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C ecilia followed the men to the main drawing room, where the pianoforte took up one corner, and several chairs and sofas were grouped nearby as if awaiting a performance. She wished Penelope had come to dinner that night, for she suddenly felt self-conscious and ridiculous. Oliver didn’t want to be there—perhaps he now only had one use for Cecilia, and that was as his business steward. And Lord Blackthorne? He said he would remain her husband, and he was doing everything possible to make her agree. She should feel ... crowded, smothered, irritated, but, instead, she could barely keep her gaze off him, wished desperately that she could kiss him again.

Marriage to him would be the end of her perfect life, where she controlled her own destiny and answered to no one.

Except Lord Doddridge, she thought, feeling bemused. But he’d never bothered her, and certainly Oliver didn’t, at least as far as her management of the vast Appertan estates. But now there was Lord Blackthorne, and to honor her father, he was trying to remake Oliver into a dependable man. A very good goal, and she definitely—someday—wished that Oliver would be able to do the work she did.

Unless she was more selfish than she’d imagined, wanting the reins of the earldom without the title, and that was why she resisted Lord Blackthorne’s efforts with Oliver.

She watched Oliver pour himself a brandy, then begrudgingly offer one to Lord Blackthorne, who declined.

“I need all my faculties to decipher this book,” he said, picking up Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

She turned away, struggling to hide a smile. Who would have guessed such a sober man hid a sense of humor? She didn’t want to know these things about him. She went to the pianoforte. “I know I volunteered to play, my lord, but do not assume I am supremely talented. Every young lady learns to play. Whereas my brother—”

“Isn’t going to sing,” Oliver interrupted. “But I’ll turn the pages for you.”

She hid her disappointment, hoping he’d change his mind. At the keyboard, she tried to clear her head, to recapture what it had once been like to be a family, to spend an evening together. In her mind, she returned to their bungalow in Bombay, imagining her brother Gabriel still alive, teasing Oliver, making their mother smile and distracting her from the anxious looks she usually bestowed on their father.

“What are you thinking?” Lord Blackthorne asked, from his place on a nearby sofa.

She gave him a wry smile. “I am remembering evenings from my childhood, when our father used to have us perform.”

“He was very proud of you both,” Lord Blackthorne said. “There were nights when we were not permitted to sleep, waiting to move into position for a dawn engagement. We all took turns talking about our families, and your father participated just as freely.”

“What did he say?” she asked, feeling wistful, even as her fingers began to play a melody she knew by heart.

Oliver pretended to ignore them, leafing through sheet music with great concentration.

“He spoke often of stories of Lord Appertan at Eton,” her husband said. “I heard about a particular archery incident.”

Oliver remained hunched over the table full of music, but he was no longer searching through them, his fingers still, his head tilted. Cecilia felt sad even as the amusement of that famous family incident returned.

Lord Blackthorne looked at her brother. “Did you really try to prove you could shoot your arrow through the skirt of your tutor’s academic gown without hitting the man himself?”

For the first time in a long while, Oliver wore a smile that wasn’t tinged with arrogance or sarcasm. Cecilia started to laugh. All her concerns slipped away, and she pretended she had back her brother of old.

Oliver sipped his brandy and eyed Lord Blackthorne. “I pinned him to a tree. I was quite the hero, even when I was flogged afterward.”

Lord Blackthorne just shook his head. “You were lucky you didn’t pierce his leg—or anything else.” He glanced at Cecilia. “He spoke of you, too. For a woman who claims she doesn’t like the adventure of the Indian countryside, it seems you could be quite daring.”

“Tell me something he said about me,” Cecilia said with an eagerness she didn’t try to hide.

Lord Blackthorne gave her his faint smile. “I heard you used to go on long walks even as a child—and without permission. There’s an ancient castle ruin nearby, isn’t there?”

She threw back her head and laughed in a most unladylike way. Her husband’s eyes sparkled as he watched her, and to hide the warmth of her response, she glanced at her fingers moving on the keys.

