The feeling was as compelling as any bugle call had ever been, yet the impulses it stirred were not as yet so clear. Nevertheless, more than anything else, his need to respond by finding his countess, by properly linking himself back into this world, had brought him home; Dalziel had just provided a fortuitous excuse.

“I still find it hard remembering Filchett and Crewther are trying to get my attention when they say ‘my lord.’ ” Filchett and Crewther were his butlers, here and in town respectively.

He’d told her enough. He drained his cup, intending to start his side of the interrogation.

She stopped him with the words, “I heard you and some others had formed a special club to help each other in your search for brides.”

He stared at her, simply stared. “Have you been to London recently?”

“Not for seven years.”

He’d accepted Dalziel knew all about the Bastion Club, but…“How the hell did you know?”

She set down her cup. “Marissa had it from Lady Amery.”

He sighed through his teeth. He should have remembered Tony Blake’s mother and godmother were French, part of the network of aristocratic emigrées who’d come to England years before the Terror. As was his mother. He frowned. “She didn’t tell me she knew.”

Penny snorted and stood to retrieve their cups. “She and the rest only went up to town four weeks ago. How much time have you spent with her?”

“I’ve been busy.” He was grateful he didn’t blush easily. He’d been actively avoiding, not so much his mother-she understood him so well it was frightening, but consequently she rarely attempted to tell him his business-but his younger sisters, Jacqueline and Lydia, and even more his sisters-in-law, Frederick’s wife Annabelle and James’s wife Helen.

Their husbands had died without heirs; for some mystical reason that had converted them into the most passionate advocates of marriage for him. They’d infected his sisters with the same zeal. Every time any of the four saw him, they’d drop names. He didn’t dare go riding or strolling in the park for fear of being set on and dragged to do the pretty by some witless, spineless miss they thought perfect to fill his countess’s shoes.

Initially, he’d welcomed their help, no matter his oft-voiced aversion to such feminine aid, but then he’d realized the young ladies they were steering his way were all wrong-that there apparently wasn’t a right one in all of London-but he hadn’t known how to explain, how to stop them, couldn’t bring himself to utter a straight No; he could imagine their faces falling, the hurt look in their eyes…just the thought made him squirm.

“Have they driven you from town?” Penny watched his head come up, watched his eyes narrow. She held his gaze, amused. “I did warn them-and Elaine and my sisters, too-but they were all quite convinced they knew just who would suit you and that you’d welcome their assistance.”

His snort was a great deal more derisive than hers had been. “Much they know…” He stopped.

She probed. “It’s the start of the Season-the very first week-and you’ve already fled.”

“Indeed.” His voice hardened. “But enough of me.” His eyes-she knew they were midnight blue, but in the weak light they looked black-fixed on her face. “What were you doing riding about the countryside dressed like that?” A flick of his eyes indicated her unconventional attire.

She shrugged. “It was easier than riding in skirts, especially at night.”

“No doubt. But why were you riding at night, and sufficiently hard to appreciate the difference between sidesaddle and astride?”

She hesitated, then gave him one inch-dangerous, but…“I was following someone.”

“Someone doing what?”

“I don’t know-that’s why I was following him.”

“Who is he and where did he go?”

She held his gaze. Telling him was too great a risk, not without knowing why he was there. Especially now she knew the truth of his past.

That hadn’t been that great a shock; she’d always suspected something of the sort-she’d known him quite well, the youth he’d once been. But thirteen years had passed; she didn’t know the man he now was. Until she did, until she could be sure…she knew enough to be careful. “You said you were asked to look around here by your ex-commander. What sort of ex-commander does an ex-spy have?”

“A very determined one.” When she simply waited, he grudgingly elaborated, “Dalziel is a something in Whitehall-exactly what, I’ve never known. He commanded all British agents on foreign soil for the last thirteen years at least.”

“What has he asked you to look into down here?”

He hesitated. She could see him weighing the risk of telling her, of giving her the last piece of information she wanted without any guarantee she’d reciprocate.

She continued to wait, gaze steady.

A muscle shifted in his jaw. His gaze grew colder. “Information has surfaced that suggests there was a spy in the Foreign Office leaking secrets to the French during the war. The information suggests the route of communication lay somewhere near Fowey, presumably via one of the smuggling gangs operating hereabouts.”

She’d thought she was up to hiding it, had put all her control into managing her expression. A tremor in her hands gave her away; she saw his eyes flick down before she suppressed it.

Then, slowly, his gaze rose to her face. His eyes locked on hers. “What do you know about it?”

His tone had grown harder, more forceful. She thought of playing the innocent for all of a heartbeat. Futile with him. He knew, and there was nothing she could do to erase that knowledge. Nothing she could do to deflect him, either.

But she could deny him. Refuse to tell him until she’d had time to think, to examine all the facts she’d gathered-as she’d been planning to do after a sound night’s sleep.

She glanced at the old clock on the shelf above the stove, ticking stoically on. It was well after one o’clock. “I have to get some sleep.”

“Penny.”

She pushed back her chair, but then made the mistake of looking up and meeting his eyes. The candle flame glowed in them, giving his face a devilish cast, one the lean, harsh planes, wide brow and bladelike nose, and the tumbling locks of his thick black hair only emphasized. His eyes were heavy-lidded; his jaw was chiseled, but its hard lines were offset by the subtle beauty of lips sculpted by some demon to lure mortal women into sin.

