Five

When Jack looked up the next morning and saw Harriet Finch hurrying toward him across the field, he felt a rush of delight. She looked so lovely in a dress of white muslin sprinkled with tiny blue flowers. She carried no parasol today, but a broad-brimmed straw hat shaded her face and hid her ruddy hair. Which was a shame. He had often imagined it tumbling over her shoulders, a glory of curls.

So many of his thoughts now centered on this girl, a new piece to the puzzle that was his life. Jack felt that circumstances were closing in on what had started as a pleasant summer escape. He’d run impulsively from London, but he had to make a decision about his future soon. And he was more and more certain that Miss Finch must be a part of it.

He went to meet her and turned her back toward the trees.

“I had to see you,” she said.

He was delighted to hear it, because increasingly he had to see her as well. A day when he didn’t felt melancholy and empty. He took her arm and led her to a little clearing near the edge of the wood, a more private place with a large, dry log to sit on. He handed her to it, daring to drop a kiss on her hand as he let it go.

Her green eyes flashed up at him and dropped. A flush warmed her cheeks. “I have something important to tell you,” she said.

He was glad she looked for an excuse. He was happy to see her whenever he could.

“We visited Ferrington Hall yesterday,” she went on.

Jack knew this, of course. He’d seen the carriage arrive and her party enter. He’d felt jealous and excluded as she disappeared inside. Into his house! Now occupied by agents of his poisonous great-grandmother.

“The duke has a letter written by the Earl of Ferrington, and he is going to compare the writing with the one received by the magistrate here,” she blurted out.

“Is he?” The duke was an interfering busybody, apparently. Why did he have to stick his nose in?

“You swore to me that you didn’t write to Sir Hal.”

“I said I didn’t forge any letter.” Jack was aware this was deceptive. He had to tell her the truth. But he hated being forced by his great-grandmother’s minions. “I didn’t,” he repeated. “Because…” Remembering she despised all earls, he couldn’t go on.

Miss Finch examined his face. She looked worried. About him. That meant she cared, did it not? He wished he knew. There was such a tangle to undo. Of his own making, he admitted.

“I’m glad you didn’t,” she said, rising. “I must go. I’m on my way to visit my friend Cecelia.”

“Cecelia?”

“The duchess.” She gestured in the direction of the hall.

“Ah.” Jack heard the sourness in his voice.

“She is very kind, not at all grand.”

Jack doubted this. Or rather, he believed the duchess was kind to Harriet Finch, the rich society girl. She would probably see him much as his great-grandmother did. Would she convince Miss Finch to share her opinion?

“I can call on Cecelia often,” this young lady added, looking suddenly shy. “Grandfather wants to cultivate the connection. I can stop here on the way. No one will question her on the exact times of her callers.”

“You want to come here?” Jack asked.

“Yes,” she murmured, eyes on the leaf-covered ground.

“To see me?”

She looked up and met his gaze squarely. “Yes.”

Jack thrilled at the shy longing he saw in her expression.

“This is where you say you are glad of that and want me to come,” she said.

Jack stood and stepped toward her. “I am tremendously glad and want you with all my heart.”

The flush was very visible on her pale skin. Her smile was warmly glorious.

Jack held out a hand. She took it and then, startling him, moved close and leaned in. Their lips met in a kiss of such sweetness that Jack was stunned. All the kisses of his life paled in comparison. The tumultuous splendor of it washed over him—tenderness, arousal, amazement. His head spun. She slid her arms around him and held him tight, as if she too hoped the kiss would never end. For an ecstatic, reeling time, it seemed it would not. But, of course, it did. They drew back. She gazed up at him with green eyes softened by desire.

She was his. She was the answer to all his questions about the future. “I must tell you something,” he began.

“Yes?” she breathed.

“When I said I had not…”

The clearing erupted with laughing children, dancing around them, led by Samia. “You were kissing!” she exclaimed.

Harriet pulled away.

The children swirled and capered around them. “We saw you!” Samia said. “Kissing. Kissing.”

They made it a chant. Jack batted at the children as if they were swarming gnats. “Go away! Shoo!”

“Kissing, kissing,” they sang.

Scarlet with embarrassment but laughing, Harriet moved farther away from him.

“Don’t go,” called Jack. But he was engulfed by giggling children, and she shook her head.

“I will come again,” she said. And slipped away into the trees.

“For more kissing,” called Samia, her face alight with laughter.

“You and your friends are a pestilential nuisance,” Jack declared.

