The water had cooled; the room was still chill. As she slipped into the nightgown she wondered if that was enough to account for the fact that she felt slightly shivery. She hoped it was. But the cold could not be blamed for the fact that her lips tingled, or that her imagination kept straying to an unknown room somewhere in the house where Lucas was perhaps undressing even now. His black coat would be hung on the back of a chair. He would be shrugging off his waistcoat, standing there in the candlelight in those tight breeches and the clinging white linen of his shirt…

With a gasp of alarm Rowan snatched up her toothbrush and scrubbed her teeth with enough energy to take off the enamel. Never in her well-regulated life had she let herself speculate on what any man of her acquaintance looked like undressing, let alone with his clothes off.

She just hoped Penny would appreciate all her efforts when she was able to escape from Tollesbury Court unattached. Because, besides aching feet, insipient chilblains and aching muscles, Rowan very much feared her moral fibre was going to be severely impaired by this experience.


December 23rd

Penelope seemed more than usually distracted when Rowan, stifling her yawns, came into the room.

'Did you sleep well, Miss Penelope?' she asked, one eye on the chambermaid who had drawn the curtains and was whisking the hearth into order before rekindling the fire.

'Yes, thank you Ro… Lawrence.' She sat up against the vast white pillows and rubbed her eyes. 'But I had such odd dreams. I cannot quite recall them, but I feel strangely flustered this morning.'

Rowan considered her friend would feel even more flustered if she so much as hinted at the nature of the dreams she herself had experienced. Unfortunately she could recall them only too well, and as they had consisted mainly of variations on being kissed by Lucas, flustered was a mild description of her feelings.

'Thank you,' Rowan said to the maid, who was gathering up her brushes and bucket. 'Please have Miss Maylin's hot chocolate sent up. A nice big pot and two cups. I don't care what they think downstairs,' she added once the girl had gone. 'I am not starting the day without my chocolate.'

'Have you not had any breakfast?' Penny asked sympathetically.

'I had some toast and preserves and a cup of coffee at six. Luckily they sent up a girl with hot water at half past five, or I would still be in bed asleep.'

'Oh, poor Rowan. Is this proving very horrid?'

'Very odd, certainly.' Rowan frowned, trying to work out why, despite everything, she seemed to be enjoying herself. It was very strange. 'But it will be worth it, I am certain.' Among the worries keeping her awake half the night had been whether to tell Penny about her pact with Lucas to foil the betrothal. On reflection, she thought not. Penny was certain to be shocked.

'You are not to worry about Lord Danescroft,' she added bracingly as she opened a clothes press in search of Penny's best morning dress for church. 'I am sure we can succeed in putting him off.'

'He is very attentive,' Penny observed. 'He has asked if I would like to join him in his phaeton to and from the church. Do you think I ought?'

'Why, certainly.' Rowan opened the door to admit the maid with the chocolate, and carried on carefully setting out Penny's garments while the girl was in the room. 'Quite unexceptional.' The girl went out and Rowan frowned, a pair of silk stockings screwed up in her hand. 'There will be no need for a chaperon in an open carriage like that, so you can say what you like. We must think of something shocking.' She poured the chocolate, handed Penny her cup and went to perch on the end of the bed to drink her own. 'I know-talk about how much you like to make wagers.'

'What? But I cannot even play cards without making a mull of it,' Penny wailed. 'Papa shouts at me.'

'No, not cards. Say you enjoy putting wagers on things, and then confess you are always losing money and never have any of your allowance left. What a bad example he will think you would be for his daughter! Don't forget to look contrite and say you wish you could stop but you can't.'

'I'll try,' Penny said dubiously. 'But I am not a very good actress, and as for telling an untruth…'

'Better a white lie than a lifetime married to that man,' Rowan said forcibly. 'I am walking to church with his valet. I will tell him about your gambling habit as well.' She glanced at the clock. 'Lord! Look at the time. We must get you dressed and down to breakfast before your godmother comes in search of you.'

'Poor man,' Penny said, climbing out of bed and dragging on her wrapper.

'Who?'

'Lord Danescroft. All these people talking about him and intriguing about him. And now I have to lie to him.'

'Penny,' Rowan said firmly, 'you have a heart of butter. If you start feeling sorry for the Earl, of all people, you are lost.'