“I was convinced there was a hidden dungeon there, no matter how many people told me otherwise,” she said. “I had to go explore.”

“I like that spirit of adventure,” Lord Blackthorne said softly.

She couldn’t meet his eyes. “Yes, well, I could have been seriously hurt.”

“But you weren’t,” he countered. “I hear you found the undercroft and were convinced that instead of storage, it housed evil knights.”

“It was my special hiding place,” she mused, far-off memories moving slowly through her mind. “I did my studies there by candlelight when I was older. It’s been a long time since I went back. It really is too dangerous.”

“I’d like to see it,” he answered.

They looked at each other for long moments, and she imagined taking him there, showing him the places she’d hidden unafraid, knowing he’d take that as proof that she could be the kind of wife he wanted, one who’d follow the drum into any adventure. She looked away.

“I take it you weren’t very daring at school, Blackthorne,” Oliver interrupted.

“I didn’t go to school.”

Oliver boldly asked the question she wanted answered. “Why not?”

“Because my father refused to send me. He preferred to have us tutored at home.”

She looked back down at her fingers moving over the keys. Tutored at home? How very strange for a viscount’s heir.

Oliver grunted. “There were days I wished I’d been allowed to stay home.” Then he glanced speculatively at Lord Blackthorne. “Did you wish you could have gone?”

“Yes. From what I understand, you often meet your lifelong friends there. Luckily, I met mine in my regiment.”

“Do you miss them?” Cecilia asked, feeling a pang of sorrow for Hannah.

A darkness seemed to briefly cross his face and was gone so quickly she thought she imagined it.

“Actually, my two closest friends and I returned to England together.”

“Do I know them?” Oliver asked.

“Rothford and Knightsbridge,” Lord Blackthorne answered.

The Duke of Rothford and the Earl of Knightsbridge, she thought in surprise. No lowly soldiers, those men. They’d purchased commissions in their youth, and would have been Lord Blackthorne’s superiors. It seemed he got on well with authority, unlike her brother.

“They have both sold their commissions and officially retired from the army,” Lord Blackthorne continued. “So when I return to India, it will be without them.”

Return to India. That phrase sent a surprising shiver of sadness through her. She wanted him gone—why did the thought so disquiet her?

The silence grew tense, and Cecilia felt a need to change the subject. To Lord Blackthorne, she said, “So what childhood memory did you discuss with your fellow soldiers on those long lonely nights?”

“I had little to say,” he answered, smoothing his hand over the cover of the book almost absently.

“You were so very perfect as a child?” Oliver taunted.

“ ‘Boring’ is the better word,” Lord Blackthorne said wryly. “Every chance I got, I played with my toy soldiers and staged elaborate battles in the library. My mother permitted me to keep them set up for days, so that I could conduct entire wars. And when I outgrew that, I buried myself in war history and battlefield memoirs.”

“You really were boring,” Oliver said, setting a song sheet on the piano, then leaning against a sideboard to contemplate his ever-receding brandy.

Lord Blackthorne’s childhood sounded lonely to Cecilia. “What did your brother do while you prepared yourself to be a soldier?”

He shook his head with bemusement. “He released frogs onto my battlefields, dragged me fishing, and occasionally agreed to a sword battle with sticks.”

“We could still fence,” Oliver interjected.

“No sharp weapons,” Cecilia reminded them, but inside, she felt glad that Lord Blackthorne’s brother had played with him. He had those memories—she had memories, too. And they never discussed them, as if Gabriel hadn’t existed. Obviously, even her father kept quiet about his son, for Lord Blackthorne had never heard of him.

“Our brother Gabriel was a daring prankster,” she said, glancing at Oliver. “Do you remember when Gabriel confronted that pack of wild dogs in Bombay?”

Oliver tensed, and she worried she’d made a mistake.

“Your brother had to be quite young,” Lord Blackthorne said.

“He was eight.” Oliver took a sip of brandy. “Cecilia told him to stay in the carriage, but he wouldn’t. I egged him on.”

