"Ah," I said. "Hence the title."

"Hence the title," Colin agreed. "It was only a barony at the time, but after the Restoration, Charles II elevated the baron to earl."

"For his loyal service to the Crown during the Civil Wars?" I guessed, conjuring up an image of a dashing cavalier in plumed hat.

"That," Colin said, with a suggestive lift of his eyebrows, "was the official story. The earl also had an exceptionally beautiful daughter."

"She didn't!" I exclaimed, easily caught up in the gossip of several hundred years ago. Charles II had been known for his roaming eye — and for his generosity in handing out titles to those who had warmed his bed.

"We'll never know for sure," Colin said tantalizingly, "but Lady

Panthea bore a very swarthy son just eight months after her father was invested as earl."

"Lady Panthea was fair?" I guessed.

"Precisely," said Colin.

We nodded at each other in complete historical complicity. His hazel eyes caught mine. That look was an entire conversation in itself, one of those odd moments of unspoken communication when you know beyond a doubt that you're on the exact same page.

My damnable fair skin turned red with a thought that had nothing whatsoever to do with Charles II.

"What about the marquisate?" I asked awkwardly, pretending great interest in the flagstones beneath my feet. We had started up the little path to the kitchen door, and I made a show of stepping from stone to stone. "When did that come in?"

Colin shrugged. "It's not nearly as engaging a story. The earl at the time had some success as a general in the Wars of the Spanish Succession. Queen Anne raised him to marquis."

Colin stopped to open the kitchen door for me, waiting for me to precede him into the house. "I'd show you around the house, but I have some paperwork I need to get sorted before tonight."

I shook my head, feeling my tousled hair shift around my face. "That's all right. I should be getting back to the library anyway. But, listen, about tonight… if it's going to be weird for you having me at that party, I don't mind staying here on my own. I won't feel left out or anything."

Colin grinned. "Not looking forward to an evening with the vicar, are you?"

I bristled at the imputation of faintheartedness. "No! It's not that! I just — thought I might be butting in," I finished lamely.

"Trust me," said Colin drily, "I don't resent the intrusion."

Now was the time to ask what the story was with Joan, and what the hell he thought he was doing using me as a human shield. "But Miss Plowden-Plugge might. I don't want to be nosy or anything, but — "

"Reading other peoples' letters isn't?"

"Not when they've been dead two hundred years," I retorted, before realizing that I'd just been cleverly rerouted. Damn, was I that easy to manipulate?

"One wonders whether they would agree," mused Colin.

I refused to be drawn in further. "About tonight — "

"If you don't have anything to wear," cut in Colin smoothly, "you can take a rummage around Serena's wardrobe."

How did he do that? Belligerently, I opened my mouth.

"She won't mind," Colin reassured me. "It's all several years out of date, anyway."

"Thanks," I muttered. "I think."

"Splendid! I'll leave you to it, then, shall I?" He strolled out, whistling.

Not surprising that he should whistle, I thought indignantly. He had just assured himself of a walking, talking buffer zone.

It wasn't that I minded, I told myself, clomping out of the kitchen, and down the red-papered hall to the front stairs. It was just the being conscripted without being asked that bothered me. And maybe, just a little, the notion that he wanted me along for something other than my charming company.

I took the stairs very, very slowly, pondering that thought. If I was to be honest with myself — which is really a highly overrated thing to do — it did rankle, just a little, to know that it wasn't my sparkling eyes and effervescent wit that had spurred him to press the invitation. I understood quite well that I had only been asked along to fend off Joan Plowden-Plugge. I made an effort to look at the situation with detached amusement. After all, romantic peccadilloes are always quite entertaining when one isn't at the center of them, and I should have been happily snickering into my sleeve at the thought of Colin hiding behind me to escape a predatory blonde. There was plenty of prospect for good old-fashioned slapstick.

