desperately to get married, but somehow there seemed no urgency about it. In every
important way they were already married.
One afternoon as Catherine was finishing some work, Fraser walked into her office.
“How would you like to take a drive out to the country tonight?” he asked.
“Love it. Where are we going?”
“To Virginia. We’re having dinner with my parents.”
Catherine looked up at him in surprise. “Do they know about us?” she asked.
“Not everything,” he grinned. “Just that I have a fantastic young assistant and I’m
bringing her to dinner.”
If she felt a pang of disappointment, she did not let it show on her face. “Fine,” she
said. “I’ll stop by the apartment and change.”
“I’ll pick you up at seven o’clock.”
“Date.”
The Frasers’ house, set in the beautiful rolling hills of Virginia, was a large Colonial
farmhouse with sixty acres of vivid green grass and farmland surrounding it. The house
dated back to seventeen hundred.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Catherine marveled.
“It’s one of the best breeding farms in America,” Fraser informed her.
The car drove past a corral filled with beautiful horses, past the neatly kept paddocks
and the caretaker’s cottage.
“It’s like another world,” Catherine exclaimed. “I envy your growing up here.”
“Do you think you’d like living on a farm?”
“This isn’t exactly a farm,” she said dryly. “It’s more like owning your own country.”
They had arrived in front of the house.
Fraser turned to her. “My mother and father are a little formal,” he warned, “but
there’s nothing for you to worry about. Just be yourself. Nervous?”
“No,” Catherine said. “Panicky.” And as she said it, she realized with a sense of
astonishment that she was lying. In the classic tradition of all girls about to meet the
parents of the man they loved, she should have been petrified. But she felt nothing except
curiosity. There was no time to wonder about that now. They were getting out of the car
and a butler in full livery was opening the door, greeting them with a welcoming smile.
Colonel Fraser and his lady could have been living out of the pages of an ante-bellum
story book. The first thing that struck Catherine was how old and fragilelooking they
were. Colonel Fraser was a pale carbon of what had once been a handsome, vital man. He
reminded Catherine very strongly of someone, and with a shock, she realized who it was: