London’s Little Season has never been so scandalous

It’s the kind of vow often made on the battlefield. Darby Travers, Viscount Nailbourne, never imagines he’ll have to honor it. Yet here she is on his doorstep—his late comrade’s young daughter, and Darby’s new ward. Worse, she comes with the most overprotective, mistrustful, bothersome chaperone—the child’s aunt, Sadie Grace Boxer. Darby is quite sure that behind her lovely facade, the woman is guarding a secret.

Sadie Grace faced many trials working in her brother’s surgery, but none prepared her for the world she’s thrust into with his passing. Navigating the ton, with its endless ball gowns and parade of parties, is difficult enough, but hiding the truth about her niece while the sophisticated viscount watches her every move proves nearly impossible—particularly when his searing gaze tempts her to bare all. But when her family’s past catches up with her, she’ll have to trust in Darby…no matter the cost to her heart.

Praise for New York Times bestselling author Kasey Michaels

“Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and never misses.”

—New York Times bestselling author Nora Roberts

“Michaels holds the reader in her clutches and doesn’t let go.”

—RT Book Reviews on What a Gentleman Desires,

4½ stars, Top Pick

“Michaels…outdoes herself… For lighthearted fun,

you can’t do better than this.”

—RT Book Reviews on An Improper Arrangement

“This mistress of the genre is on the peak of her career.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Scandalous Proposal,

4½ stars, Top Pick

“A poignant and highly satisfying read…filled with simmering sensuality, subtle touches of repartee, a hero out for revenge and a heroine ripe for adventure. You’ll enjoy the ride.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tame a Lady

“Michaels’ new Regency miniseries is a joy.… You will laugh and even shed a tear over this touching romance.”

—RT Book Reviews on How to Tempt a Duke

“Michaels has done it again.… Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable details exposing the foibles and follies of the age.”

—Publishers Weekly, starred review, on The Butler Did It

A Reckless Promise
Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

A promise is a promise is a promise.

Darn.

Darby Travers, Viscount Nailbourne, may have used stronger language to express his reaction to discovering that a promise made has become a promise he must keep.

Not that he considers reneging, not even for a moment, for he is an honorable if suddenly suspicious gentleman.

Darby is also a sigh-worthy hero: witty, urbane, sophisticated, rakishly handsome, apparently carefree. But scratch the surface and find the man beneath: the steel, the loyalty…and the carefully guarded heart.

Now imagine this man saddled with a female ward…because of a promise.

Grab a box of chocolates, curl up on something comfy and come along as seven-year-old terror Marley Hamilton turns the viscount’s life upside down, while her unimpressionable and secretive aunt, Sadie Grace Boxer, confounds his head and heart at every turn.

Is A Reckless Promise the next great American novel? Nah. Sometimes a girl just wants to have fun!

Happy reading!

To Jennifer Stevenson

Great writer, fantastic friend

Contents

COVER

BACK COVER TEXT

Praise

TITLE PAGE

Dear Reader

DEDICATION

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

EPILOGUE

EXTRACT

COPYRIGHT

PROLOGUE

March, 1814

Somewhere near Montmort-Lucy, France

RUMOR HAD IT in the camp that their guards were nervous. That Bonaparte’s victory over the Allies at Champaubert had only served as a temporary delay in toppling the French emperor from his throne.

Indeed, Jeremiah Rigby had returned from his morning constitutional around the perimeter of the prisoner-of-war camp to report that he’d counted ten less guards than had been at their posts the previous day.

And eight more bodies. The wounded were succumbing with disturbing frequency over a month into their captivity, thanks to the lack of food, clean water and medicine.

“The time couldn’t be better for a moonlight flit,” Gabriel Sinclair said as he and Rigby joined Cooper Townsend and Darby Travers inside the sagging lean-to they’d constructed to help shield them from a fading winter and early spring rains.

Surgeon John Hamilton didn’t look up from his work, inspecting the healing wound sustained when Cooper had taken a ball in his side at Champaubert and they’d been captured along with over a thousand others. “There’ll be a nasty scar, sir, but it’s all healing nicely now that we’re rid of that infection. You’re next, my lord.”

Darby Travers, Viscount Nailbourne, pushed himself up on his elbows as the surgeon approached, duckwalking across the damp ground, bent nearly in half thanks to the low roof and his tall frame. “No need, John. No angels visited overnight, no miracle was delivered by dimpled cherubs and even the devil hasn’t bothered to tempt me. The eye is all but finished, and that’s that. I’m already fashioning fetching eye patches in my idle moments.”

That was Darby. He would make a joke out of most anything. Not even his closest friends were privileged to know if he was truly as reconciled to his injury as he seemed. Being his closest friends, they didn’t ask, but only followed his lead.

The surgeon, however, ignored the levity and began unwrapping the fraying linen bandage that held a clean square of the same material against the viscount’s left eye. “It’s early days yet, my lord, and the swelling was profound. I can only hope I didn’t do more damage by removing the ball, hoping to relieve the pressure.”

Darby spoke quietly, so that the others couldn’t hear. “I don’t remember any of it, thank God, once I’d supposedly told Rigby I needed to sit down moments before I fell down. I was all but a dead man until you showed up with your scalpel and box of leeches. I have my life thanks to you, and my gratitude is without bounds. Now, I know you overheard the captain. We four go tonight. You’ll come with us.”

Hamilton shook his head as he began rewrapping the bandage. “I can’t leave my patients, my lord.”

“Those who can manage have been sneaking off every night for the last week. The guards may not have noticed yet, but soon our thinning ranks will become obvious. At least a few of us will reach our lines, and a rescue will be mounted. But we all know it could come too late. Our skittish captors might dispatch the wounded before they either run off home or go to join Bonaparte. As it is, they’re damn near starving us to death.”

“My lord, your duty is to return to our ranks in any way you can, as is the duty of every soldier. Mine is to remain with the wounded.” Hamilton looked behind him, where the others were deep in conversation, and leaned in closer. “You say you don’t remember anything, my lord, and I agree that can be a blessing. But you did speak while you were lost in delirium. Only I heard.”

“Well, goodness me, John, you put me to the blush. Was what I said all that terrible?”

“You spoke of your childhood, my lord. A particular time in your childhood. I...I only wanted to say that what happened was not your fault. Children often assume guilt that does not belong to them. You’re a good man—you are all extraordinarily good men.”

“Thank you, John,” Darby said. “I’m sorry you had to hear my ramblings. Truly, I’m long past those years. I can’t imagine why I spoke of them all this time later. I would much rather have regaled you with stories of my adventures with the ladies.”

The physician smiled. “You were not without amusing anecdotes, my lord.”

“Well, thank heaven for that. John, if you can’t reconsider and come with us, I want you to know that I’m aware of all I owe you, not the least of which is my fairly worthless, ramshackle life. If there is ever anything I can do for you in return, no matter how inadequate that thing might be, you must not hesitate to ask, because it is yours, on my word as a gentleman.”

“You have more goodness in you than I believe you realize, my lord.” The physician hesitated, looking out into the camp that was deteriorating daily. “I have every hope of returning home, sir, but if I don’t...”

Darby pushed himself to a sitting position and held out his right hand. “Yes? Name it, John, and it’s yours.”

CHAPTER ONE

London, the Little Season, 1815

“WHAT DO YOU think of Spain, Norton? I’ve heard intriguing things about the Alhambra, once termed a pleasure palace. But no, you have no interest in pleasure, do you?”

“I take vast pleasure in my duties, my lord,” the valet supplied in his usual monotone. “Even more so when His Lordship refrains from speaking whilst I am shaving him.”

Darby Travers, Viscount Nailbourne, longed to inquire as to whether his man’s words could be construed as a threat, but quickly discarded the notion. Until the straight edge moved from his neck, he prudently refused to so much as swallow.

“And we’re done, my lord,” Norton said in some satisfaction, stepping back even as he handed his employer a warm, moist towel. “Until this evening, that is. I would ask you to consider again the advantages of a well-trimmed beard.”

Darby wiped at his face, then tossed the towel in Norton’s direction as he got to his feet and walked over to the high dresser topped with an oval mirror. “Not if you’d continue to force your barbering skills on me, no. It wounds me to say this, Norton, but your mustache appears chewed on, and I’m convinced you employ that wirelike appendage on your chin to brush dried mud from my riding boots. The fact that both are shoe-black dark and your hair red as a flame makes me wonder what you do to amuse yourself when I leave you alone.”

Norton, a man of at least forty summers, smoothed a hand over his hair, parted neatly in the middle and tied back into a tail at least six inches in length, and then tugged at his goatee. “Red facial hair is unattractive, my lord.”

Darby would have asked his new valet why he didn’t expand his use of the dye pot to include the hair on his head, but then the man might tell him. Norton was his third valet in as many months, and the only one who didn’t perpetually suppress a flinch when he saw his employer without his eye patch. For that small mercy alone, the viscount didn’t really care if Norton sought his jollies by wearing his pantaloons on his head.

He picked up his brushes and ran them through his own coal-dark hair. “I believe I’ll refrain from comment on that, Norton. But back to Spain. I’m devastated to inform you that we can’t go, much as I’d like to escape my fate. For one, I’m promised to a birthday celebration at the end of the month. Either that or a funeral. Nobody’s quite certain yet. My jacket, if you please.”

“Yes, my lord. Will we be returning to London today?”

“Don’t care for my cottage, Norton?” he asked, shrugging into his handsomely cut tan hacking jacket, for he was anticipating a ride yet this morning. “I know it’s quaint, but I believe it provides most of the necessities of life.”

Nailbourne Farm, or the “cottage,” as Darby termed it, was a large estate just outside Wimbledon, and only an hour’s drive from London. Along with an extensive breeding stable and three hundred acres of Capability Brown’s better efforts at landscaping, the estate boasted a unique, sprawling stone-and-timber mansion. There were sixteen bedchambers, a dining hall that comfortably sat fifty and a dozen other rooms, all beneath a whimsical thatched roof that kept four thatchers gainfully employed year-round. It even boasted a royal bedchamber, which had actually been slept in by no less than two English monarchs.

It was the smallest of the half dozen Nailbourne holdings.

“Well, Norton? Do you agree?”

“It’s...serviceable, my lord.”

“How greatly you relieve my mind. I wouldn’t want to have to order it torn down and rebuilt to your specifications.”

Sarcasm was totally lost on Norton, Darby knew, winging over his head like a bird in flight, but at least the viscount was amusing himself. He was in some need of a smile at the moment.

“Your pardon, sir, but I feel I must remind you that I accepted this temporary position on the understanding that we would be in London for the Little Season.”

Darby made one last small adjustment to the black eye patch he’d tied to his head, and turned to give a slight bow to his valet. “And alas, I’ve failed you. I’m so ashamed, and must hasten to make amends. Since I’ll be traveling to London this evening for an engagement, you have my permission to ride along with me. I’ll have you dropped at your favorite tavern, as I’m certain you have one, and come back to take you up before I return here, to the wilds. I most sincerely hope that meets with your approval?”

“Yes, my lord!” Norton exclaimed, bowing deeply at the waist, perhaps the first display of emotion the man had allowed in his master’s presence. “The Crown and Cock, my lord, just off Piccadilly. And may I say, my lord, you look exceptionally fine today. You flatter that new jacket all hollow.”

“Oh, shut up,” Darby said amicably as he brushed past the valet on his way to the stairs, only smiling once he was out of sight. “For a moment there, I thought he’d ask to kiss my ring,” he mumbled to himself.

His mood may have been temporarily lifted, but the knowledge that Norton was right served to bring it crashing back down once more. He’d been at the cottage for nearly a week, cooling his heels as he awaited the arrival of the consequences of his forgotten promise to John Hamilton. Granted, he’d escaped to London, twice, for evening parties, but the days here were nearly interminable when he wished only to be with his friends before everyone adjourned to their country estates until the spring Season.