“Our family used to take carriage rides in the evening along the Esplanade,” Cecilia explained. “It was near the seashore, and there were rotting carcasses and... other things thrown there by the fishermen. The smell—” She gave a shudder, and said to Oliver, “Do you remember?”

“How could I forget?” he murmured.

Cecilia turned back to Lord Blackthorne. “There was a pack of wild dogs that fed there, and if you were foolish enough to leave your carriage to walk the sand, they would attack. Gabriel was determined to see how far from the carriage he could go before spotting them.”

“I assume your parents didn’t approve,” Lord Blackthorne said.

“Of course not.” Cecilia smiled. “But Gabriel had it all planned, and darted out of the carriage before Mother could stop him. He chose a night Papa wasn’t with us. While she shrieked, and the coachman hesitated to risk his own life, Oliver and I crowded the single window to watch. Gabriel went twenty paces before the dogs appeared over the nearest mound. We screamed his name, and he ran back, vaulting into the carriage, falling onto the floor laughing, while Mother slammed the door shut and pounded on the roof for the coachman to drive off. We were all flung back by the speed of those panicked horses.” Her smile faded. “He was very daring.”

“And it killed him,” Oliver said, turning to look out the window as if he could see anything in the night.

“How did he die?” Lord Blackthorne asked.

She winced, but Oliver didn’t respond. It had been ten years, after all. She found she didn’t want to tell the story either.

“Go ahead, say it,” Oliver prodded, looking down at her where she sat hunched on the piano bench. “You brought it up.”

Something in her eased when he didn’t openly blame her for Gabriel’s death. But she had enough guilt of her own.

Lord Blackthorne was studying them closely. “It is obviously a painful memory. You don’t need to speak of it.”

But she was watching Oliver, and thought of the pain of never speaking of his beloved twin. “He was killed by a crocodile,” she whispered.

Lord Blackthorne frowned.

“You probably expected a fever to have taken him,” she said, her voice hoarse now. “He pushed me out of the way—saved my life.” She was supposed to be watching over him—his death was all her fault. It should have been her whose body was never found, not her sweet little brother.

She waited for Oliver to condemn her as she condemned herself. Sometimes, she felt like she was always waiting for that.

“He would have been the earl,” Oliver said. “A better one than I.” He drained his brandy and poured another.

“That’s not true,” she insisted.

When Oliver didn’t answer, she began to play the piece he’d picked out, but he didn’t join in, as if he didn’t want to be that sort of brother anymore.

“I have to leave,” Oliver said, when she’d finished.

Michael watched Cecilia’s face, saw the disappointment and sadness that she so quickly hid. Now that he’d heard the tragic story of her brother, it was obvious she had much practice at concealing her emotions—and her guilt. She must never have gotten over being the one who lived instead of dying. Her worried gaze followed her brother to the door, even as her fingers touched her locket.

“You are very talented,” Michael said into the silence that followed.

She glanced at him, then looked back down at the keyboard. “Thank you,” she murmured.

“Appertan will be all right.” He wanted to lift the concern from her eyes, make her happy, but she didn’t want him to do that.

She gave a faint smile. “I hope so.”

“That locket you wear—does it have something to do with Gabriel?”

She looked down at it, then glanced at him, wearing a sad smile. “Each side is a miniature of my brothers just before Gabriel’s death. Although they were identical, I could always tell them apart.”

She opened the locket and held it up to him, displaying the small faces of two laughing boys, both with tousled, lighter blond hair than Appertan had now.

“The artist tried to persuade them to be serious,” she continued, “as the subject of such paintings usually are, but they just ... couldn’t.”

When she closed the locket, he said, “Does Lord Appertan look at the miniatures?”

“No.”

“I imagine becoming the earl made him relive the death of the brother he’s now replaced. That is only natural.”

“Do you think so?” She sounded hopeful.

“I do. We’ll continue what we’ve been doing. It will help. Will you play another song for me?”

