The twenty hours and forty-five minutes since Mr. Grenville had taken his leave and promised to return were the longest twenty hours and forty-five minutes of Nora’s life.

She knew she should not read too much into a Society gentleman’s sudden interest in taking tea with a commoner. A kiss meant nothing. The very fact of him returning for lemon cakes and not to beg for her hand proved what they both already knew. There could be no courtship.

And yet she’d been unable to sleep. Unable to concentrate. Unable to sit still on her stool even when Pepys poked her with hairpins to get her to pay attention.

It was hopeless. All Nora could think about was that kiss. He had transported her from an empty sitting room to a magical ballroom with an orchestra only the two of them could hear. And then, when he had lowered those full, warm lips and touched his mouth to hers…

“Are you drawing, or are you moon-calfing?” Lady Roundtree asked crossly.

“Er, drawing.” Nora snapped her gaze to the sketch in front of her. “I was… contemplating the best shading technique?”

Lady Roundtree sniffed. “You were contemplating your upcoming tea.”

Nora glanced over at her sharply, her heart pounding in alarm and embarrassment.

Lady Roundtree flapped her gloved fingers toward Nora’s sketchbook. “No matter how much you like mulberry jam, young lady, there will be none for you until you finish that portrait.”

Nora nearly swooned in relief.

The baroness had no idea that her insides muddled together like a paintbrush in water. She still saw Nora as a poor relation whose greatest victory was a full belly.

“Finishing touches now,” she promised.

Her fingers flew across the page, but her mind was elsewhere.

Not a day went by that she didn’t miss her brother and grandparents dearly, and wonder how they were getting on in her absence. Slowly, however, this opulent town house was starting to feel like a second home. Lady Roundtree and Captain Pugboat were family, too.

She penciled in the final details, and presented her artwork to Lady Roundtree with a flourish.

Today’s effort was the latest in what had become a twelve-portrait series of fanciful scenes starring the baroness and Captain Pugboat. In this one, the intrepid duo was taming an actual lion.

Nora could scarcely keep a straight face.

Upon viewing the masterwork, Lady Roundtree burst into delighted laughter. When she finally caught her breath, her eyes met Nora’s and they both collapsed into another fit of giggles.

The baroness held up the portrait. “Who do you think I can convince that this really happened?”

“Anyone with any sense,” Nora assured her. “Whenever Cap’n P. Boat has that many ribbons tied about his neck, he fools me into believing he’s a real lion, too.”

Lady Roundtree motioned for a footman to add the newest portrait to the beautiful gilded frames she had commissioned specifically for this series. In moments, this sketch would join the others on the walls of her private chamber.

“I am going to discover your artistic limits,” the baroness warned her.

Nora lifted her chin in challenge. “I can devise a new adventure every day for the rest of our lives, if you so desire.”

The baroness harrumphed. “Next time, I want us to be harpooning a whale.”

Nora snorted with laughter. “In the Thames? Or is this more of a Bath seaside holiday?”

“Pirate ship,” Lady Roundtree said firmly. “Without question.”

“Consider it done,” Nora promised.

As she and the baroness became mutual champions more and more, Nora’s fear of her double life being found out had multiplied.

She did her drawings here, under this roof, behind Lady Roundtree’s back. Their names were linked. Nora had not only inadvertently brought the baroness into the shadow of scandal, but the discovery would hurt Lady Roundtree’s feelings, and disappoint her deeply.

Right before she tossed Nora out on her ear.

For the tenth time that day, she wished she could give up the caricatures. But even if her family weren’t in desperate need of the money, Nora was in too deep. The damage had already been done. Stopping now would not make the resulting scandal any less devastating.

But there would be no scandal.

She was very careful, both in covering her own tracks and in ensuring she only drew what Society already knew to be true.

More importantly, in a less than a sennight, it would all be over. Lady Roundtree’s fractured limb was improving with every passing day. Once Nora returned home, everyone’s lives would go right back to normal. Both she and the caricatures would be quickly forgotten.

A footman appeared in the open doorway. “Mr. Grenville is here for tea, madam.”

A rush of excitement filled Nora at the sound of Mr. Grenville’s name.

“Shall I have the repast brought to this room instead?” the footman asked.

“No, no. It’s already set up the way I like it.” Lady Roundtree motioned her footman toward the handles of her chair. “Take me to my favorite settee.”

She and Lady Roundtree had only been installed in the parlor for a few moments when Mr. Grenville strode into the room.

