Rafe found Thea in the hallway, tugging at the bow of her bonnet, letting the ribbons flutter against her throat. As she lifted the bonnet from her head, her bosom rose and fell. A hairpin clattered onto the floor and a thick lock of chestnut hair tumbled down her neck.

Rafe twisted the bills in both hands. “Has the bishop gone?”

“Yes. He’s unusual, isn’t he? For a bishop.”

“What did you talk about?”

“I don’t recall.”

She put down the bonnet. One by one, she released the five buttons of her pelisse, the fabric parting to reveal the summer gown below, pale blue with a shiny royal-blue ribbon under her bust. Perhaps he should help her, slide the pelisse off her shoulders and down those smooth bare arms.

He did not move, except to concentrate on untwisting the bills. He ran his eyes over the words and numbers so he would not think about shiny ribbons and satiny skin.

“I shall retire, my lord,” she said. “I am terribly tired.”

“Too tired to tell me how much of my money you spent today?”

She tossed her head. “I’m sure I have no idea. The best countesses never count money.”

“But the best earls always do.”

He waved the sheaf of bills meaningfully, earning a thrilling glare.

“How utterly detestable to ask a question to which one already knows the answer.” Her chin came up. “I shan’t stand for it. Because you did that, I refuse to reply. No, do not argue. You have brought this upon yourself.”

She whirled about and marched for the stairs. Her exaggerated hauteur magnified the sway in her hips. Rafe sauntered after her, watching the fine cotton of her gown swirl about her legs and ankles. Her fabulously, famously fascinating ankles.

“Five dozen silver buttons,” Rafe said to her back, as she started up the stairs, the movement of her gown around her rear even more fascinating than those ankles. “Why would you need sixty buttons?”

“It is cheaper to buy them in bulk, as any good merchant’s daughter knows,” she retorted. “One would think he would be grateful but no, I get nothing but complaints.”

Rafe fought a smile as he climbed the stairs after her. “One jeweled music box,” he read.

“All the best countesses have jeweled music boxes.”

“And do all the best countesses take snuff? You bought a hand-painted enamel snuffbox inlaid with pearls.”

She sniffed. “That was a gift for you, but you’ve upset me so thoroughly, I shan’t give it to you now.”

Maintaining her haughty air, she started up the next flight of stairs to the bedrooms. Rafe followed, enjoying himself far too much to stop.

“One pair of mother-of-pearl opera glasses,” Rafe read out.

“What else would a countess take to the theatre? Oh!” She whirled about so abruptly that Rafe stopped only a few steps down, looking up into her bright blue eyes. “Let’s go to the theatre!”

She looked so earnest and excited that Rafe almost agreed. But of course they couldn’t go to the theatre. They’d both taken enough risks today. Had she forgotten? He could not tell if she genuinely forgot things, or if it was a ploy to distract him.

“No,” he said.

With a sigh, she resumed walking. “I suppose you don’t like the theatre.”

“Yes, I do,” he said, vexingly stung at her disappointment and annoyed that he cared enough to defend himself. “But being around you is theatre enough.”

In the doorway to her dressing room, she turned back. “You like the theatre?”

“A dozen lace handkerchiefs.”

“You cannot announce something astounding like that and not elaborate. It’s insufferable. Do you really like the theatre?”

“Why is that so hard to believe?”

“Theatre is so frivolous and you…” She frowned, studying his face. “You never really smile.”

“I smile.” He realized his brows were drawn together so deeply he could see them and he smoothed them out. “Very well,” he said, resuming the game. “Let’s go to the theatre. Tonight.”

Her eyes widened in alarm. “Well, we can’t go tonight.” She spun and traipsed into her sitting room, with its small heap of parcels by one wall. Rafe followed her. Not quite proper, given they weren’t actually married, but to hell with it. No one would know. For now, they were sheltered by the fiction of their marriage.

“Why not go to the theatre?” he asked.

“Because I don’t have any jewels. London would be horrified to see a countess with no jewels. ‘By George,’ they would say, ‘it must be true he’s a devil, because only a devil would not buy his wife jewels.’ No,” she added firmly, shaking her head. “I simply cannot have them speaking of you like that.”

“How thoughtful of you.”

“I am an excellent wife.”

“You are not. You’re not even a good wife. As a wife, you are of little use to me at all.”

Thea Knight had never been one to follow rules unquestioningly—or at all, if she could help it—but she always adhered to three firm rules of her own.

Namely, her Rules of Mischief.

First, mischief must be conducted only for a good cause—and certainly, Thea’s present mischief served no lesser cause than her younger sister’s happiness. For that excellent cause, she had resigned her position as a private nurse, donned a set of men’s clothing—complete with a many-caped greatcoat that weighed a stone and reeked of pigs—and journeyed halfway across England to meet Helen in this cramped room in a coaching inn in Warwickshire. Thea had even stopped laughing long enough to be laced into tight stays for the first time in three years, so she could wear Helen’s stylish gown to its best advantage, while Helen took her turn to dress as a swine-scented swain. And while Thea was at Arabella’s house, claiming to be Miss Helen Knight, the real Helen would be eloping to Scotland with her beloved Beau Russell, thus evading the long reach of Beau Russell’s father, Viscount Ventnor.

Which led to Thea’s second Rule of Mischief: One must trick only those who were villainous, powerful, or—as was most likely the case—both.

Her conscience rested easy on that point, for Lord Ventnor practically leaped into the third category. The things he had said about the Knight family! That Helen was a “sly, scheming seductress” and “too distastefully inferior” for his heir, because Pa was a “grubby merchant” and Thea a “dreadful scandal.” Ventnor had then packed his son off to a shooting party, and sent men to follow Helen and stop her if she tried to sneak away to meet Beau. Even now, two ruffians sat in the tavern downstairs, waiting for Helen to emerge.

Thea had her own reasons for loathing Lord Ventnor, though she preferred not to think about that ball three years ago, when Percy Russell spewed his lies and Ventnor called her horrid names. To think that, of all the men in the world, Helen intended to marry Percy Russell’s elder brother! Thea shuddered at the thought of being thus connected to her enemies, though it was probably perfectly normal for the Russell family. After all, the aristocracy had been marrying and murdering each other for centuries, sometimes on the same day.

But she bit her tongue and started no quarrels, because of her third Rule: When engaging in mischief and trickery, one must always enjoy oneself. Because enjoyment led to good memories, and Thea wanted only good memories of these precious stolen minutes with her sister.

“Heavens, Thea, where did you get this hideous greatcoat?” Helen held the offending item at arm’s length, her face an exaggerated grimace of horror. “Did you buy it directly from the pigs themselves?”

“If you please!” Thea protested. “I’ll have you know that greatcoat was worn by the finest pigs in all of England.”

“They certainly have the finest smell!”

Laughing, Helen shoved her arms into the sleeves. Thea helped her arrange the lapels and capes, then stepped back to admire the result.

The greatcoat truly was a stroke of genius. Its bulk broadened Helen’s shoulders and concealed her shape, and its fragrance would deter anyone from coming too close. Hunched into the greatcoat and with a broad-brimmed clerical hat pulled down low on her face, Helen could travel without drawing attention, just as Thea had done.

“How did you survive wearing these clothes in this heat?” Helen said, taking up the clerical hat and spinning it around one finger. “I swear, after days sweltering in stagecoaches, I shall arrive at the border as roasted as a loin of pork, and Beau will stick a fork in me to see if I am done.”

“What an excellent test of true love! If Mr. Russell still wants you when you smell of stewed pig, you can be sure he will want you always.”

“If his father’s fury could not tear us apart, I daresay a smelly greatcoat will fare no better.”

How wonderful for Helen, to be so loved and wanted. Thea could hardly argue with that.

