Beside him, Lady Phoebe’s eyes were positively dancing behind her spectacles. “Don’t be frightened. If she bites, we’ll send for a doctor, I assure you.”

“Bloodthirsty baggage,” Griffin muttered under his breath before extending a hand toward the dog’s nose. If he were going to be bitten, he might as well get it over with. “Mademoiselle Mignon.”

The spaniel sniffed daintily and then opened her mouth in a doggy grin as he gingerly fondled her ears.

“I don’t understand it,” Miss Picklewood said. “She usually hates gentlemen.”

Griffin’s outraged gaze flew to Lady Phoebe’s own, and she covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.

The girl shrugged. “She’s never actually bitten a gentleman before. Just threatened to.”

“She came close with me,” Thomas remarked drily. “You must’ve rubbed your fingers in bacon, Griffin.”

“Perhaps she just has very good taste,” Griffin said as he scratched Mignon’s chin.

“In any case, she certainly seems fond of you,” Miss Picklewood muttered. She nodded as the butler made some sort of signal. “I think we’re ready to go in. Perhaps you can see what’s taking your sister so long, Phoebe?”

Lady Phoebe slipped from the room, and Thomas made a social remark, but Griffin wasn’t paying attention. He absently stroked the little spaniel and wondered if he was the reason Hero was reluctant to come to luncheon.

Damn, damn, damn. He’d made the worst mistake of his life.

“Here she is.”

He looked up at the sound of Lady Phoebe’s voice. Hero was standing beside her, composed, though color still flew high in her cheeks.

She walked straight to Thomas and held out her hand. “My lord, it is good to see you.”

Thomas bent over her hand in a polite, everyday gesture that in no way could be construed as passionate, and pain arched through Griffin’s body in a searing flame. In that moment, he wanted to shove aside his brother, lift up Lady Hero, and bear her away. Take her someplace where he could wipe that look of bored serenity from her face and replace it with lust. Lust for him.

Instead he took a breath and offered his arm to Lady Phoebe. “Will you accompany me into luncheon, my lady?”

She smiled up at him, her round, rosy cheeks merry. “I’d be delighted, my lord.”

The luncheon, like the room, proved to be a feminine affair. A clear soup hardly more than a broth, delicate little pastries more pretty than filling, and a variety of breads and cheeses. The wine was good, though, and in ordinary circumstances, Griffin might’ve enjoyed himself.

“I understand you manage the family estates,” Miss Picklewood said with a queer look fixed on her face. She sat at the head of the table. One of her hands drifted beneath the table.

“Manage is surely too strong a word,” Thomas drawled from the foot of the table. “My brother is preoccupied with his amusements, and we do have several land stewards.”

Griffin picked up his knife. “What my brother is trying to say is that, yes, I do oversee the Mandeville estates as well as my private ones.”

Thomas gave him a blank, unfriendly stare as he sipped his wine.

To Thomas’s right, Lady Hero straightened as her hand disappeared beneath the table. “Are your lands in Lancashire as well, Lord Griffin?”

“Yes.” Griffin toyed with his knife. “A result of prudent marriages by my ancestors.”

“But that’s so far from London,” Lady Phoebe exclaimed. “Surely you must get lonely in the country.”

She bit her lip and stared straight ahead as her hand, too, suddenly darted underneath the table.

Thomas, seemingly oblivious to all this, snorted. “My brother can find excitement no matter where he is. And he has his trips to London should he find a need to debauch himself.”

Griffin narrowed his eyes, staring at Thomas, feeling the blackness boil at the back of his eyeballs. He smiled and dropped the knife. It clattered onto his plate.

The ladies started.

Thomas merely raised his eyebrows.

Griffin shifted his gaze to Lady Phoebe, who sat between him and Thomas. “I enjoy riding and hunting, my lady, and overseeing the planting and harvest takes up much of my time, so no, I’m not lonely, though I do thank you for your concern.”

She was frowning, her eyes darting between him and his brother, but at his words she smiled tentatively. “Well, we shall have to be sure to see that you are properly entertained when you are in London, won’t we, Hero?”

Lady Hero pressed her lips together. “Phoebe…”

“What?” Lady Phoebe looked confused.

Lady Hero’s expression was wooden. Even Miss Picklewood’s face looked more welcoming.

At that moment, Griffin felt tiny paws on his knee. They tapped quite imperiously.

“I’d be delighted to go anywhere you have a mind, Lady Phoebe.” He smiled and broke off a piece of pastry, feeding it to Mignon beneath the table.

“Our time is largely taken up by wedding arrangements,” Hero said repressively.

“But you must shop.” He picked up the knife again, idly twirling it between his fingers. “And eat and go to fairs and the like.”

Lady Phoebe giggled nervously.

Hero’s eyes dropped to her plate. Her cheeks had gone pale, her mouth crimped in a straight line.

He shrugged easily, though his heart had shriveled. “Or perhaps not.”

Thomas stirred in his seat. “I wouldn’t think you’d be inclined to go to any more fairs.”

Lady Phoebe perked up. “Why do you say that?”

Griffin arched an eyebrow at his brother, a sudden memory lightening his mood.

“Because Griffin nearly got himself killed by a pack of traveling tinkers at the last fair he attended,” Thomas drawled.