Samia cackled at the label. “You’re in our dancing place,” she retorted.

He hadn’t realized the Traveler children had claimed this little clearing. He needed to find a private spot where he could talk to Harriet Finch, tell her his true story, and ask her to marry him. With many more kisses involved, he hoped. Had things been different, he would have gone at once to Winstead Hall and made a formal offer. But they were not. If the aristocratic strangers hadn’t appropriated Ferrington Hall, he might have revealed himself and moved in there. But they had. Circumstances kept overtaking him. Ever since the stuffy Englishman had arrived in Boston to fetch him, he’d floundered behind events. It was time to take control. He left the dancing children and headed for the camp.

***

Harriet moved toward Ferrington Hall on a cloud of desire. No wonder young ladies were taught to avoid kisses, particularly girls with no prospects in the world and no one to protect them. She saw now how one could be swept away into acts that led to social disaster.

She’d taken care, when poor, never to make a single misstep. Then, as a sudden heiress, she’d been repelled by the young men with avid eyes who wanted her fortune far more than her person.

Now, here was Jack the Rogue, who had nothing to do with the marriage mart and was utterly unacceptable in every way except the most important. She loved him. She’d flung caution to the winds with Jack, and she wasn’t sorry. Her body and spirit still rang from that kiss! He’d opened a whole new landscape to her, a vision of a different kind of life far away from the stuffy confines of English society. That life did not depend on her grandfather’s fortune, which would be whisked away the moment he learned of her choice. They could leave Grandfather behind, go thousands of miles beyond his sphere of influence. Harriet felt as if vistas had opened at her feet and bonds she hadn’t even been aware of were falling away. She didn’t have to care about the proprieties that had been drilled into her. There was a larger world out there.

Except. Harriet was brought up short by thoughts of her mother. If she defied her grandfather’s wishes, stepped into that freedom, Mama would collapse. Harriet had no doubt about that. And she would have to support her, drawn back into the social snares her mother espoused. It wasn’t fair! Yet she couldn’t desert Mama. Leaving her to Grandfather’s revenge would be an unimaginable cruelty. Harriet’s spirits began to sink.

But Jack was…ingenious. He lived to scheme. He flung himself into pranks and adventures. Harriet remembered his ludicrous teasing of the duke at the camp and laughed as she walked. Jack had no instinct to defer or be overawed by a title. Indeed, he despised society as much as she did. He would help with Mama. Together, they would find a way out of the toils that had bound her all her life. Harriet skipped a few steps as she entered the Ferrington Hall gardens. Her faith in her roguish love was deep.

Harriet’s arrival coincided with the return of the duke. He was walking up from the stables as she crossed the garden. “I convinced the local magistrate to give me that letter,” he said, holding up a folded sheet of paper.

“Oh…good.” There was no reason to worry, Harriet told herself. Jack had said he hadn’t written it. And even if the letter was shown to be false, there was no reason to connect it with him.

They found Cecelia in a smaller reception room, which had become a cozy, flower-filled place since she took charge. The duke took the letter over to a writing desk, unfolded it, and set it beside another sheet of paper that lay there. He looked back and forth between the two missives.

Harriet braced herself. What should she say if they…?

“The writing seems the same to me,” Tereford said. “What do you think?”

Cecelia stepped up to look. Harriet followed her.

“I agree,” said Cecelia. “See the flourish on the t there and the way the a’s are not quite closed.”

It was true. Harriet stared at the two pages. The note to Lady Wilton was a few lines with no signature, and the permission letter was a formal document on engraved letterhead, but the hand was the same. Harriet was astonished and then filled with joy. She had doubted. She admitted it. Jack was, after all, a rogue. But he had not lied to her. The relief of that was more intense than she’d expected.

“Are you all right?” Cecelia asked her.

Also, Jack was not in jeopardy, Harriet thought. That was wonderful, too.

“Harriet? Is something wrong?”

She gathered her scattered faculties. “No. Nothing.”

“But you seem to be…trembling?” The duchess frowned at her.

“I’m fine.” Harriet pushed down her emotions, as she had a lifetime of practice in doing. She did not intend to tell Cecelia about Jack. Cecelia was a delightful person, a good friend, but she was not unconventional. The perfect duchess, she wouldn’t understand, or approve of, Harriet’s choice. Harriet feared even her best friends would have doubts. She could hear Charlotte’s sharp questions and Sarah’s softer doubts. Ada had married another duke. She’d had no longing for escape. But none of them had grown up on the margins of society or been a victim of its looming threats and petty spite.

