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“Where are we off to on this glorious day?” Oscar asked.

Lily had dragged him to the milliner’s after yesterday’s call on the Kettering household. “My glovemaker, by way of a call on the Countess of Rosecroft.”

Hessian had devised this scheme before he’d left Lily the previous evening. She was to pay a call on her ladyship, while Hessian would find a discreet way to approach the earl. Rosecroft and his countess would make formidable go-betweens, because Uncle Walter would not dare restrict Lily’s access to them, or theirs to her.

Thank heavens, Hessian had been capable of thinking.

Oscar examined his teeth in the mirror over the sideboard. “Her ladyship is blond, curvaceous, has an unmistakable northern accent? I don’t think she cares for me.”

“If that’s all you noticed about her, then you doubtless failed to impress her. You look fine, Oscar.”

He tapped his top hat onto this head, then adjusted the angle. “Fine isn’t good enough. I must look my best if I’m to make an impression as your devoted cousin. Sir Worth Kettering was impressed. I certainly made a proper fuss over his stinking dog. I hope Rosecroft hasn’t any dogs. Canines are not supposed to be underfoot when one is entertaining callers.”

He left off adjusting his hat, his cravat pin, his gloves, and his watch chain to offer Lily his arm.

“Rosecroft’s hound is twice the size of Worth Kettering’s,” Lily said. “The dog is devoted to Bronwyn.”

Coach wheels and shod hooves sounded on the cobbles out front, and the butler opened the door.

“Do I devote myself to the child or to the dog?” Oscar asked.

If Hessian could not foil Uncle Walter’s schemes, Lily might be sentenced to thirty more years of Oscar’s hopeless self-interest.

She took her cousin’s arm. “You make much of the dog. Bronwyn, like her parents, does not suffer fools, while Scout’s nature is tolerant.”

Oscar needed a moment to comprehend the insult, but he smiled as he handed Lily into the coach. “Very clever.” He settled beside her on the forward-facing seat, something he would not have done even a week ago. “Is my doting convincing? Papa lurks in his study, peering out of windows at the most inconvenient times.”

Uncle’s study was the only room in the house to have a view of both the back garden and the front walkway. Lily had noticed this within a week of joining his residence.

“Your doting is convincing. I wish you wouldn’t.”

He patted her hand, and Lily nearly bolted from the coach. “No need to thank me. I’m not awful, you know.”

Yes, you are. “You are also not the husband I’d choose for myself.”

“You think I want a tart-tongued woman five years my senior for a bride? That reminds me, what did the Braithwaite creature want? She’s called on you twice now in the space of a week. Papa says she was a friend of your mother’s, but what sort of friend waits years to pay a condolence call?”

Hessian had warned Lily not to underestimate Oscar—he was his father’s son, after all. “If she should call again while I’m out, please do not receive her. She claims to have letters my mother wrote, and I suspect she wants me to pay her for them.”

Oscar left off fussing with his sleeve button. “Enterprising of her. Are these scandalous letters? Was your mother propositioning another woman in writing? How naughty.”

I shall go mad within the week. “I haven’t spoken with Mrs. Braithwaite enough to know the nature of the correspondence, but I will entrust resolution of her concerns to you, should you become my husband.”

“That’s the spirit,” Oscar said, patting Lily’s hand again. “Man and wife, wedded and bedded. Shall we pay a call on Mrs. Braithwaite as a couple?”

How long could one coach ride be? “Uncle has warned me not to allow a connection with her. He says she’s not good ton.”

“Does that mean she’s a bit too merry? I fancy a merry widow, though—”

Lily yanked the shade down. “Oscar, you will recall, at all times, in all places, that I am a lady. Your vulgar observations are inappropriate.”

He tried for a laugh. Lily ignored him, and at long last, he fell silent. The absence of grating chatter probably meant he was brooding over how to use Mrs. Braithwaite’s threats to his own advantage.

“Mrs. Braithwaite expected me to marry the Earl of Grampion,” Lily said. “I was to encourage him to place his ward in Mrs. Braithwaite’s household, for the girl is her niece.”