Darby supposed he should have put a qualifier or two into his promise to the good doctor before agreeing to take guardianship of the man’s daughter should anything fatal befall the man. He’d thought that meant if John had perished at the camp before it could be liberated. He hadn’t counted on any responsibility outliving the promise by more than eighteen months, which was when the good doctor had cocked up his toes.

Yet here he was, about to become guardian to his very own ward. His female ward. If there could be any one person less suited for the position, Darby believed a person would have to search far and wide to find him. His friends had all laughingly agreed, and looked forward with some glee to watching him deal with this unexpected complication to his smooth-running life.

Marley Hamilton. Age unknown. Would he be able to send her off to some young ladies’ academy and forget about her for at least a few years, or would he be laying down the blunt for a Season for the girl? Was she dewy and young, or already past her last prayers?

John had been a country doctor. Of good family, one could only hope, but would his daughter be up to snuff for a Season, or would she come to the cottage still with hay in her hair and mud on her half boots, and speak in some broad country accent?

Would he be forced to rebuild her, as it were, from the ground up, in order to be rid of her?

Would she feel it necessary to address him as Uncle Nailbourne?

Egads.

“Coop’s right,” he told himself as he reached the bottom of the stairs. “I do get myself into the damnedest situations. If only John’s solicitor would arrive, and get the waiting over with before I drive myself mad.”

“Milord?” the footman asked, holding forth his employer’s hat, gloves and small riding crop. “You be talkin’ ta yerself again, the way you said you wuz yesterday?”

“Exactly, Tompkins,” he responded, accepting the articles. “And as was the case yesterday, and probably will be for some time yet, you may feel free to ignore me.”

“Yes, milord. Mr. Rivers brought the new stallion ’round. He’s a big ’un, milord. You do mind ta be careful.”

“Since it would upset you, I’ll do my best not to break my neck,” Darby promised the young lad, and then stopped in the action of pulling on his gloves when there were three loud raps on the door knocker.

His entire body instantly went on alert.

“Ah, perhaps the time has come. Strange we didn’t hear a coach pulling up. Attend to that, Tompkins, if you please.”

The boy, freckle-faced and towheaded, and more accustomed to his usual chores in the kitchens, looked at his master in some distress. “But, milord, Mr. Camford says he’s ta greet all His Lordship’s guests to be sure where ta put ’em, and yer’r ta be summoned ta the drawin’ room only after he—”

“Tompkins, I can’t be certain of this, of course, but last I looked, I do believe I still outrank my butler. Open. The. Door.”

Tompkins blushed to the roots of his hair. “Straightaway, milord.”

“Clearly I have to develop more of a commanding air with the staff,” Darby told himself, replacing hat, gloves and riding crop on the large round table and stepping back two paces, ready to surprise his guest with his unexpected presence. Or perhaps he’d be mistaken for Camford, come to vet the uninvited guest so he’d know where “ta put ’em.”

A mental picture of the portly butler dressed in riding clothes brought a small smile to Darby’s lips as Tompkins opened the door and then stood directly in front of the opening, blocking any view of the visitor. Apparently Camford hadn’t had time to complete the lad’s lessons in footmanship.

“Let whoever it is pass, please,” he told the boy, unnecessarily it would seem, as Tompkins was rather handily pushed out of the way as a tall, heavily cloaked and hooded figure breached the human barrier and stepped through the portal, dripping water onto the tile floor.

When had it begun to rain? Did Norton so sincerely loathe the country that he didn’t even peek out the window to be certain his employer would be correctly dressed? Darby waved a figurative goodbye to any notion of working the new stallion.

He took a closer look at the figure. The words drowned rat scuttled into his brain.

“If you hadn’t yet noticed, young man, the doorway lacks a portico. How long do you usually have His Lordship’s guests stand unprotected in a deluge?”

A woman? It was definitely a woman’s voice. Tall, for a woman, able to wear a man’s cloak and not have it be six sizes too large. Only four, he estimated, taking in the many-caped cloak once again. Bossy, for a woman, especially one who had arrived uninvited, unaccompanied and apparently on foot.

“Tompkins, offer to take the lady’s cloak before she drowns in it, both literally and figuratively.”

“Yes, Tompkins, do that. And when it’s dry, consider burning it. I feel as if it could stand on its own after five days of travel on the public coach. And then please inform His Lordship that his ward has arrived.”

“Oh, bollocks,” Darby muttered under his breath, feeling the worst of his many suppositions had just sloshed through the doorway. Past her last prayers, unmannered, tall as a stick and clearly— “Well, hello.”

The woman had finally thrown back her dripping, drooping hood to reveal a head of more than merely damp blond hair, eyes that could be any color from blue to green to even gray, probably depending on her mood.

At the moment, as she looked directly at him, they were definitely leaning toward a stormy gray.

Her nose was straight, her lips full—with an intriguing pout to the upper one—her skin pale and flawless, a slight dimple in her chin. Her slim neck could only be judged as regal.

Furthermore, she was tall enough to tower over young Tompkins, and was only a few inches shy of being able to look Darby straight in his eyes, which would make her very nearly six feet tall.

Amazing. One can only wonder how much of her is legs.

“And you are...?” she asked him, definitely imperiously, and with no hint of a country accent. In fact, her English was probably more precise than his own, as he had a tendency to drawl when amused, and he was often amused. He’d best pull out his most precise accent.

He also probably should stop grinning.

“Astounded,” Darby said, bowing. “Perplexed. Nonplussed. Oh, and dry. And you?”

“You’re Viscount Nailbourne,” she countered as Tompkins finally realized he should close the door. “John told me about the eye. You received my letter? I sent one to every address John had provided. You weren’t at the first one and I was forced to continue my search.”

Typical female. Somehow everything apparently has become my fault.

“Clearly a lapse on my part. A thousand apologies,” he said, bowing yet again. “Would you care to continue this conversation upstairs, or are you more comfortable in foyers? I’m amendable either way, and I’m certain Tompkins here wouldn’t mind watching this small farce unfold.”

“I’m more comfortable dry. Our trunk momentarily lies abandoned just inside your gates. I would appreciate having it fetched and taken to whatever quarters you might assign. Once I have your ward settled, I would be more than amenable to continuing our conversation.”

“You’re...you’re not my ward?”

Then who in bloody hell are you?

She looked at him as if he had just popped out a second head. “Certainly not. I’m above the age of requiring a keeper. Marley? You can come out now, please, and allow me to introduce you to your new guardian.”

The young woman pulled back one side of the oversize cloak to reveal a female child of no more than six or seven. The child was clinging to her apparent protector with both arms, her face buried against the damp muslin skirts.

Yes, the legs were that long...

“Marley,” the woman urged, “if you’re quite done with your impersonation of a barnacle, make your curtsy to His Lordship, as I’ve taught you to do.”

“Will not.” The words were rather muffled, but clearly understood.

I don’t blame you, Darby thought.

“She’s prodigiously fatigued, poor poppet,” the woman said through only slightly gritted teeth she still couldn’t manage to keep from chattering with cold. “Unless I gave him a copper, the coach driver wouldn’t bring us any farther. We were forced to walk from the gate. And then it began to rain.”

And there is that glare again. Apparently the rain is also my fault.

Considering that the gate and house were separated by nearly a mile of gravel drive, Darby mustered some sympathy for the child. “I understand. And she’s probably a bit shy, aren’t you, Marley? Tompkins, fetch Mrs. Camford at once, and have her attend to our guests. But first—you still have the advantage of me, ma’am, in more than one way. If I might have your name?”

“Forgive me, my lord. I am Mrs. Boxer. Mrs. Sadie Grace Boxer, sister to the late John Hamilton, and Marley’s paternal aunt.”

More and more curious...but it might help explain her unusual height. John, he remembered, had been quite the beanpole himself. They also seemed to share their blond hair.

“Boxer? S. G. Boxer? You wrote the letter I received last week? I was under the impression that I had been contacted by John’s solicitor.”

“Then you were laboring under a mistaken impression. I never claimed any such thing.”

“No? Well, you certainly implied it, madam. Did you pen the note with Mr. Johnson’s lexicon at your elbow?”

“Are you now implying that perhaps Marley and I aren’t who I presented us to be? Are you questioning that Marley is indeed John’s child, and now your ward?”

Sadie Grace Boxer had stepped forward a pace, her dimpled chin raised. When she spoke, there had been the hint of a drawl in her voice, as if she was pouring cream over steel. Odd, that they both should have the same failing, but for different reasons. Or perhaps she was secretly amused? No, that wasn’t it. What he saw in those eyes was a mix of confusion and...could that be fear? Had his intended joke struck a nerve?

Darby tipped his head slightly. “I wasn’t, no, not completely. But now that you mention it, have you any proof that you and the child are who you say you are?”

Speaking of rats, did he sound like one searching for any way off a sinking ship? Yes, he probably did. But the woman was not what he was expecting, and until he figured out why that bothered him, he wouldn’t be too hard on himself for his suddenly suspicious nature.

Mrs. Camford had just bustled into the foyer, followed by two housemaids, and was already tsk-tsking and issuing orders about clean linens and tubs to be drawn and fires to be laid in both one of the bedchambers and the nursery.

“Can this wait, my lord, as I tend to this small darling?” the housekeeper interrupted, having known Darby since he was in short coats and apparently already half in love with the now visibly shivering blonde poppet with the huge green eyes sparkling with heart-melting tears. “Oh, just look at the little darling. Come to Camy, sweetheart. Camy will make it all better.”

Darby raised a hand to his forehead, rubbing at the headache he could feel advancing on him. “Scolding me, Mrs. Camford? And with good reason. I can’t imagine what I was thinking. Take them off, with my compliments. I’ll be in my study if anyone needs me.”

“Yes, m’lord, you do that. You’re clearly of no use here.”

At last, Mrs. Boxer smiled. Of course she would. No woman could resist a little crowing when a man has been put solidly in his place.

“I’ll take myself off, then, Camy, before I’m sent to bed without my porridge.”

Sadie Grace Boxer turned toward the stairs, following the housekeeper. “How gracious, my lord. Come along, Marley,” she called over her shoulder.

Instead, Marley walked straight up to Darby, stopping just in front of him. “You’re mean,” she announced. “I don’t like you, and I hope you die.”

“What a charming infant you are,” he said, and inclined his head to her.

The charming infant kicked him straight in the shin with all her might.

“Tired and hungry,” Mrs. Boxer said, perhaps in apology—and perhaps not—hurriedly coming back to take Marley by the shoulders and steer her toward the staircase.

Tompkins quickly suppressed a giggle, and even Mrs. Camford smiled as she brushed past the guests, to lead them upstairs.

“She’s just a child, my lord,” Mr. Camford said from behind him. “Mrs. Camford will soon take her in hand. Didn’t take any sass from our four boys, nor from you, either, begging your pardon. I couldn’t help but see you rubbing at your head. Shall I bring you some laudanum, sir?”

“No, thank you, that won’t be necessary. I’ll leave you and your good wife to sort things out, if I may, and retreat to my study to lick my wounds. Please have Mrs. Boxer brought to me when it suits her.”

Mrs. Boxer. If she looked that good wet, cold and bedraggled, how would she appear in velvet and diamonds? Mrs. What in bloody hell was he to do with a Mrs.?

And why had her demeanor gone from aggravated (truly, aggravated) to apprehensive when he had asked her for proof of her claim? Both the legitimate and the imposter would have come fully armed with documentation. So why had that one question upset her?

It wasn’t as if he had demanded said proof or else order Tompkins to toss both her and the child back out into the rain. You didn’t just toss innocent children around from pillar to post all willy-nilly, as if they didn’t have feelings.

The headache was closing in on him now, and thinking hurt, so he’d stop doing it.

