"My brother, Captain Carter, is a famous duelist, you know." A look of what might have been pain crossed Mrs. Green's thoughtful face and then vanished. "Well, I suppose the correct word would be was. If what you tell me is true, many years have passed."

Alec opted not to continue that particular conversation. Mrs. Green would need to come to grips with her new predicament on her own. There was little he could do to help her. He knew little enough about this woman, and he'd slept most of the day. One thing at a time.

"So, he taught you the sword?" he asked instead.

"After a fashion. I think he just wanted to indulge me at first. It wasn't until later that he began to see that I was serious." She gave the sweetest smile. "Such a scandal."

"That doesn't seem to trouble you," Alec said with a smile. In a very short time, Mrs. Green had put to lie everything Alec thought he'd known about women from the 18th century. The tiny woman was saucy and forward, and not just a little flirtatious. And yet, there was something proper about her.

"Should it?" She smiled. "It was not a ladylike thing to do, I admit. But I haven't had that kind of life."

"What of your husband?" he asked. The woman so far had not spoken of a spouse. "Won't Mr. Green worry for you?"

"Ohh ... Mr. Larkin, Reverend Green died many years ago, some years before I met Captain Carter."

"You ... met your brother? ... I don't understand."

"We're a somewhat unconventional people," she admitted. "I was a newlywed when I traveled to India with Reverend Green." She gave a playful wink. "Then the fellow had the nerve to up and catch the ague and die on me."

"Oh, my heavens." The words veritably leapt from Alec's lips. It was a different time entirely. "Did you have no family you could rely on?"

"My Uncle Percy, at home in Sussex, was but a rural vicar with limited means. Therefore, I endeavored to sustain myself and seek my own livelihood."

Alec wasn't sure what to say. He regarded the woman for a short time where she sat at a small kitchen table cleaning and peeling some vegetables. She was born in a different time, a period when I woman alone was in great peril.

And there was something beautiful and appealing about Mrs. Green. By his estimate, she was in her late 20s or early 30s, was lovely and petite, and ... well, what could he say? There was something sensual about the woman that he couldn't deny. ... More, there was something bold about her. She would have had no trouble finding another husband; at least, that would be true in any sane world.

The woman seemed to read his mind.

"I had no inclination to seek a new husband," she said. And then, again, as if peering into his thoughts, she said, "Anyway, a widowed woman with no fortune fetches no great premium in India, even a white woman."

"So ...?" he began, finding that he was captivated by the woman's story, despite himself.

"I undertook the role of governess to the offspring of an officer in the East India Company. My uncle bestowed upon me little in terms of worldly possessions, yet he was a distinguished scholar, and I, a diligent learner, absorbed his teachings with great proficiency."

"So, Captain Carter adopted you?"

"Heavens no," she said. "My initial employer was Major Gregg, who, to my utmost dismay, was an inebriate and a womanizer, although not the most reprehensible scoundrel I was fated to encounter."

Alec couldn't control the shocked gape that covered his face.

Mrs. Green gave him a knowing and sly smile. "Major Gregg thought to disgrace me, and when I made it clear to him that such a thing simply wasn't on, he gambled me away in cards to another officer, a Captain Tredway, an honest-to-God scoundrel, the worst sort of blackguard."

A sinking feeling shot through his stomach, but before he could say anything, Mrs. Green again forestalled it.

"Affairs in India are ... different," she said. "Captain Tredway devoted considerable time in pursuit of my person, persistently urging me to partake in the most unseemly conduct. Thankfully, it was during that very juncture that I crossed paths with Captain Carter."

"A good and decent man, who protected you?" asked Alec.

"Oh, heavens no," she said. "My brother, the captain, epitomizes the most abhorrent breed of inebriate and debauchee. However, he has exhibited tremendous kindness towards me. He dispatched Captain Tredway from my company, the rogue's nasal appendage slightly amiss following a bout of swordplay. From that instant onward, Captain Carter and I endeavored to provide mutual care and support to one another, with a respect and affection something akin to siblings. And thus, we have resided together ever since."

"Despite his shortcomings?"

"No one is perfect," she whispered. She gave Alec yet another playful wink. "Captain Carter has been an immense wellspring of pride and affection throughout the course of these past twelve years. We later returned to England together. When he received orders to depart for Portugal alongside his regiment, I vehemently declined to remain behind."

Such love. Such love. Those words strode through Alec's mind and heart many times before he again was able to speak. Had he ever known such a thing? Such a love? Even from his blessed wife and children?

