And that didn't even begin to include all of the other rules Susan had yelled at her as she left the house that morning. Be charming. Be sweet. Let the man talk. Don't let on if you're smarter than he is.

With all this nonsense to worry about, Elizabeth was rapidly warming to the idea of remaining Miss Hotchkiss, aging spinster, indefinitely.

When she entered Danbury House, she proceeded immediately to the drawing room, as was her habit. Sure enough, Lady Danbury was there, sitting in her favorite chair, scribbling out some sort of correspondence and muttering to herself as she did so. Malcolm was lazing on a wide windowsill. He opened one eye, judged Elizabeth unworthy of his attention, and went back to sleep.

"Good morning, Lady Danbury," Elizabeth said with a shake of her head. “Would you like me to do that for you?'' Lady Danbury suffered from achy joints, and Elizabeth frequently wrote out her correspondence for her.

But Lady Danbury just shoved the paper into a drawer. "No, no, not at all. My fingers feel quite the thing this morning." She flexed her hands and jabbed them in the air at Elizabeth, like a witch casting some sort of spell. "See?"

"I'm glad you're feeling so well," Elizabeth replied hesitantly, wondering if she'd just been hexed:

“Yes, yes, a very fine day. Very fine indeed. Provided, of course, you don't go and start reading to me from the Bible again."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

"Actually, there is something you can do for me."

Elizabeth raised her blond brows in question.

"I need to see my new estate manager. He is working in an office adjoining the stables. Could you fetch him for me?''

Elizabeth managed to keep her jaw from falling open at the very last minute. Brilliant! She was going to get to see the new estate manager and she wasn't going to have to break Edict Number Two doing it.

Well, technically she supposed that she still was seeking him out, but it couldn't really count if she'd been ordered to do so by her employer.

"Elizabeth!" Lady Danbury said loudly.

Elizabeth blinked. "Yes?"

“Pay attention when I speak to you. It is quite unlike you to daydream."

Elizabeth couldn't help but grimace at the irony. She hadn't daydreamed in five years. She'd once dreamed of love, and marriage, and of going to the theater, and of traveling to France. But all of that had stopped when her father died and her new responsibilities made it obvious that her secret thoughts were mere pipe dreams, destined never to come true. "I'm terribly sorry, my lady," she said.

Lady Danbury's lips twisted in such a way that Elizabeth knew she wasn't truly annoyed. "Just fetch him," Lady D said.

"At once," Elizabeth said with a nod.

“He has brown hair and brown eyes and is quite tall.

Just so you know of whom I'm speaking."

“Oh, I met Mr. Siddons yesterday. I bumped into him while I was leaving for home."

"Did you?" Lady Danbury looked perplexed. "He didn't mention anything."

Elizabeth cocked her head in puzzlement. “Was there any reason he should have done? I'm not likely to have any effect upon his employment here."

"No. No, I suppose not." Lady Danbury wrinkled her mouth again, as if she were considering some great, unsolved philosophical problem. "Off with you, then. I shall require your company once I'm through with J-er, Mr. Siddons. Oh, and while I am consulting with him, you may bring me my embroidery."

Elizabeth fought back a groan. Lady Danbury's idea of embroidering consisted of watching Elizabeth embroider and giving her copious instruction and supervision as she did so. And Elizabeth hated to embroider. She did more than enough sewing at home, what with all the clothing that needed mending.

"The green pillowcase, I think, not the yellow one," Lady Danbury added.

Elizabeth nodded distractedly and backed out the door. "Be unique," she whispered to herself, "but not too unique." She gave her head a shake. The day she figured out what that meant would be the day a man walked on the moon.

In other words, never.

By the time she reached the stable area, she had repeated the rules to herself at least ten times each and was so bleary-headed with it all that she would have gladly pushed Mrs. Seeton off of a bridge had the lady in question been in the region.

Of course there were no bridges in the region, either, but Elizabeth preferred to overlook that point.

The estate manager's office was housed in a small building directly to the left of the stables. It was a three-room cottage with a heavy stone chimney and thatched roof. The front door opened to a small sitting room, with a bedroom and office to the back.

The building had a neat and tidy appearance to it, which Elizabeth supposed made sense, since estate managers tended to be concerned with good upkeep of buildings. She stood outside the door for about a minute, taking a few deep breaths and reminding herself that she was a reasonably attractive and personable young woman. There was no reason that this man-whom she really wasn't that interested in, when it came right down to it- should scorn her.

