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C ecilia never imagined how difficult it was going to be to abruptly step out of the life of command she’d been living for two years. For two days, Michael dealt with Oliver, who seemed restless and distracted, while she arranged flowers, oversaw menus and the redecorating. She couldn’t remember needlework stitches and would have gladly thrown the handkerchief across the room. She felt ... useless. Of course, she was confined to Appertan Hall and couldn’t invite visitors. That made it worse, for she was used to being out among people every day. A servant followed her everywhere she went, making her feel twitchy.

In her obsession with guarding her father’s legacy, she’d let her close friends fall away. Now she wrote several letters, hoping to renew old ties. She had no close cousins, and Oliver’s precarious place in her life frightened her, and Michael would eventually return to India. She could easily be all alone in the world. Was that what she wanted?

When she first took on Oliver’s duties, she’d given no thought to the future, to what she would do when all the responsibility was taken from her. It seemed so foolish now.

As she stood at the French doors overlooking the terrace late in the day, she put a hand on her stomach. Maybe she wouldn’t be alone. She hadn’t thought about children before Michael, never considered she’d have the time. She’d never felt drawn to be a mother, the way some women did. But now ... just the thought gave her hope, another person to love and cherish, a connection to Michael.

She could see Oliver and him riding in the distance, coming toward the stables. Their heads were turned as they talked to each other, and she found herself praying that Michael would have words of wisdom for Oliver, something that would help him on his path to maturity.

Then, suddenly, Michael pitched sideways and fell from the horse, the whole saddle sliding off with him. She cried out and flung open the door.

Talbot was beside her in an instant. “Lady Blackthorne, you cannot go outside.”

“My husband just fell,” she insisted, flinging an arm toward the park. “He might be injured.”

Talbot squinted into the distance where she pointed, then sighed. “Very well, I shall accompany you.”

They set off across the terrace, practically running down the marble steps that widened out onto the expanse of lawn. Cecilia hastened through the gravel paths of the garden, no longer able to see Michael and Oliver through the shrubbery.

When they emerged once more onto the lawn, her husband was on his feet, bracing himself with an arm around Oliver’s shoulders. The rush of relief overwhelmed Cecilia with a sting of tears.

“Michael!” she cried.

His head swung around toward her, and even with some distance between them, she could see his frown. She didn’t care. The closer they got, the more she had to tell herself not to fling her arms around him like a foolish girl.

Oh, God, am I falling in love with him?

She could see a bruise on his jaw as she stopped before him but no other damage.

Oliver spoke before she could. “Cecilia, you should have remained inside,” he said with exasperation. “You’re the one who’s a target.”

“Apparently not just me,” she said between gritted teeth. “Michael, I imagine it’s been a long time since you fell from a horse.”

He sighed. “Someone cut the girth almost all the way through. My weight eventually completed the deed.”

“And you’re not hurt?” she asked, her voice embarrassingly weak.

Michael took her hand. “Reinjured my leg,” he said grimly. “Just when I’d stopped using the cane, too.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said—and meant it deeply. It had been her idea to turn the focus off herself, just to prove it wasn’t about her.

He gave her a tight smile. “Let’s get you out of the open.”

Talbot took the horses back to the stables, so Oliver could help Michael back to the castle. Once Michael was settled on a sofa, his leg propped up, Oliver brought him a brandy, clinked it with his own, and downed his. Cecilia stared from one man to the other in confusion.

“Are we done for today?” her brother asked impassively.

Michael grimaced. “We are.”

Oliver glanced at Cecilia. “Then I’m off to Enfield for the evening.”

Michael watched Cecilia’s crestfallen expression as her brother left, then the way her wide eyes came back to him. He hastened to reassure her, patting the sofa beside him.

“Truly, I’m all right, Cecilia.”

She sank down beside him, then leaned against his shoulder as if in defeat. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt,” she whispered. “I wanted to prove this villain was after money and power, not just me.”

“And you’ve been proven brilliant,” he said, chucking her under the chin.

She touched his thigh. “Should we call the doctor?”

“I didn’t break it, only aggravated it. I know how to take a fall. It only means a few more weeks with the cane.” A few more weeks in her company, he thought, grateful.

She straightened up, as if it were weak to lean against one’s own husband. “We must talk to the head groom and the stableboys.”

“I’m sure Talbot already is. But I imagine whoever did this took care not to be seen.”

“I know what you’re going to say,” she said, her chin jutting forward defensively. “And yes, Oliver could have done this, or had someone do it. But why? He certainly knows you don’t stand between him and control of his money, whereas someone else might believe you’re starting to influence Oliver too much.”

“True, but perhaps this person thinks I’m beginning to control you. ” He held up both hands before she could speak. “But you could be right. Perhaps.”

The hope on her face was almost painful to him. He could only imagine how it would feel if people assumed something terrible about his own brother, Allen.

