The big red-haired man at the top of the stairs finally turned away, and Paulette remembered to breathe.

“Close your mouth,” Mabel whispered.

She clamped her mouth shut, praying the pounding she heard in her own ears would be inaudible to the others, or at least attributed to the quick journey and impending grief.

He was here, blast it, and who the devil was he? And why was he visiting the bedside of Lord Shaldon?

And why was she acting as silly as Mabel?

A shiver went through her. From this vantage point he loomed like a giant. And this time, he’d made a thorough inspection of her person. But he’d caught himself at the end and put back all of her clothing.

She shook her head. This was all Mabel’s fault, planting the seed that had set Paulette stewing about him for the last part of the journey. Well-dressed he was, in quality cloth, with a frock coat well fitted on those shoulders which—her heart skipped another beat—were quite the most massive she’d ever seen. Even bigger than the smith’s.

But no tradesman she knew of wore that sort of clothing. Perhaps he was a solicitor or surgeon. Yes, that would explain it.

She took in another sharp breath. Perhaps he was some friend of Shaldon’s, someone who had served the Earl as her papa had.

The ancient housekeeper came out to greet them and soothe Mrs. Everly’s grumblings.

Mrs. Everly would calm soon enough when Paulette packed her off to her sister. If travel by dog cart was offensive, well, lucky for everyone, Mrs. Everly, wasn’t making the return trip.

“Paulette, you must retire.” Mrs. Everly’s voice finally intruded. “They’ll bring a tray to your room. You must refresh yourself and change before you see his lordship. You must make a respectable—”

“No.” She’d been bullied, and ignored, and talked down to enough. Lord Shaldon had not answered any one of her many letters, except to dodge and offer platitudes through some man of business. He was not allowed to go to his death without answering some questions.

She marched to the staircase, and Mrs. Everly moaned.

Footsteps scurried, and a maid, as small as herself, came up beside her.

Paulette kept walking, eying the girl. She was far too tiny to stop an unruly lady. If they wished to stop her, they would need to set the footman on her, and they wouldn’t dare.

“If you will not show me the way to his lordship’s chamber,” she said to the maid, “I’ll find it myself.”

Though it had been years since her only visit, she had a memory of Cransdall’s layout. All she need do was follow the halls until she stumbled over a train of hushed servants moving in and out of his lordship’s sickroom.

“Yes, miss. I’ve no doubt you would be able to,” the maid whispered. “Lord Bakeley and the doctor are with his lordship, and his other son has just arrived. His daughter has been notified but I’m not sure she’ll reach here in time.”

Paulette stopped. “Charles is here?”

She’d met Charley, Shaldon’s younger son, on her disastrous visit, and like Bakeley he’d taken a brotherly pity on her. Not enough pity to write to her or to make the few hours’ ride to visit her when he was in the country. The last she’d heard, Charley was in Egypt, or Paris, or Vienna, or some other exciting environ following in his father’s footsteps.

The maid’s eyes went wide and her pale cheeks bloomed pink, a wholly English rosiness that Paulette could never hope to achieve.

The girl ducked her head, probably realizing she had overstepped, imparting information that was too much like gossip.

“Miss, I’m new here. I don’t know the brother’s name, but he’s just gone up the stairs ahead of us.”

Paulette’s skin buzzed. The man she’d met on the road had just gone up the stairs. The flaming-haired giant who’d ogled her was not one of Shaldon’s operatives, nor was he a solicitor, or physician, or a respectable gentleman. He was Shaldon’s son, but not a son she’d ever heard about.

He must be, he had to be, a by-blow.

She felt her face heat and then a niggling chill swept through her. Perhaps Shaldon had others. Perhaps…

No. No, no, no. She was the beloved daughter of Paul and Sela Heardwyn. She picked up her skirts and continued on.

The footman delivered Bink to the sickroom door and vanished. Before he could knock, the door flew open.

James Everly, Viscount Bakeley, eldest legitimate son and heir of the Earl of Shaldon, nodded back at him. A grin split his face, quickly squashed into a somber expression. “Hello, brother,” he said.

That flashing grin was the Bakeley he’d known the summer he’d spent at Cransdall so many years ago.

Bakeley, the man, had grown into his mother’s son—stable, a good steward of the vast family holdings and wealth, a conventional lord. Not a sneaking, swindling, lying spy. Boring, almost. They’d run into each other in London months earlier, re-establishing the thin fraternal tie. Not so thin that Bakeley hadn’t hinted at some frustration with Shaldon since the Earl’s return to Cransdall.