She nodded, and to his surprise, she began to hum and eventually sing, her voice simple and pure, her beauty angelic in the candlelight. Michael let peace wash over him, as if the world’s cares could remain beyond the closed doors. He knew desire could forge a bond between two people, but he’d never imagined that contentment and happiness could be just as seductive. She made him happy, just being with her. But they would be separated soon.

The last notes of the song trailed off, and Cecilia rose to her feet. “I believe I’ll retire for the evening. Don’t let me inconvenience—”

But he’d already arisen. “I’ll escort you.”

She bit her lip but didn’t protest. Will waited in the shadows of the entrance hall with a candleholder, and Michael accepted it. Side by side, they walk up the main staircase, and he wondered if she remembered the terror of beginning to fall just a few days before. Her expression was impassive, showing him nothing.

“I understand you’ve recently hired a watchman,” he said.

“I have. He joins two others. The grounds are extensive, and I don’t want miscreants to assume we are ripe for their mischief.”

“Do they patrol indoors?”

“Patrol? My lord, we are not a regiment stationed near the enemy.”

“Forgive my wording, but you know what I mean.”

She sighed. “Talbot is responsible for locking all the entrances, and he’s spent his life doing exemplary work. The servants know they are not to leave the house during the night. We are secure, Sergeant.”

Though he wanted to chuckle at her use of his rank, he was too concerned about the hours they would spend apart—when she would be alone. Any servant could grant access to the house in the middle of the night, circumventing outdoor watchmen.

At her door, she opened it before he could, murmured a quick “Good night,” and ducked inside, closing it behind her. He heard the key turn in the lock.

He sighed, not expecting anything else, no long kiss or invitation to join her. But he was glad she was safely locked inside and made sure the dressing-room door was locked as well. In his own room, the bed was turned down invitingly, but he wouldn’t be using it although he did disturb it so that the servants wouldn’t realize what was going on. His wife might be in danger. Silently, he entered the dressing room she’d abandoned as some sort of no-man’s-land since his arrival. By leaning his head near the door, he could hear her speak with her maid, and relaxed at their soft laughter.

Then he limped as quickly as he could back downstairs, using only the faint moonlight through the windows to guide him. He checked every exterior door although it took him almost an hour to do so. Talbot was doing his duty, at least.

When he returned to the dressing room, he could no longer hear anyone speaking in Cecilia’s room. He closed his eyes and put his hand on the doorknob, remembering how she’d looked when she slept. After removing his coat and boots without a sound, he lay down on the cot kept there in case the maid needed to remain nearby.

He fell asleep, but in the way of sleeping lightly, he was restless, with dreams invading his mind. His dead friends returned to him again, as they’d begun to do every night. In some ways, seeing their deaths over and over again would be easier than imagining their lives if they’d lived, but tonight his dreams gave him the future that might have been. He saw the late earl in command of his estates, guiding his son, allowing Cecilia peace of mind. His two dead friends returned to England, one to a wife and child, the other to see his sister settled before embarking on his own search for a wife.

Michael forced himself to awaken. They were dead—many men had died in the empire’s endless quest to remain strong. And he was alive. He didn’t feel guilty about things that couldn’t be changed, so what were his dreams trying to make him see?

It was still several hours before dawn, but after listening at Cecilia’s door again, Michael did another slow patrol through the castle. The doors were still locked, but that didn’t mean he could relax.

C ecilia awoke just before dawn, when the world was gray with the promise of a new day. But she felt sluggish rather than energized. She’d heard footsteps several times outside her door and had tensed with fear, but no one had tried the knob. Surely it was a servant passing by in the night, seeing to Oliver.

Or a restless Lord Blackthorne. She was surprised he hadn’t insisted on escorting her directly into her room. Since their kiss, she felt like he hadn’t left her alone, and that was making her even more nervous because of the way he drew her to him.

She was already dressed by the time Nell arrived and had even pulled her own hair back. The maid tsked at her.

