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For some reason that made her smile anew. “I did not say that I wasn’t.”

“A lady who doesn’t dissemble,” he said approvingly. “I find myself liking you more with every passing minute.”

Grace pursed her lips, eyeing him over her shoulder. “That does not indicate a very high opinion of women.”

“My apologies. I should have said a person who does not dissemble.” He flashed her a smile that shook her to her toes. “I would never claim that men and women are interchangeable, and thank heavens for that, but in matters of truthiness, neither sex earns high marks.”

She looked at him in surprise. “I don’t think truthiness is a word. In fact, I’m quite certain it is not.”

“No?” His eyes darted to the side. Just for a second—not even a second, but it was long enough for her to wonder if she’d embarrassed him. Which couldn’t be possible. He was so amazingly glib and comfortable in his own skin. One did not need more than a day’s acquaintance to realize that. And indeed, his smile grew jaunty and lopsided, and his eyes positively twinkled as he said, “Well, it should be.”

“Do you often make up words?”

He shrugged modestly. “I try to restrain myself.”

She looked at him with considerable disbelief.

“I do,” he protested. He clasped one hand over his heart, as if wounded, but his eyes were laughing. “Why is it no one ever believes me when I tell them I am a moral and upstanding gentleman, on this earth with the every intention of following every rule.”

“Perhaps it is because most people make your acquaintance when you order them out of a carriage with a gun?”

“True,” he acknowledged. “It does color the relationship, doesn’t it?”

She looked at him, at the humor lurking in his emerald eyes, and she felt her lips tickle. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to laugh the way she’d laughed when her parents were alive, when she’d had the freedom to seek out life’s absurdities and the time to make merry over them.

It almost felt as if something were waking up within her. It felt lovely. It felt good. She wanted to thank him, but she’d sound the veriest fool. And so she did the next best thing.

She apologized.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pausing at the base of the stairs.

That seemed to surprise him. “You’re sorry?”

“I am. For…today.”

“For kidnapping me.” He sounded amused, vaguely so. Perhaps even condescending.

“I didn’t mean to,” she protested.

“You were in the carriage,” he pointed out. “I do believe that any court of law would brand you an accomplice.”

Oh, that was more than she could take. “This would, I assume, be the same court of law that sent you to the gallows earlier that same morning for pointing a loaded gun at a duchess.”

“Tsk tsk. I told you it wasn’t a hanging offense.”

“No?” she murmured, echoing his earlier tone precisely. “It ought to be.”

“Oh, you think?”

“If truthiness gets to be a word, then accosting a duchess with a gun ought to be enough to get one hanged.”

“You’re quick,” he said admiringly.

“Thank you,” she said, then admitted, “I’m out of practice.”

“Yes.” He glanced down the hall toward the drawing room, where the dowager was presumably still enthroned upon her sofa. “She does keep you rather silent, doesn’t she?”

“Loquaciousness is not considered becoming in a servant.”