Briefly, Harriet worried that her long, precious friendships would not endure. Must she be ready to lose all she knew if she allied herself with Jack the Rogue? No, they would stand by her. They’d been through so much together, including a shocking glimpse into the darker side of society last season.

“Harriet?” said Cecelia again.

She shook off her doubts. The future would have to take care of itself. “Yes. So now we must wonder how this letter came to be,” she said. Harriet’s zest for investigation could surface now that she didn’t have to worry about Jack. “Where it came from and how the earl learned of the camp on his land,” she added.

“All those things,” the duke agreed with a smile.

Cecelia looked reassured by Harriet’s spate of questions. “Do we know how it was delivered?” she asked.

“A boy on horseback brought it,” her husband replied. “Perhaps a groom. No one in Sir Hal’s household remembered anything else about him.”

“That sounds like someone coming from nearby,” Harriet said. “But where?”

“Not this house or Winstead Hall,” Cecelia answered. “And not Sir Hal’s estate either, obviously. That appears to account for the large places in this neighborhood.”

“An inn?” Harriet wondered.

Tereford was frowning. “From what Lady Wilton told us about the new earl’s mother…”

“In strictest confidence,” Cecelia interrupted. “She was most insistent about that.”

“Yes,” answered the duke dryly.

Their eyes met. Clearly a good deal of information passed in that glance. Harriet was not party to any of it, and she felt a wisp of envy. These two had a true partnership.

“We must continue our inquiries,” he added. “I will do so.”

In other circumstances, Harriet would have pushed for a role in the search. But now she simply longed to run and talk over this news with Jack. Everything that happened these days made her want to hurry and tell Jack. A good sign, she decided. Of course, she wouldn’t mention that she was delighted he hadn’t lied to her.

Tereford bade them farewell and went out.

“Come and sit,” Cecelia said, going to the sofa.

She expected a quiet, cozy talk. Harriet went to join her.

“I had a letter from Ada,” Cecelia added. “She is in transports over her stonemasons.”

“I heard that, too,” Harriet responded with a smile. Her old school friend and newly minted duchess was deep in the restoration of a half-ruined castle.

“She hoped I could recommend a seller of paving tiles. I don’t know why.”

“Because you have been managing estates since you were in pigtails,” Harriet answered.

Cecelia burst out laughing. “Not quite that long.”

It had been almost that long, Harriet knew. She’d met Cecelia’s feckless father. “Is all going well with the Tereford properties?”

“The London house is nearly cleared. A small army of cleaners has gone to work there, and the workmen will follow.”

The recently deceased Duke of Tereford, great-uncle of the current one, had piled up goods like a dragon of legend. Only his hoard had consisted of broken-down furnishings and ornaments stuffed into every nook and cranny of a sizable mansion.

“I was just getting started on the rest before we came here,” Cecelia said.

“The rest?”

“James’s great-uncle neglected all the ducal estates. There’s a great deal to be done.”

“They’re not all like the London house!” Harriet couldn’t imagine that number of things.

“No.” Cecelia gave a small shudder. “I sent inquiries. There’s nothing else like that. But there is much disrepair and…unusual tenancies.”

“The duke is very lucky to have you.”

“He is aware.” The duchess’s small, secret smile affirmed this marriage was going well. “But how are you? Have you…settled in?”

Harriet shrugged. Her friends knew some of her difficult history with her grandfather. And they’d met him, of course. Grandfather did not make a pleasant impression.

“I wish I might invite you for a visit,” Cecelia responded. “But I have no place for house parties this summer.”

“My grandfather would probably refuse permission. He likes to keep us under his thumb.” Harriet had not been allowed to accompany her friend Charlotte home. But if she had gone there, she realized, she wouldn’t have met Jack. So she had her grandfather to thank for her new vision of life. Perhaps she would tell him someday. How he would hate that!

The sound of hoofbeats drifted in through the open window. The crunch of wheels and jingle of harness heralded a carriage.

“I wonder who that can be?” said Cecelia.

A moment later, Harriet’s mother rushed into the room. She headed directly for Harriet, scarcely seeming to notice Cecelia’s presence. “There you are!” She grasped Harriet’s hands and held on so tight, her fingers were crushed.

“What’s wrong?” asked Harriet, fearing some upheaval or accident.

“I couldn’t find you!” Her mother’s face was creased with distress.

Was it no more than that? “But you did find me, Mama,” Harriet replied. “Here I am. I left word I was coming to visit Cecelia.” She pulled her hands free and gestured toward their hostess.

