“I haven’t the foggiest.”

The fifteen-year-old peered queerly at her sister.

Emily blinked. “Yes. All black. Very nice hair.”

Kitty stifled a laugh. Emily slid off the bed and went to the door, casting her a narrow look.

“I am going to sleep. Amy, are you coming?”

Amarantha jumped to the floor. Emily opened the door. Gentlemen’s voices sounded in the corridor and then the gentlemen themselves walked past. They paused. Mr. Yale seemed weary; nothing in his erect carriage gave a sign to it, but his silvery eyes looked somewhat sunken.

Lord Blackwood bowed. “Leddies.”

Amarantha giggled. Emily pursed her lips. Kitty pulled the wrapper over her breasts and endeavored not to notice his gaze dipping there.

“My lord, Mr. Yale,” she said as smoothly as her voice would allow, “thank you for your fine company tonight. Lady Marie Antoine and I are so grateful.”

Mr. Yale bowed rather stiffly, then continued along the corridor. The earl met Kitty’s gaze and there was nothing of hooded indolence there, only pleasure. She stood in the middle of her bedchamber and wished Emily and her sister away and the earl on her side of the door, with it closed and bolted.

Misguided wishes. She did not need more deception in her life, from herself or anybody else.

“Good night, my lord.”

He nodded, gave Emily’s sister a lovely smile, and went along. Kitty ushered the girls out, shut the door, and sank against it, praying that Emily and Mr. Yale’s courtship would go very swiftly.

“Has it only been one night?” The Welshman tilted his head onto the chair back and tossed down the remainder of his brandy. “Tell me it will end tomorrow.”

“You are doing this by choice.”

“Hardly.”

Leam withheld his thoughts. The Welshman’s insouciant manner with females masked a chivalrous nature even stronger than his love of the bottle. Why the mask, Leam had never inquired.

“I believe this is the first time in our acquaintance that I have heard you complain.”

“I am not complaining.” The lad straightened in his chair. “Merely lamenting lost time.” He held out his glass.

Leam tipped the brandy decanter against it and poured, topping off his own as well. After glimpsing Kitty in her gossamer night rail, her rich hair lying in a plait against her perfect breast, he needed the extra dram or two.

“When shall we head off for Liverpool?”

“Presumably when you have convinced our hosts that you cannot live without their daughter.”

Yale set down his glass, stood, and strode toward the door.

“Turning in so early?” Leam murmured.

“Merely leaving you to the company of one much prettier than I. You’d better hurry. She might not wait up for you.” He departed.

Leam went to the fire, lit a taper, and moved around the parlor setting candles to blaze. He disliked darkly lit chambers in winter. They reminded him too much of that autumn five years earlier, Alvamoor sunk in darkness and cold, his heart turning to stone within the frozen stone of his house.

Before he’d gone down to London again and met up accidentally with Colin Gray.

He could not sleep yet, in any case. He was here for one reason only: to make certain Kitty and Lady Emily were no longer in danger, and that Cox was not hiding somewhere with a pistol waiting for them to emerge. Once all were abed tonight, he would do some prowling about, studying and surveying. His Falcon Club experience would again come in handy.

He settled into a chair, glancing at the journal on the table beside him without interest. He didn’t care about the news from London. Or Paris, or Edinburgh, or Calcutta. It was almost a relief to harbor that feeling again—the cool, hard relief of not having a care for anything at all.

Almost.

“Monseigneur, how glad I am to find you!” Madame Roche entered in a swirl of skirts and veils, like a nun crossed with an opera singer.

He stood.

“Oh, non, non, sir. You must not! You must treat me as the servant, for that I am in this house.”

“Whin a leddy enters a room, ma’am, a gentleman that no stands shoud be nag-whipped.”

“And you are the fine gentleman, n’est-ce pas, Lord Blackwood?” She tapped him upon the shoulder with her fan and sat in the chair across, fabric flowing over armrests and floor.

He allowed himself a smile. “Woud ye be caring for a bit o spirits, ma’am?” He gestured with his glass.

“No, no. Sit! We must talk.”

He obliged. She leaned forward, pursing lips defined by ample rouge.

“You do not still mourn the death of the young wife, non?” She peered at him with dark eyes enhanced with kohl. Well accustomed to such prying, Leam did not reply.

“Bon.” She patted her palms together. “I thought this. But why will you not play the courtship game?”

He studied her for a moment. Her intent seemed direct, and she clearly doted upon her charge. But women were complicated creatures.

“The lad’s taking guid care o it, ma’am.”

“Oui, oui. Monsieur Yale, he is extraordinaire. But I think that is not your reason. Emilie, she is a good girl. And the Lady Katrine, she does not allow ma petite to be harmed, non? She is like—how do you say?—bloodhound.”

He lifted a brow.

“Non! ” The feathers in her hair jiggled as she shook her head. “Peut-etre not the bloodhound. They hunt with the nose on the ground, n’est-ce pas?” She pressed a fingertip to her red lips. “The shepherd dog. Oui. Have you any?”

Collies and their flocks covered the slopes of Alvamoor.

“Aye.”

“Then she is comme ça!” She gestured with a nod.

“Ma’am, A wadna be making a leddy evin wi’ a wirkin dug.”

“Ah, non! Bien sur. But she is very loyal. She does not wish to see ma petite unhappy.” Her voice dipped. “For she has suffered so much unhappiness herself, non?”

