Cox had departed before dawn, even before the mail coach came through, claiming he had an appointment he mustn’t miss. Pen, standing sentry at the time, said he had departed in an easterly direction. Yale had gone pale hearing the news. He’d been out of the parlor when the shooter attacked, it seemed. Leam plowed through knee-high snow-banks along the river anyway, his feet blocks of ice, his nose and head frosted. At least the dogs were stretching their legs. Cox might well be the fellow trailing him and the one who had tried to shoot him. Or he might not. Leam might have only suspected him because he flirted with Kitty. Because he himself had wanted her entire attention.

By God, it was a good thing he was no longer an agent of the crown. He wasn’t thinking straight.

Since the moment Kitty Savege had kissed him two days earlier, he hadn’t been in his right mind. He did not bed respectable ladies, even those who’d had lovers already. Neither did he haul them up against barn walls and maul them. The mere notion of some scoundrel doing that to his sisters or his cousin Constance had his fingers itching for a pistol.

He had put her in danger. Now he would leave her be, as he had last night with great difficulty.

And as soon as he had a particular word with her.

He rounded the smithy’s, tracking back to the inn along the rear yard. He found the others in the parlor. Wyn lounged by the hearth, dozing by all appearances. The attitude never fooled Leam. The Welshman was as alert as he with an assassin so close by. Likewise pretending—to read, on her part—

Madame Roche flickered Yale quick, interested glances. Lady Emily sat with her nose in a book, oblivious.

Kitty stirred a cup of tea. She lifted her dark lashes, her raincloud eyes as richly expressive as they had been in the intimacy of her bedchamber, then again in the stable when she told him good-bye. Just as she had done before with other men, she’d said.

He cleared his throat. “Lady Kath’rine, might A hae a maument o yer company beneath the eave?”

He gestured with her cloak laid over his arm. She stood and came toward him. He draped the cloak about her shoulders. The brush of her fingers as she grasped the collar went directly to his groin.

“Just without?”

He nodded.

The Frenchwoman looked on with undisguised interest. Leam motioned Kitty before him, and outside. He pulled the heavy door shut and followed her into the angle of sunlight cutting across the porch beneath the overhanging roof where a million heartbeats ago he had first held her and discovered her thundercloud eyes. Icicles made a jagged curtain above his head and she raised her face to his.

“Have you decided to tell me the truth after all?” she said without preamble, all soft curves yet sharp mind set on a single course. He scanned her face. Beauty. She was so beautiful the angels might have sculpted her from a fragment of the heavens.

“Nae.”

“I believe I made my position perfectly clear yesterday afternoon, my lord. I will have the truth from you about the shooting and poetry and what have you, or you will have nothing more from me.”

He could not respond.

“Well, then.” Her lips made a firm line. “I cannot imagine what you must say to me that merits this privacy.”

Anger prickled in him. She had insisted she was no schoolroom miss. Her touch in the dark of midnight had proven it. But, by God, she must have given herself to some extraordinary cads before him. At least one, Leam already knew.

“Lass.” He stepped closer. There was no easy way to say such a thing. “An ye find yerself wi’ child, A’ll dae the right thing by ye. Ye’ve anely tae tell me.”

By the acute glimmer in her eyes it seemed he had chosen perhaps the wrong difficult way to say it.

“That is gallant of you, my lord, and I daresay I should be comforted. But you have nothing to concern yourself upon that account.” She moved to brush past him toward the door. He took gentle hold of her uninjured arm. She halted. Her curvaceous mouth held aloof, yet her eyes could not hide her warmth. Candid need gazed up at him, though she mustn’t know it. She would not willingly reveal such a weakness, he now knew. Leam’s gut twisted. Perhaps she was no more than the girl he had imagined.

“A didna intend tae insult ye, lass.”

“I cannot fathom what gives you the idea that I think you have.”

He swallowed thickly. She had no idea how a man could be caught by that glance, vulnerability cloaked in sophisticated lucidity. That he could wish to drop to his knees and do her bidding whatever it be. She believed herself jaded.

He opened his mouth to reply. She spoke first.

“I cannot conceive a child.” Her gaze shifted away from his to the white blanket of snow. “I have not, although I have been foolishly careless. Quite foolish, really.” She seemed thoughtful on the matter. Leam hadn’t felt so ill in five years, lost in Bengal, a lead ball lodged in his shoulder and a fever to match the jungle heat.

“A see,” he managed.

“Yes. Now you do. So clearly you have nothing to worry over.” She took a step to move away, but he held her firm.

“A wisna worried.” Petrified. Sick to his stomach. But now, much more so, because he needn’t worry and he found quite abruptly that he rather wished to.

She only looked at him oddly, as though he had spoken out of turn although not grievously so.

This time she pulled her arm free with purpose, with control and poise and supreme nonchalance.

Leam’s brother, James, had perfected such firm insouciance, and he’d been no older than this woman.

He watched her go inside. He could not follow. He had won a reprieve he did not deserve.

He scowled. This was the way of callow fools.

But he wanted his hands all over her. He wanted her body, her mouth, and his tongue deep in her making her moan. He hadn’t had enough of her. Not nearly enough. He wanted to recite goddamned poetry to her in six languages. He wanted her so badly he could taste the words, taste her replies, taste the rain in her gaze.

She had cast off Poole without a backward glance, it seemed. Perhaps other men as well. She had been careless, she’d said. Careless.