“What widow in her right mind would willingly—? Oh, Grampion has money. Of course. Well, you won’t be marrying him.”

“It’s not as if Grampion has offered for me.” Though he had, and last night he’d withdrawn his offer, in so many words.

Of all the frustrations and sorrows burdening Lily’s heart, that one was the heaviest. Grampion was behaving honorably, aiding a damsel in a mess, but he’d been very plainspoken on the topic of marriage to her.

A peer’s marriage must be free of any hint of irregularity. Lily had been spinning ignorant fancies to expect anything else.

“Here we are.” Oscar peered out the window at Rosecroft’s town house, a modest dwelling on a peaceful side street. His lordship had doubtless chosen the property for two reasons. It was close to the homes of his parents and siblings, and its stables were large and commodious for a Town residence.

“Rosecroft is horse-mad,” Lily said as the footman lowered the steps.

“Everybody knows that.” Oscar preceded her from the coach and offered her his hand. “They’re expecting us?”

“I often call on her ladyship of a weekday afternoon.”

“No accounting for taste,” Oscar said, putting Lily’s hand on his arm. “Let’s get this over with. I can use a new pair of gloves, come to think of. I’ll put them on your account, shall I?”

Five minutes later, Rosecroft was escorting a bewildered Oscar from the family parlor—“Stronger libation to be had just down the corridor, Leggett”—and her ladyship was closing the door behind the men.

“Lily Ferguson, why on earth would you inflict the company of that strutting noddypoop on yourself, much less on somebody who accounts herself one of your friends?”

“I do apologize,” Lily said, “and Oscar isn’t… well, he is, but that cannot be helped.”

Her ladyship took the place on the sofa next to Lily. “Lily, have you been crying?”

Only half the night. “Of course not.”

“I’m a mama. We have instincts about these things. You’re in trouble, aren’t you?”

“I have been for years.” Who on earth had said that? Lily put her hand over her mouth, but nothing would unsay those words. “I beg your pardon. I’m simply… Uncle thinks Oscar and I would suit.”

Masculine laughter sounded from down the corridor. Lily wanted to clap her hands over her ears.

“Tell me the rest, Lily. We’re friends, and once upon a time, I was in a spot of bother myself. Rosecroft hasn’t slept on a bed of eiderdown his whole life either.”

Once upon a time… the opening for most self-respecting fairy tales. “If Grampion asks your husband for a private conversation, please indicate to Rosecroft that I’d take it as a favor if he allowed the conversation.”

“It’s Grampion you’d rather marry, isn’t it?” Her ladyship’s tone was so kind, so understanding, that Lily’s heart broke all over again.

“There’s more to it than that, but yes. I’d rather spend the rest of my life doing Grampion’s laundry or chopping vegetables in his kitchen than endure five minutes as Oscar’s wife, but I’m not sure I have a choice. Uncle is very determined on the matter, and there’s a fortune involved, as well as old scandal.”

The countess took Lily in her arms. “You poor dear. Your smiling grease spot of an uncle has doubtless helped himself to your money and can’t bear for the world to learn of his thievery. Why must people be so venal and greedy?”

Her ladyship’s embrace was fierce and unexpected, else Lily might have had some defense against it. Instead, Lily hugged her friend back and tried not to cry.

“I’m tired,” Lily said when she’d thoroughly re-wrinkled Hessian’s handkerchief. She’d kept the one he’d given her last night and was carrying it as a talisman against despair. “I’m tired of dealing with Uncle, and now Oscar says he and I are to be married after my birthday. I have only seventy-eight pounds, and please stuff a tea cake in my mouth, lest I become a candidate for Bedlam.”

Her ladyship held up a plate of cakes. “Take several. They’re small, and Rosecroft will be back soon, a one-man biblical plague where baked goods are concerned. What can I do to help, Lily? I can put a coach and team at your disposal, get you to Dover, Portsmouth, or Scotland. Money won’t be a problem, and you’re welcome to help yourself to my wardrobe, though we’re hardly of a size.”