Penny still looked dubious. Rowan had a flash of inspiration prompted, she knew all too well, by her current preoccupation with Lucas.

'Has your step mother explained what happens between a man and a woman? You know-in bed?'

'Yes.' Penny blushed scarlet. 'It sounds dreadful'

'Well, imagine having to do that with Lord Danescroft,' Rowan said.

Her friend's blush drained away most satisfactorily, leaving her white to the lips.

'Surely you can manage a few fibs to prevent that, can't you?'

'Oh, yes.' Penny nodded vehemently. 'Oh, yes, I am sure I can.'

CHAPTER FIVE

'Did you think of anything last night?'

Lucas's question could not have been better designed to disconcert her. Rowan gave a little gasp, pretended to slip on an icy patch, and was then thrown into even greater disorder by him taking her firmly by the arm.

'Now what have I said?' he demanded, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow.

She should protest at the fact he was squeezing it against his side rather than letting her rest it on his forearm. But then, he was not a gentleman, however polished his speech and his manner, so perhaps he did not realise that what he was doing was improper.

Rowan shot him a sideways glance as she tried to think of something to say. His face was composed, but there was the faintest curl to the corner of his lips and a twinkle she was becoming familiar with in his eye. He knew perfectly well he was disconcerting her. She tried to ignore the warmth of his body penetrating her leather glove and the recollection of the fleeting heat of his mouth on hers.

'Nothing. It is just that I lay awake too long trying to think of ways to prevent the Earl proposing to Miss Penelope, and I'm tired and clumsy this morning.'

'Any ideas?'

'I told her to confess to him about her fatal addiction to wagering and how she is always outrunning her allowance as a result.'

Lucas grinned appreciatively. 'That's a good one. I don't suppose she can have a fatal addiction to card play or dice as well?'

'Miss Penelope? Goodness, no, she can hardly remember the basic rules, let alone put on a convincing show as a hardened gamester.'

'That's what you were trying to hint about when we met in the brushing room, wasn't it? You thought you could drop hints to me and I would run back to Danescroft with the tittle-tattle.'

'Well? Did you? I can see that you did.'

'Your remarks about Miss Maylin's stepmother wrought most effectively upon him.'

'Excellent! What did he say to the idea of her living with them after the wedding?'

'"Over my dead body,"' Lucas quoted with some relish.

'Oh. I suppose he is more than capable of enforcing that sort of decision,' Rowan brooded as they neared the edge of the coppice that filled one corner of the park and separated the church, graveyard and vicarage from the estate.

In front of them the upper servants walked in pairs, Sunday best muffled under shawls and scarves. Behind

them the lower servants straggled, a less disciplined crocodile, with the pair of giggling boot boys bringing up the rear.

'Why did he not put his foot down with his late wife?' she asked.

'Because the sense of betrayal was so great, I imagine. She broke his heart: dragging her away and locking her in was not going to bring back the woman he had thought he loved, was it?'

'No. I suppose not.' Rowan was shaken by the force of feeling in Lucas's words. 'Would you do the same thing? Turn a blind eye if it were your wife?'

'No. In his shoes I would kill her lover and lock her up on my most dreary and remote estate,' he said, with a smile that was pure ice.

There was not a great deal one could say to that. Rowan wondered just how a vengefully inclined valet would go about disposing of a rival. A gentleman would demand a duel, but Lucas was not a gentleman. Where, exactly, had he been when the late Lady Danescroft met her end? Lucas might have only become Lord Danescroft's valet after the murder, but he seemed strangely partisan for such a short acquaintance. She gave herself a little shake for giving way to such lurid Gothic imaginings. But there was a mystery here.

The group in front of them had slowed to pass through the gate that led into the coppice.

'Oh, look,' Lucas murmured. 'A kissing gate.' And so it was. A small gate hinged to move within a vee-shaped enclosure so that only one person at a time could squeeze through and stock or deer would not be able to move through it. The Steward was holding it for the housekeeper to pass, standing well back. But, as Rowan knew perfectly well, if the person holding it stood close enough they could snatch a kiss with ease.

'There has been all the kissing there is going to be,' she murmured back. 'If it were not that I need your help for Miss Penelope I would not be walking with you now, believe me.'