CHAPTER TWO

“I ALREADY TOLD YOU I was sorry. Three whole times,” Marley whined, her bottom lip stuck forward in a defensive pout. “But he was mean to us. I could tell, because you were using that voice you use when you’re ready to go pop. That’s what Papa used to say. You get all sweet as treacle, Papa told me, and then you go pop.”

“I wasn’t ready to pop,” Sadie told her niece as the two sat on the hearth rug in front of the nursery fire, finally dry and warm once more, Sadie still brushing her niece’s thick blond hair.

“Yes, you were. Pop!”

“All right, perhaps I was. But His Lordship has to be the most insufferable—no. I didn’t say that. He’s your guardian now, Marley. That means you will be polite, well-behaved, obedient when he speaks to you and that you never again kick him in the shin. What would your papa have said if he’d seen such naughty behavior?”

“Papa’s dead,” Marley answered flatly, hugging the rag doll that was the most beloved of her possessions.

Yes, John was dead. A truth not easily forgotten. Her brother was dead and Marley’s world had been turned upside down in an instant.

“I know, sweetheart,” she said, gathering the child close. “We’ve spoken about this many times. He had never been well since he returned from the war, had he? Now he’s with the angels, and we’re thankful he’s at peace, reunited with your mama. Isn’t that right?”

Marley turned those huge green eyes on her aunt. “You’re not sick, are you, Sadie? You aren’t going to go see Papa and Mama?”

And there it was again, the fear Marley carried with her, the one Sadie couldn’t seem to make go away.

“No, I’m not about to do that. I promised, remember? Why, I’m going to stay so close to you that one day you’ll be forced to lock your door to keep me out.”

Death was a tricky subject all by itself, but explaining the finality of it to a child could break a person’s heart.

And now, apparently, Marley had a new worry.

“That’s what you say. He can’t send you away, can he?”

“That’s His Lordship to you, young lady, not he.” Sadie tapped her niece’s pert little nose. “That being said, no, he won’t do that. Only an unfeeling brute would separate you from your very last blood relative, and your papa said the viscount is a good and honorable man.”

Had she sounded convincing? Marley gave her a quick squeeze and got to her feet, looking much relieved. If her papa had said it, then it must be true.

If only I could feel equally certain, Sadie told herself. Because here we are, nearly out of funds and completely devoid of options.

“Ah, and here comes Peggy with your milk and cakes, just as promised. You tuck into that while I go see His Lordship and thank him for his fine welcome. Peggy?”

“I’ll watch her, missus,” the young maid said, bobbing a curtsy. “I got two bitty sisters of my own. Mayhap we’ll sing songs, won’t we, young miss?”

“I suppose so,” Marley answered, seating herself at the child-size table in the center of the room, and her rag doll in the adjoining chair. If nothing else, the child had taken to the luxury of her new surroundings without a blink. “I know lots of songs. Lots and lots.”

“But not the one you overheard one of the outside passengers singing yesterday,” Sadie warned as she stood in front of a small mirror and inspected her appearance. Her hair looked presentable enough, brushed back severely and twisted into a figure-eight knot at her nape. The knot itself was damp, but if she’d waited until her hair was completely dry it would be nearly time for the first dinner gong.

She had never heard a dinner gong, but she’d read about them, and fine houses such as this one. What a lovely place for Marley to grow up, surrounded by such beauty and ease. Marley was young, and already adapting to her new surroundings, seeing the housekeeper and Peggy as new friends.

While Sadie felt out of place, an interloper. A fraud.

It was best to get over potentially treacherous ground as quickly and painlessly as possible, and that meant she could not allow His Lordship any more time to think up objections or inconvenient questions, or more time for her to doubt her ability to answer those questions in a convincing manner.

Her niece needed her; it was as simple as that. As complicated as that. She could not fail.

“But it was so silly,” Marley complained around a large bite of cake. “‘It’s of a pretty shepherdess, kept sheep all on the plain,’” she sang in a high, childish voice. An innocent voice. “‘Who should ride by but Knight William, and he was drunk with wine.’”

“Marley Katherine—stifle yourself.”

“‘Line, twine, the willow and the dee.’ That’s all I remember before you clapped your hands over my ears.”

“And thank the good Lord for that,” Peggy said, breaking off a piece of cake with her fingers and all but shoving it into her new charge’s mouth.

“I’m so sorry, Peggy. She...she picks up very quickly on anything she hears. And has no problem repeating each word, verbatim. You are to consider yourself warned, I suppose,” Sadie said, taking one last moment to smooth down her plain, pale blue gown before heading for the stairs.

“Mrs. Camford said to tell you she’ll be waiting on you in the entrance hall, to escort you to His Lordship’s study, and act as chaperone,” Peggy called after her.

“Oh, wonderful. So very kind of her,” Sadie said, and thanked the maid.

And then muttered to herself for the first two flights of her descent from the attic nursery to the entrance hall. Was the viscount in the habit of physically pouncing on his female guests...or did he worry that his unwelcome guest might become so overwhelmed by his masculine attraction that she’d assault him?

She wished she didn’t feel she was on such shaky ground. Until a few short hours ago it had never occurred to her that she might not be believed. Everyone knew her; everyone knew she was honest and truthful. What a shame that everyone remained in the village.

“Mrs. Boxer,” the housekeeper said when the last flight of stairs ended at the tile floor of the entrance hall.

“Mrs. Camford,” Sadie returned, along with a matching nod of her head. Only a fool wouldn’t believe they were sizing each other up, deciding on how to go on. “Thank you again for your kind and generous welcome. I promise you that Miss Marley is usually much better behaved. She’s frightened, you understand, having so recently lost both her papa and her home.”

“And you, Mrs. Boxer, if I might ask?” the housekeeper said as she motioned for Sadie to follow her to the rear of the house. “Have you also lost your home?”

Lost my home? Yes, let’s go with that, since apparently it’s easy to believe, women being so inherently fragile and in need of protection that nobody would ever suppose they could get by on their own.

So recently reminded by Marley of her betraying tendency, Sadie attempted to tamp down the sweet drawl as she bristled at the woman’s curiosity, as it wouldn’t do to go pop. Still, she would stick to the truth, or as near to it as possible.

“As I resided with my brother in lodgings provided by his patients, yes, that accommodation was no longer open to either Miss Marley or myself. But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to deliver my brother’s daughter to the man who promised to care for her in the event of my brother’s death. If asked to leave, I will do so, the moment I feel my niece is in good hands.”

She couldn’t keep the smile and drawl at bay as she ended, “I do most sincerely hope that aids in your information, Mrs. Camford, but if there’s anything else you feel the need to know, please don’t hesitate to ask.”

The woman’s blush told Sadie that she’d made her point—that she knew she was being questioned, measured, perhaps even judged. The staff was very protective of the viscount apparently. Odd, because he certainly didn’t seem in need of protection.

“That was rude of me, and uncalled for. Forgive me, Mrs. Camford. I’m horribly nervous about meeting with His Lordship. I know what an imposition this is for him. Not many gentlemen would be willing to take on a young female ward.”

“He’ll manage just fine, missus. It’s you he wasn’t expecting, or so I say. And here we are,” Mrs. Camford said, putting her hand to the handle of a dark oaken door. “I will see if His Lordship is agreeable to seeing you.”

Sadie nodded, realizing they’d passed by several rooms she normally would have loved to see, totally oblivious to her surroundings. “I suppose I was a bit of a surprise.”

“More like a shock, missus, to tell the truth, and so I told Mr. Camford.” The housekeeper quickly rapped on the door and then stepped inside, holding it nearly closed behind her as she said, “My lord, Mrs. Boxer is without.”

“Without what, Camy? Nothing vital missing, I hope.” Sadie heard the man question, humor in his voice. “And since when have we become so formal here at the cottage? I have enough of that everywhere else. Let her in, and then close the door behind you. Please.”

Sadie did her best to school her features into some semblance of calm as she stepped into the room...only then realizing she might just be voluntarily entering a lion’s den.

The door closed behind her even as the viscount pushed himself up from the black leather couch he’d been sitting on. Lying on, she mentally corrected, noticing the sleep marks on his cheek, put there by a quilted satin pillow. Apparently he’d been relaxed enough to nap as he waited for her. How lovely for him.

“With you on the other side of it, Camy, please. I doubt she bites.”

Sadie turned to see the housekeeper directly behind her, and gave her a sympathetic look and shrug of her shoulders.

The door opened and closed again, and Sadie was alone with Darby Travers, the man who held Marley’s fate in his hands, even if he’d yet to know that, and wouldn’t, not until she was assured the man wasn’t planning to wriggle out of his new responsibility.

She decided to prove her relationship to John before the man could repeat his earlier suspicions, spoken of so jokingly at their first, unfortunate meeting.

“John told me much about you, my lord, and those days in that horrible camp. You, and your friends, and so many more fine English soldiers, all the victims of the consequences of inferior leadership. How are the others, if I might inquire? Captains Sinclair, Rigby and Cooper Townsend, the latter injured in the same battle as Your Lordship. John said you four were close as inkle weavers and always ripe for adventure. He seemed to swell with pride at having known you. May I be seated?”

There. Now she could only hope that mentioning the names of his friends carried any weight for him in proving she was who she said she was. Or had she been too obvious?

She sat down before he could answer, moving the quilted pillow out of the way. The satin was still warm to the touch, and smelled faintly of the same shaving soap her brother had favored. She resisted an urge to clasp it close to her chest, as a sort of protection.

She’d already noticed that the man really didn’t look well, certainly not displaying the same vibrant presence he’d projected earlier. His complexion was rather pale now beneath a healthy tan, his hair a bit ruffled, as if he’d been running his fingers through it, or perhaps massaging his head.

He had the headache, perhaps? A lingering reminder of his wound? She felt some pity for him, but wasn’t so silly that she didn’t see the advantage could temporarily reside in her corner during what would probably turn out to be a sparring match between them. With luck, whatever ailed him would put him off his game, as John had told her the viscount was wickedly intelligent, witty and didn’t suffer fools gladly. Her brother had admired the man, his courage and even self-deprecating humor in the face of his terrible injury.

“They’re all in good health, thank you for asking. We were all quite fond of John, and saddened to hear of his death.” Lord Nailbourne didn’t retake his seat, choosing instead to lean against the front of an ancient carved desk some feet distant from the couch.

What was the protocol in duels? Ten paces, then stop, turn and fire? Sadie could feel the tension in the room, and wondered if it was all coming from her, as the dratted man still seemed very much at his ease.

Well or in pain, he was a handsome man, possibly made even more so by the eye patch, and his height would have been intimidating to most. Sadie gave a quick thank-you to her parents, who had combined to make her the empowering height she was. If she’d been a petite thing, she might feel completely overwhelmed and overmatched by the man. In truth, she still would have felt more than slightly intimidated, save for the quilt marks on his right cheek, which made him seem more human. Rather like a young boy, playing dress-up.

She wasn’t sure now what she’d been expecting, as John had never mentioned the viscount’s age, but it was clear he still lacked a few years before he was on the shady side of thirty. So young, and yet one of the wealthiest men in England, with all the benefits and burdens that sort of thing entailed.

And now she’d added to his responsibilities.

“My lord,” she began, searching for the correct words to show she knew of the imposition John had placed on him, but he stopped her simply by raising his hand.

“Forgive me for doubting your identity earlier.”

That sounded rather like a demand, but she was too relieved to challenge him.

“I looked at the letter again, and clearly nowhere did you suggest that you were a solicitor acting on John’s behalf. In fact, you didn’t identify yourself at all.”

That was definitely an accusation. Even if he’d cut off her apology, clearly he wasn’t going to take all blame onto his shoulders.

“No, I suppose I didn’t,” she said. It had taken her some time and several attempts before she’d been satisfied with the letter. She certainly could not have given him the one John had written. Yes, John. A safer subject than the letter, no question. “I imagine you’ll want to know more about my brother.”

