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A listair had some experience with young ladies who told untruths.

He had immediately seen through his sister Freddie’s explanation for her ten minutes’ absence during the Montlake ball—and her feigned surprise at his observation that Lord Cowell had been absent for the same interval. And after the girls’ governess had left them for a better situation, he had known better than to put much stock in Harry’s claim to still be studying her German every day.

He felt certain Miss C. was lying. About several things.

She remembered him. And herself. But she wouldn’t admit to either. She was keeping secrets—her name, the little painting, and something more besides. Given that he suspected her of dishonesty, he would have been well within his rights to laugh off her suggestion of accompanying him to Rylemoor.

Three things had pointed him in the opposite direction.

The first was Lady Stalbridge’s letter. The word danger still burned in his mind’s eye like a brand.

The second was Miss C.’s obviously desperate state. The sight of her bruises and the bandaged wrist, along with the memory of her limp weight in his arms, were as difficult to brush aside as Lady Stalbridge’s words.

The third was her invocation of his promise. Not, he was almost ashamed to admit it, the promise itself, though he generally prided himself on acting as a gentleman ought to act. But her expression as she’d reminded him of it...impossible to know, of course, where pleading ended and performance began. Still, he could tell it had cost her something to ask.

And if the disparity between the state of her belongings and the contents of her purse had told him anything about her at all, it was that she was accustomed to hoarding everything of value she possessed until she had no other choice but to surrender.

So, against what was probably his better judgment, he had done as she had suggested. He’d hired a coach and driver, both serviceable if a bit worn. He’d haphazardly finished sorting his belongings, overseen the loading of the last crates and trunks, and turned over the key to his house to his solicitor. And he’d urged her to accept three drops of laudanum in what had been an abominably weak cup of morning tea before assisting her into the carriage and signaling to John Coachman to be off.

She was lying now on the seat opposite, her legs curled to accommodate her height to the length of the forward-facing bench. One honey-colored curl had escaped its pins and fluttered with her breath as she slept through the first hours of their swaying, jolting journey.

Having hardly slept the night before, Alistair almost envied her repose. But a sense of unease, mingled with curiosity, kept him from closing his eyes.

Where had she acquired such a sum of money? Had she stolen it? Hocked the family jewels—or perhaps their paintings?

Done something more scandalous yet?

In spite of the potential for disaster, instead of insisting on the truth, he’d gone along with her wild scheme. He was taking her to his ancestral home, where she—a stranger with a sketchy past—would be in the company of at least four and probably more of his sisters for some indefinite tenure. Worst of all, he’d agreed to let her teach them to draw and paint.

He liked to think that he had done it out a sense of gentlemanly duty. Noblesse oblige, or some such stuff.

A less noble part of him was worried that he might have done it for the sake of his backside. Even a hired post chaise was preferable to the travails of being tossed about like so much Royal Mail.

And if a sliver of him had done it because he found Miss C.... intriguing , well, it was only a sliver and didn’t bear acknowledgment.

She slept through the first two changes of horses. He was glad to see it; she’d rested relatively peacefully the night before, too, which he knew because he’d checked on her three times, in between stuffing books in crates and pacing the entry hall. Her color had improved. And when they’d left the house, he had not needed to carry her. She’d walked away under her own power—leaning heavily on his arm and moving stiffly, to be sure, but without limping or other signs of pain.

If he had dozed, too—either the night before or during the first forty miles of their journey—then it could not have been for more than a few minutes. The pink of her cheeks and the bounce and flutter of that unruly curl were too familiar for them to have been out of his sight for long.

“Will you be studying me this intently for the next hundred and fifty miles?” she murmured as the next change of horses approached.

Her eyes were still closed—or appeared to be. Her question was the first hint he’d had that she might not be sleeping quite as soundly as he’d assumed.

“I beg your pardon.” He dragged his gaze to the window, though a sleety sort of rain had rendered it all but opaque. Not that it mattered. He knew what lay beyond the glass as well as he knew the back of his own hand, having made the journey between the metropolis and Devon many, many times in his twenty-eight years.

A stretch of silence followed as she pushed herself into an upright position and made a futile attempt to neaten her hair. He did not look away from the murky window, but he was aware of her movements on the periphery of his vision and in the shadow of their reflection in the glass.

“It’s I who should apologize,” she said at last in a surprisingly conciliatory tone. “I daresay I’ve been guilty of the same at some point. I suppose artists must do more than their fair share of staring.”