So once more, she swallowed her concerns and instead made a show of inspecting her sister, circling her slowly. Helen looked as comfortable in men’s clothes as Thea had felt, though it was a good ten years since the sisters had last dressed as boys. “Ted” and “Harry” they had been, hair cut short under their caps, dashing out after their lessons to run errands for Pa, gather news at coffeehouses and the docks, and earn a coin wherever they could. Because that was how the Knight family worked: Everyone did their part on the long, rocky road to security and wealth.

Then the year Thea turned twelve, Pa made his fortune again, and the time came for her to stop pretending to be a boy and to pretend to be a genteel lady instead.

And look at her now, as genteel as you please in Helen’s expensive moss-green carriage dress, from her manner to her accent to her walk. It still felt like pretending, though, so why not use a pretend name too? Their switch would not fool any of their acquaintances, despite their matching chestnut-colored hair and blue eyes, but they had only to fool Ventnor’s men. Ma and Pa believed Helen to be Arabella’s guest, Arabella’s other guests knew neither of them from a jug of ale, and as for Thea… Well, no one gave a flying farthing about her whereabouts now.

No self-pity, she scolded herself. Not when she was about to put everything right, not only for Helen, but for herself too.

“We are doing very well,” Thea declared. “Ventnor’s men will never suspect we have swapped clothing, so they will not even notice you leave, let alone stop you from meeting and marrying Beau.”

Smiling, Helen leaned toward Thea, eyes wide. “They will not stop us,” she chanted.

“They cannot stop us,” Thea replied automatically, and together they chorused: “For nobody stops a Knight!”

Thea clapped once and laughed. Nobody stops a Knight, indeed! How often had she muttered the family chant to herself during the years of her exile? Whenever the loneliness became too much and grim thoughts crept in, she would draw on that family spirit. On the memories of Ma hugging her, or Pa fondly pinching her chin, as they reminded her that, together, the Knight family would succeed, and never again have to worry about the roof over their head.

“Do you remember when the Little Ones learned the Knight family chant?” Thea asked Helen now. “Jemima would bang her spoon, and Andy would howl.” Oh, how she missed those impish sweethearts. Her smile faltered. “I suppose they aren’t so little anymore.”

Helen touched her hand. “We still call them that,” she said gently. “They remember you, you know. They ask after you.”

“And what do Ma and Pa say to that? Good riddance to bad rubbish, I suppose.”

“No! They miss you, Thea. Every night, we dine with your empty place.”

And every night of Thea’s exile, she had dined alone. “Nurse and companion,” Mrs. Burton’s advertisement had stated, but it had turned out the old woman had no interest in Thea’s company. The other servants had deemed Thea too grand for them, what with her refined accent and manners, and in the three years she’d worked in that isolated house, she had made no friends. As for everyone she had known before, only Arabella and Helen ever wrote.

Thea turned away and traced the long, curved brim of Helen’s poke bonnet. Thea’s bonnet, now. She must not quarrel with Helen, not now, not when she had only a few minutes to enjoy her sister’s company, not when she loathed arguments, and yet—

“They should have believed me,” Thea said.

“But you are always making up stories, and remember you even said—”

“Exactly!” Thea whirled around. “They know I make silly jests, so they should have believed me when I said I spoke the truth. Instead, they chose to believe Percy Russell’s nasty lies. Now his life goes on as merrily as it always did, while I was cast out of home.”

“Pa offered you money.”

“I don’t want their money! I want them to believe me.”

Thea hated to disappoint her parents; all her life, she had tried her best to please them and contribute to the family’s success, but when Percy Russell came strutting along and sought Pa’s permission to court her, the arguments had begun.

“If you marry into the upper class, Thea, the whole family will be secure,” Ma had said. “Not just you, but Helen and the Little Ones too. Your Pa has made his fortune again, but he’s lost it before, and in this world, only those in the upper class can be sure of their position.”

But when Thea protested that she did not like Percy Russell, Ma only said, “Give him time. With time, he’ll grow on you.”