 Tears threatened all over again. “Thank you, but if I leave England, then there will be fresh scandal, and I can’t have that.” Then too, leaving England meant never seeing Hessian again.

Her ladyship nibbled on a plain cake. “Grampion probably develops hives at the mention of scandal, and it’s Grampion you want.”

“You malign his lordship at your peril, Emmaline.”

Her ladyship popped the last of her tea cake in her mouth and dusted her palms. “I mean your intended no disrespect. Some men simply have a wide proper streak, my Devlin among them. Those same men can develop a wide improper streak at the most interesting times. You’ve chosen Grampion, and thus we must see that you aren’t shackled to your noddypoop cousin. Has Grampion chosen you?”

Had he unchosen Lily? Stepped back for the nonce? “I don’t know.”

“Oh dear. Try the chocolate cakes. They are my favorite.”

A muscular arm landed across Hessian’s shoulders.

“My commanding officer has dispatched me with special orders. I am to find an opportunity to converse with you privately and nominate myself to serve as your aide-de-camp.”

Colonel Lord Rosecroft exuded genial Irish bonhomie, as if he’d had a bit too much of Jonathan Tresham’s excellent brandy. Hessian had watched his lordship through a long evening of cards, though, and Rosecroft’s drinking habits were abstemious.

His gaze was dead steady, despite the jocularity of his tone.

“Who might your commanding officer be, my lord?”

“My own dear wife, of course. Tresham, thanks for a lovely evening. Until next week.” Rosecroft bowed to the company of gentlemen putting on hats and greatcoats, and all but dragged Hessian out the door. “Tresham is doomed, poor sod. A ducal heir with pots of money, and he’s not bad-looking.”

“Why do we refer to a man contemplating matrimony as doomed? I gather in the right company, the result of speaking the nuptial vows is the opposite of perdition.”

Worth and Jacaranda, for example, were besotted. Rosecroft doted on his wife publicly, and she on him.

“Lily Ferguson is in fear of a marriage to her cousin,” Rosecroft said. “Which cousin my lady wife will refer to only as The Noddypoop. I gather you are to foil this plot, and I am to assist you.”

Worth had begged off this evening, claiming that business had overrun his schedule. Hessian happened to know that the business in question was a teething infant.

“Can you fly, Rosecroft? I’m coming to believe that nothing short of angelic powers will see Lily Ferguson free of her uncle’s machinations.”

Rosecroft muttered something that sounded Irish and profane.

Tresham had a set of rooms at the Albany, and thus Hessian and his escort had much of Mayfair to cross on foot in the dark. This was fortunate, for Hessian had no idea where to begin his tale.

Lily’s tale, in truth.

“Here’s what I know,” Rosecroft said, “which I gather is the sum of what my wife was able to pry from dear Lily’s grasp, even when aided by the formidable truth potion of tea and chocolate cakes: Walter Leggett has bungled management of Lily’s fortune. He seeks to keep his penury and ineptitude quiet by marrying Lily to his heir. Lily would rather marry you.”

“Which does not mean that she’s enamored of me. I’m simply the lesser of several evils.” And Hessian couldn’t shake the notion that something worse than a mere reversal of fortunes was behind Walter Leggett’s scheming.

“Women who spend an hour behind a closed door, sending twice for more cakes, aren’t discussing how best to bring about matrimony to the lesser of several evils, Grampion. How can I be of service?”

What a kind, tempting offer.

“You must talk me out of kidnapping Lily Ferguson.” Hessian had spent the past two days in thought—his seventeen days were down to fifteen—and no clever plan, no impressive legal maneuver had occurred to him.

Though every obstacle, risk, and impediment had.

“Why talk you out of it? By the time the grandchildren show up, an elopement would make for a good tale and add a dash of derring-do to the family legends. Lily’s of age, and so, my friend, are you.”

This was not the advice Worth would have handed out. “For me to abscond with the lady opens the door for Walter Leggett to further mishandle her funds. We’ll be years prying any coin from his grasp, if any coin yet remains.”