“Really?” Phoebe leaned forward.

“Indeed. He was in the act of stealing—”

“Merely examining,” Griffin interjected.

“Stealing,” Thomas rolled over him with his parliamentary voice, “a trinket of some kind.”

“A penknife,” Griffin murmured to Phoebe. “It had a ruby on the hilt.”

Thomas snorted. “Paste, most likely. In any event, one of the tinkers, a man of at least six feet tall, caught him by the scruff of the neck, and had I not intervened, I would be one brother shorter today.”

Griffin smiled wryly, putting down the knife and taking a sip of wine. “Even then Thomas was rather renown for his oratory.”

Thomas grinned and Griffin remembered that long-ago day. The sudden fear, the complete relief and gratitude when his bigger, older brother had come to his rescue. He looked down at his plate, nudging the knife with his fingertip. That time seemed centuries ago now.

“How old were you?” Hero asked softly.

He inhaled and looked up, meeting her far-too perceptive eyes. “Nearly twelve.”

She nodded and the conversation moved on to a piece of gossip Miss Picklewood had heard.

But Griffin was silent, contemplating that past when he and Thomas had been so close.

And the present when they were so very far apart.

Chapter Nine

Queen Ravenhair looked at the offerings of her three suitors and nodded regally. “Thank you,” she said, and led them into the dining room where she turned the conversation to other matters.

But that night as Queen Ravenhair stood upon her balcony, the little brown bird flew to the railing. She took the bird into her cupped palms and saw that he had a string about his neck, and at the end of the string was a small iron nail.

And then she smiled. For her people used nails to build their houses, and that—her people and their homes—was the foundation of her kingdom….

—from Queen Ravenhair

Hero stared at herself in her dressing room mirror the next afternoon and wondered what sort of woman let her fiancé’s brother make love to her. The woman in the mirror looked the same as she remembered—widely set gray eyes, neatly coiffed red hair, steady, serene gaze—everything in place, in fact. But somehow she was different than the person she’d thought herself just a week before. That woman—that Hero—would never have sinned, would’ve scoffed at the mere suggestion that she might.

And yet she had.

Hero lightly touched a curl at her temple.

“It’s quite lovely, my dear.” Lady Mandeville’s voice broke into her thoughts.

Hero glanced down at herself. Yards of shimmering pale silk apricot swathed her form, pulled back in front to reveal a cream underskirt embroidered with green, blue, and pink posies. The embroidery continued along the seams of the dress and framed the deep, round neckline. It was indeed a lovely dress.

Why, then, did she feel like weeping?

“You do like it, don’t you?” Lady Mandeville inquired. “We can have it remade or have an entirely new one made if you don’t. There’s still time before the wedding.”

“No, no,” Hero said quickly. “It’s a lovely dress. The seamstresses have done a wonderful job.”

The little woman kneeling at her feet flashed her a grateful smile before bending again to the hem.

She’d always known who she was, Hero reflected. A lady of principles. A woman with compassion and a few ideals, but one who had a level head on her shoulders. She’d always prided herself on her common sense. Yesterday had been a very sad blow to both common sense and the image she’d had of herself. She was four and twenty—a mature number of years. One would think by now that she’d have a firm grasp of who she was.

Apparently not.

“There,” the head seamstress said, sitting up. She eyed the hem critically. “We’ll take that up and then add some lace to the sleeves and bodice. It’ll be very fine when we finish, my lady, never you fear.”

Hero dutifully pivoted to eye the dress from the side. Such a perfect dress. If only the woman inside was as perfect. “I’m sure it will be very nice.”

“We’ll require three more fittings, I think. May we call upon you next Tuesday morning, my lady?” The seamstress and her helpers were already extracting her from the dress.

“That will be fine,” Hero murmured.

“I shall come to that fitting as well,” Lady Mandeville announced. “We can discuss the family jewelry and what pieces you might want to wear.”

“Of course.”

Hero met her own eyes in the mirror as the seamstresses worked around her. Calm and gray. She’d committed a sin. She wasn’t sure she could ever resurrect her perfect facade again. She should be wracked with guilt and despair and yet… and yet, doing what she had done with Lord Reading yesterday had felt fundamentally right.

Soul-deep right.

That feeling was perhaps the most disturbing thing of all.

It took another half hour to dress again. Lady Mandeville chatted lightly as Hero made her toilet, and if the older lady saw anything odd about her future daughter-in-law, she made no sign. The seamstresses left after carefully packing away Hero’s wedding dress, and then Lady Mandeville rose as well. She drew on her gloves, watching as Wesley crossed the room to fetch a jacket for Hero from the wardrobe.

“Are you sure you like the dress, my dear?” Lady Mandeville said softly.

Hero looked at her kind face and had to blink suddenly. She didn’t deserve this wonderful woman as a mother-in-law. “Oh, yes.”

“It’s just”—Lady Mandeville touched Hero’s shoulder lightly with one finger—“you seem rather melancholy this afternoon.”

Hero smiled, pulling the crumbling shards of her facade about her. “Bridal nerves, I expect.”

Lady Mandeville looked uncertain, but in the end she nodded. “Of course. But if you would like to talk to me about anything—anything at all—well, I do hope we’ll have that sort of a relationship.”