“I say again, a good man.”

“Yes, but you’re wondering why he would ask me to hold you to a promise you made him so long ago. That’s understandable. John was injured in the camp, shortly before the Russians found it and freed their men and the British who were there. What you might know as being belly shot. He—” Sadie hesitated, as the wound to her heart was still raw “—never fully recovered, and this past summer—the heat, you understand—was a torture to him. We both knew it was only a matter of time. His passing was a blessing in many ways.”

“You’re saying he as good as died in that camp. Again, I’m sincerely sorry, Mrs. Boxer. I tried to convince him to leave with us, but he wouldn’t desert his patients. Your brother died a hero, and I can do no less than stand by my promise to him.”

Sadie’s shoulders finally relaxed. One hurdle passed over safely. Marley would have a home.

“He said you were an honorable man, that you all were brave and honorable gentlemen. Thank you. I know Marley will be safe with you.”

The viscount pushed himself away from the desk. “Safe, Mrs. Boxer? That seems an odd choice of word.”

Wickedly intelligent. I shouldn’t forget that, must never fully relax my guard.

“John left little money, and owned no property. Everything he had came courtesy of our village, and hopefully there will be a new physician installed within a few months. It was only because I could manage the surgery on his behalf while he was away, and yes, after he returned, that we weren’t put out on the street months ago.”

“Really? It would appear you are a woman of hidden talents. How fortunate for the villagers.”

Was he mocking her? Applauding her? Doubting her? His tone, his smile, could be interpreted many ways.

“One does what one must, especially with so many doctors and surgeons gone to war, but I am no physician. Once John truly was gone, a more suitable replacement was in order. Marley is homeless, near-penniless and alone save for me. In today’s world, would you call that safe, my lord?”

There, that should satisfy him!

He rubbed at his forehead. “I seem to go from bad to worse with you, Mrs. Boxer, so I might as well push on. Where is your husband? May I assume he also is deceased?”

Or did he run, screaming, into the night, to be shed of you? He didn’t say that, but Sadie was fairly certain he was thinking it.

But she’d prepared herself for this question. “You’re correct to believe I am without a husband, my lord. Maxwell has been gone for more than two years now.”

So much truth, taken separately. It was only when the two were put together that her words could be seen as a whopping great lie.

The viscount appeared to consider those words for long moments, as if repeating them in his mind. He then walked around the desk, to stand, his back turned to her, before the impressive expanse of windows that looked out over the rear of the estate.

“My condolences on your loss. But back to my new ward. I was raised here at the cottage after my parents died,” he said quietly, so that Sadie sat forward on the couch in order to hear him. “She and I have something in common, as I imagine I was about her same age at the time. Eventually I went off to school, spending all my holidays here with the Camfords until I reached my majority. Your niece will be in good hands with them, unless you believe I turned out badly.”

There. It was settled, and out of his own mouth. But could she relax now? She doubted it, for she was still in the room, and what on earth had he planned for her? Truly, he couldn’t have planned for her at all, could he? The inconvenient aunt.

“Thank you. I am sure I’m not prepared to make any conclusions on such short acquaintance, my lord, and have placed my full reliance on John’s opinion.”

He turned away from the window. “A careful answer, Mrs. Boxer. Shall we return to you? Do you plan to remain here with your niece?”

And here it was, with her knowing she was still totally unprepared for the question.

“Have I been invited?”

“No, I don’t believe you have. You do realize you’ve put me in an awkward situation. You’re obviously too old to become my ward, yet you’re too young and, yes, too attractive to remain here as my guest without tongues wagging all over Mayfair. Not that I’ve ever been opposed to that, but there is your reputation to be considered. Therefore, if you’re agreeable, I believe I shall have to employ you in some fashion. Which do you prefer? Governess? Companion? Tutor?”

He was going to let her stay with Marley. Not that he had much choice, so she couldn’t consider his offer a win on her side of the invisible tote board that had apparently been set up somewhere in the room.

She straightened her posture to the point that her spine protested. “Companion, I would think, seeing that I am her aunt. The position includes a wage, I presume?”

His smile took her quite by surprise, and seemed to serve to remove the tension both in his face and in the room itself.

“You move quickly, Mrs. Boxer. Do you have a figure in mind?”

“I wouldn’t presume to—”

“Of course you wouldn’t.”

Now he was definitely being condescending. He had a burr under his saddle, most definitely, but Sadie still wasn’t certain what it was. It almost seemed as if her very existence bothered him.

“I have to rethink this business of companion. Not quite right, I believe, or believable, for that matter. Never mind, I’ll think of something.”

“I’ll await that decision, then, my lord, grateful that you’ll allow me to remain with my niece.”

“So happy to ease your mind, Mrs. Boxer. And now, unless you have more to share with me, beyond my painfully acquired knowledge that my ward has a predilection for violence, I believe you may retire for the nonce. If my ward has been suitably instructed in her table manners, you and she can begin taking meals in the small dining room. I can remember refusing to be constrained to the nursery for my meals by the time I was her age. However, alas, I am committed elsewhere this evening, and will be departing for London within the hour, to return tomorrow. Or perhaps next week.”

Sadie leaped to her feet, speaking before she could think better of it. “You won’t be here? Oh, no, that won’t do, my lord. Marley is your ward. She remains with you. I must insist.”

Could she have been more clumsy?

The viscount, his hands behind his back, walked up to her, stopping much too close to her, and looked into her eyes. “You must insist? And why is that, Mrs. Boxer?”

Sadie scrambled for an explanation that would seem reasonable. “She, um, Marley has just lost her father. She...she needs to know someone still cares about her.”

“Other than yourself?”

“Yes! Yes, that’s it. A...a male presence.”

“A male presence,” he repeated, and the words sounded no more convincing when he said them. “I see. And a male presence would make her feel—what was the word? Oh, yes—safe. Mrs. Boxer, forgive me, but a thought occurs. Could you have perhaps kidnapped your niece?”

That question came close enough to the target to be uncomfortable.

“Of course not! Why would I do any such thing?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps to find yourself a deeper gravy boat than the one you might be offered—if any—by John’s other relatives?”

“I thought I’d told you. I am Marley’s only living relative.”

“And that would be her only living relative on John’s side. Is the child as unfortunately lacking in family on her late mother’s side?” He leaned in even closer. “Mrs. Boxer? Cat caught your tongue?”

Everything now rested on her answer. Marley’s future, and her own. And the lies were piling up.

“My sister-in-law had no family of her own, as they’d perished in a fire while she was away at school. There is no one else, my lord.”

“Poor imp, her entire life has been one long litany of tragedy and loss. Save for her dearest aunt, that is.”

Would he just stop smiling and shut up!

“But she is not without hope. You promised John. John is dead. As her aunt, I have decided where her best future lies, and that is with you. Please don’t force me to rethink my decision.”

He stepped back a few paces, and Sadie realized her hands were shaking.

“I would never do that. At least not until I understand what the devil is going on here. Are you going to tell me the truth?”

It wasn’t easy, but she kept her gaze locked with his.

“I’ve told you the truth.”

“Very smoothly, yes. Very nearly as if you’d rehearsed every word, save for a few unsettling stumbles. Perhaps a few tears might have made it all more convincing.”

Tears? She was more than ready to box his ears. How dare he be so clever.

“I have no time for such miss-ish indulgences, my lord. I have a responsibility.”

“As do I. Yes, Mrs. Boxer, you’ve driven your point home. Make yourselves comfortable in my absence. And then we’ll have us another small, hopefully more enlightening conversation.” The viscount strolled to the closed door and opened it with a flourish, inviting her to leave.

If she were Marley, she would have kicked him in the shin. But she wasn’t, and since their newly acquired safe haven hung in the balance, she would do her best to behave.

“I can’t help but wonder. Did you kill him?” His Lordship asked as she walked by, her chin once again held high.

Sadie stumbled, nearly fell, so that he grabbed her elbow to steady her. She felt light-headed, her knees nearly turned to water, her vision blurry, and for a moment she thought she either might vomit on His Lordship’s shoe-tops or faint at his feet.

“Steady on, Mrs. Boxer.”

She had no choice but to pretend to have not understood the question.

“Forgive me, I stubbed my toe on the carpet. Did you mean my husband, my lord? I suppose you would think his death a happy release, married to me. How very droll of you.”

“No, Mrs. Boxer. I was referring to my friend John. You’ve been a puzzle to me since you first stormed into this house. It would seem your lot in life has improved immeasurably thanks to your brother’s demise, no longer forced to care for him as he continued to linger on after his wound. I hadn’t considered your husband. Should I? No, don’t answer, not on either head. I’m certain I’ll find out soon enough, as I do so love a puzzle. In the meantime, I have no fears for my ward. After all, she’s your golden goose, isn’t she? In any case, I’ve now changed my mind about keeping her here. Be ready, both you and my charge, to leave for London in two hours.”

“Her name is Marley, my lord. I suggest you become familiar with it. And I will add that you’re extremely insulting. Everything is just as I told you.”

“So you say, and I’ve carefully noted your vehemence as you denied my purely idle question without really answering it. That said, I’m equally as certain you won’t mind if I satisfy my curiosity by doing a bit of investigating on my own. I feel I owe that to John.”

“No, I most certainly don’t mind. And then, sir, you can apologize.” With that her only parting shot, she curtsied rather rudely and turned for the door.

“We shall see, won’t we, Mrs. Boxer? Remember, two hours, no more.”

Sadie was halfway to the nursery before she calmed herself enough to realize that one of the things he’d do would be to search out any information he could about one Maxwell Boxer.

And good luck to you with that, Lord Nosypants!

CHAPTER THREE

IT HAD BEEN a decidedly odd journey to London, with Darby leading the way in his curricle, followed by his traveling coach containing Mrs. Boxer, his new ward and—Good God, how had he forgotten?—Norton, dressed in his best clothes and visibly eager to visit with his chums at the Crown and Cock.

He would have enjoyed being privileged to overhear any conversation transpiring within the coach during the hour-long drive.

It certainly had been interesting when Mrs. Boxer and his ward—Marley, he really should think of her by name—had stepped out of the house to see Norton holding open the door to the coach and the latter had immediately inquired as to the valet’s odd hair coloring.

“Sadie, why is that man’s hair red if his beard is black? Remember when we found that baby woodpecker that had fallen out of a tree and the top of his head looked as if he was wearing a red cap, but the rest of him was black and white, and you said that was because he was a baby woodpecker and—”

“Marley, shhh.”

“But his hair is red and his beard is black.”

“I heard you the first time. ‘Shhh’ means to stop talking. And I would imagine it’s because he prefers it that way.”

“You mean he did it on purpose? Like the vicar’s wife when she painted her hair orange, and wouldn’t take off her bonnet for six whole months? Why would he do that?”

“I’m certain that’s no business of ours, just as I told you it was no concern of yours just before you asked Mrs. Thompson that same question before vespers.”

“But he looks silly. Shouldn’t we tell him?”

“I believe you already have. Lower your voice.”

“I think I like the red better than the black.”

“An opinion you will keep to yourself.”

“I don’t understand why people can’t ask questions. If someone doesn’t want questions, someone shouldn’t paint his hair. That’s what I think. Sadie, what do you think?”

“I wouldn’t dare tell you,” Mrs. Boxer had said, taking her niece’s hand as they made their way down the marble steps to the drive, and the waiting Norton.

Who had smiled quite genuinely at Marley and tipped his hat before offering to lift her up and into the coach, already having launched into an explanation about his black mustache and beard.

Mrs. Boxer had turned her head to encounter Darby standing there, still doing his utmost not to laugh, and she’d shot him a smile clearly meant to imply that children were such a treat, weren’t they?

At that moment he had very nearly changed his mind about choosing his curricle over his coach. But he had too much to think about as they made their way to Mayfair, and clearly Mrs. Boxer would prove a distraction.