Funny, Elizabeth thought wryly, how she'd never been nervous about meeting new people before. It was all the fault of this blasted husband hunt and that double-blasted book.

"I could strangle Mrs. Seeton," she muttered to herself as she raised her hand to knock. "In fact, I could do so quite cheerfully."

The door wasn't properly latched, and it swung open a few inches as Elizabeth knocked. She called out, “Mr. Siddons? Are you present? Mr. Siddons?''

No answer.

She pushed the door open a few more inches and stuck her head in. "Mr. Siddons?"

Now what was she to do? He clearly was not at home. She sighed, letting her left shoulder lean against the doorframe as her head slid forward into the room. She supposed she was going to have to go hunt him down, and heaven knew where he might be. It was a large estate, and she wasn't particularly excited about the prospect of hiking the length of it looking for the errant Mr. Siddons, even if she needed him desperately to practice Mrs. Seeton's edicts.

While she was standing there procrastinating, she let her eyes skim over the contents of the room. She'd been inside the small cottage before and knew which items belonged to the Lady Danbury. It didn't look as if Mr. Siddons had brought many belongings with him. Just a small bag in the corner, and-

She gasped. A little red book. Sitting right there on the end table. How on earth had Mr. Siddons obtained a copy of HOW TO MARRY A MARQUIS? She couldn't imagine that it was the sort of thing displayed in gentlemen's bookshops. Her mouth hung open in surprise as she strode across the room and snatched up the book.

ESSAYS by Francis Bacon?

Elizabeth shut her eyes and cursed herself. Dear Lord, she was growing obsessed. Thinking she saw that stupid little book around every corner. "Stupid, stupid, stupid," she muttered, swinging around to put the book back down on the table. "Mrs. Seeton does not know everything. You have to stop- Ow!"

She howled as her right hand connected with the brass lantern sitting on the table. Still clutching the book in her left hand, she shook her right from the wrist, trying to ward off the stinging pain. "Oh oh oh oh oh!" she grunted. This was worse than a stubbed toe, and the Lord knew she had more than enough experience with those.

She closed her eyes and sighed. “I am the clumsiest girl in all England, the biggest nodcock in all Britain-''

Crunch.

Her head snapped up. What was that? It sounded like a foot scraping against loose pebbles. And there were pebbles right outside the estate manager's cottage.

"Who's there?" she called out, her voice sounding rather strident to her ears.

No answer.

Elizabeth shivered-a bad sign, considering that it had been unseasonably warm all month. She had never been much of a believer in intuition, but something was definitely wrong here.

And she feared that she was the one who would suffer the consequences.

James had spent the morning riding through the estate. He knew it from top to bottom, of course; as a child he'd spent more time here at Danbury House than he had at his own Riverdale Castle. But if he was to keep up his charade as the new estate manager, he needed to inspect the grounds.

It was a hot day, however, and by the time he finished his three-hour ride, his brow was wet with perspiration and his linen shirt was sticking to his skin. A bath would have been perfect, but in his guise as estate manager he didn't have access to the Danbury House servants to fill a tub, and so he was looking forward to a cool washcloth dipped in the basin of water he'd left in his bedroom.

He hadn't expected to find the front door to his cottage wide open.

He adjusted his gait to make his footsteps as quiet as possible and crept up to the door. Peering in, he saw the back of a woman. Aunt Agatha's companion, if her pale blond hair and small frame were any indication.

He had been intrigued with her the day before. He didn't realize just how much until he saw her just now leaning over his copy of Francis Bacon's ESSAYS.

Francis Bacon? For a burglar, the chit had rather highbrow reading tastes.

Watching her was almost hypnotic. Her face was in profile, and her nose scrunched up in the most amusing manner as she examined the book. Silky tendrils of flaxen hair had escaped her bun and curled along the back of her neck.

Her skin looked warm.

James sucked in his breath, trying to ignore the heat that was curling in his belly.

He leaned in as close to the doorframe as he could without revealing himself. What the devil was the girl saying? He forced himself to concentrate on her voice, which wasn't easy, since his eyes kept swaying to the gentle curve of her breasts, and that spot on the back of her neck where-