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M iranda blinked like a just-wakened sleeper. “Adam?” she asked, tears slipping unheeded down her cheeks.

“I am right here, Miranda.” Adam rubbed her fingers.

Folding her palms within his own, he breathed upon her hands, trying to bring warmth to the chilled extremities.

“Ropwell, bring me some of that wine, if you’ve not drunk it all,” he demanded, watching as her pupils began to lose their dilated look.

He loosened his hold on her momentarily to pull off his jacket and drape it around her shoulders.

Lord Ropwell responded with alacrity. “Wouldn’t want to lose our guide to the hereafter, would we?” he said with false heartiness.

Squatting beside her, Adam put the glass to her lips, holding her shoulder to keep her steady.

“Drink slowly,” he told her and breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

Color was returning to her cheeks and the disturbing empty gaze was gone.

Instead he saw a profound sadness. He wanted to question her, but now was not the time.

“Miss Wilton, about the jewels-”

Adam silenced him with a scowl. “Leave her be, Ropwell,” he commanded coldly.

“What right do you have to speak for her, Brand? You ought to be at Gutmacher’s unmasking the fraud. I have a substantial sum bet in your favor.”

“I am flattered by your confidence,” Adam said, not bothering to mask his sarcasm.

“Does it bother you so much?” Ropwell asked with a sneer. “Now that it appears that the exception has been found to your prosaic rules? Pray, how do you explain what just happened here?”

“There are always alternatives. Many things are not what they appear to be,” Adam said, not at all convinced himself.

Something had occurred, something unusual, and though he had not experienced a change of heart, the idea that there might be possibilities beyond his ken filled him with sudden doubt and unreasoning fear.

If her truths were within the realms of reality, she had taken a terrible risk.

The mere thought of her making the attempt again for Ropwell’s greed was beyond bearing.

“At present, though, I think that Miss Wilton’s well-being is paramount. ”

“So it is,” Ropwell said. “If I may call upon you tomorrow, Miss Wilton?”

Adam was about to tell Ropwell that he might go to the devil first, but Lady Enderby spoke before him.

“I am sure that the Wodesbys would be delighted,” Lady Enderby declared.

With a satisfied nod, Lord Ropwell made his farewells.

“Mama will not receive him,” Miranda said weakly.

“Of course she will, Miranda,” Lady Enderby said smugly. “His bloodlines are unexceptionable, and he is quite eligible, especially if you find those baubles for him. The Ropwell jewels are worth a veritable king’s ransom. Marriage would not be a high price to pay for their recovery.”

“I see,” Miranda said, taking a restoring breath.

Her veins felt as if they had been filled with iced water, but anger was warming her rapidly.

“And since I am at my last prayers, Ropwell might well be the best that an aging spinster can hope for. I would be addressed as ‘your ladyship,’ after all,” she said steadily.

“I knew you had a head on your shoulders, gel,” Lady Enderby said approvingly.

Miranda’s expressionless face would have done credit to a card sharp and her cool, practical tone was unnerving.

Would she actually consider a man like Ropwell?

Adam wondered. Rumors were rife that Ropwell had assisted his lady in her fatal headlong tumble down the stairs.

“Ropwell’s stinking repute would have the fishwives in Billingsgate holding their noses.

You would do better to rely on that fellow in the country, Miss Wilton, the man of your dreams.”

The man of your dreams . . . No worse phrase could have been chosen.

“My dreams are no business of yours, Lord Brand!” she snapped, pain slicing through her.

She knew that he spoke out of honest concern, but the fact that he could so easily consign her to the arms of an unknown cut her to the core.

It was no fault of Adam’s that he haunted her nights and the revelation of heart that she had confronted on her journey through the dark borderland of the Veil was still too new, too raw to cope with.

“I am sorry, milord,” she said, avoiding his gaze.

“Once again I must plead weariness, a poor excuse for rudeness, but it has been a rather eventful evening.”

“I find it something of a wonder that you can speak at all,” Adam said, recalling all that she had been through in the course of the night.

But now, the strain seemed to be taking its toll, from the quiver of her shoulders to the decidedly clammy feel of her hands.

She looked terribly brittle, as if she might shatter at a touch.

Adam seized upon exhaustion as an explanation for her momentary lapse into the semi-conscious.

“Let us get you home, Miranda,” he said helping her to her feet.