Michael certainly didn’t want Appertan to be a villain. Or was that his own guilt talking? Regardless of Cecilia’s forgiveness, Michael still felt responsible in some ways for Appertan’s plight. Consequently, was he trying to help the young man too much, just like Cecilia was?

“I know you’ve spoken to some of Oliver’s friends,” she was saying with animation. “There are so many others who might want to keep a hold on Oliver’s old free-spending ways.”

“I think you were right last night. We need to talk to your brother. And though you may wish otherwise, I plan to be with you. He’s intelligent, and certainly not a fool. If there’s manipulation involved, let’s see him try it on the two of us.”

Cecilia took a deep breath, then let it go. “Very well.”

“Good,” Michael said, leaning back on the sofa. “Shall we try to catch him before he leaves?”

She nodded, beginning to stand, but Michael didn’t release her hand.

“Send one of the footmen, my sweet.”

“I feel like such a prisoner,” she said in disgust. “I know it’s only been days, but I can’t remember what it feels like to walk my own home in freedom.”

“And now I have to be just as cautious,” he said. “Are you glad to have company?”

She frowned at him over her shoulder as she went to the drawing-room door. When she returned, he drew her into his arms and simply held her. Soon, he wouldn’t have this, only his memories. He understood everything about her now, the doubts she’d overcome because of her mother’s neglect, the trauma of her brother’s death, and her self-blame. Yet she’d risen above it all, becoming a wise, good woman who loved her brother regardless of what he’d done.

Michael wanted her to come with him to India, but was that fair? He could be the one to make the choice, to give up the career that gave him the most fulfillment and the pride of being an independent man. He could stay here as Cecilia’s husband, with little to do for his small family manor and no way to provide for his wife in the life she was used to except through her own dowry, however much supporting the estate had left of that.

Michael would be ... a shell of a man, dishonorable. He knew the truth of guilt now. He was not used to feeling like a failure, but he could no longer deny the mistakes he’d made. He had to support his wife and family, and the best way was in India. His estate simply did not yield enough revenue on its own.

He would never force her to follow the drum, after what she’d experienced as a child. So they’d live separately, except for a brief month or two each year.

And his own child, if she conceived? Michael would barely know him or her.

C ecilia spent an hour in the drawing room with her husband, awaiting Oliver. Her brother had been taking a bath in preparation for the evening and agreed to give them a half hour of his time with great reluctance, if the footman Tom’s hesitant explanation could be understood.

Cecilia had wanted to pace her frustrations away, still full of nervous energy that her plan had caused Michael injury. But he had drawn her into his arms until her head settled on his chest. They rested together for long minutes. She should not feel peaceful, but in that moment, she did, and looked up at him in wonder. He kissed her gently, over and over again, soothing her until she thought she could do this forever.

“You don’t look like you need to talk to me.”

Cecilia jumped and turned to see her brother standing in the doorway, hands on his hips, glowering at them.

“You made us wait,” Michael said simply. “We’re newly wed—what else should we do?”

Oliver grimaced and turned as if to go.

“No, Oliver, please come talk to us,” Cecilia called. “This is so very important.”

He trudged toward them like a martyr, taking the seat opposite their sofa, with a low table between them. He couldn’t seem to sit still, crossing his lower leg over his knee, then changing his mind, restlessly lacing his hands together over his stomach, then playing with the fringe that decorated the armrest. And through it all, he wouldn’t meet her gaze.

She studied him, feeling a sudden calm come over her. He was in trouble, and only she could help him. Something had changed for him these last few days, and this restless nervousness of his was only a symptom. “Oliver, you know someone has been trying to harm me.”

He sighed. “I didn’t want to believe you at first, but now ... the evidence is convincing.”

“Do you have any idea who it might be?”

He glanced at Michael. “I’m sure you’ve given this much thought, being a soldier. But even you haven’t come up with an answer. And I did think you had the best motivation to harm Cecilia when you first arrived.”

“But now this person is targeting me,” Michael said softly.

“You can take care of yourself.” Oliver’s tone was dismissive.

She stiffened but felt the pressure of Michael’s hand on hers as if to calm her. She tried to relax.

“But Cecilia,” Oliver said, turning back to her, “you don’t know how to protect yourself. Perhaps I didn’t want to believe the attacks were real because there’s still a part of me that thinks all this”—he gestured at the room, but seemed to mean the castle—“has some kind of power to protect us. But I guess that was only true when Father was alive. He would have protected you. I’ve failed you, just as I failed—”

And then he broke off, staring almost bleakly into the distance. He couldn’t mean Gabriel; he wasn’t even with them when their brother died.

“You haven’t failed me,” she said quietly. “Neither Michael nor I has been able to stop these attacks.”