“I have so much to do today,” Cecilia insisted. “Do I look presentable?” She took a piece of toast from the tray, slurped her hot chocolate, and started for the door, determined that she was not going to alter her life because of fear.

“Ye didn’t even let me reply!” Nell cried, hands on her hips.

“Sorry!” She opened up her door—and found Lord Blackthorne seated on a bench beneath a wide landscape painting.

“I thought I’d accompany you on your walk,” he said, standing up.

He was so overpowering, even in the high-ceilinged ornate corridor. She glanced behind to see Nell looking past her, full of interest and approval. Since when had Lord Blackthorne begun to win over her servants, even her own lady’s maid? She frowned at Nell, who quickly busied herself in the wardrobe.

Cecilia wanted to refuse him but knew that would make him suspicious, and even more insistent about accompanying her. So she smiled tightly, tossed her piece of toast back on its plate, and allowed him to fall in beside her. He was carrying a basket that bumped rhythmically against his good leg.

“What is that?” she asked with suspicion.

“Breakfast. It seems your cook has heard you are not eating enough. I believe I saw a simple piece of toast in your hand—and you didn’t finish it.”

“Are you spying on me?” she demanded, coming to a stop.

He pivoted about the cane and looked down at her. “Your cook came to me, the man you’ve proclaimed as your husband—although you’ve not convinced yourself.”

She flushed. “We’ve discussed this. It’s only been a few days. I haven’t decided.”

“And now that I’ve kissed you, you seem even more against the idea of spending time with me.”

She swept past him. “Just because you wish to remain married doesn’t mean I do.”

“The longer you take, the more scandal it will be.”

He was right—she hadn’t been thinking deeply about it, weighing her options. She was too concerned with her brother’s future—and with the “accidents” that had plagued her.

“Lord Blackthorne, I don’t even know how to begin to trust you!” They were near the balustrade that wound about the entrance hall, and her voice echoed. She winced and looked about but didn’t see any servants nearby. “Yet denying this marriage means becoming a ward again, and I don’t want that.”

“When I meet Lord Hanbury, perhaps I’ll see your problem.”

“Lord Hanbury was my guardian. Lord Doddridge is Oliver’s. Oliver ... chose him when he inherited the earldom.”

Lord Blackthorne went still. “Excuse me?”

“Lord Doddridge was a friend of my father’s, but a man more prominent in London. Oliver chose him as someone who would understand what a new earl was going through. Regardless, this doesn’t matter to me right now.”

“Of course it does. Appertan will turn twenty-one within the year, and no longer need a guardian at all. But if you’re under guardianship, you will not be able to so easily control him or the estate—your reasoning for our marriage, I believe. That—and access to your funds. You may do as you please financially, yet I will keep you from scandal, keep you safe.”

“Safe from what?” she whispered, looking up into his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he answered back, just as softly.

Then he touched her arm, and she flinched.

“What do you need protection from, Cecilia?”

She pulled away from him. “You’re being ridiculous. I am perfectly safe. Now let’s walk if we’re going to do this.”

To her relief, he remained silent, both of them inhaling the autumn scents of harvested grains and the richness of the earth being plowed for the spring wheat crop. He didn’t try to come up with awkward conversations, for which she was grateful. Gradually she relaxed, letting the peace of the countryside soothe her as it always did. Her tenants were growing used to them both and no longer sent him suspicious glances—although they should, she reminded herself.

When they crested a low hill, they could see the New River winding its way toward London, and the windows of Appertan Hall glittering in the rising sun, as they’d done for hundreds of years. Cecilia looked upon it all and knew that her family had taken good care of it, encouraged growth, and protected its people. And within the year, Oliver could change all that if he didn’t mend his ways.

Lord Blackthorne said, “Let us have our picnic here.”

From within the basket, he removed a blanket and awkwardly tried to spread it out himself.

“I might have overdone it boxing yesterday,” he said ruefully.

She straightened out the blanket, surprised he would admit any kind of weakness to her. “Shall I help you to sit?”