“Like fungus?” Thea had retorted.

Indeed. A toxic fungus that poisoned her whole life.

“Never mind,” Thea said now. “Soon, everyone will know the truth. I am going to put the world right,” she announced, with more confidence than she felt. After all, to put the world right, she must first convince the world that it was wrong. And if there was one thing the world hated, it was being told that it was wrong. 

Helen narrowed her eyes. “Thea, what mischief are you up to now?”

Before Thea could reply, someone rapped at the door. Helen yanked the clerical hat down over her braided hair, and Thea hastily pulled on the poke bonnet. Its long, curved brim was designed to completely shield the wearer’s face from the sun—and, conveniently for their purposes, from any prying eyes. The effect was like blinders on a horse, and she had to rotate her entire body to see who entered.

But it was only Arabella, sliding through the door and shutting it silently behind her, before turning to assess them with cool, critical blue eyes. Arabella had traveled only a few miles from her family estate to collect Thea, but her royal-blue pelisse, adorned with little white tassels down the front, was elegant enough for a promenade with the queen. Atop her dark hair, and a perfect foil for her pale, angular features, was a matching cap, from which sprouted a single, superb ostrich feather. Arabella was unfashionably tall and slender, but she wore her outfits to such perfection that Thea was sure the fashions must be wrong. Even in Helen’s stylish new outfit, with its smart rows of frogging, Thea felt shabby by comparison.

“You’ll do,” Arabella drawled in her imperious manner. “I can hardly see your faces. We are all satisfied that neither of you has met anyone on my parents’ guest list?”

“Agreed,” Thea and Helen chorused.

“Then all that remains is for Mister Helen to travel north, and Thea to come home with me where Ventnor’s men cannot follow.”

Helen peered out the window at the yard, where the next stagecoach north waited. “First, Thea,” she said, turning back and pulling on her gloves. “I have just enough time for you to tell me about your other mischief.”

Thea couldn’t help chuckling. “I have penned a pamphlet telling the true story of what Percy Russell and Francis Upton did to me,” she said. “Arabella has a publishing connection in London who has agreed to print it and deliver a copy to every aristocratic and genteel household in Town. I’ll place copies in every coffeehouse, and advertisements in every newspaper, and prints in every bookseller’s window. I’ll pay hostesses to discuss it in every salon, and debt-ridden gentlemen to whisper of it over every game of cards. Enough of the ton will be in London for the Little Season in September that word will spread to everyone in society. And oh, if only I could ruin them,” she spat. “Ruin Percy Russell and Francis Upton like they ruined me.”

Only a few hundred people had been in Lord Ventnor’s ballroom that night to witness her downfall, but they had spread the false story like a disease. Everyone else had believed the rumors without question, of course, never caring that a life was destroyed. Well, time for Thea to turn the rumor mill to her advantage instead.

Excellent mischief, indeed! And it complied with her three Rules: It served the admirable causes of justice and restoring her reputation, it would expose Percy Russell’s vileness, and she would enjoy every last minute.

“It will be chaos,” Helen said.

Thea sighed happily. “I know.”

“It will be expensive,” Arabella said.

Thea sighed ruefully. “I know.”

“It will enrage Lord Ventnor,” Helen said.

Thea grinned. “I know.”

Arabella shook her head just enough to make her ostrich feather quiver. “We must plan it very carefully. Lord Ventnor will not appreciate you saying such things about his son.”

“By ‘such things,’ you mean ‘the truth.’”

“Another truth is that Ventnor is a powerful man. He may be only a viscount, but he boasts the ear of several dukes and the Prince Regent.”

Thea waved away her doubts. “The pamphlet uses false names, with only a note in the foreword inviting the reader to guess whose story it tells. Ventnor cannot accuse me without admitting the story is about Percy. Helen will be married to Mr. Russell by then, and he’ll protect you from Ventnor’s ire… Won’t he?”

“Of course he will,” Helen said, without a moment’s hesitation. “I promise you, Thea, Beau is a good man.”