“Oh. Yes.” Her mother managed a tremulous smile. “Good day, Your Grace.”

“Mrs. Finch, how nice to see you.” Cecelia met Harriet’s eyes, a question in her own. Harriet didn’t know how to answer it. “Won’t you sit down?” Cecelia added.

“No, I…I said I was going for a drive. He might ask… Harriet, you must come with me!” She grabbed Harriet’s hands once again. Hers were trembling violently.

“Has something happened?” Harriet asked her.

“Everything is fine.”

It obviously wasn’t. “Wouldn’t you like to stay for a while?” Harriet asked, pulling her mother toward the sofa. Surely she would calm down if she sat quietly with them. “Have you eaten?” Mama had been picking at her food lately.

“No, no! I must go for a drive. And then back home.” Her mother’s voice had risen to a frantic level.

“Very well, Mama. That is what we will do.” Harriet exchanged another perplexed look with Cecelia as her mother tugged at her arm. There was nothing to do but go. When Mama grew so agitated, she required time and a great deal of soothing to regain her equilibrium. Cecelia would understand, as far as anyone could.

Harriet didn’t know why her mother was increasingly fragile. Grandfather was a trial, but his ill temper didn’t explain why Mama was growing worse. He’d been just as unpleasant in London. She would not see this as a burden, Harriet told herself as they went out to the waiting carriage. Even though it tugged her back just when she had been feeling so free. She would find a way to help.

***

“That man is in the camp again,” Samia told Jack as the sun was lowering late that afternoon.

“What man?”

“The handsome one.”

“Handsome? Isn’t that me then?”

“He’s handsomer than you.”

Jack put his hand to his heart, pretending to be wounded.

“The one you tried to fool by talking silly,” Samia added.

He noticed the tried.

“He asked about you,” Samia added.

Of course he had, just when things had begun to go well with Harriet Finch but before he’d had the chance to settle things with her. Jack considered fading into the forest until the irritating duke had gone, but who knew what the man would do if he couldn’t be satisfied. Jack couldn’t leave the Travelers at his mercy. He straightened his less-than-fashionable coat and went to find the man.

Once again, a wide circle of male Travelers surrounded the fellow. The duke seemed as unaffected as ever. He looked about as if he had every right to walk among them. Discouraging stares had no effect. Jack crossed his arms, took up a post near the central fire, and waited.

“Ah, there you are,” the duke said, stopping a short distance away.

“Here I ahm.”

“I was able to examine that letter from the earl.”

“Were you and all?”

“Sir Hal Wraxton lent me his copy. It appears valid.”

“That’s good then.”

“Very fortunate for you.” The man included the whole group in his glance. “But I find it strange that the earl, who remains missing, knew to write it. How did he learn of your situation?”

Jack went so far as to scratch his head and say, “Huh.”

The damned duke laughed. “You said you were called Jack the Rogue.”

“Aye.”

“Jack is sometimes used as a diminutive for Jonathan, is it not?”

“Dim…what? That’s a great long word, that is. Yer Honor.”

One of the Travelers snickered, which didn’t help matters. This duke threw him a sardonic glance. He was not behaving as Jack expected.

“You don’t quite fit here, do you?”

Exasperation threatened to divert Jack. These English were so obsessed with fitting in—dressing a certain way, speaking in the right accent, behaving along rigid lines. They tried to define a man by externals, even if those had nothing to do with him.

“The Travelers have a kind of family resemblance,” the duke went on. “Which you don’t really share.”

In other words, he belonged nowhere, Jack thought. He knew that. He didn’t need to be told.

“And your accent is…unreliable.”

“I speak as I can. Yer Honor.”

“Or perhaps I should say creative,” the duke continued. “It wavers, creatively, from country to country and into the realms of fiction.”

“I don’t know what Your Honor means by that.” Jack struggled with his temper. He longed to wipe the smug arrogance off the fellow’s face with a solid punch.

“I mean that you are not the dolt you pretend to be,” answered the duke crisply.

“Dolt, is it? Eh, that’s not kind.”

“I said not.” The intruder raked him with a look. “What is your surname, Jack the Rogue?”

“Surname?” Jack needed a way to put him off once and for all. But he came up with none. “That would be…”

“The family name you were born with.”

“Oh, that was long ago.”

“Twenty-four years, perhaps? I suspect it is Merrill and that you are the ‘missing’ Earl of Ferrington.”

“Why would you think such a daft thing as that?”