And now they were here, having dropped Norton at the Crown and Cock as promised, probably not more than three hours after his hastily scribbled appeal to the Duchess of Cranbrook had arrived in Grosvenor Square.

Vivien, darling lady, my ward has arrived at last, and trouble travels with her in the form of her aunt, who appears too nervous by half and, I believe, is not being entirely truthful with me for reasons I’ve yet to discern. In any event, they cannot stay with me in my bachelor residence, nor can I leave them at the cottage since I refuse to remain there while everyone else is kicking up their heels in Mayfair. In my desperation, I am bringing them to you yet today, falling on your mercy and that of my friends.

To compensate for any inconvenience, I feel certain you’ll all find much to amuse you in my dilemma, one most probably made more pronounced by the fact that the aunt is also quite beautiful, something I’m doing my utmost to disregard, at least for now.

As he tossed the reins to one of the duke’s grooms and hopped down to the flagway, he pretended not to notice the draperies twitching in three of the long windows facing the street. He could count on Gabe’s duchess aunt to be peeking from behind one of them, Rigby’s Clarice from the second, and could only hope Coop’s mother didn’t make up the remainder of the trio. But since he couldn’t think of a worse combination—as far as his sanity was concerned—he made a silent wager with himself that he was correct.

He waved a footman away and opened the door of the coach himself, smiling into the interior to ask if the ladies had enjoyed their coach ride.

His answer came from Marley, who launched herself at him, so that he was forced to catch hold of her or else she’d fall to the flagway. “Here now, is that any way for a lady to exit a coach?”

“I suppose there are others,” the child answered matter-of-factly, her arms wrapped around his neck, definitely putting paid to his carefully tied neck cloth, her legs scissored around his waist. Oddly, rather than being annoyed, he somewhat enjoyed her enthusiasm. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, Uncle Nailbourne. That was quite the most pleasant coach ride I have ever had. Norton pointed out all the sights, and even promised to take me to the park to see the swans. I never saw a swan, did you? Their necks are exceedingly long, Norton says, and then he explained about his hair. Would you like to know why he paints his beard black?”

Darby was still attempting to regain his breath—apparently a slight but well-aimed child had the power to partially knock the wind out of him. And she’d actually addressed him as Uncle Nailbourne. Oh, wouldn’t his friends delight in how far, and how quickly, the mighty had fallen. “Well, I suppose I—”

“Think carefully before you answer, my lord,” Sadie Grace Boxer warned as she made shooing motions with her hands so that he would move away from the coach and the footman could put down the steps for her. “How badly do you want to know about your valet’s personal grooming choices?”

He looked at the aunt, who was now standing beside him, and then to his new ward, who now had her cheek pressed against his shoulder as she blinked up at him, and came to a decision.

“Another time perhaps, poppet. We’ll go inside now.”

“A prudent answer,” Mrs. Boxer whispered as she preceded him up the marble steps and into the foyer of the mansion, just as if she entered mansions every day of her life. “What a lovely residence you have, my lord,” she remarked as she turned in a full circle, admiring her surroundings.

“I do, yes,” he said, finally able to detach Marley from his person. She immediately began hopping—jumping from one large black tile square to the next, careful not to land on any of the white tiles. “This, however, is not it. Make her stop, if you please.”

“The ladies await in the main drawing room, my lord,” the Cranbrook butler said, eyeing Marley as if she might have been a puppy who’d tracked in mud from the streets and now expected a reward.

Mrs. Boxer snapped her fingers twice and, unbelievably, Marley came to her at once, slipping her hand into her aunt’s. From the faintly surprised look on that aunt’s face, she had been as astonished by her niece’s quick obedience nearly as much as had Darby.

“She’s been cooped up in too many coaches for too many days, my lord. Your ward is only showing a healthy, youthful exuberance. Were you never a child? And what do you mean, to say this isn’t your residence? Where have you brought us?”

“I’d say a den of iniquity, were it not very nearly true. I’ll explain once we’re upstairs.” He snapped his fingers twice as he headed for the wide staircase, sadly without the same obedient result, as Marley ignored him to goggle up at the huge chandelier that hung in the foyer. The butler was already halfway up the stairs, on his way to announce the visitors. “If you and Marley will follow me, please.”

“Marley, follow your uncle Nailbourne.”

Once had been enough, and at least the child only repeated what she was told. But the aunt, as well? Go to Uncle Nailbourne. Curtsy to Uncle Nailbourne. Slow down, darling, so poor Uncle Nailbourne can catch up. No, he wouldn’t allow it. He stopped on the second step and turned back. “Darby. She is to address me as Darby.”

“That’s quite impossible, my lord, and definitely not acceptable. She is a child, and you are her guardian.”

“Darby,” he repeated. “She calls you Sadie, and she can bloody—very well call me Darby. Is that clear?”

Sadie shrugged. “You’re in charge, I suppose.”

“There is no suppose about it, Mrs. Boxer.”

He wasn’t made for this. He wasn’t prepared for it, had no idea what to do with a child or the child’s aunt. Neither fit into his life, his idea of what his life was about...and as soon as he figured out exactly what his life was about, he’d be a happy man. He’d been a boy, and then a soldier, and since he’d returned from the war he’d been pretty much nothing but a man happy to move with the tide of events as they occurred. Not quite a grand example for a man now in charge of a young female ward.

To be fair, he had been giving at least a cursory thought to setting up his nursery, as titled gentlemen were expected to do, as Gabe and Rigby and even Coop were in the process of doing—all but tumbling over one another to do, as a matter of fact. It did seem the next logical step.

But if he was going to one day be Uncle Nailbourne, it would be to his friends’ children, and if he were to take a wife, it certainly wouldn’t be— Lord, he needed a drink.

“Darby, there you are, you scamp. What a deliciously confusing message you sent me. We’re all agog to learn more.”

“Aunt Vivien,” he said as the petite woman and her usual filmy draperies and ruffles exited the drawing room, to meet him in the large first-floor foyer. He quickly motioned for Sadie and Marley to sit themselves down on a nearby ornate bench—hopefully out of earshot of whispers—while he dealt with Her Grace.

Within a moment he was engulfed in butter-yellow silk and tulle, kissing the top of the woman’s bouncy silver curls and inhaling her powdery scent. “You’ve saved my life.”

“I have? Well, isn’t that clever of me. How have I done that?”

“By inviting my ward and her aunt to reside with you until I can bloody well figure out what to do with both of them,” he whispered into her ear. “You know they can’t stay with me.”

She whispered right back at him: “They could, if you were in mind of creating a scandal, but I suppose you aren’t. Is that them, plopped down way over there on that uncomfortable bench the fourth duke dragged home from Lord only knows where, saying the elephant feet were all the mode? Pretty, the pair of them, definitely not the bench, which is horrid. Country mice, though, definitely not up to snuff for the Season. May I have the dressing of them, as well?”

“You, Aunt Vivien?” he asked, once again finding himself having to disengage from a clinging female. The woman, dear lady that she was, dressed like a confection suited to be displayed in a bakery shop window. “Only you?”

The duchess gave his chest a playful slap. “No, silly, all of us. Well, except for Coop’s mother. Minerva has the oddest taste. Perhaps we’ll allow her to choose gloves. Not a whacking great lot of damage one can do with gloves, isn’t that right? Now bring them inside. Have you no manners?”

“So you’ll do it? You’ll take them off my—that is, you’ll ask them to join you here until the end of the Season? I know I’m asking a lot, especially with the duke’s birthday fast approaching, but—”

“Must I cross my heart and swear, you scamp? It’s going to be the greatest fun, and give Basil something else to think about beyond discovering himself to be either horizontal or vertical come his birthday morn. Although what you’ll do with them afterward is a subject for delicious conjecture. We’ve already discussed it among us, you know. Clarice says—”

“Another time, Aunt Vivien,” Darby interrupted, well able to image what Rigby’s beloved said. He’d already been put to the blush, as it were, enough for one day, and he still had to face the rest of the ladies.

“Come say hello to your aunt Vivien, my dears,” the duchess trilled, and he watched as Marley leaped to her feet and ran straight up to the duchess, dropping a curtsy that nearly ended with her stepping on the duchess’s full skirts. Mrs. Boxer approached more cautiously, eyeing Darby, clearly in hope of some explanation for a very curious five minutes.

“Your Grace, may I present to you Mrs. Sadie Grace Boxer and my ward, Miss Marley Hamilton. Mrs. Boxer, Her Grace, Vivien Sinclair, Duchess of Cranbrook.”

Sadie’s mouth fell open—to her credit, only slightly, and she quickly recovered. “Your Grace,” she said, dropping into a perfectly respectable curtsy. “It is indeed an honor.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Everyone seems to say that, although I’m no different than I was before all this curtsying and bowing business became a part of our lives. Please, call me Aunt Vivien. Everyone does. And I shall call you Sadie and Marley. I had a cousin Sadie, years ago, but I’ve lost track of her since she ran off with her husband’s man of business. And far from penniless, as they took all of poor Robert’s funds with them.”

Darby cleared his throat. “We’re still standing here, Aunt Vivien. Perhaps we should introduce the ladies to the rest of the company?”

“Oh, fiddle, of course.” The duchess turned to reenter the drawing room, having taken Marley’s hand in her own, but Sadie stood her ground, refusing to budge when Darby offered her his arm.

“The duchess is your aunt?”

“A courtesy title only. My friend Gabe is the duke’s nephew and heir. She and the duke feel much more comfortable with informality. I’ll explain later.”

“Yes, you will. My imagination was running wild. For a moment I thought you’d brought us to a well-to-do brothel, and the duchess was the madam, or procuress, or whatever such people are called.”

Darby’s bark of laughter caused her to flinch slightly.

“It’s her gown,” she went on quickly. “I’ve never quite seen so many ruffles.”

“She wants the dressing of you,” Darby said, offering her his arm once more. “Apparently she and the other ladies have decided you and Marley are to move about in Society while you’re here.”

“You aren’t going to allow that, are you?”

He was actually becoming used to the idea, odd as that seemed to him. The sight of Sadie Grace Boxer in fine silk and pearls might prove interesting. In fact, the more he thought about how displeased that same Sadie Grace appeared to be, the more he approved the ladies’ plans.

“The dressing of you, no. I’m afraid the ladies are quite set on the rest of it. You could have remained at the cottage, not that I’d be so crass as to point that out to you.”

“No, you’d never be that, would you? And where will you be, my lord, once you’ve successfully dumped your responsibility in that sweet old lady’s lap?” she asked, taking his arm and forcing a smile to her face as they at last entered the enormous drawing room.

He had one thing to say for the woman. She could hold her own in a give-and-take of words. Of course, he wasn’t sure that could be listed as a compliment, not when she was also so clearly concealing something from him.

“Hiding in a cupboard under the stairs most quickly springs to mind, Mrs. Boxer, but I do believe that won’t be allowed. Shall we be on with it? I’ll introduce you to the ladies and be off about my business for a few days, giving you and my ward time to...settle in. You’ll be safe here. In every way.”

“Her name is Marley, and we’re both in mourning. It would be highly improper for us, me most especially, to go into Society.”

“I’m convinced John would understand, under the circumstances. Well, Mrs. Boxer? I don’t hear any argument coming from your direction, which is refreshing.”

“That’s only because you’re correct. John specifically asked that Marley not be subjected to a year of mourning.”

“And?”

“And I agreed,” she muttered before Clarice Goodfellow, never one to wait patiently for anything, came at them, all but cooing in pleasure over the smiling Marley she carried along with her, the child’s legs wrapped around her hip.

Darby quickly counted noses. Besides the duchess and Clarice, Minerva Townsend was present, along with Gabe’s Thea and Coop’s Dany. More than needed for a witches’ coven.

Five against one. Seven, if he counted Sadie and Marley.

