Simon tended to relax his guard a day or two after returning to his country villa. Caverley House was not as fortified as a medieval castle, but it did claim a position of strategical hauteur upon a heavily wooded hill. He had always known that one day he would come home to live out his life and fulfill his ducal obligations. He would rest easier with Ravenna safeguarded inside its walls.

He wanted to cast off the cloud that hung over his childhood memories.

He imagined his sister fidgeting in the hall where his family had gathered for their official portrait. He heard her piping voice in the old nursery he and Ravenna visited by candlelight. A puppet sat on the bare floor. He picked it up, untangling the cobwebbed strings, and placed it on a shelf.

“She was a quiet girl,” he said. “She rarely fussed and yet she wept her heart out the day I told her she was to marry Bruxton. She swore she’d rather be a spinster. I’d believed until then that she approved of him. I assumed she was nervous and would recover in a week or so.”

“She had good manners,” Ravenna said. “She was brought up to obey. So was I. But I haven’t always done what I was ordered.”

“Thank God,” he muttered, and closed the nursery door. He smiled at her as around them servants hastened to light pewter wall-torches to dispel the darkness. “I wish we’d arrived in the daylight. Tomorrow I’ll show you the parkland. Radnor will welcome his new home.”

She accompanied him down the spiral stairwell to their bedchamber on the next floor. “We shall make happy memories here, Simon. Your sister won’t be forgotten.”

“You haven’t seen the bedchamber yet,” he said, grinning up at her from the landing. “We’ll make a memory or two there, I promise.”

A chambermaid giggled from an alcove where she stood in attendance. Ravenna shook her head at Simon in affectionate dismay. He wanted to tell her that she had saved him from his bitterness, that she had already given him his most cherished memories. But they had an audience, even here in the country. And for the moment he would contain his desire for her until they were behind closed doors.

A tangy wood fire scented with rosemary sprigs welcomed them. Ravenna delighted in the warmth of the room as she admired the escritoire that covered one entire wall. On the desktop sat a box of ink bottles, a seal, numerous pens, and a supply of foolscap. She could write hundreds of letters to her female cousins chronicling country life. She could even start a scandalous diary of her own.

But it was the behemoth two-poster bedstead that held her eye, draped with turquoise silk curtains that billowed to the floor like waves. It was quite a bed, a statement of noble dominance. She might have been daunted by its size alone. But it suited the house, as did her husband.

One would not expect a duke to sleep in a cot.

“That bed served as a pirate ship when we were small,” Simon said as she removed her half-boots. “My siblings and I played buccaneers of the Spanish Main until one day the tester broke and our father banished us outside to the ruins to wage our wars.”

“I suppose you’ve been taking prisoners under the covers ever since,” she said with her lips pursed.

He grinned, sliding his hands around her shoulders to unfasten her cloak. “I have never brought a woman to this house.”

She climbed up the steps to the bed and reclined against the tasseled pillows in contentment. “It is a magnificent home.” She would likely conceive their children in this bed, and once they started a family, the house would not seem quite as large or quiet.

She sat up slowly. Simon had removed his coat and taken a chair across the room at a table supplied with clean glasses and a bottle of port.

“We’ll ride out early to meet the tenantry,” he said, pouring their evening drinks. “The neighbors will call in the afternoon. You’ll have a chance to charm in one of your new bonnets.”

“The neighbors are in for a shock if any of them met Isolde and Timpkins during our ‘honeymoon.’”

“Timpkins is well-enough known in the village that he wouldn’t have risked a detailed inspection. I believe they stayed behind the gates.” He rose to pull out a chair for her. “Sit with me.”

She had just reached the table when the report of a gun jarred the idyllic stillness of the estate.

They shared a look; neither panicked. He set her glass back on the table, untouched. Ravenna slipped on her boots. Simon opened his traveling case and removed three pistols. He placed one inside his coat, the other his boot. The third was the Manton that Heath had recommended for Ravenna. He handed her the weapon and drew her from the leaded-window where she stood peering through the curtains into a bank of fog.

“All I can see is the chapel spire,” she said.

“That’s part of the Gothic ruins I mentioned a moment ago.” He turned her firmly back into the room toward the fireplace. “I’ll send Timpkins and Isolde up before I warn the rest of the staff. There’s a passage next to the mantelpiece. I’ll open the panel and leave you to decide whether you need to hide. There should be flint and tinder at the end of the tunnel. Do not light a candle unless you feel you will die in the dark.”

“I don’t mind dark tunnels,” she said as he ran his hand under the mantelpiece. “But I would rather you take Timpkins than leave him here.”

The panel swung open. A moldy odor wafted into the room. “Dammit,” he said. “I should not have insisted Rhys wait a day to join us. Was Bruxton right? Was I too stubborn to listen to him?”

“We don’t know anything yet, Simon.”

“I know that whatever happens I am all the better because of you. You are a practical duchess.”

“And you?”

“A romantic duke. I concede.”