This reasoning was a factor, because Hessian yet held out hope that Lily—Lilith, his Lily—was entitled to some funds from her mother’s estate. 

“You don’t care half a rotten fig about the money.”

“Lily might, but you’re right. I also have responsibility for three small children, as you know. Scandal attached to my name is an opening for their aunt, Roberta Braithwaite, to snatch the youngest child, Daisy, from my control.”

“You’re an earl,” Rosecroft scoffed. “The aunt won’t get a hearing from any court of competent jurisdiction for several years, and by then, the child will be all but grown and quite attached to her dear guardian.”

True, as far as it went. “Your Bronwyn will make her bow in about ten years.”

“Go on.”

“When Bronwyn was conceived, you’d have been mucking about in Spain, chasing the French across the mountains, and trying not to die of dysentery.”

“Your point?”

Gone was the cheerful companion who’d while away an evening stroll in good company. In his place was a growling former soldier ready to make a good showing with his fists.

“You are not Bronwyn’s father, and whatever the legal arrangements, whatever the truth of her patrimony, you are already worried about the reception she’ll receive when she makes her come out ten years from now. She’s an unusual girl with an unusual provenance. Even with an army of ducal relations behind her, she’ll face a challenge.”

Rosecroft marched along in silence until they came to the next corner. “The widow would not prevail in court, but you’re right: She could make Daisy’s life difficult. Eloping with Lily might, possibly, devolve to Daisy’s discredit. Maybe.”

“I cannot gamble with that child’s happiness on a maybe, and Lily would not want me to.”

“You still haven’t told me how I can help.”

They passed a brothel on St. James’s, the scent of hashish wafting on the night air. Lily might have ended up in such an establishment, but for her uncle’s intervention. That thought alone kept Hessian from cleaning his dueling pistols.

“Please assure me that this conversation will be held in strictest confidence, Rosecroft.”

“I will overlook the slight to my honor, because you’re in love, which equates to being half-daft in the newly smitten.”

If this was love, this endless anxiety, this constant muddle and heartache, Hessian would rather have a toothache, a megrim, and a touch of the Jericho jig.

“I will convey to you a story,” he said, “of a family well situated but not titled…” He sketched Lily’s past, her mother’s indiscretion, the early years of limited contact, the death of the foster parents, and the years in service at the coaching inn. “And Lily was retrieved from the coaching inn, because the legitimate sister eloped at the age of seventeen with a house steward. She reportedly died in a coaching accident on the way to Scotland with her intended.”

Rosecroft paused to sniff at a precocious rose growing from a pot beneath the porch light of an otherwise darkened town house. “That is a prodigiously convenient coaching accident.”

“Convenient for Walter Leggett, who has lied to Lily often and convincingly. Who has kept Lily nearly under guard, who has monitored everything from her correspondence, to her social habits, to which bachelors she stands up with for the supper waltz.”

“My brother needs to water his roses,” Rosecroft said, snapping off the blossom and tucking it into his lapel. “You think the sister is alive.”

“Have you fashioned a will, Rosecroft?”

“Of course.”

“And is one provision that your daughter inherits her portion upon the sooner of a certain birthday or her lawful marriage?”

Rosecroft resumed walking. “At seventeen, a woman cannot lawfully marry over her guardian’s objection.”

“She can in Scotland.”

“Hence your comment about needing the ability to fly. If the sister is alive and kicking her heels in the Borders, she can sue Walter for mishandling her fortune.”

“And that brings us back to scandal and to Lily being left with nothing, assuming the older sister is alive and assuming I can find her and produce evidence of her existence in two weeks.”

“I can see why the ladies went through three plates of tea cakes. What will you do?”

Scotland was three-hundred-fifty miles away by awful roads, and even if Lily’s sister had married over the anvil at Gretna Green, Hessian had no way of knowing if the happy couple had settled in Scotland or darkest Peru.

“You ask what I’ll do,” Hessian said. “At first, I cast caution to the wind with Lily, and now all I see are bad options. One hardly knows what to do.”

“I live three streets that direction and serve a fine nightcap.”

