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  “You obviously didn’t listen to what I said. No lady of quality would remain for one second in a private parlor with a stranger at an inn. Especially when that stranger is as regrettably foxed as I am at this instant.”

  “Then perhaps I should introduce myself, sir—”

  “Please leave, young lady!” His eyes closed for a moment as if in pain. “For you must be either a schoolgirl or a hussy. Either way we shall both regret it if you stay a moment longer.”

  “Stuff!” Eleanor said. “This is a perfectly respectable inn. Your dress is that of a gentleman. Surely you can remain on your sofa while I search for my locket?”

  “Ah,” the man said softly. “Then this is what you were looking for?”

  He sat up in a remarkably smooth, fluid movement and held out something on the palm of his hand. Eleanor recognized it instantly.

  “Thank heavens! Yes, that’s mine and I’m very glad to have it back. My brother gave it to me.”

  There was the slightest change in his expression, but the subtle voice betrayed nothing.

  “Then the handsome devil whose miniature lies inside is your brother? And the beautiful blonde—”

  “Is his wife, Helena. Now if you would be so kind as to restore my property to me forthwith?”

  Eleanor marched boldly up to the man and held out her hand.

  “Dear lady,” the cultured voice said lazily, while his gaze swept over her. “Do you know that your pulse is very fast and that something remarkably erratic has happened to your breathing?”

  “If it has, it’s because I am understandably nervous.” Eleanor could feel herself getting flushed, but only with annoyance. “Whether you are drunk or not, sir, you are behaving disgracefully.”

  “Nowhere near as disgracefully as I am about to behave,” the stranger said with a sudden grin.

  Before Eleanor had time to react, he had grasped her outstretched hand and pulled her onto the couch beside him. She landed against his chest in a flurry of sprigged muslin, one hand still imprisoned by his, the other clutching desperately at her shawl. He bent her head back against his arm.

  Firm fingers ran gently over her hair before smoothing down the curve of her cheek.

  “You have the most beautiful skin I have ever touched,” the man said as with his other hand he very carefully pulled away her shawl.

  Chapter 2

  Eleanor didn’t struggle, though she knew in the last coherent thought left to her that she should. Instead it was as if a paralysis had seized her and the whole world was moving as slowly as a trail of smoke from a faraway chimney.

  His mouth smiled above hers, his lips carved like a sculpture, firm and smooth. Black lashes swept down over eyes the color of violets. Slowly, slowly, his fingers inched her shawl aside. Silk slid across her naked back, leaving her nape open to his delicate exploration.

  She stared up at his closed lids in an odd desperation, torn between a frantic need to escape and a desire so mad it left her breathless. His cheek dimpled a little, as if in secret hilarity. He had stunning bones and rich, dark hair, thick and—soft, surely? His fingertips caressed, tenderly moving up her neck, creating an oddly languorous sensation in the pit of her stomach. Longing fired in her blood, sweeping over her in a wave. What would it be like to touch this man’s lips with her own—press her mouth up to his and realize the promise of that sensual smile?

  Yet he held her lightly, almost courteously, in spite of his thumb sweetly tracing the outline of her ear.

  She did her best to gather her wits. Her mouth was free to shout for help, which would also bring down the inn staff and her mother to witness her disgrace—

  “Well,” she said instead. “Which is it?”

  The warm breath left her neck. He pulled back to look down at her, his lids very slightly slack above the blue depths of his eyes.

  “Which is what?” he said with a smile. His fingertips still caressed her throat.

  Eleanor did her best to summon every ounce of defiance. “Schoolgirl or hussy? I warn you that I shall take either description as an insult.”

  It was a devastating smile. “Hardly a hussy, in spite of your rather odd state of undress.”

  Hot blood raced to her cheeks. “Then what on earth is your excuse for showing so little respect for my reputation? For if I’m not a hussy, I must be a schoolgirl, in which case you are committing a form of robbery.”

  “No, your composure betrays you. You can hardly have come straight from the schoolroom. Not a schoolgirl, either, I think.”