Nora leapt up to curtsey. Instead, she froze in fear.

She had expected him to take her breath away, but not with a display of anger.

This was not the playful man who had helped her train a puppy with teacakes. Nor was this the rakish gentleman who had set her heart aflutter with a decadent waltz and a stolen kiss.

This version of Mr. Grenville was darker. Harder. More dangerous.

“What happened?” Nora stammered in alarm. Had he somehow found out the truth?

His beautiful lips curled into a sneer. “Have you seen the latest filth?”

She frowned. “What fil—”

“The caricaturist dares to draw my sister,” he snarled.

Nora’s stomach bottomed.

Mr. Grenville gripped the back of a chair but did not bring himself to sit down upon it. “I will not rest until he is destroyed.”

“B-but the drawing didn’t say anything bad about your sister,” Nora blurted. “Or her husband. It’s Society who finds fault with perfectly normal marital—”

She clamped her teeth together before any more confessions could tumble out.

Lady Roundtree winced. “I thought I burned that one before you had a chance to see it.”

Nora cleared her throat. “Er…”

“It doesn’t matter.” Mr. Grenville threw himself into the rosewood chair with obvious agitation. “All of England has seen it by now. Camellia’s likeness is being used not only for mockery, but to line some cretin’s pocket.”

Nora’s throat clogged with shock and guilt. She had thought she was doing a good thing. Poking fun where it belonged, not at the innocent. She had meant no insult to Lady Wainwright.

Belatedly, she realized even a “positive” caricature was worse than no caricature at all for a man as fiercely protective of his family as Mr. Grenville.

Drat her pen. Nora knew exactly what it felt like to do anything within one’s power to protect one’s family. It was good fortune she would soon be gone. She had no doubt a man this angry would turn over every stone in London in search of the culprit.

“That’s… terrible,” she managed faintly. “I can only imagine how you and your sister must feel.”

He threw his hands in the air in frustration. “Everyone can scrounge up some semblance of sympathy except for the black-hearted rotter behind these cruel cartoons.”

Lady Roundtree’s fingers fluttered in perturbation. “Do you want a teacake?”

“No,” he answered flatly. “I want justice.”

Nora gulped.

Captain Pugboat leaped onto her lap. Reflexively, she stroked his soft, wrinkled fur until even that made her feel like a monster. The man who had so quickly begun to fill her mind and her heart was suffering because of an action she had taken, and her only response was to stroke the puppy in her lap like a madman?

Mr. Grenville stared up at the ceiling. “Who could have done such a thing?”

Nora pushed Captain Pugboat onto the floor. She didn’t deserve him.

She didn’t deserve any of them.

Lady Roundtree and Mr. Grenville were in the presence of a fraud.

This was her chance to come clean to them both… Yet she couldn’t do it, no matter how much she might wish she could. The consequences would be too disastrous.

If Mr. Grenville discovered the truth, the very best she could hope for was him giving her the cut direct and never speaking to her again.

However, the most likely scenario was losing him, her cousin, her post, and the secret income all at once. Without the funds from the cartoons, she would not be able to rescue her family from poverty by helping to make their small farm self-sustaining again.

But she was done with caricatures of real people.

They weren’t worth the price on her soul.

She had meant the drawings as a means of helping her family, not hurting Mr. Grenville’s loved ones.

The reduced income might mean Carter’s plans to make the sheep farm self-sustainable this year wouldn’t happen after all. But she couldn’t risk an innocent being hurt again.

Lady Roundtree set down her teacup. “Has the caricature caused her harm?”

“Worse than harm.” Mr. Grenville’s eyes were blank and haunted. “She’s now a laughingstock.”

Nausea filled Nora’s stomach.

This was hell. She had never meant to hurt anyone. Not Mr. Grenville, not his sister, not even the Lord of Pleasure.

She was just the feather-witted country hick they all thought she was, trying her best to make the most of a temporary situation before being sent back home to slave to the bone beside her brother as they watched their grandparents wither and die.

There was no way for everyone to win.

“It’s my fault,” Mr. Grenville said brokenly. “It’s my job to protect my sister.”

Nora’s gut twisted. It was not his fault. He was a wonderful brother. A wonderful person. Heat pricked her eyes at how much he was hurting. How much she had hurt him and his family.

She ached to comfort him, but she was powerless to ease his pain.

Worse, she couldn’t even apologize for the damage she had accidentally caused.