“Thank you, but I must decline, for some course of action must be settled on, and I do my best thinking in solitude. I have too much supposition and not enough facts.” All the logic in the world still required some basic facts to reason from.

“Much like being a parent,” Rosecroft said. “You do the best you can and hope divine providence weighs in favor of your children. The offer of a nightcap stands.”

“Perhaps another time. Please keep a close eye on Lily for me, and if you can spare Bronwyn for an occasional outing to the park, Daisy and I would be most appreciative.”

“And about this other?” Rosecroft waved a gloved hand that encompassed stolen fortunes, elopement, an illegitimate daughter, and at least nineteen other scandals.

“I will begin with a trip to Chelsea tomorrow and then pay a call on the Duchess of Quimbey. I’ll confer with my brother thereafter and then start packing for a trip to the north.”

“So you do have some notion of how to go on?” Rosecroft asked as the bells of St. Paul’s tolled in the distance. “A strategy?”

“I have a hunch, and a fortnight to prevent disaster, scandal, and heartbreak.”

“Best of luck, Grampion, and you will most assuredly need it.”

Lily came awake when a cool breeze wafted across her cheeks—and there he was, standing in the shadows by her bedroom window.

“Hessian.”

“You should be in bed, madam.”

Had he hoped to find her in bed? The mantel clock said Lily had slept for only a few minutes, and yet, exhaustion had molded her to the deep cushions of the reading chair.

“I was thinking,” she said. “I must have nodded off. How are you?”

He looked tired and serious, also a bit wicked. His attire was dark, not even a white neckcloth relieving the black, no signet ring on his finger, no pin winking from the folds of his neckcloth.

“I am… Is the door locked?”

“Yes.” Lily had started taking that precaution as a result of Oscar’s gleeful hand-patting. When in his cups, he might attempt to anticipate vows Lily would never willingly speak.

Hessian took the hassock, rather than open his arms to Lily or draw her to her feet. “Ephrata Tipton appears to have departed from Chelsea, at least temporarily.”

The hollowness Lily had carried in the pit of her stomach since learning of her mother’s death years ago opened up wider. “Where would she go?” Please let her be safe. And then: Why would she leave me?  

“On her wedding journey, as it happens.”

Anxiety receded—it did not vanish, for not all wedding journeys were happy—and yet, Lily was also aware of a touch of envy.

“Good for her. I hope he’s worthy of her.”

“He’s a retired Navy captain who frequently visits friends at the royal hospital. He and Miss Tipton struck up an acquaintance nearly a year ago. I have his name and direction, though the cottage in Chelsea has yet to be vacated.”

Lily had to touch Hessian, even if he merely tolerated the overture. She leaned forward enough to run a hand through his hair.

“You have learned much, and yet, you don’t appear pleased with yourself. I am pleased to see you.”

His gaze brushed over her. “I am pleased to see you as well. I engaged in a subterfuge.”

“You would abhor subterfuge.” Did he abhor her?

“My opinion on the matter has grown complicated. We learn the classic works of drama because they are art, a form of great literature. We play charades at every house party to pass the time in harmless diversion. We tell tall tales over a pint in the pub… I told the innkeeper that my sister-in-law was a former charge of Miss Tipton’s, and I’d offered to look in on the old dear.”

“And now, having told a harmless fabrication, you feel like a confidence trickster?” What did that make Lily, who was fraud wearing a ballgown—or a nightgown.

Hessian’s smile was crooked as he tucked Lily’s lap robe over her feet. “I feel clever, which is very bad of me. The innkeeper volunteered that I sounded as if I’d grown up in the Borders and bided there still. Perhaps I lived near my brother in Birdwell-on-Huckleburn?”

That smile… that smile was not among the smiles Lily had seen on Hessian to date. It brought out the resemblance to his brother, Worth, and went well with the dark clothing.

“What has Birdwell-on-Anywhere to do with Tippy?”