Bakeley had managed the estate since his mother’s untimely death years earlier, and he’d done a damn fine job of it from what Bink could see. During their chats, Bakeley had mentioned some investments that had soured, some bad years due to weather. And of course, the troubles of the post-war economy. Shaldon, who’d spent his life letting others manage his riches while he managed the world, thought the estate should be doing better.

Of the many emotions roiling in Bakeley right now, one had to be relief that the badgering would soon end.

He pounded Bink’s shoulder. “You’re still bigger than me.”

“And I can still take you, if you keep pounding on me.”

He launched a soft jab at Bink’s other shoulder. “We’ll have a mill when this is over, what say you?”

A murmur of voices in the background brought Bakeley up. “Right then. This is a dreadful business. Shall we go in?”

Bink’s empty stomach churned. “I’ve come this far.”

Bakeley ushered him through a dressing room and into a bedroom with its grand canopied tester and ornate hangings. A thin, soberly-dressed man—a physician probably—hovered nearby. On the other side of the bed a solidly built manservant fussed with the bedclothes. The window curtains were drawn against the dusk, and candles spread uncertain circles of light.

Nerves rebelling, Bink fought for a breath, the air in the room thick from the warmth of an unnecessary fire and the tension of slow dying.

He stepped up to the bed.

A pair of dark eyes under grizzled hair followed his movements. Nothing else in the man moved—well, except for the upturn of his lips.

Bedclothes rustled and a hand emerged, yellowing flesh clinging to big bones. He still managed an aura of strength and command.

“Come closer.”

The voice was firmer than Bink would have expected. Even in his dying this man radiated power.

Bink’s feet seemed frozen in place, his spine locked upright.

“Edward,” the sick man said.

Edward. Edward Bink Gibson was the name on his baptismal register, yet it was like some other man being summoned.

He took in another deep breath. This was something to be got through, like the death of an anonymous soldier a man stumbled across in the smoke, the survivor tied to the dying, invisibly, intimately, even without the knowing that came with fighting shoulder to shoulder, or swilling from the same rum pot, or sharing a meal.

Bink moved closer. The man held his gaze, intelligence shining through the fog of what must be pain. His sallow skin had been freshly shaved, his hair combed.

“You summoned me,” Bink said.

“Indeed. Blast this bed.” Those words slurred, and the laugh that followed ended on a spluttering cough. “You’re a fine fellow.”

“A fine fellow you had to meet before you died?”

He rattled out another laugh. “No. A fine son. And we’ve met, boy. On the Peninsula.” The fingers lifted. “I had to see Addy’s boy for myself. Took off and enlisted. Too stubborn to ask me to buy a commission. You made me proud, boy.”

A coughing fit brought the manservant to his side and gave Bink time to sort through the pictures careening around in his jumbled brain. No Earl of Shaldon had crossed his path—or that of his commander, Major Beauverde, the current Lord Hackwell—he was sure.

The man was lying, like all spies lied; just like he’d lied when Bink was a boy, promising to meet him that long ago summer.

“He needs to rest,” the physician whispered.

“Damn you, I’ll have an eternity of that.” The garbled cry came with another cough. “I could not tell you, Edward.” He lifted his head a fraction. “Don’t you remember? You took a padre across the montanhas,” he said, adopting a heavy accent.

Bink squeezed his brows together. Not possible. The priest had seemed a smaller man, an older man. A Portuguese man.

And yet…

He moved closer. The dark intelligent eyes. The bushy brows. The gruff arrogance.

His head filled with memories, his thoughts sailing out of the closed stuffy room into a shepherd’s hut. Beauverde had saved his sorry arse from a possible hanging, packing him up on a mid-winter escort where freezing his balls off had been more of a danger than any Frog-eater.

There’d been nothing of humility in that maddening priest. He’d singled Bink out for his hair and goaded him to admit his Irish. He’d pushed and prodded and tried to shame him—unsuccessfully—to make a good confession, not accepting the truth that Bink wasn’t Catholic.

Bink slid a branch of candles closer. The face was drawn, jaundiced, lips pressed thin, yet the eyes twinkled with flecks of copper, a glimmer of his own.

A chuckle rumbled up and Bink swallowed it back. Well, he’d known about the Earl, hadn’t he? Shaldon had been no diplomat. He was a spy.