  “Which shows you to be excessively wanting in judgment, for that is exactly what I am.”

  The lazy, comfortable look in his eyes disappeared. He released her, though he still smiled with wry delight.

  “I did warn you,” he said at last.

  Eleanor sat up. She clasped her shawl around her shoulders as if it were a coat of chain mail.

  “No, you didn’t. For how could a schoolgirl possibly be expected to understand what you intended?”

  “You might have been a hussy in spite of being sister to the fellow in the locket. Since your dress is unhooked and you displayed no appropriate maidenly vapors, the odds seemed to be in my favor.”

  “Your profession is to take risks?”

  The sardonic mask slipped back over his face. “Only calculated ones. I make my living at the gaming tables.”

  Eleanor stood up. Her legs trembled like saplings. “Then perhaps you should have done a little more calculating before accosting me. I am Lady Eleanor Acton, my father is the earl, and I would very much appreciate my locket.”

  Yet instead of looking impressed the gentleman with the violet eyes threw back his head and began to laugh. The sound was muted since he put both hands over his face. Hands that were extremely well made and well cared for, Eleanor noted distractedly.

  She began to back away from him toward the door.

  “No, no,” he said, suddenly regaining control. “After all your intrepid bravery, don’t leave without it.”

  He leaped to his feet. If he really was drunk, it didn’t show in his athletic movements. He was very graceful, this young man of lithe strength and lean muscles with the carved face of a Renaissance prince. He caught her hand and deposited the locket into her palm.

  “I don’t imagine that you will forgive me, Lady Eleanor,” he said. “But I might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. I’m afraid that I can’t let you leave quite yet.”

  “Why not? Am I to be ravished? I assure you that would make me kick and scream with no decorum or composure at all, before becoming hysterically vaporish, of course. But since I’m known in my family as the brown hen, I can hardly be tempting enough to someone of your undoubtedly wide experience.”

  “Do you always talk this way to gentlemen, my lady?”

  “Never. But it doesn’t seem that I’m in the presence of a gentleman, after all. You have told me that you’re a gambler and I suppose you’re also a rake? I insist on leaving this instant.”

  “Not yet.” The beautiful fingers closed on her wrist. “First you must tell me what you know about blackmail, brown hen.”

  Astonishment struck her dumb for a moment. “Blackmail?” she said at last. “Is that your game? You really are a bastard, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said, smiling. “I am.”

  “What’s your plan? To inform my family that you compromised me at the Three Feathers and then demand money to tell no one else? For God’s sake, sir! My brother would kill you.”

  “The gentleman in the locket? Richard, Lord Lenwood, heir to the Earl of Acton, yes, I know him. He’s not a terribly good shot. I pray you won’t make him challenge me, because I would kill him and then you really would never forgive me.”

  “So you knew who I was all along?”

  “Perhaps I did, and perhaps you meant your other brother, Harry? He’s reputed to be a crack shot, though I’ve never seen him with a gun. I have to admit it’s enough to give me pause, though I flatte
r myself I could match him.”

  “I also have a little brother, John, who’s excellent with a slingshot, and two sisters who would stop at nothing in my defense. And my mother stays with me in this inn, sir, and would very likely have you hanged for your conceit. Now, are you going to let me go, or am I going to have to bring the house down?”

  “Your mother the countess, Lady Acton? Oh, Lord,” he said, and laughed. “Your family name is the same as the name of the earldom, isn’t it? Which leaves us with an entire bevy of Actons and maybe more than one Jezebel among them. I told you I was foxed.”

  He bent and touched his lips to her fingers, then pulled her to him and kissed her fleetingly, just once, his mouth tender, maddeningly lovely against hers. She had drunk hot honeyed wine at Christmas, but this tasted infinitely sweeter.

  His breath was warm on her cheek as he whispered against her ear. “Get the hell out of here, brown hen, and I beg you’ll forget you ever met me.”

  * * *

  The coach rattled up the drive of Hawksley Park the following afternoon. The Countess of Acton tapped at her cheeks and checked the angle of her dashing little hat in the small mirror that she carried in her reticule. Eleanor watched her mother with an indulgent smile. It wasn’t so unusual to have sisters who outshone one in beauty, she thought a little wistfully, but for one’s own mother to be so very lovely!

