(April 1997, Zebra ISBN 0-8217-5621-4)

Finalist for the 1998 Holt Medallion for Best Regency

Finalist for the 1997 National Readers' Choice Award

A note from the author: This heartfelt, passionate tale touches on some deeper emotions and motives than many Regencies. It also introduces a five-year-old boy who is guaranteed to capture your heart-the charming orphan Bobby, little Lord Dunraven, a child in love with the mythical seal/man known as the silkie-whose first words in my book are those of a child I met once in Ireland.

Incidentally, the castle the cover artist chose to represent Dunraven Keep looks suspiciously like the famous Eilean Donan Castle in Wester Ross, a fabulous thirteenth-century stronghold, now completely restored.

"By no means a typical Regency romance . . . secret and complex relationships are revealed. It contains an almost constant undercurrent of suspense and a pervasive air of danger. With a more serious tone than many Regency romances, Folly's Reward captures the flavor of the era while delivering an intriguing mystery and love story." Gothic Journal.

"The whole scene (comes) to life. Nothing is as it seems . . . Interesting and refreshing." RENDEZVOUS

The young man's voice seemed slurred with drink. He had been lounging gracefully on the coach seat as if asleep, but now he lifted thick, dark lashes and glanced from the window.

"Never mind where we are, Grey, you're too foxed to remember even if I told you."

"Not too foxed for vice, sir." Rich black hair fell over his forehead above a face boned finely enough to be unforgettable.

"Do you have adventurous tastes, Mr. Grey?" It was a drawl, filled with unpleasant insinuation.

"Try me," said the young man with a slow smile. He leaned his dark head against the cushions of the carriage and listened to the harsh crunch of snow under the wheels, before closing his lids over eyes of a remarkably deep blue. "We are barely into the second week of the new year, sir. 1814 was deuced dull in my opinion. I am game for anything new that 1815 can show me-especially if she is clean of pox, sir, and speaks English."

"Like a nice game pullet?" The speaker gave the other three gentlemen a broad wink, and nodded knowingly at the young man who had joined their company by proving himself a wilder drinker and deeper pocket than any of them.

One of the other men spoke in an unpleasant whisper. "You never saw such a den of vice, sir! Madame Relet's little maison has a certain reputation. I hope we're all game!"

The deep blue eyes remained closed as the young man slid serenely to the floor of the carriage.

"What the devil!" It was the man who had asked Mr. Grey about his tastes. The young man's elbow had caught him hard in the shin, forcing him to pull his legs aside.

The man of the unpleasant whisper fared worse. A booted foot momentarily crushed his hand against the seat, causing him to curse and threaten retribution.

"Forget it," said the man next to him, jerking his own feet out of the way. "He's foxed. Mr. Grey has no idea where we are or what's intended tonight. He can't even see straight."

"Oh, can't I?" asked the supposed Mr. Grey.

He lay back among the booted feet of his companions, forcing them to make room for him or risk further injury. In the next moment he had pulled out a small engraved pocket pistol. Everyone dived for cover as he began to shoot out the upholstered buttons inside the carriage top with deadly accuracy.

"We are almost to Paris," he said. "And even three sheets to the wind I can shoot straight."

Then he suppressed a most inappropriate upwelling of laughter. His name was not Grey.

It was a glass-clear morning, shining suddenly in the gray days of March as a golden coin glints among pebbles. Prudence opened her parasol and watched Bobby run erratically down the beach. She tried to let the brightness of the sea and sky calm her fears. They were safe here, surely?

The child stopped and examined something at his feet. His blond head was supported on such a fragile neck above his lace collar. The little trousers buttoned to his pleated muslin jacket were much the same color as his hair under the straw top hat, so that his entire figure seemed to blend into the pale wash of sand. The hat wobbled as he bent to pick up a shell. Prudence felt a rush of love and protection for him. It's very absurd, she thought, for a five-year-old child to have to carry such a thing on his head; I shouldn't make him wear it.

As if he heard the thought, Bobby took off the offending headgear and began to fill it with shells. He hunted through the sand, slowly moving away, until he disappeared for a moment behind the end of a long ridge of black rock, one of several that ran from the cliffs toward the sea. Prudence stood up and called to him. The child reappeared immediately with the hat clutched to his chest.

"Pray, do not go out of my sight, young man!" Her smile was tinged with anxiety. "It isn't the done thing, you know. I would not like it at all if I were to lose you." She walked up to him and bent down, though the front of her brown worsted skirt trailed in the sand. "Did you find many shells?"

Bobby looked up at her. "I cannot carry them all," he said seriously. "It's a hard thing to find so many wondrous things on the beach and to have to leave so many behind."

"But you would seem to have a veritable feast of shells in your hat." Prudence tried to hide her delight. Bobby would always enchant her. "Didn't you bring the very best ones?"

Bobby set down his hat and reached for her hand. "I found something much better than shells, Miss Drake. I think you would like it, too. I found a man."

"Did you? Was he a shell man or a seaweed man?"

"No! No!" Bobby's shrill voice was filled with honest indignation. "A real man! He looks like the man from the song about the seals and he talks a magic language. He's here, behind the rock. Don't you want to see?"

"Very well," she said, humoring the child. "But then we must go."

The proffered hand was slightly sticky with salt. Following Bobby's sturdy little straw-colored figure, Prudence stepped to the other side of the rock shelf.

"Oh, good gracious," she said, dropping both the child's hand and her parasol. "It is a real man!"