He arched a brow. “I am not in my dotage yet, Cecilia.”

She raised both hands in surrender even as she knelt. “You’re the one who said you were feeling stiff today.”

He smoothly lowered himself to the ground with the aid of the cane. “Shall we see what Cook prepared?”

It was a feast of sliced ham, bread with butter and jam, several apples, and cider in a corked bottle. Cecilia was glad to have something with which to busy her hands. Lord Blackthorne watched as she unbuttoned and removed her gloves, as if even such innocent skin fascinated him. The wind caught her hair, loosening the occasional curl, and she kept impatiently tucking each behind her ear. Then, to her surprise, Lord Blackthorne caught her hand, and with the other, he slowly slid the hair behind her ear, letting his bare fingers linger. She shivered, and had no choice but to meet his eyes.

“Don’t,” she whispered, imploring him.

“Don’t what?” he answered in a husky voice. “Touch my wife? We are in public, in the middle of the facade you created.”

She stiffened. “That is unfair.”

“I know, but it’s the truth. Now you say we are to hold a dinner party tomorrow. Like the ladies from Enfield—”

“Who will be there,” she interrupted glumly.

“—will others believe you were enraptured by my way with the written word?”

She looked down at her knees almost touching his thigh. He leaned back, bracing himself on one hand, the better to see into her face, she knew.

“Yes,” she whispered.

“How shall I behave? What would you like me to do? And don’t say ‘disappear,’ because that will not happen.”

She tried not to smile but couldn’t help it. She saw his expression relax, those dark brown eyes softening. She felt trapped there, trying to see into his soul.

“Behave as you wish,” she said simply. “I cannot tell a grown man what to do. I only ask that you not ... ingratiate yourself with everyone.”

“You fear I am so quick with conversation and friendship?” he said dryly.

“I have put you in a terrible position, I know.” She covered her face and sighed before looking at him again. “It isn’t fair, this marriage I asked of you. You should go now, before my demands get worse. When I decide, I’ll ... send word. Surely your family misses you.”

“Go now, so you can deny that I’m your husband?” he said gently.

“I haven’t let you be my husband. I probably won’t.”

“In the eyes of the law—”

“We don’t know what the law truly says!”

“In the eyes of Society—”

“Stop!”

She put her hand over his mouth, a childish move, but it suddenly felt very adult. He caught her hand and briefly held it there, and when she felt the touch of his tongue tasting her bare palm, she gave a shudder as the sensation burned a path clear into the depths of her stomach. She caught her breath.

He let her go, and when she clasped her hand back against her chest, he leaned toward her. “Has any man made a simple kiss on your hand feel like that?”

“That wasn’t a kiss! It was—it was—” What was it? She couldn’t even describe it.

“I want to taste even more of you,” he said hoarsely, cupping her face with one hand.

Her mouth fell open as she imagined his lips on hers again, parting, and the taste of his tongue. She’d been imagining that taste ever since their first kiss. His palm was hot on her cheek, his face so close she thought he might kiss her again, right there in the open, where anyone could see.

“I won’t be a—a thing you owe my father,” she whispered.

“Though I never saw it coming, what’s between us is so much more than that—can’t you tell?”

“No, I can’t!” She broke away. “Now stand up so I can fold the blanket. I must get back.”

He remained silent on the walk back to the house, and she kept in front of him, not wanting to look at his face, to remember the burning intensity he’d shown her.

Talbot met them in the entrance hall. “Lady Blackthorne, Lord Doddridge has arrived and is already in your study.”

Relief swept over her like cool water over a burn. “Thank you, Talbot, I will go to him.” She glanced over her shoulder at Lord Blackthorne, not meeting his eyes. “Have a good morning, my lord.”

He bowed, the picnic basket in one hand, the cane in the other, studying her with too knowing a gaze. She hurried off to meet with Lord Doddridge, feeling herself again, calm and in control in her study, not like that windswept girl on a hill who didn’t know what she wanted.