  Well, the man at the inn hadn’t seemed to care if she was plain. She blushed scarlet and bit her lip. To have welcomed the advances of a self-confessed rake—obviously only using her for a moment’s amusement—did very little for her already slightly shaky pride. And his absurd threats of blackmail!

  The only thing worse was to have to admit to oneself that it had been the most interesting experience so far in a remarkably ordinary life. For Eleanor tried very hard to be honest with herself.

  The coachman called to the horses, and the carriage stopped. Moments later a footman was dropping the steps and helping the ladies from the chaise. Hawksley Park stood before them in all its Palladian glory and Lady Diana was at the door.

  “Lady Acton! I’m so glad you could come.” Diana dropped a respectful curtsy.

  The countess nodded, then swept away in a rustle of skirts.

  “Eleanor, my dear friend! I just couldn’t wait in the drawing room with Mama as I ought.” Diana grasped Eleanor by both hands. “As soon as you’ve had tea, you must come with me and I’ll show you around. You’re to have the very next bedroom to mine, so we can have the most comfortable coze imaginable.”

  Linking arms, the two girls followed the countess into the hallway, where maids and more footmen stood ready to aid the travelers.

  “I’m in the most dreadful tangle, Eleanor,” Diana whispered as soon as her friend was divested of her coat and bonnet, and they were following behind the guiding butler. “There’s no hope for me at all.”

  “Which sounds excessively melodramatic, Di. Is it something I can help you with?”

  “You kind creature! You’re always the soul of good sense. I’m just a ninny in comparison. But I’m lost this time, truly. Have you ever met someone and known right away you were meant for each other, but it could never be?”

  Eleanor shook her head. She dismissed the irrelevant image of a pair of violet eyes that came annoyingly to mind.

  “No, I haven’t. Don’t tell me you’re in love? And it’s someone your mama thinks totally ineligible?”

  Diana stopped and looked at her friend with wide blue eyes. “However did you know?”

  “Because nothing else would make you look quite so like Hapless Clara who pined away for love.”

  “Don’t make fun, please! His name’s Walter Feveril Downe. It’s a splendid name, isn’t it? We met last year when I first came out and I knew right away. He was at so many dances and dinners, but nothing was ever declared between us, of course. Yet he’s written to me.”

  “Diana! I’m shocked.” Eleanor laughed. “I’m to assume that Lady Augusta knows nothing of this and would have the vapors if she were to find out? Is he the son of a coal merchant?”

  “Eleanor, do be sensible. Of course not!” Lady Diana looked shocked to the core. “His father is Viscount Clare, but he’s a younger son and you know how Mama is.”

  “Well, no, actually I don’t, except by reputation, since I’m about to meet her for the first time. But pray, don’t sink into a final decline between here and the drawing room. If there’s anything I can do for such very deserving star-crossed lovers, you have my word to help. I’m a splendid conspirator. Being one of six children teaches you all kinds of useful skills.”

  “No, there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s hopeless, really.”

  “Surely not!” She gave Diana’s hand a little squeeze. “I know you would never really give your heart to someone ineligible. Only a creature as lost to all decency as me would do that.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  Eleanor looked at her friend’s woebegone face and laughed again. She had no idea why she had said that. “Nothing at all. I’m just trying to cheer you up. Now smile, or else I shall lose all courage to face the dragon.”

  Lady Augusta, Dowager Countess of Hawksley, did look something like a dragon, Eleanor thought as that lady sailed toward them. She had prematurely graying hair caught up beneath a cap of stiff lace shingles, and her eyes were small and sharp. Diana had certainly not inherited her lovely blue eyes from her mother. Yet Lady Hawksley wasn’t actually breathing fire. Instead, having absolutely no affection for her guests, she was preparing an effusion of greeting.

