Page 73 of The Danger of Desire

“You could borrow some of Niall’s servants,” Warren said. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” Someone hailed them from the path ahead, and he added, “Speak of the devil, here he comes now. You can ask him yourself.”

Mrs. Trevor, who’d been walking ahead of Warren and Delia on the path, stopped short so quickly that they nearly mowed her down.

Even as Warren was wondering about that, Niall reached them. “There you are, sister,” he said jovially to Clarissa. “I hear there’s to be a wed—”

He halted mid-sentence as he caught sight of Mrs. Trevor. “Brilliana!”

Brilliana?NiallknewDelia’s sister-in-law? And by her Christian name, no less?

Having noted that herself, Delia glanced up at Warren in bewilderment, and he shrugged. He’d had no idea.

Mrs. Trevor dropped into a curtsy. “Lord Oliver. How good to see you again.”

Hastily, Warren corrected her. “Pardon me, Mrs. Trevor, but it’s Lord Margrave now that he’s inherited the title.”

“Oh, right, of course,” the woman said, her cheeks now a peculiar shade of red.

Niall said nothing, just stood there gaping at Mrs. Trevor as if someone had brained him with a mallet. Having never seen his cousin at a loss for words before, Warren was tempted to torment the man about it.

But some instinct kept him silent.

“I... had heard you were living in Spain, my lord,” Mrs. Trevor ventured.

That snapped Niall out of his trancelike state. “I was. Well, Portugal, more recently. Until a couple of weeks ago when I returned to England.” He drew himself up stiffly. “I’dheard that you were married.” He glanced beyond them. “Is your... husband around here somewhere?”

“I’m widowed.”

Niall’s gaze shot to her, and something flickered in his eyes that Warren well recognized. Hunger.

Hmm. How very interesting.

Clarissa narrowed her eyes on her brother. “You twoknoweach other?”

Niall started, then forced a smile. “We do. We did. A short while. Before I left England.”

Mrs. Trevor seemed to have regained her composure, too, for now she looked her usual serene self. “His lordship and I met in Bath several years ago, when my father took the family there one summer.”

“And Mother had gone there for the waters,” Niall said. “You were still not out as I recall, Clarissa, so you stayed at Margrave Manor with your governess.”

“Oh,” Clarissa said. Warren could almost see the wheels turning in her head. “I think I remember that.” She shifted her gaze to Mrs. Trevor. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you knew my brother.”

“It was only a brief acquaintance,” Mrs. Trevor said. “And I knew him as Lord Oliver, not Lord Margrave. I’m afraid I didn’t put together your being his sister and... I just didn’t connect you.”

Clarissa snorted. Clearly she found that explanation as spurious as Warren did. “Well, I wish to hear more about this ‘brief acquaintance’ later, but we still have a wedding to finish planning, and very little time to do it in.”

“I almost forgot,” Niall said, “that’s why I was sent out here to look for you lot. We gentlemen wish to take Warren to the tavern in town for his last night of bachelorhood.”

Thank God. If he drank with the fellows, he wouldn’t have to endure the long night alone. “Sounds like an excellent plan,” Warren said jovially.

Too jovially, apparently, for Delia frowned at him. “Now see here, I hope you don’t mean to show up foxed at our wedding in the morning.”

“I’m not making any promises,” he drawled.

“Warren!”

He bent to kiss her forehead. “I’m joking, dearling. I’ll be sober as a judge.”

Niall was now sizing up Delia. “I take it that this lady is the poor woman cursed to be your bride, old boy?”