“You say that, but…” She would not say it. She would not quarrel. She would not— “Oh, Helen, are you sure about this?” she blurted out. “I know you are in love, but when you marry Mr. Russell, you get his whole family.”

“They are not so bad,” Helen said. “Lord Ventnor terrifies me, of course, and Beau says Percy was always horrid, even as a boy. But his mother, Lady Ventnor, is lovely, and his younger sister is too. He says he still misses his elder sister, Katharine, although ’tis nine years since she died.” Helen glanced out the window again, and when she turned back to Thea, a wicked gleam lit her eyes. “They say her husband murdered her.”

“No!”

“Yes! Some say it was poison. Others say he is a witch and killed her with sorcery. They say he bears the Devil’s mark upon his face, and it was the Devil himself who killed his father and brothers that he might become the earl.”

“The earl?” Thea repeated, looking from Helen to Arabella.

“She speaks of the Earl of Luxborough,” Arabella said. “Although when he eloped with Katharine Russell, he was only the earl’s penniless third son.”

Helen’s eyes were comically wide under her clerical hat. “And since he became the earl, they say he keeps to his estate in Somersetshire, where he practices his sorcery, making potions and poisons, keeping company only with foreigners and heathens and witches.”

“What utter nonsense,” Thea declared. “You cannot believe such rumors are true.”

“Rumors about other people are always true,” Arabella said. “It’s the rumors about oneself that are false. But some of that story is fact: About thirteen years ago, he ran away to America with Ventnor’s daughter. After a few years, they returned to England, she died in mysterious circumstances, and he left again. Now he is back, he never goes into society.”

“But the claptrap about witchcraft and the Devil?”

Arabella pursed her lips thoughtfully. “I have not seen him in person, but they say his face is indeed scarred, not by the Devil, mind you, but by…”

Thea leaned in. “By?”

“By…a cat.”

“A cat?” Thea glanced at the fine white lines running up the back of her hand, a souvenir from her childhood attempt to befriend a stray cat that did not wish to be befriended. “Then I have the Devil’s mark too,” she scoffed. “To think him a witch for a mere cat’s scratch.”

“Good grief, Thea, he is an English aristocrat, and would never suffer the scratches of an ordinary cat,” Arabella scolded lightly. “He was attacked by nothing less than a jaguar, while in the forests of New Spain.”

“Ja-gu-ar,” Thea repeated, trying out the strange word in her mouth. How unfortunate that her limited education had taught her only how to be a lady, and omitted any mention of strange cats and foreign forests. “What is a jaguar?”

Helen drew on her slightly more extensive education to explain, “A jaguar is a very big cat. With very big claws, and very big teeth, and very little sense of humor.”

“Impossible,” Thea said. “If it is a cat, then it doubtless believes it has an excellent sense of humor and it’s the humans that cannot take a joke.”

Arabella almost smiled. “I daresay you can ask the earl all about jaguars and their jokes when you meet him.”

“I am happy to say that I have no desire whatsoever to meet the Earl of Luxborough.”

“Unfortunate for you, then, that he is arriving at my parents’ house this evening too.”

Before Thea or Helen could respond to Arabella’s astonishing announcement, a call from the yard warned that the stagecoach north was about to depart. Helen grabbed up the small bag Thea had brought, gave her a one-armed hug, said, “Wish me luck!” and dashed out the door on a waft of happiness and swine.

Thea darted to the window, Arabella by her side. It felt like an eternity until Helen emerged. With her clerical hat pulled down low and her greatcoat flapping about her breeches and boots, Helen jogged across the yard and jumped into the coach. Thea hardly dared breathe, praying Ventnor’s men had not noticed that the fellow in the greatcoat was Helen. Other passengers boarded. The carriage door slammed shut, the coachman clucked at the team of six horses, and the huge stagecoach rumbled off. Still Thea and Arabella waited, until the stagecoach was well out of sight. No one followed.