The gentle tone of his voice was almost her undoing.

She wanted to crumble into his arms, to be held and savor every sensation from the clean masculine scent of him to the roughness of his late night stubble.

But pity was not what she longed for and that appeared to be the extent of what he was offering.

Somehow she forced herself to stand. Mechanically, she set one foot before the other until, at the end of an eternity, they reached the carriage.

As Adam helped lift her into her seat, Thorpe rose swiftly from the cushions and regarded him with a distinct look of feline disapproval. “She is falling off of her feet,” Adam growled and then shook his head in disbelief. He was justifying himself to a cat.

Lady Enderby settled herself in and the carriage clattered off. “A ghost,” she prattled, her jowls quivering with excitement. “Even you must credit it, Lord Brand.”

“Drafts,” Adam hedged, “you could fly a kite in the winds that go through some of these old houses,”

“There is not so much as a breeze in the air tonight,” Lady Enderby countered. “And what of Lady Pelton? She felt her late husband’s touch.”

“She felt what she wished to feel,” Adam replied, eying Miranda anxiously. Her face was still unnaturally blanched and despite the jarring, jolting motion of the vehicle, she appeared to be slipping into sleep.

“Meowrrrr!” came the alarmed cry.

“Was I nodding off?” Miranda asked, forcing herself to sit bolt upright.

There was a peculiar comfort in his jacket, the scent of him.

Warmth enfolded her, as if she were in his arms again, lulling her, making her vulnerable to the fatal seduction of sleep.

“Do not let me drowse,” she begged them.

But Adam merely smiled, unaware of the danger.

“I should say not; considering how the night is in its infancy,” Adam said, with a tender smile.

She looked oddly appealing, tousled and half-asleep and he allowed himself to imagine that face against a pillow, just touched by the dawn.

“Another hour and the roosters will be rousing themselves. Sleep if you want to. We are but a few streets from your home and I’ll wake you when we arrive. ”

“You do not understand,” she whispered, desperately fighting the tide of drowsiness. She dared not sleep, not till the cock’s crow. Her eyes blinked wide, but slowly the lids began to drift closed. “I fear that you may not be able to wake me.”

Thorpe yowled again, reinforcing the warning this time with a slash of his claws.

“Nasty creature!” Lady Enderby said, shrinking back.

Adam hauled Thorpe away by the scruff of his neck. “Are you alright, Miranda?” he asked.

“It is no more than a light scratch, I assure you,” Miranda said, bending to clutch her ankle as the pain momentarily chased away sleep. “Leave him go, Adam. He has achieved his purpose and will do no more harm.”

“And what purpose is that?” Adam asked, knowing full well that the Wodesby answer he might hear would not be to his liking.

“And keep hold of that vile beast, Lord Brand!” Lady Enderby implored as the carriage slowed. “Or better still, I shall open the window and you may throw it out.”

“Harm a whisker on Thorpe’s head and you will answer to me,” Miranda said, casting a black look. Lady Enderby cowered in the corner and Miranda realized that Adam was right. She would forever be a witch in the eyes of the ton.

“We are nearly at the door of Wodesby House,” Adam informed her drily. “If you would prefer, Lady Enderby, I will escort both the cat and Miss Wilton.”

“B. . . b . . . but, I really ought to speak to Adrienne and explain—" Lady Enderby began.

“I will make any necessary explanations to Lady Wodesby,” Adam offered. “You need not wait here.”

“W. . . would you, Lord Brand?” Lady Enderby said, unable to conceal her relief. “I must confess that I am a trifle overset.”

As soon as Adam, Miranda and Thorpe had alighted, Lady Enderby’s carriage clattered off at breakneck pace. The cat ran to the door and started to yowl.

“She did not even wait . . . until we crossed the threshold,” Miranda said. “And she has the gall to prate . . . about manners.”

“She fears you now, Miranda,” Adam said, putting his arm around her waist. Her hair brushed against his cheek as she leaned against him for support.

Slowly, he helped her up the marble stairs to the great oak door.

“You have assumed the status of a witch, at least in her eyes. Is that not what you wanted?”

She pulled her elbow from his grasp. “I am no witch, damn you!” A sob caught in her throat. “And now I know that I never shall . . . be one. Tonight when Pelton’s ghost . . . put in an appearance, I thought that I might . . .” She faltered and Adam reached out to keep her from falling.