"But ... but ... what could you do with ...?" He almost added the words "with a crude army in such a wretched time," but he managed to claw back those words before he'd said them.

"I had little to distract me, at first," said Mrs. Green. "But then it dawned on me what an abysmal state Sir Arthur's army was in, and I decided to take charge."

"Take charge?" Alec asked. "You volunteered to help?"

For the first time, the lovely young woman let slip a dismissive laugh. "Volunteer? ... No such thing. I marched into the Peer's office and took charge. My uncle Percy was always a keen cartographer—it was one of his many fields of expertise—and he imparted to me a great love for all such things. With the help of Sir Arthur's exploring officers, I soon had his maps in a respectable way. By the end of the war, the army's maps of Portugal and Spain, and of much of southern France, were nigh on perfect."

Alec reveled in the next few hours chatting with Mrs. Green. She was an extraordinary conversationalist, who spoke with an accent and in a tempo that he never before had heard. Her exotic and dated British accent only added to her many charms.

And, of course, she was the kind of woman it would be easy to fall in love with if he was not careful. Alec had been long without the conversation of a beautiful woman, and he was, after all, flesh and blood.

He shook his head and tried to think about anything but his charming new acquaintance.

His unnamed roommate was working the fields near home, and he several times found his eyes straying outside the window to check and see if she was safe and well. Although it had become obvious that was not necessary—the woman was canny and well-tutored about this land—he couldn't help himself. There was danger about. And despite his every certainty that his friend was capable of defending herself, he found himself thinking of hearth and home and how he needed to protect it.

Before anything else, he needed to learn how to fight better. Upon his return home earlier that morning, he had been surprised to find his roommate and Mrs. Green testing one another with heavy wooden swords, the provenance of which Alec was unable to ascertain. His roommate must have brought them with her from her old home.

Both of the women seemed keen in their use, and Mrs. Green was thoroughly surprised that Alec was a complete novice in swordplay. It was, in her time, a skill known to all men of breeding—and to many men without breeding.

He had let slip that he'd been a soldier, and it took even more explanation on his part to convince the woman that, by the late 21st century, swords had become obsolete.

Well, they were not obsolete anymore. And the use of them was something he would need to swallow his pride over and seek their help. Both women, his roommate included, seemed well versed in the use of long blades.

It was something he needed to learn, and he was fortunate to have not one but two people who might be willing to help him.

Thankfully, his roommate and Mrs. Green had hit it off like old friends. But was that a surprise? Despite her many peculiarities, and her frequent lack of couth, his friend was one of the most amiable and accommodating people imaginable.

He felt guilty for thinking it, but he hoped fervently that having another person in the house wouldn't throw their spectacular dynamic out of kilter. He never would have imagined it before her arrival, but the arrival of his silent friend had turned a pleasant home into a perfect one.

She was, without exception, the perfect roommate.

"I don't want to be a burden."

Mrs. Green had returned to the room after some errand—she already was pitching in ways both great and small—and she sat across from him now with an open and frank look on her face.

It dawned on Alec that no one had yet offered her a place in their home. She was very much at loose ends and dependent on the kindness of others. There was no way for Alec to communicate with his roommate, and as much as he felt a deep trepidation at having someone else there, he decided.

"Don't be ridiculous," he said. "This is your home now for as long as you wish to stay."

Some emotion he could not quite divine flashed across the woman's face. It wasn't clear what else he should say. Something in him suspected that the English beauty had not yet come to grips with the idea that she was stranded in this strange land and that she perhaps thought that her brother might yet come to find her.

She would accept her fate, sooner or later. But before she could speak, he continued.

"I don't want you to feel you are a prisoner here, of course. There's a village some weeks' travel west of here. I'm happy to escort you there, if you're of a mind to go."

A great breath escaped the woman. It was the first truly awkward moment since the woman's arrival. "No, please don't trouble yourself. I'm very grateful for your kind invitation to stay here. And I gladly accept." She glanced out the window.

"My friend won't mind," he said. "She already seems to like you more than she likes me. And even if she does mind ... well."

"So ... she doesn't speak at all? ... But you said she's not mute?"

"I rather think no one ever taught her," was his reply. "I've tried and ... well, she didn't seem interest. Mrs. Green, I have to admit. It will be splendid to have someone to talk to."

He hadn't intended to say those words, but he knew they were true when he uttered them. It would be nice to have someone to talk to ... especially someone who was so pleasant and charming.

Well, that was a bridge he needed to cross when he came to it.