He had no reply. In truth, he knew nothing of the heart of any woman. Nothing he could trust.

“Begging yer pardon, ma’am, but A’m nae a man for blethering.” Lies and more lies. He would never be free of them. For over five years he’d made it his particular business to do nothing but encourage gossip from women such as this. Now he would be free of it. But the desire to hear about Kitty Savege was too strong, and he remained seated.

Madame Roche leaned in and spoke confidentially as though she had not heard him or understood.

“I do not think she cared for that man.” She shook her head. “I do not believe she did. The gossips —the silly friends of my mistress—who tell the Lady Vale that my Emilie must not be in la belle Katrine’s company, that she is the poor example for a young girl.” She waved her hand broadly. “But I say these biddies, they are wrong. C’est la jalousie! I tell my mistress. Wicked jalousie that drives the heart insane.” She peered sharply at him. “Do you know it, the jealousy?”

Leam’s palms were cold. “Aye.”

“She is very beautiful, the Lady Katrine, non?”

More beautiful than he could bear.

“Oui! Any gentleman would admire such beauty, as did that canard Poole.” She made a spitting noise. “Phtt! He is better far and away from la belle Katrine, so she must no longer always be running away from him at les parties and balls.” She shook her head sorrowfully. “So sad always, la belle, so beautiful dancing with all the handsome gentlemen. But, hélas, they cannot stir her wounded heart.”

She sighed, her eyelids drifting shut and fingertips moving from side to side.

Her eyes popped open. She stood.

“Ah, bon. I am so glad we have had this conversation, monseigneur.”

Leam came from his chair and bowed. “Ma’am.”

“Alors, good night.” She traipsed from the chamber, leaving him with a glass full of liquor and fire in his gut.

The temptation to go to Kitty’s bedchamber now and make her take him in was great. The desire flickering in her eyes for the briefest moment earlier told him she would accept him, and they would know pleasure again for a night. But one night would not be enough, and he did not trust himself with more.

He left the parlor and turned down the corridor away from the guest chambers. In the dark he would study the manor house. Tomorrow in the light he would spread his research wider. He would discover if any threat had followed him to Willows Hall, if any here were now in danger. When he was satisfied that all was well, he would depart.

Yale and Lady Emily maintained their farce for her parents, who seemed happy with the Welshman’s pretty manners and elegant appearance. Having taken the lay of the land, Yale dressed at his smartest, his cravat starched and arranged to a monstrosity, and every sparkling gewgaw he’d brought with him pinned here and there about his person. For her part the girl seemed to be doing her best to put on smiles when he catered to her. It was something of a relief to watch them, a comedy unfolding for her parents’ interested appraisal and Worthmore’s increasing consternation.

It was not sufficient distraction for Leam. It proved impossible to always be in Kitty’s company and not to watch her and want her.

He absented himself from the party. On the first day he took his horse to the nearby villages, trekking across fields sloppy with melting snow. Wearing his shabbiest coat, he made himself comfortable at pubs and fell into conversation with farmers and shopkeepers. He’d learned early in the game to look first to the locals for information. Five years ago he had devised his persona largely because it aided in that task.

He learned nothing of note. No strangers had come through save the members of his own party at Willows Hall. No laborers had been absent from the estate and surrounding areas on Christmas Day.

Leam’s shooter had not come into or from this neighborhood, it seemed.

On the second day he returned to the inn, Bella and Hermes in tow. Milch welcomed him, and they sat down to a pint and conversation, and Leam learned what he should have days ago if his head had been on straight.

Cox could well have been the shooter. He had indeed gone out for several minutes before the shooting, according to Milch, as Yale had suspected. The Welshman and the dogs had run toward the river when they ought to have been tracking around the rear entrance of the inn. Leam cursed himself for his distraction, for foolishly dismissing his suspicion of Cox because he imagined his jealousy over his attentions to Kitty was clouding his judgment. But his judgment had been fine. His jealousy was damning him yet again.

He continued on to the local magistrate’s house, an ancient squire more worried about his lower field flooding with the thaw than the personal squabbles of “trinkery Londoners.” He’d been told about the shooting and the ladies and gentlemen all holed up in an inn like loose cards. He glowered at Leam and suggested that he and his friend resolve their differences over their “fancy piece” in private instead of bothering him and everybody else with it. But if they knew what was good for them, henceforth they would keep their “pistols” in their pockets.

Leam returned to Willows Hall late, begged pardon of his hostess for his absence, and went to bed.

He rode out again the third day merely to maintain his distance, eschewing cards and more games within for activity beneath the leaden sky. Upon his return hours later he tended to his horse for as long as he could make that excuse.

In company, Kitty did not address him directly.

That evening after the ladies had gone up, he told Lord Vale that he regretted he must depart so soon. At dawn the following day Leam packed his bag and set off for Liverpool.

Yale caught up with him just before Whitchurch.

“Hell and damnation, Blackwood,” he clipped. “If you’d have bothered to divulge your plans I could have told you Jinan sent word to Willows Hall that he’s to meet us in Wrexham.”

“How did he—”

“How does he discover anything? He has contacts and messengers from Canton to the West Indies that none of us know about.”

“He isn’t the only one.” Leam pulled up on the road overhung with heavy gray clouds. “Why don’t you go to work for the Foreign Office now that the Club is finished, Wyn? The Home Office would take you too. You could make yourself useful in France or wherever you choose.”