“Bloody hell,” Bink muttered.

Shaldon’s dry cracked lips turned up. “You made me proud, my son.”

His chest eased, a weight lifting. You made me proud, instead of you’re a sinner, and fool, and a disappointment. Zebediah Gibson, the man who’d played father to Bink, had left the world declaring him a failure, the bad mix of English aristocrat and Irish slut, the boy with no skills but his fists, who’d left to kill men in a hideous war. Zebediah had blamed it on the call of blood, the summer spent at Cransdall before Bink went off to the worldly school Lady Shaldon had paid for.

“I’ve heard you’re working for Hackwell. Not that you’d need it, but you’ll be provided for,” Shaldon said.

Bink opened his mouth to decline any bequest, but voices at the door distracted him and a flurry of skirts rushed to the bedside. The scent of flowers wafted up, and he looked down on a mass of springy dark hair, a straight nose, full lips and a bosom.

The lady from the road had invaded the sickroom in all her road dust, with a slick of tempting perspiration making her shine.

He shook off the unbrotherly thoughts.

Bakeley crowded next to her, and Shaldon’s head tilted.

“My lord,” she said. “Sir.”

Bakeley put a hand to her arm. “I’m sorry, Father—”

Shaldon’s fingers danced up again. “Paulette?” His voice sounded like oiled gravel, but his eyes lit. “Is it you?”

Paulette. The girl, not the horse. Gripping her bottom had driven that name from his memory.

“My lovely dear. Grown into a beauty. Good you’re here.”

“I’ve written you many letters, my lord.” She clenched her hands. “And when Mrs. Everly received news of your illness, I knew I must come.”

Shaldon slid a glance over to Bakeley. “You will explain.”

“Yes, Father.” Bakeley shot Bink a look, accompanied by a quirk of the lips that could have been an incipient frown or a squelched smirk.

The skin on Bink’s neck rippled. This was the strangest dying he’d ever attended.

“Lord Shaldon.” The lady poked an elbow at Bink, trying to nudge her way closer to Shaldon. “Sir, I beg you, I must ask you, I must talk to you about my father.”

Shaldon moaned loudly, his eyes fluttering shut, his mouth falling slack.

Bink gave way for the physician who shoved in and reached for the sick man’s wrist. Bakeley had the lady’s elbow and was steering her away from the bed.

“He cannot…Bakeley, he must speak to me,” she said, trying to pull away.

Bakeley shushed her, and Bink could see the lift of her shoulders as she drew her back up.

“His pulse is weak,” the doctor said. “I should like to examine him. Kincaid, you will assist me.”

The manservant, Kincaid, sent them a stern, unservile look, the kind Bink had deployed often himself in the service of Hackwell. He nodded to the man, one servant to another.

“I’ll send word when he comes to.” Kincaid said.

The lady’s face hardened. Bakeley tucked her hand on his arm and clamped his own firmly over hers.

“Very well. Brother, Paulette, I can see the road dust on both of you. Please come and refresh yourselves.”

“I will gladly stay and help,” she said.

“Kincaid would not let you near him. We’ll discuss his bequests. He won’t mind, and they’re unlikely to change.”

Paulette tugged at her hand trapped under Bakeley’s. “But—”

Something in the red-haired man’s throat rumbled and stopped her train of thought.

Danger, his eyes flashed, at Bakeley, not her. He turned on his heel and walked to the door, exactly as if they were expected to follow him, as though he were the older brother and the heir to the earldom, and not some gentleman’s bastard.

Bakeley nudged her. She cast a last look at Shaldon, and wondered if he was feigning a swoon. She’d seen it done by girls at the village assembly.

But no. Surely not. Though Mrs. Everly had attempted to shield her from the mysteries of dying, Mabel had no such scruples. Going in and out of a swoon seemed to fit. And Mabel had said they might not make it in time.

To be so close…tears welled and Paulette squeezed them back.

“Shall I carry you then?” Bakeley asked, sounding bored. “Are you fainting, my dear?”

Her cheeks burned. She straightened her spine and allowed herself to be led out. “I am not your dear,” she whispered. “Your father is dying. Your demeanor is entirely inappropriate.”

“I am grieving in my own way.”

She gritted her teeth. “It’s so unfair. I’ve tried and tried to speak to him.” Her voice broke and she gulped in air. “I need him to answer some questions. I need him to tell me the truth.”

