When he finally pulled away, she saw that his pupils were large and black, that he looked as surprised as she felt. She wondered if his insides felt as liquid, as warm and unsettled.

She knew she should say something. The only thing she managed was an astonished, “Oh.”

His smile was a bit rueful, a bit hesitant. “Exactly.” His voice was rough, as if emotion had scored it. “Oh. I should apologize, I’m sure. But...I very much fear I’ve wanted to do this since I first saw you smile. Do you mind?”

And oddly, she found that she didn’t. Not at all. She wanted to reach up and touch her lips to see if they were still that warm. She wanted to melt back into his embrace, this man she’d known only by word and deed almost as long as she’d known her Jamie. Should it be such a surprise that after the way Jamie had glorified him she should react so sharply to him?

Oh, Jamie, she thought, unable to look away, even when Adam lifted a finger to once again stroke her cheek. This is all your fault. It almost made her smile to think that Jamie would have approved.

“Feel a little better?” he asked, his voice softened.

She took a deep, uneven breath. “Less...frantic,” she admitted, finally finding the strength to ease back out of his arms. “The question is, what do I do now?”

“About me?”

She scowled at him, even seeing the glint of humor in his eyes. “Everything is not about you. My father tried to kidnap my child.”

She abruptly sat in the chair she’d vacated earlier. “He tried to kidnap my child,” she repeated in dread. “How did he find out so soon? I have to believe it was because of your news. He has been perfectly happy to leave us alone til now.”

Adam carefully bent to retrieve the snifter and collect his own on the way back to the drinks table. “What do you mean, he left you alone?”

She gave a small wave of her hand. “I embarrass him. He has been trying to pull me back under his control ever since I married Jamie instead of the man my father wanted. But this…”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said, and truly sounded like it. “It might be my fault.”

She caught her breath.“How?”

He refilled the snifters and returned to hand one to her. “I had to find you,” he said, sitting across from her. “Jamie’s family had no idea where you were. I went to yours.”

He reached out his free hand and laid it on hers, just that. Georgie found herself momentarily speechless. Not from Adam’s admission. From his instinctive gesture of comfort. Her skin seemed to glow, not only where his hand covered it, but all over, down to her very toes. She realized, suddenly, that she wanted to be back in his arms. She wanted to feel his heat and strength and calm. Oh, Lord. Her life was getting complicated again. What was worse, she could almost feel Jamie smile at her reaction to his favorite cousin.

She had no time for this.

Instinctively setting the brandy down, she got to her feet. She needed to move. She needed….

“Come to London with me,” he said, standing in one place as she paced. “We can protect her there.”

She scowled at him. “Better than those villagers and the staff here? I don’t believe so. In fact I know so. Any more strangers will be noted and stopped. How do you spot a stranger in London?”

“So you’re going to just hide here and hope for the best?”

“Yes...” she stopped suddenly, closed her eyes. The brandy was flooding her with warmth. It was also slowing the frantic pace of her brain. “No.” She wanted to weep again. “If he thinks I am trying to ignore him, he will think he has the upper hand. He’ll simply try again. He kept trying to take Jamie until Jack returned home and threatened him.”

“Take Jamie?” Adam echoed. “Good heavens, you have been busy. I suspect the Peninsula was quieter the last few years.”

She allowed him a smile. “I certainly could have used some artillery.”

She made it back to her chair and sank into it, the brandy forgotten.

“Oh, God,” she said, hearing how hollow her own voice was. “I have to confront him.”

Adam sat across from her. “You aren’t doing it alone anymore. You aren’t powerless.”

She scowled. “He is a marquess.”

Adam grinned. “And I am a duke. Let me help. I might as well get some enjoyment out of this benighted title.”

She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Not all strawberry leaves and groveling servants, I take it?”

His scowl grew. “The last duke was a financial idiot. It’s not that he was poor. But his finances are in such a muddle it will take years to figure them out.”

Georgie waved her glass at him. “Bring them here. I have an odd talent for that kind of thing.”

“I have a better idea. Come with me.”

