Free Only a Promise by Mary Balogh

across the east lawn in the direction of the river an hour or so ago. But she was neither down on the riverbank nor in the meadow on the other side of the bridge. Ralph looked to his right when he reached the bridge, but going that way would have brought her to the driveway and on out through the gates to the village. He would surely have seen her if that had been her destination. Besides, if she had been going to the village, why take such a circuitous route? The path to the left led in among trees and around the bend in the river to the rapids and then the falls. If she had gone that way and kept going, she would have ended up at the lake. It seemed a likely destination on such a lovely day.
    Ralph took the short route to the lake past the house again and down the steep west lawn. He almost missed seeing her when he got there. The bank of the lake seemed deserted. But then a stone arced out from behind the nearer fronds of the weeping willow and bounced once at far too sharp an angle to allow for a second bounce. It sank from sight. It could only have been thrown by a human hand—a not-very-skilled one. Another followed it, and then another, with the same result.
    And then he saw her, standing with her back to the slender trunk of the tree, her green dress an almost perfect camouflage against her surroundings. Except that she wore no bonnet and that red hair of hers gave her away if she was indeed hoping to stay hidden. Did she never wear a bonnet?
    She had not seen him approach, and, stupidly, he almost turned back before she did. But what the devil? He had come all this way, on horseback, ahead of his baggage coach and his valet, with the sole purpose of seeking her out privately. Good fortune had been with him—he had seen neither of his grandparents first.
    He had attended a ball the evening after he called upon George. There had been nothing unusual about that, of course. He often attended balls. He usually danced a few sets with ladies of his acquaintance. It would be impolite to his hostess not to dance at all. What he did
not
often do, though, was allow that hostess—Lady Livermere in this case—to latch on to his arm as though she had been presented with a prize trophy and parade him about, introducing him to what had seemed like an endless stream of young ladies he had not seen before. And their mamas too, of course. No self-respecting young lady attended a ball without her mother at her elbow every moment when she was not dancing.
    He had wondered if his mother had been having a word with Lady Livermere. The two ladies enjoyed more than just a passing acquaintance.
    He had become aware of a buzz of sharpening interest around him as the evening proceeded. He was quite sure he had not imagined it. For of course he had been obliged to reserve a set of dances with as many of those young ladies as could be fitted into a long evening of dancing. He ought to have been glad. Without any real effort on his part he had been presented with a number of the Season’s eligible hopefuls, and at the same time signaled that this year he was in search of a bride. He might, if he had really wanted to avoid the bother of aprotracted search, have made his choice before the evening ended, presented himself to the young lady’s father the following day, and made his offer before another evening came along. His betrothal might have been announced in all the morning papers the day after that. All the uncertainties of his existence might have become certainties.
    It was
not
vanity that made him believe it would have been that easy. He had an earl’s title and fortune, after all. More than that, though, he was heir to a dukedom, and the incumbent was an old man well into his eighties. Ducal properties, all of them extensive and prosperous, were spread across large swaths of England.
    Most of his dancing partners had been pretty. All had been young and graceful, with polished, pleasing manners. A few had been vivacious. One or two had