“The innkeeper was showing off, flourishing his eye for detail. Somebody has been writing regularly to Miss Tipton from Birdwell-on-Huckleburn. I grew up in Cumberland and have occasion to know that Birdwell is a market town not far from Dumfries. Her Grace of Quimbey confirmed that Lawrence Delmar had been a braw, bonnie Scot and that he and Walter Leggett quarreled loudly on the eve of your sister’s elopement.”

Hessian’s recitation provoked such a degree of upset, Lily put a hand over his mouth. “A moment, please. Somebody has been writing regularly to Tippy from Scotland?”

He took her hand, his grip warm. “Mrs. Lawrence Delmar. She is among Miss Tipton’s most faithful correspondents. She writes every other month, has no need to cross her letters, and seals them with a family crest.”

Hessian was trying to convey information—facts, implications, conclusions. Lily could not make her mind work to grasp any of it.

“My sister is alive, and Tippy never told me?” Lily wanted to shout, to throw things, to climb out the window and dash headlong for Birdwell-on-Deception. “I don’t know whether to be… but Annie is alive—she was always Annie to me—and surely that is a miracle. I refuse to cry, because this is good news. It must be.”

“And yet,” Hessian said, “you are dealt another blow to learn you’ve been subjected to yet another falsehood. I’m sorry, Lily.”

She did not want his apology, because he hadn’t wronged her by bringing this truth to light. “Hold me, for the love of God, please hold me.”

He plucked her from the chair and carried her to the bed. Lily had turned the sheets back to warm and scooted under the covers, while Hessian tugged off his boots.

“Get in here,” Lily said, untying her dressing gown and flinging it to the foot of the bed. “Get in here and tell me everything you know, Hessian Kettering. I will not engage in strong hysterics, despite the temptation, but neither can I promise you a ladylike vocabulary.”

He draped his coat and waistcoat over the back of the reading chair and drew the window curtains closed before coming to the bed.

He stood for a moment, gazing down at Lily as she lay on her side, willing him to join her.

The mattress dipped, and he was drawing the covers up over them both. “We must conclude your sister is alive and thriving, Lily. She doesn’t need to skimp on paper to the extent of crossing her letters. She uses a family crest to seal correspondence. She has the leisure to write regularly, and in all the years she’s been corresponding with Miss Tipton, her direction hasn’t changed. She’s not haring about after a man who can’t hold a job, not fleeing the law, or using an alias.”

“You are trying to reassure me.”

Hessian tucked an arm under Lily’s neck and drew her along his side. “Is it working?”

His sane, sensible conclusions would sink in after he’d left. What calmed Lily was his nearness. “Some. What did Her Grace of Quimbey have to add?”

Hessian had a way of holding Lily that was at once snug and easy. The bed was immediately warm with him in it, and despite all the clothing—far too much clothing—the fit of his body to Lily’s was comfortable.

Also comforting.

“Her Grace explained London to me. I seldom use my Town residence and haven’t paid much attention to domestic details. Most neighborhoods use the same dairy, the same bakeshop, the same laundresses and tinkers. The dairy maids, night soil men, crossing sweepers—they all share news and gossip, and they carry it from one back entrance to another, one stable to another.”

“You did not know this?” If there was any pleasure associated with working at a coaching inn, it was the sense of having all the news from every corner of the realm. A crop failure in Dorset, a spectacular barn fire in East Anglia, a great fair in Yorkshire—the coaching inns heard about everything in first-person accounts.

“I did not grasp the extent of a wealthy widow’s news sources, and for years before her present union, the duchess was widowed.”

Lily untied Hessian’s neckcloth and drew it off. “How is this relevant?”

The linen smelled of him, of soap and cedar, and faintly of starch. She tossed it in the direction of the reading chair.

“Her Grace of Quimbey keeps journals and thus was able to regale me with astonishing details. Lawrence Delmar was an exceedingly handsome, friendly fellow. The ladies all noticed him, from the maids, to the laundresses, to the occasional visitor paying a call on Walter. Delmar lived in and served as much as a man of business as a house steward. For a young man, he had a lot of responsibility, but he also rose to whatever challenge Walter Leggett threw at him.”