As for his body, with broad, squared shoulders, lean torso, and well-muscled, rangy limbs, he exuded strength tempered by a grace only few men possessed. His hands were narrow, long-fingered, by themselves quite beautiful. The entire package was quite sufficient to make an angel weep.

Yet his sensual allure wasn’t his greatest threat, not to her. He knew her, far better than anyone else in the world. With her, he had a card he could play-one she sensed he more than any man alive would know how to play-a weapon guaranteed to make her comply.

As he sat and looked at her-did nothing more than let the weight of his gaze rest on her-she had no difficulty imagining and believing what his life had been like for the past decade and more. He didn’t need to tell her that he’d been alone for all those years, that he’d let no one close, or that he’d killed, and could kill again, even with his bare hands. She knew he had the strength for it; she now knew beyond doubt that he had the courage and conviction for it.

He never called her Penelope except on formal occasions; he used Penny when they were with family. When they’d been alone, he’d often teased her with a different moniker, Squib, a nickname that said it all; when it came to anything physical, he would always be the victor.

Yet this wasn’t physical, and when it wasn’t, he didn’t always win. She’d dealt with him in the past; she could do so again.

Holding his gaze, she stood. “I can’t tell you-not yet. I need to think.” Stepping around the table, she walked neither hurriedly nor slowly toward the door. It lay beyond him; she had to pass him to leave.

As she did, he shifted. She sensed his muscles bunch, tense, but he didn’t rise.

She reached the doorway, and silently exhaled.

“Mon ange…”

She froze. He’d called her that on only one occasion. His threat was there in his tone, unspoken yet unmistakable.

She waited a heartbeat; when he said nothing more, she looked back. He hadn’t moved; he was looking at the candle. He didn’t turn to face her.

He couldn’t face her…

A knot inside unraveled; tension flowed away. She smiled, softly, knowing he couldn’t see. “Don’t bother-there’s no point. I know you, remember? You’re not the sort of man who would.”

She hesitated for another second, then quietly said, “Good night.”

He didn’t reply, didn’t move. She turned and walked away down the corridor.

Charles listened to her footsteps retreating, and wondered what malevolent fate had decreed he’d face this. Not the sort of man to blackmail a lady? Much she knew. He’d been exactly such a man for more than a decade.

He heard her reach the front hall, and exhaled, long and deep. She knew not just some minor piece of the puzzle but something major; he trusted her intelligence too well to imagine she was overreacting to some inconsequential detail she’d inadvertently stumbled on. But…

“Damn!” Shoving away from the table, he stood and stalked back to the library. Opening the door, he called Cassius and Brutus, then headed out to the ramparts to walk. To let the sea breeze blow the cobwebs and the memories from his brain. He didn’t need them clouding his judgment, especially now.

The ramparts were raised earthworks ringing the Abbey’s gardens to the south. The view from their broad, grassed top took in much of the Fowey estuary; on a clear day, one could see the sea, winking and glimmering beyond the heads.

He walked, at first steering his thoughts to mundane things, like the wolfhounds lolloping around him, diverting to investigate scents, but always returning to his side. He’d got his first pair when he’d been eight years old; they’d died of old age just months before he’d joined the Guards. When he’d returned home two years ago with Napoleon exiled to Elba, he’d got these two. But then Napoleon had escaped and he’d gone back into the field, leaving Cassius and Brutus to Lydia’s care.

Despite Lydia’s affection, much to her disgust, the instant he’d reappeared the hounds had reattached themselves to him. Like to like, he’d told her. She’d sniffed and taken herself off, but still sneaked treats to the pair.

What was he going to do about Penny?

The question was suddenly there in his mind, driving out all else. Halting, he threw back his head, filled his lungs with the cool, tangy air. Closed his eyes and let all he knew of the Penny who now was flood his mind.

When he’d first returned home, his mother, unprompted, had informed him, presumably by way of educating his ignorance of their neighbors, that Penny hadn’t married. She’d had four perfectly successful London Seasons; she was an earl’s daughter, well dowered and, if not a diamond of the first water, then more than passably pretty with her delicate features, fair, unblemished skin, long flaxen hair, and stormy gray eyes. Her height, admittedly, was to some a serious drawback-she was about half a head shorter than he, putting her eye to eye with many men. And she was…he’d have said willowy rather than skinny, with long limbs and svelte, subtle curves; she was the antithesis of buxom, again not to every man’s taste.

Then, too, there were the not-inconsequential elements of her intelligence and her often waspish tongue. Neither bothered him-indeed, he greatly preferred them over the alternatives-but there were, admittedly, not many gentlemen who would feel comfortable with such attributes in their wives. Many would feel challenged in a threatening way, not an attitude he understood but one he’d witnessed often enough to acknowledge as real.

Penny had always challenged him, but in a way that delighted him; he appreciated and enjoyed their near-constant battles of wits and wills. Witness the one they were presently engaged in; despite the seriousness of the situation, he was conscious of the past stirring, elements of their long-ago association resurfacing-and part of that was the challenge of dealing with her, of interacting with her again.

According to his mother, she’d received dozens of perfectly good offers, but had refused every one. When asked, she’d said none had filled her with any enthusiasm. She was, apparently, happy living as she had for the past seven years, at home in Cornwall watching over her family’s estate.

She was the only offspring of the late Earl of Wallingham’s first marriage; her mother had died when she was very young. Her father had remarried and sired one son and three daughters by his second wife Elaine, a kindly, good-hearted lady-his godmother as a matter of fact. She’d taken Penny under her wing; they’d grown to be not so much mother and daughter as close friends.