She didn’t even bother to shake her head. The tears were building again. She had no other choice. She had to travel to the Abbey and confront her father. And when she did, it would provoke the final break not only between them, but between him and her brother, and she didn’t want that. She simply wanted to be left alone with her little girl here where she was finally settled.

And yet, if she didn’t act, her father would simply try again. He would send her baby to an institution for the insane.

Down went the brandy again. Up went Georgie. “He couldn’t. He simply couldn’t.”

She caught Adam just as he was grabbing for his cane. “Stop. If you try and rise every time I do you’ll be crippled for life. I move about when I’m distracted. You bear no responsibility for keeping me company.”

He got to his feet anyway. “But I want to.”

She tilted her head. “Why?”

His smile was a rueful thing of beauty, and Georgie couldn’t look away.

“We are in this together, Georgie,” he said, reclaiming her hand. “I cannot in all good conscience abandon Lully until her inheritance is safely secured and her people cared for. I will not abandon you while your father persists in this medieval behavior of his.”

There it was again, she thought, the tears curdling back into pain. She had to tell him. Certainly before her father did.

“Adam...”

“In fact, I have an idea how I can not only help you, but you can help me,” he said, reaching out to stroke his fingers along her cheek. He so distracted her that she almost didn’t hear what came next.

“Marry me.”

She knew she should say something. She knew he’d said something important. She couldn’t seem to get past the look of surprise in his water blue eyes.

Suddenly his words sank in. Her heart stumbled around like a drunk lord.

“Did you really mean to say that?” she found herself asking.

His grin was bright. “Actually, yes.” Reaching down, he claimed her other hand as well. “Think of it. I could protect Lully even when I’m not close by. My title alone will guard her. And you. After all, who is going to question a duke about his daughter? Who better to represent her than a man of the same status? There aren’t a lot of us out there, you know. As we have already established, I outrank your father.”

The pain swamped her, the shame. The futility. He had no idea that he was holding her up when she felt his words would shatter her.

“What a lovely offer to make,” she said, her voice as thin as her courage. “But I couldn’t think of imposing on you that way. And I believe I need to sit again.”

He sat her down and handed her the brandy again before sitting himself.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized, seeing the reflexive pain in his eyes as he bent his knees. “I promise to stay in one place.”

“Do not consider it,” he said, settling once again.

How could she feel worse? She did, staring into her glass as if the answer to her dilemma was swimming about before her. She fought back another bout of tears, because she didn’t deserve them. She should have ended this a long time ago. She should have shown the same courage she had when she’d taken the children and hidden out in the wilds of Cornwall.

But hiding was so much easier than the truth.

“It would not be imposing,” Adam said. “I must marry sometime. Heirs and all. I like you quite a lot, and I consider Lully a gem. Can you say your life would be worse married to a duke? You could help me so much. After all, I cannot imagine the marchioness raising you without extensive training in how to be married to a peer. We could make the title what we wanted. And we could cushion Lully and help her grow into her own title. Who else can better raise her to fulfill her responsibilities? After all, I shall be growing into my title the same time she grows into hers. We can help each other.”

She couldn’t bear it a minute longer. She downed her second glass of brandy as if it had been a cordial and braced for the renewed fire. She should be stumbling in her altitudes about now. She didn’t feel a thing. Certainly not the courage people said resided in the stuff. Certainly not peace of any kind. She just felt worse, because she had come not just to respect this man--heavens, she had respected him all along, ever since Jamie had spoken of the cousin who had nurtured him and encouraged him to be the man he was. No, now that she had finally met him, she had to admit that she had built a far more thorough fondness for him out of no more than stories and smiles. And now? Now.

“That is the problem in its entirety,” she blurted out, staring unblinking at the empty snifter in her hands, knowing that if she didn’t tell him now, her father would. And he would make it so much worse. “She isn’t.”

There was a pause. “Isn’t what?”

Georgie took a shuddering breath. “A duchess.”

Silence. Her heart seemed to crack and flake apart. She was about to shame herself before this kind man. Worse, she was about to shame Jamie and Lully. But there was nothing else to do.

“Is she not Jamie’s child?” he asked in a very quiet voice.