Another coachman maneuvered a stylish barouche into the yard. A liveried footman and an inn employee carried out a traveling trunk and lifted it into the barouche. Thea recognized the trunk as Helen’s. Well, her trunk, now that she was Helen.

Arabella tapped the glass. “No one is chasing Helen, and my barouche is ready. Assuming Ventnor’s men did not notice her leave, we need only smuggle you past them without them seeing your face.”

*****

“If this Earl of Luxborough never leaves his estate, how is it that he is visiting your house?” Thea asked Arabella’s back, as they filed down the narrow, stuffy stairs toward the tavern and its din of chatter and calls.

“I hesitated to mention this before, but Lord Ventnor is giving the earl some rare plant specimens,” Arabella replied, her ostrich feather sweeping the air as she half-turned her head. “As Warwickshire falls about halfway between their estates, Ventnor has sent them to our house for the earl to collect. Apparently, Lord Luxborough is a keen botanist when he is not wandering through the Americas being attacked by giant cats.”

As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Thea pulled Arabella to a stop. “Lord Ventnor sent these plants to your house, at the same time that he believes Helen to be your guest,” she said in a low voice. “Does that strike you as more than coincidence?”

“It does, rather. On the other hand, Lord Ventnor has a finger in hundreds of pies. There is no reason he should not make such an arrangement with Lord Luxborough, given he is his father-in-law, or with Papa, given their acquaintance. Either way, the Earl of Luxborough cannot possibly know who you are, and it is too late to stop your scheme now.” Arabella shot a glance at the door leading into the noisy tavern and extended her left elbow. “Ready?”

“Ready.”

Thea slipped her fingers around Arabella’s elbow and looked down, the tunnel formed by the bonnet’s brim revealing little more than the toes of her half boots and a circle of uneven flagstones. She swung her head but all she could see of Arabella was the blue skirt of her pelisse, the little white tassels down the front perfectly aligned.

“When I came in, Ventnor’s men were seated at a table that will be on our right as we leave,” Arabella said softly. “Remember, chances are they will identify you only by your dress and not bother checking your face, but no need to give them the opportunity to prove they are not complete idiots. Whatever happens, keep your head down and do not look at anyone.”

Thea was already fighting the urge to look up. “I shall try, but it will tax my resources immensely, and I’ll likely faint with exhaustion at the end.”

“Duly noted. If you manage to cross this room without looking up, I shall commend you to the Crown for a medal of valor.”

Arabella set off, and Thea let herself be guided into the tavern like a horse in blinders, eyes on the floor, which did not bear such scrutiny well; it could use a good scrubbing. The thick air dried her throat; a man ranted about a missing box; the smell of burned toast filled her nostrils. Through it all, Thea did not look up.

“Ventnor’s men have seen you,” Arabella drawled in a low, bored tone. Thea did not look up. “Keep walking. They are watching you, but they do not seem suspicious. We are almost— Oh dear.”

Arabella stopped abruptly. Thea stopped too and zealously studied the floor.

“What?” she hissed. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Don’t look up.”

Thea looked up.

First, she saw boots. Men’s boots, dusty and scuffed. Their toes were pointed toward her and Arabella, from which Thea deduced the rest of the man must be facing them too. Even with her limited education, Thea could discern a finely crafted boot of expensive leather: Whoever this man was, he was not one of Ventnor’s rough hires.

And as though someone had attached a string to her bonnet and was pulling on it relentlessly, Thea’s gaze traveled up, up that expensive, dusty leather to the top of those boots, up the man’s long, powerful, buckskin-clad legs, to an exquisitely tailored dark-blue coat—he was definitely facing them, and definitely not moving, and he was not only sufficiently big to block their path, but also sufficiently rude. This man was an aristocrat, Thea decided, for only an aristocrat would stand so nonchalantly in their way.

Up, up her gaze traveled, racing against the brim of her bonnet, up past the rows of buttons spanning a broad chest, to the white neckcloth and collar, to the darker hue of his long, angular jaw.