She spoke of her work as if she couldn’t quite believe that the sketches he had shown her were her own.

“If it helps, I wasn’t thinking about you,” he replied, the slightest edge to his voice.

A tinkle of laughter broke from her lips. “I’m cut to the quick, Lord Ryland.” It could not have been clearer that she did not believe him.

It was, he supposed, only fitting. After all, his answer hadn’t been entirely truthful.

And he didn’t believe her either.

“Well, perhaps I was thinking of you, indirectly.” He turned his eyes from the gloomy landscape and settled them on her. “In truth, I was wondering what possessed me to go through with this mad scheme.”

A momentary silence filled the carriage, broken only by the rumble of wheels and the creak of wood and iron and leather. Her bandaged right hand lay nestled in her lap, palm upward, fingers relaxed, but the other hand was tightly curled around the front of the seat, as if she were trying to counter the coach’s unpredictable movements but not quite able to hold herself steady.

“And what conclusions did you reach?”

He gave it another minute of thought. “Chivalry?” The note of self-mockery in his voice was clear; it made one corner of her mouth kick up in a crooked smile.

Was crookedness its ordinary state, or an effect of her injuries? It pained him, somehow, not to know.

“Or perhaps curiosity,” he added. “I really can’t decide.”

“Curiosity...about me?”

“About a great many things, Miss C.”

Including myself.

That answer failed to satisfy, of course. He really had not intended that it should. The color rose to her cheeks, darkening that delightful array of freckles as well as the edge of the bruise that had begun to bloom beneath the plaster, and she snagged her lower lip between her teeth and began to gnaw.

As it turned out, making her feel worse did not make him feel any better.

“Or perhaps,” he went on lightly, “I simply hoped that some portion of my sisters would acquire at least a single accomplishment they might tout to prospective suitors.”

One eyebrow arced in disbelief.

She met his every attempt at humor with an expression that suggested she doubted his capacity for it. Evidently, she expected him to be as somber and sour in person as she made him appear in all her sketches. He weighed whether to be offended. Was that hint of incredulity at the notion he might have a sense of humor more proof that she remembered him? Or was it based solely on impressions formed during a few brief conversations over the last twelve or so hours?

“The daughters,” she began and then corrected herself, “the sisters of an earl...haven’t they numerous accomplishments?”

He considered for a moment. “That depends entirely on how such things are accounted. Danny has a smattering of Italian, which she uses to swear without Aunt Josephine comprehending it. Harry can catch a trout when even the most skilled angler would vow no fish were biting. As for Freddie and Georgie? Well, I suppose they have elevated troublemaking to an art form. So, accomplishments...of a sort. But no previous instruction in drawing—it was not an interest I thought desirable to encourage.”

Miss C.’s eyes grew wider with each example. “Danny? Freddie?”

“Mm, yes. The Ladies Bernadette, Charlotte, Danielle, Edwina, Frederica, Georgiana, and Harriet Haythorpe.” He ticked off the names on his gloved fingertips. “And no, I am not the eldest, though I am named after my father. I do believe he would have started the alphabet over again with sons, if he had been able to bring them into the world. Instead he had to content himself with Bernie, Charlie, Danny, Eddie, Freddie, Georgie, and Harry.”

Her mouth popped ever so slightly open and a sound escaped that might have been “ah.” Or “oh.” Some noncommittal noise conveying quite clearly that she didn’t know how to react. She leaned forward, as if her next question were better asked in confidence. “And do they—are they all...under your care?”

She sounded as if she believed him incapable of caring for them...of caring, at all.

Or perhaps she was simply daunted by the prospect of having to teach seven pupils at once.

“The two eldest are married. Lady Brinks and the Honorable Mrs. Jefferson Powell, now. Eddie prefers country life and busies herself with managing the household at Rylemoor, which is why she rarely joins us in Town.” He did not mention her understanding with the curate of the parish; under ordinary circumstances, it was a match far beneath her, but it was also evidently a love match, and in any case Alistair, who had had frequent cause for wishing for someone to help him with his sisters, could not afford to protest. “Danny lives with Aunt Josephine near Bristol,” he went on. “That leaves—”

“Just Harry, Freddie, and Georgie,” she supplied, sounding vaguely stunned.

“Those three are faithful readers of the Magazine for Misses ,” he warned her.