Darby introduced, bowed, kissed hands and excused himself within five minutes, lamenting that he could no longer keep his cattle standing.

Marley, he was certain, was the only one who didn’t know he was lying through his teeth.

CHAPTER FOUR

WHAT A DIFFERENCE a few days can make. From sorrowful country mouse, to panicked hare on the run, to pampered pet curled up snug as a bug in a rug in the middle of fashionable Mayfair, Sadie’s entire life had seen change after rapid change.

Could she relax now? It seemed so, at least for the moment. Except, of course, for the fact that Marley’s curious guardian had been noticeably absent for five entire days, but would be calling on Sadie in a few minutes, supposedly to take her for a stroll in the square.

What pleasant surroundings for what was sure to be an inquisition, at least thankfully without the thumbscrews or rack.

Five days. More than enough time for him to have stuck his nose where she wished it would never go. Time to think up a dozen questions she’d have to answer without hesitation, without fear. Without telling him the whole truth.

“Did you kill him?”

Yes, her days with the ladies had been chaotic, bordering on delightful, but her nights had been filled with those four carelessly drawled words and the memories they evoked.

The viscount had this way about him, Sadie had decided. Even in such short acquaintance, she had recognized his intelligence, for one, and his curiosity, for another. He had a rather silken way about him, saying things that seemed innocuous and even slightly silly on the surface, but with an intensity of purpose behind every carefully careless thing he said. He didn’t goad her, as he’d done at the cottage, because he was a mean man, but because she hadn’t had sufficient time to produce a more convincing story, and he had seen straight through her.

Not to the lies themselves, thank goodness, but to the fact she was telling them.

She’d actually believed herself to be on relatively solid ground until he’d asked her why he should believe her as to Marley’s identity, her own identity. He’d certainly had every right to ask the question, but she hadn’t been prepared to have her word doubted. She had proof, certainly she did, but to show it to him would open the door to everything else.

“There you are, Sadie. He’s downstairs. Don’t forget your new cloak and bonnet. And just you wait until you see what he’s brought with him!”

Sadie snapped out of her uncomfortable reverie, surreptitiously wiped at her damp cheeks and unfolded herself from the window seat overlooking the mews. Smoothing down the same light blue morning gown she’d worn the first time she’d met the viscount, she looked at Clarice, who was all but hopping from one foot to the other, apparently in some anticipation.

What a lovable creature she was, and lovely into the bargain, from her blond curls to her saucer-size blue eyes, to her...interestingly curved figure. But it was her open and carefree nature that made Sadie feel so comfortable around her, and she knew she had found a friend.

Clarice Goodfellow viewed most everything to be either delicious or wonderfully exciting and worthy of exclamations—be it the materials the ladies had picked for Sadie’s and Marley’s new wardrobes or the fact that the Cranbrook chef had prepared sugared berries for dessert.

“My goodness, Clarice, did the man bring a pony with him, or perhaps a monkey on a chain?”

Her new friend looked crestfallen for a moment. “No, neither of those.” Just as quickly, she brightened once more. “But very nearly as wonderful.”

Sadie patted at her hair as she did a quick inventory of her appearance in the mirror—she must have looked into the mirror more often since arriving at the cottage than she had done in her entire life—picked up her borrowed cloak and bonnet and followed Clarice out into the hallway. “Then we must settle for very nearly as wonderful. I will do my utmost to hide my disappointment.”

“Oh, he didn’t bring anything for you, silly. He brought it for Marley.”

Sadie found herself tipping her head slightly and smiling. The viscount had brought a gift—a very nearly as wonderful as a pony or a monkey gift—for his new ward? Wasn’t that sweet. And thoughtful. Perhaps she’d been judging him too harshly, and he was more delighted to have a ward thrust upon him than he was interested in asking questions.

No, she doubted that. He had probably brought the gift just so that she would relax, feel in charity with him, and then he’d start in on the questions once more.

Oh, he was a tricky sort. And not above using Marley to get to her, soothe her into lowering her guard, even liking him. She’d thought he’d assign the ladies the mission of asking penetrating questions, assuming she would tell women things she would not tell him. They’d gathered around like mother hens over Marley, and taken Sadie into their circle without a blink. She had never much cared for the company of women, truth be told, but these ladies were so open, so sincere and definitely unique that Sadie probably would have confided in them if they’d asked.

Yet none of them had, not in five whole days.

“You’ve been lulled into feeling comfortable, Sadie Grace. This unexpected gift to Marley is probably the man’s coup de grâce, and he’ll expect you to spout the truth now like a garden fountain.”

“You said something, Sadie?” Clarice asked from behind her.

“Just cudgeling my brain as to what this gift could be,” she answered, realizing she still had her hand on the newel post, and had not begun a descent to the lower floor.

“There’s only one way to find out, you know, and dragging your feet like some silly looby isn’t one of them. Come on now, it doesn’t bite. Well, at least it hasn’t yet. Follow me.”

Clarice brushed past her, leaving Sadie to follow. But slowly. She was girding her loins, or stiffening her upper lip, or whatever anyone could hope to do when faced with a worthy adversary.

But she possessed her own measure of intelligence. She had long ago cultivated a rather admirable backbone. She had to remember that; she was not without defenses of her own. The viscount was no match for her, not when she didn’t allow herself to be distracted by anything. Not by this so-called gift. Not by the generous inclusion offered by the ladies. Not by the soft bed, nor the more than ample meals. Not the new gowns she and Marley would soon have hanging in their wardrobes.

And most certainly not the smiling, one-eyed viscount who was much too attractive for her to think about him the way she had been these last days, just as if she’d never before encountered anyone quite like him.

Even if she hadn’t.

Sadie approached the drawing room slowly, listening to the voices coming from the interior, and paused in the doorway to see the duchess, Clarice and Mrs. Townsend all leaning forward in their seats, looking at something on the floor.

Someone on the floor.

The viscount, clad in his impeccable London finery, was actually sitting cross-legged on the carpet, watching as Marley sat there, as well, attempting to hold on to a squiggly tan puppy with long drooping ears and a tongue currently employed in placing slobbering kisses all over her niece’s face.

“Oh, stop, puppy, stop!” Marley exclaimed, still holding on tightly. “That tickles!”

“Perhaps if you let him go he’d stop,” the viscount suggested, his smile easy and relaxed.

He looks younger again, the way he did with the pillow marks on his cheek. And he genuinely seems to be enjoying himself.

Marley tightened her grip on the puppy, and Sadie quickly recognized a now-familiar panic rising in the child. She would have gone to her, but wanted to see how His Lordship reacted to this new problem. Besides, the shin-kicking episode was still fresh in her mind. With her aunt by her side, Marley might just feel protected enough to say or do something that would ruin the lovely scene.

“Go on, sweetheart,” Clarice soothed as she settled into a chair. “He really seems to want to roam now.”

“You won’t take him away, will you? He gets to stay with me forever and ever, doesn’t he? Auntie Vivien,” she implored, looking to the duchess, “he’s my puppy now, isn’t he? He won’t go away?”

Even as the duchess and the other women all spoke at once, fervently agreeing the puppy would stay (Clarice adding, “Even if he pids on the carpets”), the viscount inched closer to Marley, patting the dog’s golden head.

“Marley, look at me, please,” he said quietly.

The child sniffled, but then did as she was told.

Sadie held her breath.

“I told you the puppy is yours, didn’t I? I wouldn’t lie to you, on my word as a gentleman. I realize you don’t know me well, but I trust the good ladies here will vouch for me.”

As one, the ladies “vouched.”

“Thank you, ladies. Do you believe me now?”

Marley bit her bottom lip, but then nodded. “I suppose so, Darby.”

Dear Lord, he had the child calling him Darby? Against her wishes to the contrary? First the puppy, and now the unseemly informality. What next from this unpredictable man? Would he bounce her niece on his knee while reciting nursery rhymes?

The viscount held out his arms and the child released her death grip so that he could deposit the fuzzy and undoubtedly relieved little thing on the carpet, where, as if fulfilling a prophecy, he immediately sniffed the carpet and then piddled.

He was a small puppy, so it was a small piddle, and nobody commented.

“Good. And now that that’s settled, perhaps you’d feel even better if you gave this scamp here a name. We can’t keep calling him ‘puppy,’ now can we? Do you have a name in mind? Reginald, perhaps?”

Once again the ladies spoke in near-unison:

“George, after our beloved king.”

“Bouncer. See how he bounces when he walks?”

“Major. Look at those paws. He may be small now, but he’ll grow. He needs a name worthy of the man—that is, the dog he will become.”

“I shall name him Max,” Marley announced above the friendly argument.

There was an immediate chorus of agreement. Sadie imagined the ladies would have lauded the choice if her niece had chosen to name the thing Doorstop.

But did she have to pick Max?

“Max,” the viscount repeated, looking to Sadie, proving he’d known she’d been standing some distance away all along.

Did she look like someone whose stomach had just hit the floor?

“His name is Max,” Marley said again, rather forcefully this time. “Max is a very good name for a dog. Papa named his dog Max, so this one will be Max, as well. Only I won’t let this Max escape his leash and get run down by a cart, or leave me the way Papa did. Mama died, too, but I don’t remember her. You promised, Darby.”

The ladies variously sighed, or dabbed at their eyes or, in the case of Minerva Townsend, loudly blew into a handkerchief.

“Then it’s agreed,” the viscount said, again looking toward Sadie.

Had he noticed that she’d backed up two paces since he’d last glanced her way?

The duchess, carefully keeping her skirts out of reach of the dog, asked Marley if this Max looked like the last Max. “I know your uncle Basil gave the same name to two of our birds, but that was only because we had so many that he forgot we already had a Punjab. Extremely common name, Punjab. Well, at least in some areas. I believe we were in—but that doesn’t matter at the moment, does it, Minerva, so you can stop worrying that I’m about to launch into a story not fit for young ears.”

“I know I’ll hear it later,” the lady grumbled, and sat back on her chair, clearly finished with the subject. “Just don’t linger on the birds and leave out the good parts.”

Marley, seemingly oblivious to everything save the duchess’s first question, shook her head, her newly trimmed blond curls swinging about her cheeks. “Max was so big I could ride on him. Papa said he looked like a horse, so that was all right, at least until I grew.”

Sadie backed up another step, turned her head to judge how far she was from the hallway, the stairs.

The dratted man couldn’t have brought her a kitten, could he? Or even a monkey.

The viscount scooped up the puppy and returned it to Marley’s arms. “I’ve recently purchased a very handsome black horse. Was he perhaps black, this horse of yours?”

Marley began petting the puppy. “No, Max was brown, but much browner than this. And he had little ears that stood up, and white feet like the grocer’s wagon horse, and some white on his face even though a lot of it was black. Papa called him sleek. He was so handsome.”

“Brown—clearly dark brown,” Clarice said, apparently enjoying a puzzle. “White feet, black muzzle—oh, and small ears. Do you know what I think? I think Marley means the dog was a boxer. My cousin Lester had a pair of them for hunting. Handsome things, when they weren’t slobbering all over my shoes.”

Sadie had resumed covertly backing up when the viscount asked the color of the dog.

She’d turned toward the foyer at the words even though a lot of it was black.

And she had tossed both cloak and bonnet in the general direction of one of the duke’s footmen before she’d hitched up her skirts and was already halfway up the stairs as Clarice had clapped her hands and asked, “Do you know what I think?”

By the time she reached the landing she could hear the viscount’s Hessians on the marble stairs, and increased her pace, praying there was a key on her side of the bedchamber door.

Skirts still above her ankles, she ran down the hallway, sliding around a corner thanks to a small rug on the floor that apparently wanted to travel along with her.

“Whoa there, Sadie. In a rush, are you?”

She skidded to a halt. “Your Grace,” she gasped, dropping into a curtsy as she came face-to-face with the Duke of Cranbrook. “I’m so sorry. I forgot something in my room. Please excuse me.”

