, as what’s done is done, and there is no recourse save to accept it. Now, as to what we have been discussing—well, I have developed an attachment to my scalp, nothing more. I am a colonist like all the others who have come here, perhaps better off financially, with the desire to grow an estate, a dynasty, here in this country. And the land in New Eden is good, the whole of it. Your uncle’s in particular. Daniel was a hard worker, and more than half the acreage was already cleared and ready for planting. He hadn’t had time to build a house, but the barn they built and lived in with their animals is still standing, if you wish to see it.

Is it now? And you’d agree to take me there? Today? How terribly generous of you, I suppose. Bryna wondered why she was sitting so still in the wagon, her hands folded in her lap, when all she really wanted to do was turn on this arrogant, boastful man and draw her fingernails down his cheeks, scarring him for life with the evidence of her disgust.

Perhaps she was simply too hungry to marshal the energy to do more than snipe at him. She had been conserving her small store of funds as best she could, and that had meant her meals for the past few days had been both scanty and rare. The cup of tea she’d had at Rudolph’s was all the nourishment she’d allowed herself in the past four and twenty hours. Her head pounded as a result of weeping most of the night, and it was all she could do not to lean against Dominick Crown’s deerskin-clad shoulder and beg him for a hot meal and a soft bed.

Mr. Crown? You haven’t answered me. Will you take me there today?

Not today, Miss Cassidy, as I have work to do that cannot wait. Tomorrow, perhaps. Everything is, as I said, still intact, and I doubt that will change between today and tomorrow. The Indians would have set fire to the barn, you understand, but the troops stationed at Fort Deshler had rallied the local militia. They came out in force after seeing the smoke from the O’Reilly homestead, and probably frightened the attackers off, thank God, or else Mary Catherine would have been burned alive. As it was, I didn’t discover her until the following day—tucked up under her parents’ bed where Eileen must have placed her—wide-eyed and silent as a mummy. Which, unfortunately, she remains. I don’t take pleasure in telling you any of this, but as you said it would be no easier for you to hear bad news slowly, I thought it best we get the worst of it over quickly, and before you meet with your cousin.

Oh God, oh God! Oh. sweet Jesus! Would he never shut up? With her gentle English mother four years in her grave, with her father’s hot-blooded Irish temper springing to the forefront, and with her stomach crying out to be fed, Bryna at last turned to the man, knowing her sharp tongue remained her most dangerous weapon, and dropped into an obviously deliberate, broad Irish brogue. Ack, sich a tale of wild wonder ye tell, sir, with yourself cast as saint and savior and the smartest of men! And is it proud of yourself you are then, Dominick Crown—crowing of your brilliance like a cock on his own dunghill, then hopping so swiftly into a dead man’s boots?

His grin was maddening. Well, hello! And who would you be, ma’am? I was just now speaking with a most imperious young society miss who learned her prunes and prisms in her cradle, and who fairly reeked of respectability. Would you have any notion where’s she flitted off to—leaving in her place a fiery-haired Irish termagant who drips sarcasm and vile accusations exactly as if she wasn’t alone in a strange land, at the mercy of the man who did nothing more than look to increase his estate? While taking in that proud woman’s young cousin, by the by, which wasn’t all that easy a trick, considering the fact that I first had to teach her to keep from biting me each time I came within a yard of her. Would you perhaps care to see my scars?

I’d prefer to see the back of you as you walk out of my life. Bryna was furious with herself for having been so stupid as to show this man a side of herself her mother had striven for many a long year to eradicate. She had nothing in this life, nothing save her pride, her dignity. Now she had sacrificed even that for the sake of getting some of her own back at the one man in this terrible country who had offered her anything more than a leering grin or the back of his hand. However, as I am grateful to you—after a fashion—I hereby apologize for my outburst. It was uncalled-for.

Dominick laughed out loud, and she pressed her teeth shut on another sharp retort. God’s teeth, but I’ll wager that hurt. he remarked, still laughing. Very well, your apology is accepted, even though you didn’t mean a word of it. And welcome back, Miss Cassidy—although I do believe you’d be wise to keep the fiery Bryna close at hand. She might be useful to frighten off the hyenas whenever you’re in the village.

He gave the reins a quick flick, rousing the horses to a trot as he turned them off the dirt track and onto one that was not quite so narrow, and showed the effect of being carefully constructed rather than just carelessly hacked out of the forest. We’ll be at Pleasant Hill in a few minutes, in case you’re interested.

I care only to see my cousin, Mr. Crown. Other than that, we could be heading straight into blazes for all I will be impressed by anything you may have had a hand in building.

Do you wish to know something interesting, Miss Cassidy? Dominick prompted, just as the horses moved out of the overhanging trees and she espied a clear sweep of neatly scythed lawn and a softly rising hill topped by a large, three-storied Georgian mansion fit for London’s finest neighborhood. I’m beginning to think the wrong Cassidy is mute. Mary Catherine, as I remember her from my visits to Daniel’s homestead, had a most melodious voice. You, however, put me in mind of a carping fishwife, and I believe the world could only be improved by your vow of silence.

Go to hell, Dominick Crown. Bryna exploded, trying not to show any hint of admiration for the glorious house she had just seen peeking through the trees leading up the long drive.

I already reside there, Miss Cassidy, he answered smoothly, pointing to his home. "Dubbing it Pleasant Hill is only my faint notion of a joke. And, Miss Bryna Cassidy, if you meant your vow to remain until your cousin Brighid is rescued from the savages who kidnapped her, and unless you harbor a wish to return to the inn, you will be residing here as well. Now, that’s a thought to give a