The duke began to tick off points on his aristocratic fingers. “You are not a true member of this camp. There is a whole different feel about you. You match the description I was given of the earl, though I admit it was vague. Your accent and rustic act are very unconvincing. You are perfectly placed to have written that letter of permission. And finally, I am aware the missing earl’s mother was connected with the Travelers, so he—you—might well be accepted here.”

Jack gritted his teeth. That last bit of knowledge had no doubt come from his great-grandmother and been put in the worst possible light. As if he would ever be ashamed of his mother!

“Do you swear to me that you are not Jonathan Frederick Merrill?” the duke asked.

Jack was tempted. He owed this arrogant nobleman nothing.

“If you give me your word of honor, of course, I will accept that,” the man added.

He spoke without condescension, as if honor was a concept that applied to them both equally. Which made it impossible for Jack to lie. “Damn you,” he said.

“You are the earl.”

Jack knew his nod was sullen. Why shouldn’t it be? The man was an interfering ass.

Murmurs rose around them, and Jack saw his mistake. He should have taken the duke aside for this talk, though he hadn’t known how it would go, of course. Now the man had ruined the camp for Jack. The Travelers would treat him differently, see him as more alien than he’d already been. They might not throw him out, but their easy comradeship was ended. Had the duke known that would happen? Or was he simply too pleased with his own cleverness to notice?

Jack moved away from the group. No need for them to hear more. The duke followed him. “I won’t go back to London to be schooled by Lady Wilton,” Jack said, dropping all pretense of an accent.

“I can’t imagine anyone who would want to do that.”

His tone was understanding. Jack gave him a closer look.

“But it does seem time to take up your proper position,” the duke added.

“Proper!” Jack spat the syllables. “That word seems to cover a vast deal of judgment and spite. I’ve been told I am entirely improper, and I don’t see why I should ‘take up’ anything at all.” In fact, he wasn’t sure what his “position” meant, beyond Lady Wilton’s wish to change everything about his appearance and manner.

“It is a matter of duty,” said the other man. “A great estate, and title, brings responsibility for many other people.” His expression grew wry. “As I have had cause to learn.”

“This is what you have been taught and trained to accept,” Jack pointed out.

The duke nodded.

My father was thrown away by your proper society. As if he was worthless. I think it broke him.” He hadn’t really understood his father’s history until he came here. The bare outline didn’t convey what his father must have felt, tossed from a place like Ferrington Hall into a solitary scramble for survival. Papa hadn’t been able to rise to the challenge, true. But it was a greater one than Jack had realized.

“That was unconscionable,” said the duke. He sounded truly outraged.

Jack searched for insincerity in the fellow’s handsome face.

“It is too bad his family cannot make it up to him,” he went on. “Perhaps we may do so to you.”

The only family Jack had known of was Lady Wilton. Was this duke putting himself in the same category? He was some sort of distant cousin, Miss Finch had said. Did that really mean anything? He shrugged.

“Do you intend to run away again?” There seemed to be sympathetic curiosity in the man’s cool, blue gaze.

At one time, he had. But now there was something keeping him here. Jack hesitated.

The duke took this as encouragement. “I suggest we stage your official ‘arrival’ at Ferrington Hall in a day or so. I can set the thing up, with a carriage and so on. You move in and set up as the earl. We’ll welcome you. Grandmama can’t complain about that.”

“Grandmama?”

“I beg your pardon. I thought you knew. Lady Wilton is my grandmother.”

This made Jack frown. He couldn’t imagine calling that harridan Grandmama. Or anything else, actually. Also, the duke looked about his own age. Or just a few years older. “Great-grandmother, you mean?”

The man shook his head. “My father married late. He was well past thirty. His sister—your grandmother—seems to have been married right out of the schoolroom.”

“Made to, most likely,” said Jack, thinking of the autocratic Lady Wilton.

“I expect so. A seventeen-year-old girl would find it difficult to resist. If she wished to.”

“She died young, my father said.” Jack’s curiosity about his family battled his determination to remain aloof. He’d hoarded every crumb of history his father let fall when he was into the brandy. It added up to very little.

The duke nodded. “I never knew her.”

“And then Lady Wilton sent my father across the sea when he was barely out of school.”

“So I understand.”

“A fine sort of family,” said Jack bitterly.

“Reprehensible,” the duke replied.

“And yet you’re here doing her bidding.”

“That is not what I’m doing.” His tone was sharp.

“What do you call it then?”