  “Ma chère Felicity!” she said, holding out both hands to Lady Acton, who had entered the room ahead of the girls. “Hawksley is honored.” Then she looked past the countess’s shoulder at her daughter. “So this is Lady Eleanor? Diana has told me so much about her. What a pity that she is not more ravissante—so unfortunate for a girl about to come out.” She continued archly in French which Eleanor had no problem translating: “Such a shame when all the beauty belongs to the mother and none to the daughter.”

  Lady Acton leaned forward and kissed the dowager countess on both cheeks, her lovely features in marked contrast to the lines of perpetual discontent on the other face.

  “Then how very gratifying for you,” she said, also in perfect French, “that in your case it’s the other way around.”

  Lady Augusta didn’t hesitate for a moment, though she returned to her native tongue. “Diana was the belle of last season, indeed. She was drowned in offers, but I believe Lord Ranking will be brought up to snuff this spring and he is to be Duke of Maybury. It would be a most appropriate match for the heiress of Hawksley Park.”

  “He has such a drooping air about him.” Lady Acton smiled. “So very elegant. I’m sure he and Lady Diana will be very happy.”

  Eleanor squeezed Diana’s arm and gave her a supportive smile, but the countesses had changed the subject.

  “Major Sir Robert St. John Crabtree sends his compliments,” Lady Augusta was saying. “And will no doubt call tomorrow. He’s the very model of courtesy. A most amiable neighbor.”

  “Then we’ll look forward to an enchanting morning, unless it should rain. We can hardly expect casual visits in bad weather.” Lady Acton sank gracefully into a chair by the fire. “On the other hand,” she continued lazily, “I believe him to be very indifferent to weather. Don’t you remember, Augusta, how the major escorted Miss Harrison from Vauxhall in that appalling storm last summer? She was almost hysterical, had forgotten her umbrella, and Sir Robert gave her his cloak. So very gallant! He was soaked to the skin.”

  “A most inelegant scene!” Lady Augusta sniffed as the maid came in with the tea tray. “Blanche Harrison should have shown more restraint. I have very little patience with any young lady so incommoding a gentleman—no doubt only about some girlish trifle.”

  A dish of tea was offered and taken, and nothing more was said about the amiable major. Eleanor was left to wonder if she had imagined the
fleeting look of genuine pleasure and anticipation on her mother’s matchless face.

  At last the girls were released from the drawing room and Eleanor could go up to her room to wash and change for dinner.

  “Who’s this Major Crabtree?” she asked Diana as they went up the great marble staircase.

  “Oh, just a neighbor. He sports the most enormous military mustaches and has some huge fortune. Deerfield is his. See, that’s it over there, near the river.”

  Eleanor stopped by the window and looked where her friend was pointing. The slightly rolling landscape stretched away into a blue haze of fields, outlined by new plantings of trees. Near the river, she could just make out the tall chimneys of an imposing edifice of red brick. It was not a great seat like Hawksley, but it was certainly more than one might expect for the residence of a retired major.

  “Is his family well connected?” she asked.

  “I really have no idea. Who cares about Crabtree? He’s old enough to be my father. He probably made a mint in India or something. Eleanor, I know there’s no time now, but I have to talk to you about Walter and we won’t be able to escape our maids for hours. I can’t marry Lord Ranking, truly, even if Mama were to get him to offer. His nose drips.”

  “Then marry your Mr. Downe. You’ll be twenty-one in the summer. Can’t you wait until then?”

  “You don’t understand. I can’t marry without the permission of the head of the family until I’m five-and-twenty, and that’s Mama. If only I’d been born a boy! Then I’d be the earl and could marry as I liked. I wouldn’t care for myself if I were as poor as a church mouse, but it would ruin Walter if we ran away, don’t you see? He would never get a decent living. Oh, Eleanor, what am I to do?”

  “Yes, it’s a problem, I see. But don’t despair, dear Di. I’ll help you if I can, I promise. Just let me know what I can do. In the meantime, I confess I’m dying to get out of these clothes and take a bath.”

  “Can you meet me in the long gallery as soon as you’re changed? It is urgent. You see, Walter’s coming to Norfolk very soon.”