To his scars.

Ah. Now she understood. This man must be the Earl of Luxborough.

The thick lines, too jagged to be truly parallel, began on the high crest of his left cheekbone and continued relentlessly down, over the hollow of his cheek, narrowly missing his ear to disappear under his neckcloth. Another two thick marks scored his temple.

These scars had long since settled into his skin, but Thea could not help but imagine how they might have looked once. What a horrifying experience it must have been! And what a monstrous great cat, to have paws the size of a man’s face!

A sharp point in her side made her jerk: Arabella’s elbow. Ashamed for gawking, Thea dragged her gaze off the earl’s scarred cheek and gathered an impression of tangled dark hair tumbling haphazardly over a high forehead, before she found herself looking into his eyes. He was staring right at her, his gaze intent, his eyes golden-brown against his thick lashes and straight, lowered brows. He could not have been much older than thirty, but those eyes—those eyes were ancient, as though they had seen a million things and wearied of them all.

Those tired eyes pinned her to the spot, as he took one deceptively lazy step toward her, and another, until he filled her narrow vision, both fascinating and terrible. His haunted eyes, his careless hair, his coiled energy, his storied cheek. His air of utter indifference to anything but her. Thea felt uncomfortably aware of the tightness of her stays, her scalp itching under the bonnet, the warmth of her cheeks.

Then a smile tugged at one corner of his mouth, a secret half-smile, for himself and not for her. But before she could find words, or breath with which to speak them, his gaze slid to Arabella.

He inclined his head in greeting. “Miss Arabella Larke, I presume,” he said, his voice low and rough like smoke.

Thea could not see whether Arabella nodded in return, but certainly she did not curtsy. Arabella was famously difficult to impress; even an earl would not induce her to bend a knee, or to rouse herself to more than a drawl to say: “And you must be Lord Luxborough.”

“However did you guess?” he said wryly.

Belatedly, Thea remembered their mission, and in the absence of Arabella’s commentary, she had to fight the urge to look for Ventnor’s men. Not that they would accost her now, in the company of an earl. A man like Lord Luxborough would easily keep such men at bay, and ensure quick service and polite treatment, and make the whole world fall into line. Indeed, an earl would make quite a useful pet, but all things considered, she’d rather have a cat.

Then his eyes slid back to Thea, a knowing, triumphant gleam in their depths that set her heart pounding anew.

Beside her, Arabella shifted slightly. “Allow me to present my good friend, Miss Helen Knight.”

Thea hastily lowered her head and bobbed a curtsy. If his lordship deigned to favor her with a nod, she didn’t see, but she doubted he would. An earl was one of the highest-ranking men in the land, and earls did not bow to merchants’ daughters, however hard their parents tried to turn them into gentry.

“The infamous Miss Helen Knight,” he murmured, and she did look up then, meeting that knowing gleam. She opened her mouth to demand his meaning but Arabella, ever prescient, smoothly spoke first.

“My father informs me you have come to collect the plants sent here by Lord Ventnor,” Arabella said. “They have arrived safely and await you in the conservatory.”

Lord Luxborough looked irritated by Arabella’s interruption. “And your father informs me that you will guide me to them, Miss Larke. Indeed, he informed me that you will show me his entire estate, which you will inherit, although I cannot fathom why he might have mentioned that.”

His dry tone indicated that he knew very well why Mr. Larke had mentioned Arabella’s inheritance. Poor Arabella, to be married off to a rude, unpleasant man like this! Arabella could handle him, of course—Arabella could handle anything—but Thea had to speak nonetheless.

“But you have not traveled here to meet Miss Larke, have you, my lord?” Thea said.

Arabella elbowed her again, but she ignored it, unable to look away as those tired eyes flicked back to meet hers.

“Hmm?” he said.

“You are not here for Arabella,” Thea persisted. “You are here for your plants.”

He half-groaned, half-sighed. “Actually, Miss Knight, I am here for you.”