The other man considered a moment, then made a wry face. “I did give in to Grandmama’s nagging. I admit it. She is relentless.”

Jack could vouch for that.

“My wife convinced me we should…take the path of least resistance.”

This was the woman Harriet Finch called a friend. What was she after? Was she another virago, issuing orders to dukes? Jack felt as if a net was closing on him.

“Grandmama has no real power over you, you know,” the duke added.

“Beyond nagging me to death with her criticisms.”

“Beyond that, yes.” The dashed duke smiled at him.

“Nor do you,” replied Jack grumpily. “I could throw you out of my house.”

“You could indeed. I almost wish you would. But Cecelia wouldn’t like it.”

“Why not?”

“She wants to help.”

Help who, to do what? Jack wondered.

“I assume your Traveler friends will keep quiet about your stay with them?”

“If I ask them to. And who would they tell?”

“Indeed. And no one else in the neighborhood knows you. So you can appear at your new home without awkward questions.”

No one except Harriet Finch. He wouldn’t be telling this duke about their meetings. He had no reason to trust him. And he could make no move without speaking to her. “I haven’t said I would,” he answered.

“I really think this is best,” the man said.

That might be kindness in his eyes. Jack didn’t know him well enough to be sure. “I don’t know.”

The duke waited.

“I’ll think about it.”

The visitor seemed about to say more, then he shrugged. “Very well. It is your choice.”

That was a fresh attitude. “I don’t suppose you would just go back to London and tell Lady Wilton you couldn’t find me?” Jack asked as a last hope.

“I might, but she would send someone else. Or come up here herself to wreak havoc.”

Jack shuddered.

“If I begin to set things in train, we could stage your ‘appearance’ tomorrow.”

“Not so fast. I haven’t agreed.” Perhaps there was some other way out? But whether there was or no, he had to get to Miss Finch.

The duke nodded. “You need only send word when you are ready.”

He assumed Jack would give in. Perhaps they always did when he commanded. And people here couldn’t believe a man would refuse to be an earl.

“If there’s anything you need…”

“Nothing.” Thinking only of Harriet Finch, Jack made cursory farewells. And as soon as the duke had gone, he rushed through the woods toward Winstead Hall. Jack was so distracted that he nearly ran afoul of one of the watchers at the border. He evaded him at the last moment and eeled his way into the gardens surrounding the house.

The day was waning. Lights had begun to show in the windows. There was no one about. He thought of knocking at the kitchen door and asking for Miss Finch. But that would rouse questions and perhaps a great furor. Her grandfather might have him tossed out.

Nearly overcome with frustration, Jack realized the Earl of Ferrington would be in a totally different position when he came to this house. He wouldn’t have to fight his way in. He would be welcome. He could walk in and see Miss Finch any time he liked. His proposal of marriage would delight her family. No one would snub him. Jack rather liked that notion, even as he—ridiculously—resented this carefree earl. But perhaps change was for the best, and he should become that man. As soon as he reached Miss Finch and prepared her. He must talk to her alone, not in a crowd of people fawning over the newfound earl. Not before he figured out how to be that nobleman.

He turned away. He would write a note. Surely there was paper and pen somewhere about the camp. He would ask Miss Finch to meet him. Urgently. He could slip it under the front door and let a servant find it.

***

“I’ve done it,” the Duke of Tereford told his wife when he returned to Ferrington Hall.

“It?”

“I found the earl.”

“In the Travelers’ camp?”

He gazed at her with fond exasperation. “Must you always be a step ahead of me, Cecelia?”

She spread her hands. “Knowing about his mother, the coincidence was too great.”

“Yes, but you might have pretended to be surprised and impressed.”

The duchess smiled. She clasped her hands and offered him a wide-eyed gaze. “Oh, James, how clever you are!”

“Unconvincing,” he replied. His lips twitched, but he resisted the smile.

“Well, you wouldn’t wish me to pretend admiration.”

“Wouldn’t I?” He shrugged. “Not when you don’t feel it,” he conceded.

“You know very well how I feel about you. I love you with all my heart.”

He met her steady gaze and held it for a long moment. “Likewise.”

The duchess smiled. “Likewise? Is that the best you can do?”

“Oh, I can do better. I will show you later on.”

Her cheeks reddened. “I merely gave you credit for being as intelligent as I am,” she added.

“Now there is a compliment!”

“And thus, I assumed you had drawn similar conclusions.”

“How can it be so enflaming when you say thus?”

“I suppose it is one of my special talents.”

“You have so many of those.”

Her flush deepened.