He had found two issues stashed among his books and papers as he’d hurriedly sorted through the last of them late last night. No notion, now, whether he’d hidden them there to keep them out of his sisters’ hands or whether his sisters had been hiding them from him.

In any case, he’d packed one in the crate destined for Rylemoor, on the off chance Miss C. really had forgot everything and he needed something to prod her memory.

The other, he’d mischievously returned to the bookshelf, leaving it for the daughter of his tenant to find.

“That’s the magazine you said I draw for. Will you—will you tell them?” She swallowed. “Who I am?”

How can I, when you will not tell me ?

“That seems ill-advised, for any number of reasons,” he said.

“I—I suppose so, yes. It will raise questions I cannot answer.”

Or will not answer.

“If I revealed to them that you draw the Unfashionable Plates,” he said, using the familiar name for Miss C.’s popular cartoons, “which is naturally their favorite feature in the magazine, it would only set a certain expectation as to the style of drawing in which you will instruct them.” It was his turn to lean toward her, as he favored her with a wry smile. “And I assure you, they are accomplished enough already in the fine art of teasing their brother.”

Something flickered in her hazel eyes—guilt or amusement, he could not say. He had the distinct impression that she had never before considered the private fates of those she skewered so publicly.

In his case, laughing sisters had been the least of his troubles.

A thump from outside drew his gaze once more to the window, though he did not immediately adjust his posture. He supposed it had been the coachman, alerting them to their imminent arrival at the next post of their journey, though Alistair had not thought them due to stop so soon. And indeed, the carriage had already begun to slow and seemed to turn toward their destination.

The stop after this one would be the end of the day’s travels, at a coaching inn he favored for its economy more than the comfort of its accommodations. By post chaise, it was a three-day journey from London to Rylemoor Abbey, with two nights on the road, and though on this occasion he would have been more than willing to endure further discomfort to shorten it, both for his own convenience and the sake of Miss C.’s purse, he knew that given her injuries, she also needed rest.

At just that moment, a wheel struck a rut in the road, or seemed to. Something gave a frightful crack! and all at once, the carriage dropped and lurched to a stop.

As he’d already been leaning slightly forward, the sudden motion threw him toward the back of the coach. He raised his arms to arrest his movement, planting his palms against the worn squabs, one on either side of his traveling companion. Miss C. gasped—either at the abrupt stop or at the discovery that she was pinned in something dangerously close to an embrace.

The sound drew his attention to her mouth, her soft peach-pink lips only inches from his own.

It had been an age since he’d enjoyed anything like intimacy with a woman. And he felt strongly that carrying an unconscious woman to his bed, or urging her back there when dizziness caused her almost to fall, should not count.

Yet he could not deny that those circumstances had acquainted him with information no mere acquaintance should possess: the texture of her hair (finer than embroidery silk), her scent (a piquant mixture of something vaguely floral and the sharp note of mineral spirits), and the precise number of freckles in the constellation across the bridge of her nose (eleven).

Before he could react, even to apologize—and that was not, to his chagrin, the present direction of his thoughts—the hired coachman wrested open the door. Alistair dropped back into his seat and Miss C. smoothed a trembling hand over her hair, which still bore a few traces of a simple coiffure, or what had remained of one after her accident and a night of sleep, now knocked further askew by her nap. If her bonnet had survived yesterday’s misadventure, it had not been among the possessions returned to her.

“Looks like t’ axle broke, sir,” the driver grunted, doing a passable job of masking his surprise at the compromising position he appeared to have caught them in. Only his eyebrows revealed any trace of speculative interest. “Happen there’s help to be found in t’ village.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder and Alistair peered past him. A scattering of buildings were just visible in the distance through the mist. To call it a village might be a bit grandiose.

“Will we wait here?” Miss C. ventured.

As if in answer to her question, something shifted and the bottom seemed to fall out from beneath them again as the body of the coach dropped a few inches more.

“I think, ma’am,” Alistair said, mustering a wry smile, “we’d better not.”

She was already halfway out the door, her good hand balanced on the coachman’s shoulder as she made the leap to the ground, now rather closer than it had been.

Alistair followed a moment afterward, snatching his hat from the seat and squaring it on his head. Its brim did little to shield him from the rain, which rather seemed to swirl around them than pelt down from the sky.

There was nothing for it but to walk.

Miss C. sent a baleful glance toward the luggage. “What about our things?”