“Yes, yes, run along. I’m only sorry to have impeded your progress.”

“Oh, no, Your Grace, you haven’t—” The footsteps were getting closer. “Yes, thank you.”

As she picked up her pace she could hear the viscount’s voice, but not his words. His tone was light, even friendly. He was probably attempting to talk his way around the duke, which certainly wouldn’t happen. She stopped, leaning her back against the wall, her chest heaving after her effort, sure the duke would turn the man around and send him about his business, for he certainly had no business in this private area of the mansion.

“Sadie? Why, yes, son, she just blew past me as if shot out of a cannon, matter of fact. You two up to some mischief? A little hide-then-seek, eh? I remember those days with my Viv like it was yesterday. Come to think of it, it was last week, when Clarice and her Rigby were out for a drive. Don’t worry, son, I’ll keep mum. Us men have to stick together, don’t we? Just go to the end of the hall and turn to your right—mind the carpet, it slips—and then the third door down.”

Shock that the duke would aid and abet, as it were, seemed to have stuck Sadie’s shoes to the floor. Admittedly, she wasn’t as shocked as she would have been five days ago, since the duke and duchess were quite open with their affection (“randy as a pair of old goats,” Clarice had called them, winking).

Then she was off again, realizing for the first time how long the hallway was and how defenseless she seemed to be. She hadn’t heard any of the ladies following, calling after the viscount, and now the duke had as well as given the dratted man carte blanche.

Her original plan of hiding behind the locked door of her bedchamber seemed ridiculous now, if the viscount had dared come this far. He’d probably just bellow through the door and everyone would know what she had done.

So thinking, she left the door open behind her and hastily flung herself into a pink-and-white flowered slipper chair, folding her hands in front of her as she attempted to catch her breath.

She heard his footsteps, the hunter carefully approaching his prey.

He did in fact stop just in front of the opening, very nearly posing there, drat him, and then so unnecessarily knocked on the wooden door before stepping inside and closing the thing behind him.

Now she knew how the mouse felt when the cat had it cornered.

“With your kind permission, Mrs. Boxer,” he drawled before dragging the desk chair into the center of the large room and sitting down, his long legs crossed at the ankle, his arms folded against his chest.

“Let me think for a moment. You are without a husband. And, in almost the very next breath, you told me Maxwell died two years ago,” he said.

He had a memory as good as Marley’s, drat him!

“Both truthful statements, yes. Um, taken separately, that is.”

“So you didn’t lie to me. Precisely.”

“No, I did not. Not precisely.” Her heart was pounding half out of her chest. If the man became any more relaxed he might slide right out of the chair!

“Pardon me if I don’t figuratively shower you in rose petals in reward for your selective honesty.”

He had every right to be angry. Incensed. And yet he seemed somehow pleased. What was wrong with the man?

“I had a reason.”

“Oh, I’m certain you did, and a prodigiously good one at that. Please share it with me. I’m all agog to know.”

“Not if you continue to be so facetious. And...and smug. I would have told you. Eventually. Someday. If left with no other—and now you’re grinning. How dare you!”

“I dare, madam, because you’re not married, have never been married and are definitely not a widow. You certainly aren’t a Boxer. So what do I call you now?”

“I don’t believe we have a choice, unless you want to tell those kind ladies downstairs that they’ve been lied to, which I sincerely do not wish to do. Especially after the duchess and Clarice, believing me widowed, insisted on sharing some rather, um, pointed jokes about the joys of...”

He was sitting forward now. “Yes? The joys of what, Sadie? I’ve settled on informality, you’ll notice.”

“They considered me equally...experienced. And I won’t say any more than that because it would only make you happy. I just thank heaven I spent enough time in my brother’s surgery to understand what they were referring to much of the time.”

“Pertaining to the male anatomy, I’ll assume. When you dig a hole, Sadie Grace Whomever, you dig it deep, don’t you? I suppose we should both thank your lucky stars that Maxwell wasn’t a Pomeranian.”

Sadie’s mouth twitched upward at the corners, but only for a second. There was much more to come, and she knew it. He was being entirely too congenial for a man who’d been tricked into thinking of her as Mrs. Boxer, addressing her as Mrs. Boxer in conversation, introducing her to his friends as Mrs. Boxer. In fact, he should be hopping mad!

So why wasn’t he?

“I shouldn’t mention this, as it reveals my sad lack of trust in you, but I wasted a good part of the last four evenings pestering friends and acquaintances, hoping one of them would remember a Maxwell Boxer, perhaps from the war. Oddly enough, none did.”

“You can’t blame me for your suspicious nature, my lord,” Sadie pointed out, because she could take his facetious and raise him two trumps, blast him!

“I suppose you have me there.” He put his thumb to his cheek and stretched out his fingers to begin massaging his forehead above his left eye. His lips thinned noticeably and his complexion had gone rather pale.

For all his outward composure, clearly inside he was struggling to control his temper. She’d given him the headache, and felt instantly ashamed.

She rushed to explain.

“Marley is John’s daughter—I didn’t lie about that. She’s here because John instructed me to bring her to you. And I’m John’s sister, just as I said I am. Sadie Grace Hamilton. I simply felt it safer to travel the public coach as a soldier’s widow than as who I am, that’s all.”

He looked at her with his one eye. That single piercing blue eye. What was he waiting for now?

“Now you want to know why I simply didn’t identify myself in my letter. I...I felt I had a good reason for that. It seemed sensible to have my letter to you carry more weight than one penned by a grieving sister.”

He was still staring.

She squirmed in her seat. What else did he want her to say?

And why couldn’t she simply shut up?

“And yes, I will say it did occur to me the precariousness of my position. I was bringing my niece to what I believed, rightly, to be a male household. Alone as I was, with only a child with me, I did not want to be perceived as...as fair game.”

At last, a reaction.

He allowed his hand to drop into his lap. “By me? Good God, woman, what in bloody hell did John tell you about me?”

“Lovely things, all of them,” she hastened to assure him. “But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t, am not, an unmarried woman straight from the country, with limited resources of my own, without the slightest protection and determined to do anything I could to assure my niece’s well-being.”

“And safety. Let’s not forget her safety, as that’s what piqued my curiosity in the first place. Are we finished now? Is there anything else I should know?”

Sadie thought for a moment. Was there anything else she should tell him? Probably. Anything else she wanted to tell him? No, definitely not.

“Yes, there is. I want you to know that I have agonized over what I’ve done and am heartily sorry. My plan was hastily formed and badly flawed. And...despicable.”

“Surely not despicable. Unfortunate perhaps. Poorly conceived. Misleading at the least, and maddening at the most. You’ve caused me several uncomfortable hours, Sadie Grace, for reasons I will not discuss. Yet at the same time, you’ve eased my mind considerably. You are who you say you are. Marley is whom you say she is. I suppose I’d rather your misguided lies than know I’ve foisted a pair of imposters upon my friends.”

“How you comfort me.”

“I won’t even point out that your last remark could be construed as facetious. I’m a gentleman that way. Now we will put all of this behind us. She likes the dog, you know,” he said. “The stable bitch whelped over a month ago, and suddenly it struck me that Marley might feel safer with a companion. I think I did well.”

“You could have brought her a kitten. A female kitten,” Sadie pointed out, getting to her feet, so that he did also. “It would have made everything so much easier.”

“Don’t look a gift puppy in the mouth. You’ve saved yourself a rather intense grilling, Sadie, and should be thankful Marley and the ladies were present when the magic penny finally was dropped into my suspicious brain.”

Was that it? Was he done? She’d like to believe so.

“I suppose I did, yes. I knew you didn’t believe me. I’m...I’m not at all used to not being taken at my word. It came as a terrible shock, especially when I realized you had to either take my word on faith or toss us both back into the streets. I began to regret my lie in earnest then.”

“I wouldn’t relax just yet. I’m fairly certain those ladies downstairs have been busy putting two and two together and coming up with a solid four. In other words, no, you can’t continue as Mrs. Boxer. You have considerable explaining to do, I’m afraid, but I know they’ll keep your secret.”

“I’d much rather hide in shame up here for eternity than disappoint them, but if I must, I must. I imagine they’re appalled to know I haven’t been totally honest with them.”

Now Darby actually laughed out loud. “On the contrary. Knowing the ladies, I imagine they’ll be too busy complimenting you before pointing out ways you could have done it better. But we can discuss this in greater depth once we’re out of this room and safely public in the square. For now, let’s go see how Marley and Max are rubbing along.”

She was more than happy to leave the subject of her lies behind them, and latched on to the subject of the puppies. “You said a litter, didn’t you? What are you doing with the rest of them?”

“Naturally, needing only the one, I had the rest drowned in a bucket. Is that what you want to hear?”

Since her relief wasn’t exactly total, she could forgive him for his lingering anger.

“I’m not that eager to make you into a monster, my lord. I only hope they find good homes if you can’t keep them in the stables.”

“There were only four. Arrangements were made. Come along, we were going for a stroll, remember?”

Sadie looked at the closed door in horror as another thought struck her with the force of a slap to the face. “You followed me upstairs. They all saw you. The duke saw you. We’ve been gone for a long time. What are they thinking? Oh, Lord, Clarice will giggle, and the duchess will probably ask me outrageous questions. Or worse, wink at me.”

“I applaud you on your belated ability to see too late what you should have realized sooner. But I’m afraid it’s worse than that. It was one thing for me to have a private talk with the widow Boxer, my ward’s aunt. Not precisely proper, considering this is your bedchamber, but rules are meant to be bent. Some of them, but not all.”

Sadie felt a figurative pit opening beneath her feet.

“But that’s ridiculous. You can’t possibly mean—”

“No, actually, I don’t. Knowing these particular ladies as I do, I imagine they’d all think it simply deliciously naughty. Lord knows the duchess doesn’t care a snap for convention. Coop’s mother believes conventions were invented by men simply to annoy women, and Clarice, bless her, has no real idea as to what they are.”

Sadie sagged back into the chair. “Thank God. For a moment I thought—”

“You thought I’d say convention dictates that we marry. Yes, I know. However, the idea has merit. Speaking practically.”

Sadie believed her eyes just might pop out of her head.

“I beg your—what?” To look any more smug he’d have to push out his chest like a pouter pigeon, drat him.

“Speaking practically,” he repeated, retaking his own seat. “Marley is now mine. You? You’re rather just floating about, aren’t you? Neither here nor there, neither fish nor fowl, as it were. The aunt. The spinster aunt, well past her first blush of youth.”

“I beg your pardon!”

“You cut your wisdoms years ago, Sadie Grace, even if you are not yet at your last prayers. I can’t hire you as governess and pretend you are no more than a paid employee, not when you’re the aunt. I can’t allow you to wander about my household in the aforementioned neither fish nor fowl category until Marley is grown and gone—or until you molt. If I were to marry, how on earth would I explain you to my bride? Oh, and one thing more—I’ll be damned if I’ll give you a Season. So what does that leave us, Sadie Grace, hmm?”

“You can’t mean this.”

“I can’t do myriad things. I can’t fly. I can’t swim across an ocean. I can’t pat my head and rub my stomach at one and the same time—but you might want to apply to Rigby on that one, as he believes the feat extraordinary when he does it. I can, however, see the merit in a marriage of convenience between us. Purely a business arrangement. And think how pleased Marley will be, to know for certain that you’re not going to leave her. Consider the child, Sadie Grace.”

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Oh, come now, am I that terrible? I’m fairly attractive, even with the patch. My teeth are good, I bathe on a regular basis and am complimented on my abilities on the dance floor. Oh, yes, I’m also so very wealthy I could grow old just counting my money. In short, I’m quite the coup.”