“I should have,” he said in a hoarse voice. “But I didn’t want to see it. I thought ... if I focused on myself enough, I could forget anything unpleasant. It didn’t work.”

“What are you trying to forget, Oliver?”

He opened his mouth, but at first nothing came out. Cecilia kept herself from leaning forward, unwilling to break the moment. Then his face wrenched into an awful grimace, and to her shock, a tear slid down his cheek.

“I did something terrible,” he whispered, then rubbed the heels of his palms hard into his eyes.

Feeling ill, she told herself to be patient. She thought she might have to restrain Michael, but he was so calm as to be a statue. He radiated acceptance and ease, as if he were leaving the connection between her and Oliver alone.

“Can you tell me what you think you did?” she asked her brother.

“Do you remember the upstairs maid, Jennette, who used to work for us a few years ago?”

Baffled, Cecilia stared at him. This wasn’t about the attacks? “Of course. She left our employ and moved away, rather unexpectedly.”

“Not unexpectedly,” he said, his voice breaking. “I paid her to go away. I’d—I’d seduced her, and she got with child.”

A wrenching pain clutched Cecilia’s chest as she took a swift breath, and she wanted to press her hand to her heart. “Oh, Oliver,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you?” He gave a harsh laugh that held no amusement. “What was I supposed to say? I was seventeen and stupid. Though I knew several other men who’d done the same thing, I-I panicked, thinking of what Father would say. She didn’t want me from the beginning. I made certain she felt ... she had no choice.”

Cecilia covered her mouth, trying not to show her horror that the brother she loved had done something so despicable.

He wiped a hand down his face. “By the devil, I treated her as if she weren’t even a person. And when she said there was a baby ...”

She flinched, as if with another blow.

“I was so angry.” His voice trailed off, and he looked dispiritedly at the floor. “After I gave her money and sent her away, I never saw or heard from her again. I thought that would be the end of it.” He lifted his head and stared hard into her face. “But I can’t forget her, Cecilia. I can’t forget what I did to her, or how she looked so lost when I sent her away. When I look in a mirror, I see Jennette, not me anymore.”

“And you drink to forget.” Her brother’s past behavior began to fall into place.

“It doesn’t help,” he said bitterly. “When you told me what Rowlandson had done to the tavern maid—I’d done so much worse. I let you have my responsibilities so I wouldn’t have to think. When Father died ... oh God, there was a part of me that was glad he would never have to know what I’d done, how I’d betrayed our family name.” He covered his face with hands that trembled.

At last, Cecilia looked at her husband. Michael’s expression was grim, but he said nothing, only nodded toward her brother. Trusting her.

Oliver gave another shudder and looked up. His eyes were dry, his face haunted by a grief that suddenly made him look ten years older. “I can’t go on like this. I know I’ve relied on you too much, Cecilia, but ... tell me what to do to make this right again, to find some way to live with myself.”

“I think we need to find Jennette,” she said in a firm voice. “She’s out there alone with your child. Illegitimate or not, this child needs you to provide more than whatever money you gave her. You need to support them both.”

He nodded. “Yes, you’re right, I know, but ... how?”

“Let me talk with Mrs. Ellison and see if she knows where the girl went. Servants often leave forwarding addresses to have things sent.”

Oliver nodded. “I can talk to her if you’d like.”

“No, I—” But she stopped herself. “You’re right; you should talk to her.”

Oliver slapped his thighs as he stood up. “I’ll do it before dinner.”

He marched toward the door, and she stared after him, feeling bewildered and heartsick.

At the last moment, he turned back. “Cecilia”—he reluctantly turned his gaze upon Michael—“Blackthorne, thank you for listening, and not judging me too harshly.”

“I think you’ve judged yourself,” Michael said impassively. “Now follow through.”

The words took on the tone of mild command, but Oliver only nodded and left, closing the door behind him.

Cecilia stared at the door for a long moment, then everything she’d been repressing seemed to choke up her throat. She turned into Michael’s arms and buried her face in his chest, weeping. He held her for a long moment, rocking her gently.

When the storm of her emotions had calmed at last, she stared up at him with wet eyes. “I—I don’t know what to say. He—he raped a girl when he was, what, seventeen?”

“Do you realize how often such things happen among the nobility, Cecilia? At least he’s found his conscience at last. So many powerful men believe they can do whatever they want.”

“Obviously, he believed it,” she said bitterly. “To think he ... he ...” She couldn’t even find the words, only stared at her husband in confusion.

“He wants to make things right.” Michael gripped both her hands in his. “That’s a good sign.”

“Do you think with all the guilt he’s been feeling, he was the one behind what’s been happening to me?” She’d thought her brother incapable of harming her, but he’d had no problem hurting Jennette.

“I don’t think so,” Michael said at last. “I think his treatment of the maid has been tearing him up inside, not something he might have done to you. Going to court, hearing about the man who’d abandoned his wife and babe, it must have been too much for him at last.”