Timpkins tucked the pistol into his waistband and whirled around to glare at the woman who had sneaked up behind him in the mist. So appealing was Isolde with her flowing black hair and white pelisse that he almost refrained from criticizing her recklessness. “What are you doing out here?” he demanded.

“I thought to check on you before bed and saw that you had left your room,” she said breathlessly.

“Wasn’t that improper of you?”

“Do not antagonize me, Mr. Timpkins,” she said, her usual steady voice warbling. “When I noticed your gun was missing from the cabinet, I felt my heart drop to my knees. I was so distraught I ran straight into the butler’s pantry to seek his aid.”

Timpkins stared over her head and saw half the domestic staff arranged along the brewery wall. “You could make my heart stop without a weapon whatsoever,” he said, moving forward to comfort her.

“You shouldn’t talk in such a manner.” She glanced at the gun in his hand. “Why and who were you shooting at?”

“I was thinking back to our honeymoon – to the night when someone was prowling about the place, and I got an idea in my head to climb a tree, with my gun, and act as if I was an assassin.”

“Whatever for?” she asked, blinking rapidly.

“His grace told me that Lord Heath climbed the walnut tree in London to gain the gunman’s perspective.”

“Heaven protect us.”

“I made as if I was aiming at the duke at the marquess’ party, and you’ll never believe what happened.”

“Probably not. I do not believe what I am hearing now.”

“You interrupted my shot. I had pegged that oak sapling as the duke and you interrupted as I was about to fire. It is ironical considering how closely your actions mimicked those of the duchess.”

“Ironical is not the word you mean.” She backed up to the wall with her arms folded. “’Idiotic’ is more appropriate. Furthermore, oh, honestly, Timpkins. What does this clownery prove?”

“It proves I am a clod,” he said. “When I saw you coming from the house, I jumped down from the tree and nearly shot off my foot.”

“And disturbed the entire estate.”

A clap of thunder rent the air. Isolde and Timpkins glanced skyward simultaneously only to swivel around at an earthly disturbance.

“Timpkins! Timpkins!” the duke shouted, charging from the house with a pistol in each hand. “What is everyone doing outside? Was that your gun I heard? Why is the staff standing out here? Was there a shooting?”

Isolde melted back from view, whispering, “I wish I could stay to listen to the rest of this, Timpkins, but I should report to the mistress. Your foolhardy operation has upset the house. Couldn’t you have chosen a better time to experiment?”

“Then I might have shot someone going about the garden.”

“Instead, you shot yourself.”

“Only the tip of his grace’s old boot, which was blessedly too big for me.” He grinned at her. “Say what you like, Isolde, but you would not have looked in my room tonight unless you were worried about me. Admit it.”

“Admit what?” the duke asked in an irate voice, his appearance on the scene allowing Isolde to make a covert retreat. “Damn. Did I detect gunfire or is a storm moving over the estate?”

“I misfired, your grace,” Timpkins said. “I could not fall asleep, wondering about the man who was purportedly skulking about last time I was here. So I came outside and I climbed that tree to study the lay of the garden, places that are vulnerable to entry, places to hide. But then who do you suppose comes along when she shouldn’t and gives me the fright of my life? And, yes. I do believe that was thunder we just heard.”

The steward broke off, realizing he had lost his master’s attention. The duke swept past him, his face frozen in an expression of incredulity. Timpkins turned his head and at once perceived through the mist what had drawn his master’s notice.

A jet-black carriage with enormous wheels crawled to the top of the drive. The glow of the vehicle’s links revealed the lacquered red dragons emblazoned on the door panel. Simon slipped his pistols into his coat and walked forth in resignation to greet the late-night arrival, a Boscastle brother-in-law. Although not the relative he had been expecting, the nocturnal caller certainly displayed the Welsh family’s flair for dark drama.

By the time Isolde appeared, Ravenna had changed into a smoke-gray taffeta dress suitable for company. “So the Duke of Thunder has arrived,” she said with a sigh. “Is he alone?”

“Lord Rhys traveled with him on horseback from what I gathered.” Isolde began to arrange the magical tools of her maid’s trade on the dressing table: combs, pearl-headed pins, silk ribbons, hair pomade, rose water and peppermint breath rinse.

“The aunts?”

Isolde shook her head. “No. Only your brothers.”

“Thank the stars.” She sneezed at Isolde’s generous application of fragrance behind her ears. “I suppose Harriet and the baby stayed with them in London. They must be heartily sick of travel.” She scrutinized her reflection. “Pin my hair back, please. I might be a well-ravished wife, but there is no need for me to look as if I’ve just tumbled out of my husband’s bed.” Especially knowing that her eldest brother had deemed Simon too sinful for her to wed.

Isolde smiled and deftly secured Ravenna’s heavy hair into a figure eight with a few curls artfully draped down one shoulder.

“Gracious, what a time for Griff to arrive,” Ravenna murmured, rising in a scented cloud from the stool. “I wonder why he didn’t wait until morning. I hope nothing is amiss. But he would have sent word, wouldn’t he?”

Isolde lowered her eyes. “I would assume so.”