A pattering on his shoulder wrested Leam from bemusement. Droplets of water made a puddle on his greatcoat cape with ever increasing speed. The thaw had come. He found his hands curled into fists.

Where was a Welshman’s willing jaw when a man needed it?

“I have devised un plan d’attaque!” Madame Roche announced in grand tones with a flourish of scented lace kerchief. It suited her dramatic pose on the sofa, all white and black with red lips and cheeks. Not above fifty, she was a handsome woman, already a widow to four husbands.

Lord Blackwood came into the chamber from the rear foyer. Kitty spoke so that she would not be tempted to look at him.

“A plan of attack to have us on the road shortly, Madame?” She did not take up her teacup. She did not trust in the steadiness of her hands, and in any event the tea had turned cold while he offered to marry her if necessary and she spoke aloud her secret for the first time to anyone. The secret only Lambert Poole knew. When she had discovered her barrenness, still so angry and vengeful, she welcomed it; no inconvenient pregnancy would send her into exile from society. She could continue to pursue her course of collecting information from him without anxiety.

At the time it had seemed ideal, because at the time she had ignored the ache inside her telling her it was all horribly wrong. Now she was sick with the woman she had been.

“Oh, no, no, Lady Katrine! The gentlemen will see to those arrangements tomorrow morning, will you not, sirs?”

The earl bowed.

“It will be our greatest pleasure,” Mr. Yale concurred.

“So kind, these gentlemen. And so very handsome! Which is how I have invented mon plan.”

“Clarice”—Emily raised her attention from her book—“what on earth are you talking about?”

“Only this: together we will all go to the Willows Hall where His Lordship and Monsieur Yale will court you assiduously, making love to you openly with the pretty words and gestures until your parents cast off the unconscionable program to wed you to le gros canard , Warts More.” She crossed her arms over her bosom and appeared all satisfaction.

Mr. Yale’s face went blank.

Emily did not bat an eyelash. “Is Mr. Worthmore really a fat duck?”

“Mais oui! All men three times your age that wish to wed ma petite are les gros canards. And he is

… how does one say? The dandy! The collars up to here.” She jerked the edge of her hand against her chin. “But how do you like my plan?”

“It will not go over,” Emily said, returning her attention to her book. “Everyone in society knows Lord Blackwood will never marry again on account of the tragic loss of his young wife shortly after the birth of their son, and Mr. Yale does not like me.”

“You are too modest, ma’am.” To his credit, Mr. Yale sounded sincere.

“And I don’t like him.”

“Haven’t the funds for a wife at present, in any case.”

“It wouldn’t matter. My dowry is grotesquely enormous. My parents wish to make a statement.”

“No no, monsieur! Ma petite! ” Madame Roche lifted a forefinger and tapped it twice on the table top with a click of her nail. “No one will marry. It will be only for—how do you say?—the display.”

“For show, Clarice.”

“Oui. For the show. Your parents, they will send away le gros canard , and you and I, Emilie, we will return to Londre where you may choose from all the gentlemen that admire you.”

Emily laid down her book. “My parents are quite vain and admire people who spend a great deal on carriages and clothing and what have you. They will not seriously consider a suitor who is not in possession of a considerable estate or at least an ample income. Lord Blackwood is quite wealthy, but Mr. Yale has no funds.”

“I said, at present.”

“Well, do you wish to pretend to court me or not?” She frowned at him.

He lifted his brows.

Kitty felt queasy. The earl appeared to be studying the floor planking.

The notion of marriage to him had not repelled her. It made her heady with alarm and—even more alarmingly—pleasure. Had he offered the same to every woman with whom he had made love since his wife’s death, despite his vow to remain unwed? Had he recited poetry to those women too?

Kitty’s queasiness redoubled, shifting upward beneath her ribs.

“Then it is all settled. Monsieur Yale and Monseigneur Blackwood will be les galants extraordinaires.” The Frenchwoman clapped her hands. “What fun we shall have!”

Mr. Yale leaned back, closed his eyes, and pinched the bridge of his nose with two fingers.

“If you do it,” Emily said to him, “I might begin to think more highly of you. It would be a selfless gesture and prove you are not entirely motivated by vanity.”

He cracked open an eye. “I am all gratitude, my lady.”

“You are odiously narcissistic.” Her voice lacked its usual conviction. “But I will appreciate your help, nonetheless. And Lord Blackwood’s.” At that moment, she sounded as young and uncertain as Kitty had ever heard her.

Kitty placed her hand in her friend’s. “We will not allow them to force you into an unpalatable marriage, Marie.” She squeezed. “We will do all we can, won’t we, gentlemen?”

Mr. Yale bowed from his chair. “Your servant, Lady Katherine.”

She steeled her courage and looked across at the earl. He leaned against the edge of the mantel, eyes hooded.

A whorl of cold air rushed into the parlor, stirring the hearth flames. Mr. Pen stomped into the chamber, his jowly face ruddy with cold

“Road’s passable, miss. A coach and six passed long ’bout a quarter hour ago. Driver said it’s fair going all the way to Oswestry.”

“Oswestry? So distant.” Emily’s voice had not yet recovered.

“The melt’s happening right quick. We’d be better to set off now before there’s floods on the road.

I’ll go ahead and hitch up the teams and we’ll be at the Hall this evening.” He tromped back outside.

Madame Roche’s face wreathed in smiles. “Bon. Then the project of the courtship, it will commence! The handsome gentlemen, they will sweep ma petite off her feet before the eyes of her parents, and all shall be well.”