Simon burned the midnight oil with Rhys and Heath long after Ravenna had gone to bed. The gentleman had moved their investigation into the billiards room. Everything recently sent to the house had been gathered in this room from bills, cards, letters, and newspapers. It was here that Aunt Glynnis and Isolde had stored wedding presents yet to be graciously acknowledged or duplicates to be donated to a charity.

Heath examined letter after letter under a magnifying glass until his eyes crossed. Numerous servants had come and gone to relight the lamps that illuminated their quest. The search to discover a single correspondence that matched the one received today proved futile, as did a go-through of the wedding gifts.

“How many silver trophies and Etruscan vases does a duke’s household require?” Rhys asked, poking his hand deep into one vessel.

Simon cast him a bleary glance. “What are you looking for? Loose change?”

“A message, perhaps. I don’t know. You tell me. I’m stiff as a plank,” he added. He raked a hand through his hair. “Isolde and Aunt Glynnis will not appreciate the disarrangement of their carefully arranged presents.”

“Why don’t the both of you stop complaining?” Heath paged through a vellum-bound volume of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. “This is a gift to be treasured. It’s inscribed by the Duchess of Wellington. I do not think she’s our suspect. Anything left to examine? What is that under your seat, Rhys? No. Back another inch.”

Rhys reached under his chair for a rectangular pink-and-white striped box that had apparently been missed. The package was decidedly feminine and looked expensive. “It’s not a trophy.”

Simon stood up again. “It looks like one of the boxes that my wife bought today,” he said, his fatigue lifting. “How would it have gotten under the chair?”

Rhys held the package to his ear and gingerly shook it. “I hear a slight rattle.”

“What on earth are you doing?” Heath asked.

“I wanted to make sure there wasn’t a snake inside,” Rhys said. “You’re the one who brought up Cleopatra. How do we know that someone has not sent an asp in a box?”

“For pity’s sake,” Heath said. “Shall I open the damned thing? We can’t sit here forever shaking a box. We don’t have asps in England. We have adders and they don’t rattle.”

“It isn’t our box to open,” Rhys pointed out. “Shouldn’t Ravenna have the privilege?”

Heath rubbed his face. “Not if its contents upset her.”

“So then opening it could be considered an act of valor?” Rhys said.

“After my brother Devon,” Heath muttered, “you are the most aggravating person I know. It must have something to do with being a younger sibling.”

Rhys looked wounded. “You open the blasted box, then.”

In the end Simon dismantled the package, unburying layers of tissue and dried lavender buds before the contents were revealed. He could not believe his eyes. Behind him Heath erupted in laughter.

“It’s as fragrant as a courtesan’s dressing closet,” Rhys said. “But am I seeing things? That appears to be a corset.”

“We cannot both be imagining corsets.” Simon peered down at the ivory silk undergarment that he had exposed.

“Would you like me to take it out for you?” Heath asked in amusement. “I have steady hands.”

Simon shot him a look. “I have no trouble removing a corset.”

“It is a rather impertinent wedding present,” Rhys said as Simon lifted the busk from the box, the laces dangling. “I might be tempted to confront the sender. Is there a message enclosed? Who would dare gift such a personal item to a duchess?”

Heath removed the perfumed card from the tightly boned bodice. “I should have known,” he said with a grin. “It’s from my sister.”

Simon settled back down on the semi-circular couch. “Not the sister renowned for her manners? The one who started the ladies’ academy in London?”

“No. That would be Emma, otherwise known as Mrs. Killjoy, the Dainty Dictator. Chloe is my youngest sister and has been causing mischief since the day she was born.”

Simon raised his brow. “I’ve met her.”

“Marriage has done wonders to subdue her vitality,” Heath continued, “but she will never be a fainthearted woman. This must be a personal joke among the ladies. Chloe discovered her husband half-dead and buried in her closet in a trunk of undergarments. I take it that a corset played a part in their love affair. Honestly, I do not wish to know.” He tucked the card back into the box. “I shall not read this aloud.”

Simon regarded the corset with a smile, not only relieved that the gift posed no threat to his wife, but also that he would have the privilege of seeing her laced into it. “Perhaps we should seek our beds.”

Rhys nodded in the direction of the long sash windows. “It’s first light. I’m afraid if I nod off, I might have a nightmare that Simon and I are getting married.”

Heath collected a few lavender buds from the floor, then stood and shook his arms. “We’ll decide what to do after a few hours of sleep and a decent breakfast. It is good manners to send a thank-you for each Etruscan vase, but a written threat, even disguised as a ballad, forces us to wage a different response. If I had to guess, I’d say that this letter is a farewell from Ravenna’s former betrothed. The one who was ordered to leave town.”

“I should have killed him,” Simon remarked.

“But you did not,” Heath said. “And now perhaps the wisest course is for you and Ravenna to leave until your safety is assured.”

Simon took Ravenna out into the garden after breakfast. There had been a rain shower a little earlier and the sweet peas shone like fragments of stained glass in the feeble sun. He wiped off the bench with his glove for her to sit.