Shaldon’s bastard had waited still as a statue by the door to the corridor. “The truth from Lord Shaldon?” he said. “You might as well hope to get wine from a milk cow.”

The flatness in his tone spiked her irritation. “How would I know? I’ve only had a chance to speak to him once, years ago, when I was so young I barely remember.”

“That’s one more chance than Bink has had,” Bakeley said.

“Bink?”

The big man fixed his gaze on her. “That would be me, miss.”

What a ridiculous name for a man playing a gentleman.

Bakeley whisked them along to a drawing room, ordered refreshments, and closed the door. “Now.”

He still gripped her hand. She tried to pull away, but he clamped tighter.

“Introductions. Paulette Heardwyn, meet Edward Bink Gibson. Mr. Gibson is my half-brother, and his lordship’s eldest son.”

“That we know of.” Mr. Gibson studied her, all his earlier warmth gone. “Pleased to meet you, Miss Heardwyn.” He turned to Bakeley. “Is Miss Heardwyn a younger relation?”

The hair on her neck quivered. Shaldon was not her father.

“Heavens, no.”

Even if she could doubt Bakeley’s words, his loud laugh reassured her.

“Absolutely not. Paulette’s father was one of our father’s men who died in service.” Bakeley dropped her hand and went to a cabinet, setting out glasses and a bottle of brandy. “Father settled Paulette and her mother onto one of his properties.”

“I am right here, Bakeley.”

“Sorry, my dear.”

His manners, the few times they’d met, had always been a tad condescending, but never as atrocious as this. Possibly he was deeply affected by his father’s imminent death, stuffing down his grief to the point of appearing unfeeling and callous. But she doubted it.

There was no accounting for the ways of these English lords.

“Here.” He passed her a glass of brandy and gave one to his brother. “You’ll be needing something stronger today.”

She sniffed the glass. Their man of all work, Mama’s former compatriot, Jock, had let her share his ill-gotten brandy, and she’d quite liked it.

She could not be totally out of charity with Bakeley if he was including her in something stronger than tea. She took a sip and let the warm liquid roll through her.

“Father is Paulette’s principle guardian. Or was, since she has reached her majority.”

Yet she was still not in control of her life. “Now he’s the principle trustee of my inheritance, at least until I reach the age of five-and-twenty.” Or if I marry an approved suitor, which I will not do. She took a hardier sip.

“I believe he will dispense with that duty much sooner,” Bakeley said. “By dying.”

The thought sent a little flurry through her. She didn’t know the other two trustees—only their names. Her inheritance had been less than modest, the allowance granted her enough to keep Mabel. Enough for a genteel life in the country in one of Lord Shaldon’s genteel cottages.

It would never be enough for a life of adventure and travel, which she would dearly love to experience, or a husband, which, truth be told, she would gladly do without.

And it would never be enough to search out the treasure Jock said her father had left her, not without Shaldon’s help.

Unless, perhaps, Shaldon’s will really did include her. What had Bakeley meant about a bequest? Would it be vulgar to ask directly, while the Earl lay dying so nearby?

“Out with it, Bakeley,” the big man said. “Say what you want to say and be done.”

She sent him a grateful nod, and he raised an eyebrow, making her heart tumble.

He’d read her mind, blast it. Jock had told her a good spy was inscrutable. Her mother certainly had been, spending the last years of her life as a humble country widow, reserved and distant, even to her own daughter.

She must try harder to squash her passion and impatience.

Servants bustled in with refreshments and then quietly left.

“Paulette, shall I fix you a plate?” Bakeley asked. “Will you take tea also?”

Her hands twitched and she gripped the glass. Bakeley’s solicitousness was an annoying stall. “I’d much rather you refill my brandy glass.”

“I’ll do it.” Mr. Gibson moved close and loomed over her, the shadow he cast making her skin tingle. When he lifted her glass away without touching her, she caught her breath, and with it that whiff of horses, and leather, and him.

Drat the man.

“Won’t you sit down, miss?” He pointed at the sofa and went to the brandy bottle.

She settled herself onto a straight-backed chair at a round table.

“You’d best take a chair also, Bink.” Bakeley put down the plate he’d loaded up with meats and cheese for her. “For what you are about to hear, you will want to be seated.”

Bink’s skin prickled and he cast a hard look at Bakeley. His brother’s jaw had gone firm and he wasn’t smirking now.

“Bad news, then? I believe I’ll remain standing.” He topped off the lady’s glass and his own.