“I don’t know what to think of him anymore,” she whispered bleakly.

“We can be appalled at his lack of forethought and morals, but certainly, I am not one to judge him, after all the mistakes I made.”

“Those were honest mistakes, Michael,” she said earnestly. “But what Oliver did ...” She trailed off, shaking her head. “Yet he’s my brother, and I can only hope, by making amends, he becomes a better man.”

And then a new thought occurred to her, and she felt a rush of cold clarity. “I remember Jennette, but not well. She was only here for a year, so I don’t know the kind of woman she is. But bitterness and hatred can do terrible things to a person. Could she want revenge?”

Michael nodded slowly. “It seems plausible. She might believe you didn’t try to help her—or she might think she could ruin Appertan’s life by making him look guilty of your murder.”

Cecilia sank back against the sofa and closed her eyes. “Oh, but she has a child, Michael, my niece or nephew. I would hate to think she was that kind of woman, for then she might not be a very good mother.”

“We can’t make judgments until we talk to her.”

“You don’t think we should let Oliver handle this alone?” she asked in surprise.

“This woman has a reason to hate our family. If Appertan confronts her poorly, it might make everything worse. It seems to me that he would welcome our support.”

She sighed with relief. “Thank you. I don’t think I could wait around to find out what happens. But then again, we don’t even know how long it might take to find her.”

“We’ll hire an investigator if we have to, my sweet.”

As they waited for Talbot’s announcement of dinner, Cecilia studied Michael, imagining that as a soldier, he must have had to investigate any intelligence that reached his regiment. He immersed himself daily in a world where good tried to defeat evil, and evil fought back with guile. She saw the nobility and honor of such a life and felt a pang of sorrow, knowing she could never ask him to give it up.

She thought again about Jennette’s situation, and the fact that she, too, could be pregnant. “Michael ... I feel so sorry for Jennette. I can only imagine how alone she felt, how vulnerable. And then to discover that she was with child. She must have desperately wanted to protect that baby, to give it a home. If I’m pregnant ...” She trailed off, seeing him watch her intently. “Will our child be pulled between two worlds, just as I was?”

“Your mother made you feel like that, Cecilia,” he said with quiet resolve. “And you’re not your mother. Our child will know how much he’s loved by both of us, regardless of our unorthodox marriage.”

Unorthodox marriage, she thought sadly. She wasn’t even certain what that meant.

And then Talbot announced dinner, and they followed him down the corridor to the private family dining room. Cecilia kept glancing at Michael, limping at her side, and she knew that “unorthodox marriage” meant that he would leave her. She might not be as fearful and obsessive as her mother, but, for the first time, she had an inkling of her mother’s desperation not to be separated from the husband she loved. With Michael gone, her life would become as if black and white. She wouldn’t have his wit, his calm strength, or the way he made her feel like the only woman in the world.

She loved him, the honor that made him regret honest mistakes, the loyalty he showed to her father and to his men. But she would never use her love to bind him to her.

The door opened, and Oliver entered the dining room, wearing a puzzled frown. He shut the door behind him and leaned back against it.

“What is it?” she asked as she rose to her feet.

She turned to help Michael, but he’d already followed her, and put a hand on the table to steady himself.

“Mrs. Ellison knows where Jennette is,” Oliver said slowly, wiping his hand down his mouth.

“That’s good, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Penelope’s family hired her.”

Cecilia blinked in confusion, feeling a distant sense of unreality, a prickling of unease. “Excuse me? How could we have heard nothing of this, not seen her in Enfield?”

Oliver shrugged. “Could she have been hiding, for fear I’d send her away from the only people she knows? I might have, too,” he added grimly. “I was certainly frightened enough. Mrs. Ellison says she thought nothing of Jennette’s being hired by the Websters because the girl said she felt overwhelmed here and needed to work in a smaller household.”

“This would have been three years ago, am I correct?” Michael asked Oliver. “And both of you have visited?”

“Numerous times,” Cecilia insisted.

“And never saw Jennette or heard about a baby in the servants’ hall?”

“Three years ago ...” Cecilia suddenly murmured. “Hannah was still alive! She would have told me if she’d known anything about it.”

“Why would she have told you about hiring your servant?” Michael asked. “Perhaps she was even embarrassed, as if they’d lured the girl away.”

“But ... none of this makes sense,” she insisted.

“It seems we have a mystery,” Michael said in his most impassive voice.

Her unease wouldn’t go away. “Do you think Jennette stayed nearby to wait for the right time for revenge?”

“What?” Oliver demanded, stepping closer. “You think Jennette—” He broke off as the color drained from his face. “You think she came after you because of me?”

“Perhaps to implicate you,” Michael said. “There are not many ways to punish an earl after all, unless the crime is murder.”