Next, Lily opened the buttons at the top of Hessian’s shirt. “Uncle speaks well of those with ambition, until they’re wealthy. Then they become encroaching mushrooms.”

“Lily, if you persist…”

She kissed him. “One can’t be comfortable in a bed when fully clothed. Finish your story.”

Hessian held her so her face was pressed to his shoulder. “How am I to think logically when you are removing my clothing?”

He let her go, and Lily subsided against him. Had he kept his hands to himself in aid of self-restraint? That would be very like Hessian Kettering.

“Delmar and Walter had a spectacular falling-out,” he went on. “The shouting could be heard throughout the house, though such a disagreement was unprecedented in their relationship. Nobody knows if the subject was permission to court your sister, a financial matter, or something else entirely. The next morning, Delmar was gone, and your sister was missing as well. Nobody saw them leave, and Walter was soon putting it about that his niece was off to a fine finishing school in Switzerland.”

“And Uncle has never had a house steward or man of business since,” Lily said. “Not that I know of, nor has he permitted Oscar to learn much about the finances.”

“Your hair… Do you use French soap? I can’t place the fragrance.”

Hessian sniffed right above Lily’s ear, and beneath the cozy covers, she shivered. “I buy it from a shop in Chelsea. If my sister is kicking her heels in Scotland, Uncle is probably that much more desperate to get her money out of the trust accounts and into his own hands.”

Next came more of a nuzzle than a sniff.

“If Walter knows your sister is alive and well. Maybe she served him a portion of his own recipe and dissembled about her demise, the better to be left in peace.”

Quiet stretched, with only the crackling of the fire to mark the moment. Lily tried to think—tried to parse how Hessian’s discoveries would impact Walter’s behavior—and was foiled by a welter of sensations.

Hessian’s fingers, casually stroking her arm. The beat of his heart beneath her cheek. The sheer, shameless relief of being close to him.

“I should be packing for Scotland,” Lily said. “I don’t want to move.”

Hessian shifted to peer down at her. “You cannot in any way let your uncle know what you’ve learned, Lily. For the next two weeks, he controls the money, but it’s in trust for you, your sister, your ducal relations, somebody. If he has you followed to Scotland and learns that the real heiress is alive, what will he do? Look at the lengths he’s gone to with you. Two years in an exclusive finishing school, an elaborate charade, significant expense, this farcical notion of marrying you to Oscar.”

“You’re saying Uncle is desperate.”

Hessian brushed her hair back from her brow. “Only a desperate man would risk deceiving ducal in-laws for years on end, much less defrauding them of settlements that in all likelihood should have reverted to their hands.”

“But if my sister—”

He kissed her, barely a peck on the lips. “I will go to Scotland. I’ll investigate your sister’s circumstances, if indeed Mrs. Delmar is your sister. You must stay here and carry off one last deception, Lily. You have always done your uncle’s bidding, however much you might grumble. You must for two more weeks be that resentful but submissive niece and give me time to untangle this mess.”

They would be the longest two weeks of her life. “I’d rather go myself,” Lily said, winnowing her fingers through Hessian’s hair. “If my sister is alive, I want to hear her explanation. I want to see her. I want to know what she can tell me about who my father is.”

Hessian dropped his forehead to Lily’s. “If you attempted the journey to Scotland, the instant your uncle caught up to you—there being very few wellborn redheaded young ladies traveling the Great North Road at speed—he would claim you’ve taken leave of your senses and apply to become your guardian. I beg you, don’t give him that opportunity.”

Recent threats from Walter suggested he would enact even that plan.

“Be careful,” Lily said, holding Hessian tightly. “Please, be very, very careful.”

He wrapped his arms around her, Lily shifted, and as if the room had been shaken by thunder, she realized that despite all the information Hessian had conveyed, despite the clear thinking he was capable of, he had also convincingly dissembled for the second time in one day.

Hessian had been a dutiful reporter, he was prepared to gallop forth on his next assignment, and his affections thus far had been bestowed reluctantly.

And yet, he was aroused. He was utterly, absolutely, wonderfully aroused.