“Yes, well.” Bakeley grabbed the bottle, poured another drink, downed it, and frowned at the glass. “Our father left you hanging twenty years ago, but he left us all hanging, Bink. Now at the end, he’s taking an active hand. You’ve no idea the favor Bonaparte did for us. Gave Shaldon something to manage—someone to manage—besides us.” He began to pace and stopped in front of Bink. “And there are only four of us, dear brother. No other by-blows lurking about.”

Bakeley was in an uncharacteristic lather. Whatever the bad news, this show went some ways in making up for it. “Your mother managed to leash him then, even from far away?”

The young lady’s eyes flared with interest, he thought, not missish shock. This one was no soft bit of fluff.

Bakeley shuddered. “Perhaps.” He opened his mouth, looked at the lady and pressed his lips tight.

“He cared not to have another child out of wedlock?” the lady asked.

Bakeley cleared his throat.

“By-blows are a great nuisance for a man with a conscience,” Bink said.

“Did his lordship have a conscience?” She rose from the chair. “He seems to have one now, if he’s leaving you a bequest. Or perhaps that’s just his pride. You’re from his bloodline.”

Yes, like one of his stallions. “I’d guess in Shaldon’s case, his lady’s pride was the determinate.”

Her eyes took on a dreamy cast, softening her face and making her look even younger. “He loved her.”

Bink’s heart did a flip. Perhaps there was some tenderness in this tough little bird.

“It was an arranged marriage.” Bakeley refilled his own glass. “From her grandfather’s commercial interests, she brought a fortune—an enormous fortune—to the union. Mother was set to marry Father’s older brother until Uncle took a fall and cracked his skull. They had to call Father back from Ireland to take on the title. She knew him a week before deciding she could tolerate him, and they were married as soon as the banns could be called. And I came along some eight months later.”

“And they lived happily ever after.”

Bink squashed a smile. The lady’s sardonic tone had returned, thank goodness. He’d hate to think he’d misjudged her.

Bakeley reached for the bottle again, and her lips turned down in a frown. “I should like to hear what you have to say, Bakeley, before you have many more glasses of that.”

Bakeley set down his glass, walked to the cold fireplace, and rested a hand on the mantel.

It was such a fine piece of drama, even Miss Heardwyn noticed. She sent Bink an eye-roll.

“Well it must be bad,” Bink muttered.

Bakeley turned. His mouth worked as if his lips were struggling with some great piece of gristle. His hands slipped behind his back, a soldier at parade rest.

“Yes, well. You are each to receive a small sum as an inheritance. Not much. Not enough for any real independence. However, if you meet certain conditions, you are to receive a great deal of cash, and the title to the house and acreage acquired for you, worth four thousand a year, with the potential for more if you manage well.”

Bakeley’s gaze skittered from Bink to Miss Heardwyn, as he tugged at his neck cloth.

The lady gave Bink a pointed look. She tilted her head and he saw the pulse at her neck, a curl bouncing against it. Her lips parted and then pressed closed. She lifted her eyebrows.

She was begging him to ask.

Talking about money was vulgar. Let the bastard do it.

Well, why not? “I’ve no need for his lordship’s money,” Bink said. “Give my small sum to Miss Heardwyn, and you’d best end the suspense and tell her the conditions she must meet to receive that property and income.”

Her eyes flared. “Shaldon wouldn’t give me a property. I’m sure it’s meant for you, Mr. Gibson.”

“No,” Bakeley said.

She went very still, yet Bink could feel the tension rolling from her. Could it be she was poorer than she looked? Her dress was finer than Lady Hackwell’s had been when she was merely a wealthy spinster, yet he knew Lady Hackwell had been an odd one. More ladies overspent on dresses to keep up appearances than dressed down.

“Bakeley, tell her what she needs to do to receive her property.”

Bakeley’s jaw moved and he took a deep breath. “It’s not meant to be her property. It’s meant to be yours, as in both of yours, upon meeting his condition.”

Bink’s blood pounded through his ears on the way to his feet. The Earl’s gleaming gaze when Miss Heardwyn appeared, Bakeley’s nerves, the Earl’s swoon—undoubtedly faked, like a cutpurse’s accomplice distracting a mark. Something here was amiss.

Bakeley’s aristocratic brow glistened with beads of sweat, and in spite of his tension, humor glimmered in his eyes. He cleared his throat and said, “His lordship wishes for the two of you to marry.”