“The trunks will be safe enough,” he promised, though he had no real cause for certainty beyond the generally worn state of their traveling things—nothing to tempt some highway robber. “And John and I will bring the valises.” He’d packed his own for the overnight stays, while hers contained just what it had when the urchin had deposited it into his arms, with the exception of her sketches, which he’d placed in one of his own trunks for safekeeping.

The coachman took the hint, grabbed both carpet-covered bags in his two ham-sized fists, and set out toward the village at a faster clip than Miss C. could manage. The strip of last summer’s grass, which lay between the grooves carved by innumerable wheels of carriages and carts, was wide enough for two people to walk abreast. Alistair offered her his arm. Instead, she used her good hand to gather her skirts and lift them above the mud—though privately he thought that avoiding a muddied hem was hardly worth the effort, given that it was the same dress in which she’d lain on the cobblestones and then slept in his bed, and its once-neat woolen respectability was now little more than a memory.

The distance was not great, at least. But still, it was farther than anyone might have wished, given Miss C.’s injuries and the chilly rain. Wordlessly, he shrugged out of his greatcoat and draped it over her shoulders, which earned him a frown of surprise and a murmur of something that might have been thanks.

Eventually they had gone far enough that the mist could no longer disguise the few gray houses and shops, stone church, and two pubs that constituted the village. One of those pubs, the Coach and Cask, had a stable at the back and took advantage of its position on the post road to supply horses and a hostler for the convenience of those traveling through.

But it was not, Alistair realized as soon as he had ducked inside, an inn.

The walls of the Coach and Cask had last been whitewashed so long ago they now bore more resemblance to a cup of chocolate than a glass of milk. Stubs of tallow candles in tin sconces gave off a smoky light. He counted just two doors—the one through which they had entered, and another at the back, which must lead out to the stable yard.

He swept off his hat, and despite a scattering of customers and a fire roaring in the hearth, it was suddenly quiet enough to hear the rain droplets patter from the brim onto the flagstone floor. “Do you have rooms to let?” he asked, stepping closer to the bar, a simple, well-polished slab of oak, and addressing the ruddy-cheeked, balding man behind it. He did not hold out much hope, but it was too late in the day to expect the axle to be repaired while sufficient daylight remained to resume their journey.

“Not to speak of,” the barkeep said. “I told your coachman he was welcome to bed down in the stable.” A pause, just long enough for Alistair to wonder whether he was to expect a similar invitation. “S’pose I might make a place upstairs for you and”—his gaze slid past Alistair to take in Miss C.’s bedraggled, bonnetless state—“your missus.”

Ordinarily, Alistair would have protested the assumption. But this time, he had the presence of mind to keep his mouth shut. With slightly widened eyes, Miss C. managed a curtsy. “We’re much obliged.”

The man jerked his chin toward a table near the fire. “Take a seat, and I’ll see what’s to be done. S’pose you’ll want tea, Mrs.—”

“Cooper.” She spoke the name without the slightest hesitation, so quickly he wondered whether she had meant to do it, or whether she had inadvertently revealed more than she had intended. She pressed her lips together—a moment too late, perhaps. Then she nodded. “Tea would be lovely.”

Alistair helped her to a chair and settled himself in the one opposite her. They sat without speaking to one another as a murmur of conversation rose once more around them and thoughts raced through his head. The idea of presenting this stranger to his sisters as their new drawing master, gut-churning as it was, seemed positively harmless when compared to their present perilous charade as husband and wife.

He tried not to think of the worn but comfortable inn that had awaited them down the road, or to wonder whether “upstairs” was in fact the hayloft above the stable. After a while, a boy brought a pot of tea and a single cup without a saucer. Alistair, who would have been glad of the same, wordlessly accepted the mug of ale that was presented to him instead. They drank together, she from china, he from pewter, still not speaking and only accidentally meeting one another’s eye.

An eternity later—and yet long before he was ready to face what lay ahead—the barkeep reappeared and gestured for them to follow. They rose with a creak of wooden chairs and the snap of a coin laid on the table—her money, but from the sum he had retained to pay their expenses on the road, in order to avoid drawing further attention to their unconventional arrangement.

“After you, Mrs. Cooper,” he said with a bow made more than usually stiff by the cold and damp, a gesture she regarded with something like smugness. Then she stepped toward the rear door and Alistair followed her out.