“And so modest with it all, although I suppose I do appreciate the bathe regularly part of your self-serving description. You did, however, neglect to mention that you can be exceedingly annoying, entirely too enthralled by your own wit, not to exclude the fact that you don’t really do anything, do you, my lord?”

“Do anything? I’m a viscount. That’s what I do.”

Why couldn’t she stop talking? Was she trying to get herself booted out the door?

“That was an accident of birth. But what have you done that you can point to and say, ‘I did this thing. I made this difference’?”

He pushed at his left temple. “Are we having our first fight, Sadie Grace?”

“Do you feel useful, my lord?”

“At the moment? No. Shall we make it a part of our business arrangement that you save me from my feckless ways and point my toes in the direction of good works?”

“There could be worse fates,” Sadie said, suddenly feeling more in control of her own future, which she hadn’t done for a long, long time. “I do not wish for Marley to grow up believing she is nothing more than a fashionable ornament.”

“So you’re accepting my proposal?”

She looked at him curiously. Why so suddenly formal? “I thought I had no real choice.”

“There are always choices, Sadie Grace. I need to hear you tell me that we will marry.”

“Perhaps you’d like me to write it down?” she asked, yes, facetiously.

“I’ve already seen one example of your letter-writing skills. A simple yes will do.”

“Very well, then,” she said, getting to her feet once more. “Yes. Yes, my lord, I agree to our arrangement.”

“Not my lord, but Darby,” he said as he rose, as well. “And I like to think of our marriage more as a bargain, with benefits on both sides.”

“That only seems fair. A bargain, with benefits on both sides, I imagine, although I’m not quite certain what you believe to be your benefits. But we really must rejoin the ladies now.”

He followed behind her, down the hallway, down the stairs, and only said as they stepped into the drawing room: “About my benefits, Sadie Grace. Did I perhaps fail to mention that I’ll want an heir?”

CHAPTER FIVE

THE AIR WAS COOL, the breeze brisk, but most of Grosvenor Square was still washed in sunshine, making a stroll reasonably pleasant. Save for a few nannies and their charges, the area was also conveniently devoid of possible interruptions. Residents of the square who did leave their homes headed directly into carriages, and visitors to the square did much the same in reverse.

Society was social only when it wanted to be, and when it had specific destinations in mind it might as well be wearing blinders.

Darby had counted on that when he’d first suggested the stroll. Propriety ensured, the chance of interruption slight, Mrs. Boxer feeling assured she was within easy reach of the duke’s mansion, the safety of her new friends.

Now he could kiss Miss Sadie Grace Hamilton senseless smack in the middle of the square and, save for a few raised eyebrows and giggles from the nursemaids, nobody would so much as give a damn.

And the stroll no longer a reason for an inquisition meant to pry her secrets out of her. What a lucky turn of events bringing the puppy to Marley had been, but then Darby knew himself to be a lucky man.

A lucky, apparently useless grasshopper of a man in Sadie’s eyes.

“You have the headache again,” Sadie said, the first words she’d spoken since they’d escaped the mansion ten minutes earlier. “And again, it’s my fault.”

Darby realized he was rubbing at his forehead beneath his curly crowned beaver and quickly dropped his arm to his side. Yes, he had the headache. The familiar vise had gripped his head while they were still in her bedchamber, and he doubted it would let go anytime soon.

“I believe there’s enough blame to go around.”

“You’re correct. There is. You certainly didn’t have to take my hand and drag me into the drawing room to announce that we had realized our attraction and were now betrothed. You made it sound as if we had been upstairs all that time because we were being...being...”

“Indiscreet. Try that one. Anyone who can’t think beyond Maxwell Boxer probably needs all the assistance she can get.”

“You can stop chewing at that bone now, my lord, if you’ll pardon the canine reference. I know what I did, and it wasn’t my most shining hour. However, indiscreet only serves to pretty up what they all must have been thinking.”

“You’ll have to admit it certainly eased us through your small deception without much trouble, as the ladies were so delighted to hear our other news. Apparently you’ve found new friends there.”

“Your friends were no help when they arrived with their ladies. Patting you on the back and congratulating you. I would think gentlemen would stand together.”

“You mistake them. They did stand together, believing they know what’s best for me, most especially since their ladies, as you refer to Thea and Dany, clearly approved. If each of them weren’t so obviously in love I’d think they were of the belief that misery enjoys company.”

“Or perhaps it was revenge for the puppies.”

Darby smiled. Gabe, Coop and Rigby had all arrived during the time he and Sadie had been absent. With them, they’d brought their gifts from him, the remaining spaniels in the litter, just so recently delivered to each of their domiciles with the viscount’s compliments.

The ladies were delighted. Marley was nearly over the moon when all the puppies were put on the carpet and they immediately began crawling over her, licking her, reducing her to helpless giggles.

It had felt so strangely wonderful to hear Marley’s giggles. That was what childhood should be. A time of giggles and puppies. And innocence. Or so he would like to believe.

“Shameless toadeater,” Gabe had said to him jokingly as the four men stood together, away from the fray, “making certain all the ladies love you. Now explain yourself. How the devil did you go from reluctant guardian to engaged man in five short days?”

Later, he’d promised them, over drinks at their club, and before Sadie was happily attacked by the ladies, much like Marley had been by the puppies, he managed to extricate her and, well, here they were.

He’d left Sadie to contemplate her future, their future, as they circled the square, but now it was time to move on to the next step. She hadn’t responded to his whispered announcement to her that he expected an heir from their bargain, but he was in no rush to push her on the subject. After all, he did know how to nudge...

“I gave the ladies only vague instructions. How many gowns did you order?”

“I have not ordered any gowns. I never asked for any gowns. Or the shoes, or the gloves or the bonnets or the scarves or the cloaks or reticules. I did not agree to having my hair trimmed, nor my fingernails buffed. I neither need nor want anything.”

“All right,” he said, trying not to smile. “Let me rephrase that. How many gowns—and the rest of it—have the ladies ordered for you?”

Sadie sighed. “Too many, too much. And for Marley, as well, but I saw the point in that, as she is growing very quickly right now and complained that her half boots have begun to pinch. The duchess assured me every piece was necessary, or else I would be an embarrassment to you, as your ward’s aunt. All the bills for the small army of tradespeople who have been tracking in and out of the mansion these past days will be sent to your direction. I should thank you, I know, and I do, but please understand I only agreed because of Marley.”

“Yes, Marley appears to be at the center of everything you and I have done these past days. So young and defenseless, and so clearly troubled. John’s death affected her greatly, didn’t it? I would imagine it would, at her age.”

I know it would, at her age. But I won’t think about that. I never think about that.

He guided Sadie to one of the benches situated along the square and invited her to sit down, then spread his coattails and sat beside her.

“She’s afraid. You’ve noticed that, as well. Susan, Marley’s mother, passed away when Marley was only just three, and she barely remembers her, which is sad in itself. I did my best to step in for her, coming to live with them, helping in John’s surgery, taking it over for the time he was away and...and until he died.”

She seemed open to telling him things now, so he decided to see just how much information might be forthcoming. “You never mentioned where John and Marley lived. Where he had his surgery.”

She looked up at him curiously, and he noticed that her eyes were shining with unshed tears. It hadn’t been the best of days for her, not for a many number of weeks and months, and he felt his heart soften toward her. She was quietly brave, and he admired her for that, as well. He could even forgive her lies—her one lie, for that’s all it had been, really. She had done what she had thought best under the circumstances. As had he, come to think of the thing.

Careful, Darby, you’re in danger of turning into a softhearted ninny. What would your friends have to say if they suspected any such nonsense? Well, that’s simple enough. They’d think you’d once again fallen into a mud puddle only to come up smelling like the first roses of spring, that’s what they’d think, because Sadie Grace is an exceedingly beautiful woman, apparently both inside and out.

“I didn’t? I certainly wasn’t hiding that information. We resided in Dibden, in Hampshire. I doubt you’ve heard of it.”

Darby shook his head slightly, for he’d gotten lost in his own thoughts and for a moment didn’t have the faintest idea what Sadie was saying. “Oh, Dibden. No, I can’t say that I’ve heard of the place. Not quite the thriving metropolis, I’ll assume. But you didn’t always live there?”

“No. I remained in our parents’ cottage in Huyton, not much distance from Liverpool, after they’d passed, happy with a small allowance. Papa had been a tutor and Mama a fine seamstress, and they left me as well-provided-for as they could. But that was only until Susan died. I’m a country mouse, and content. I’ve really never been anywhere, and yet now here I am in London, and soon to be a viscountess. I still can’t quite imagine it. You’re marrying quite beneath you, my lord Nailbourne, but with your friends’ support, I believe there’s still time for you to come to your senses. Ah, and here they come now, marching to your defense, I should hope.”

Darby looked across the square to see Gabe and Coop approaching, Rigby and his Clarice bringing up the rear. He suppressed a smile at the sight of Rigby’s betrothed, who apparently had discovered a love for furs, as the ermine muff she carried rivaled the size of a bandbox. She certainly had adapted well to her new station in life.

“Miss Hamilton,” Gabriel Sinclair intoned, bowing in her direction, as did the others, while Clarice shooed Darby from his seat and quickly occupied it, giving a surprised Sadie a quick hug that left her to surreptitiously pick a few bits of ermine fluff from her tongue.

“Excuse us, Sadie,” Darby said as he joined his friends a safe distance away from Clarice’s happy chatter. “Gentlemen? You’ve come to thank me for the puppies?”

“What?” the red-haired Rigby said, momentarily confused. “Oh, yes, yes, indeed, the puppy. Quite the surprise, that. Not so much as Gabe’s birds, but Clarice is happy enough. Can’t walk a parrot in the park, you know, although Lord knows we did the next best thing. Clary’s already named him Goodfellow. Er, yes, thank you very much.”

That was the beauty of Jeremy Rigby; he was easily distracted.

Gabe and Coop, however, were not.

“You want to tell us what the devil’s going on?” Gabe asked.

“Why, Gabe, gentlemen, whatever would make you think something is going on? I will admit I have only a faint hope that the ladies swallowed that farradiddle about Sadie and I discovering a mutual affection, but they won’t question it. In truth, Miss Hamilton made a foolish mistake, I committed a worse faux pas, thus compounding the error, and now we are constrained to marry. It happens every day. Or at least it seems to. As I recall, Gabe, it nearly happened to you. Oh, wait a moment, it did. To both of you, to one degree or another. I suppose I’m simply following in your footsteps, taking my hints from watching you.”

“Thea was deliberately putting herself in danger. I had no choice.”

“There are always choices, Gabe. And you, Coop, you and Dany were on your way to the altar within four and twenty hours of your first meeting, which I was so fortunate to witness.”

“There were unusual circumstances, and you know it, and the engagement was meant only as a ploy, a temporary solution.”

“I was rather in on that, as well, wasn’t I? Perhaps the fates are having their fun with me now, as a sort of punishment. Do you think we’ll tumble into love when we least expect it, Sadie and I, as you fellows did? I doubt it, but at least my ward won’t have to worry about losing her aunt.”

“Yes, at the bottom of it, it’s the child, isn’t it,” Coop remarked, not as a question, but as a statement he felt certain was correct. He always had been the most levelheaded of their group. “This all has something to do with John’s orphaned daughter.”

“It may also have something to do with the obvious beauty of that young lady over there.”

“I admit to an attraction, Gabe, yes,” Darby said, laughing. “In fact, marriage to Sadie has seemed the only logical solution since we first met, if she’s to become a part of my household, and clearly Marley loves her. The events of this morning only gave me an opportunity to avail myself of that solution. There. Are you all happier now? I’m not exactly throwing myself away strictly for the child, or on impulse. I may have only the one eye, but it sees quite well.”

“But marriage, Darby?” Gabe shook his head. “Out of your own mouth, you didn’t even know her true name an hour ago, if she really is John’s sister. We’d hate to see you hoodwinked.”

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