“You look worn,” she said with a worried frown. “Where is your coat?”

“I misplaced it last night. I need to change after our talk, anyway. I shall be gone for the rest of the day. Perhaps even the night. You should know I’ve considered sending you away. Out of England.”

“You have what?” she asked in shock.

The skin across his high cheekbones tightened. “It was to be a temporary solution. I considered sending you to my brother in Austria. He and his wife would take care of you.”

The sky darkened. Ravenna raised her face to his. “It is my duty to stay with you. I won’t be banished. Really, Simon.” Her blue eyes clouded with rebellion. “I’m right back where I started.”

“I will do what I must.”

“Travel poses its own risks,” she quickly argued. “Aunt Glynnis could contract a fever. She is recovering right now from a chest infection. We could be set upon by river pirates or footpads on a lonely road.”

“Indeed,” he said, a note of compromise in his voice. “A trek across Germany is no light undertaking for even an intrepid duchess.” He lowered his head to hers. “And I would miss you so.”

“There are hundreds of hideaways in the kingdom,” she said. “Smugglers’ coves, churches, Jane’s antechambers, or a castle in Wales.”

He straightened resolutely. “I would like you and Glynnis to pack your belongings while I’m out today. It’s my intention to reach Essex at the end of the week.” He offered her his hand. “I shall be your castle.”

“And my umbrella?” She rose gingerly to escape the rain that spattered down with increasing force. “I suppose this will please my aunt. She went into near hysterics over that letter suggesting my demise. I wish she had not read it.”

“It cannot be dismissed, no matter who sent it.” His eyes glittered with renewed fury. “Bruxton took my sister’s life, and not only is he walking free, but he has every hope of running for Parliament. Men of a certain criminal nature do not believe they will ever be caught. You will not become his or your former betrothed’s victim.”

Isolde and Timpkins reached a truce in the midst of the preparations to leave London. Aunt Glynnis took charge of closing up the townhouse and packing for an undetermined length of time in Simon’s villa. She scribbled off farewell letters to friends new and old. She might have sent a notice to the newspapers advising the editors of their departure had Isolde not tactfully reminded her that the duke did not want to advertise his whereabouts.

“I am old and forgetful,” Glynnis said regretfully.

Isolde hastened to assure her otherwise. “You are trusting, madam. It is not your fault an evil man has forced us to take furtive measures. This should be a season to celebrate, not hide like badgers.”

“You will be careful going out today?” Glynnis said as she gave a resounding honk into her handkerchief. “This dreadful cold has made me unfit company for even a dog.”

“Poor madam.”

“Do buy a book for our sojourn. Something to stimulate the nerves and distract the mind.”

“On the lurid side?”

“Oh, please. Heaving bosoms or a ghostly tale. Preferably both in the same novel. I do need a good story to help me forget our worries.”

Although Isolde contrived to conceal her distress, as any young woman of a refined nature should, the reason for their covert leave-taking infuriated her. She would not hesitate to take action against anyone who threatened her employers. She might not be as skilled with a pistol as was the duchess or Lord Rhys, but she carried a small dagger on her person for protection.

Isolde was confident her master and mistress would likewise defend her. Indeed, she grew quite emotional at the thought of some miscreant menacing Lady Ravenna.

Hence, it was with her loyalty at the ready, a full line of the duke’s credit at her disposal and the roguish Timpkins in attendance, that she called on a few exclusive shops to purchase another slew of bonnets, gloves, stockings, and cotton shifts that the duchess might require in the country.

It was a blessing to be a lady’s maid who closely matched her mistress’s coloring and measurements. Isolde boasted a wardrobe that a viscountess would envy.

She had neatly dressed her black hair and donned one of the duchess’s older gowns in her haste. The quilted mauve satin lent her an aristocratic mien, perhaps, and as if to confirm this image, a gentleman on horseback stared overlong at her before he trotted off into the traffic.

She did not recognize him at all. He wore a riding suit, a green cap.

And she had sensed something disturbing in his stare. Something peculiar, as though she knew him and yet she did not. Did he take her to be the duchess? Did she imagine that he had wanted to approach her? In confusion, she turned to Timpkins and did not object when he took her arm.

“Is anything wrong, miss?”

“I’m not sure. Perhaps there are too many people in London for my liking.”

“We will return to Caverley House soon enough. The first master and mistress, eh?”

For once she did not mind his presumption. She was, in truth, grateful for his company, young knave that he was.

She did, however, mention the incident later that night to Lady Ravenna. “It meant nothing, I’m sure, but I noticed a man staring at me today while I was shopping. He might have mistaken me for your grace. I apologize if he was a personage I was expected to recognize. I did not acknowledge him.”

“Did he approach you?”

“No. He just … stared. I had the sense he wanted to say something, but he rode on.”

“You are quite lovely, Isolde. Perhaps if you hadn’t lived in the castle for so long, you would have realized as much.”

“Ha. And what good would it have done me?”

“The time will come,” Lady Ravenna said. “You will have your day when this menace is behind us.”