Somehow, it wasn't quite as funny as it should have been. I stopped and glowered at one of Colin's ancestors, who stared superciliously at me from a heavily gilded frame on the second-floor landing. You, I scolded myself, are refining too much on a look and a smile. So, fine, a moment ago, walking back, there had seemed to be just the tiniest bit of a spark there. And, all right, maybe I had been the tiniest — just the tiniest bit — intrigued. After all, he was handsome, if one liked that clean-cut, fair-haired, Prince William sort of look. He was clever, and amusing, and engaging — when he wanted to be. Not to mention that there are very few men out there who can bandy about English monarchs in conversation. That, to me, was more lethal than any number of washboard abs.

For goodness' sake! I was clearly letting Henrietta's mood infect my own. So far, in my limited acquaintance with Colin Selwick, he had been impossibly rude in a letter, followed it up by being even more insufferable in person, and only in the past day or so had thawed into normal human behavior.

Besides, even if this warm, friendly, relaxed Colin was the real thing, it was a horrible idea to get involved with someone whose archives I was using, almost as bad as an office romance. What if we started something (I pulled my disobedient mind back before it could go into too-detailed contemplation of what that something might be, complete with dialogue), it ended rapidly, and I still had several thousand pages' worth of manuscript to read? At best, it would exceedingly awkward. At worst, it might mean the end of my access to his library. Men come and go, manuscripts remain constant. Or something like that.

But there were those sideways glances…

I clumped off down the hall in the direction of the library, as if by creating a clatter I could drown out the irritating hum of my own thoughts. On the verge of taking out the manuscripts, I paused. In this sort of mood, I could stare at the same page for half an hour without reading a word. And communing with Colin's ancestors was probably not the best way to take my mind off Colin.

Instead, I fished in my pocket and dug out my mobile. What I needed were voices, nice, modern, human voices. Like my little sister Jillian's. She would soon set me straight. But — I consulted my watch — it would only be nine-thirty in the morning back in the States, and Jilly wouldn't appreciate being woken up before noon on a Saturday. Nor, for that matter, would her roommates, who would all be sleeping off their Friday night revels. Last call for brunch in the dining hall wasn't till one o'clock, so why get up before 12:45? Ah, college.

Oh well, I could always call Pammy. I scrolled through my list of contacts for her number. While she might not be any good at delicate emotional crises, Pammy was excellent at telling me I was behaving like a dimwit.

Wandering over to the window, I pressed send. "Ellie!" squealed Pammy. The diminutives come of having known one another since we were five, along with a revolting wealth of embarrassing personal information. "How's Sussex!"

"I'm being a dimwit," I said, one eye on the window.

"What did you do?"

"Nothing… yet." Was that a flash of green jacket over there at the edge of the garden? No. It was a plant of some sort. They have those in gardens, I reminded myself. "I caught myself considering snogging Colin. Silly, no?"

"Why not?" yelled Pammy. "He's cute. You're single. Go for it!"

"You're supposed to tell me that I'm being ridiculous!"

"When was your last real date?" asked Pammy pointedly.

I did some quick mental calculation. That blind date back in March didn't count, nor did that June dinner with a colleague that was supposed to be platonic until the guy tried to grope me in the cab on the way back. A whack on the offending hand convinced him of the error of his assumptions. The truth was, I just hadn't met anyone who seemed worth expending the time and effort of dating. As a place to meet eligible men, a university campus (unless you're an undergrad, in which case it's like having your own private buffet) ranks just slightly above convents and concerts of folk music. And since I'd moved to London… well, there's always an excuse, isn't there?

"Last December," I muttered. The date of my highly publicized and messy breakup with Grant.

"That's pathetic!"

"I love you, too, Pams."

"Listen, there was an article in this month's Cosmo" — a rustle of papers in the background as Pammy shuffled through her extensive magazine collection — "here it is! 'Ten Easy Ways to Seduce the Pants off Him.'"

"But I don't want — "

Pammy kept going full steam ahead. "Wear something sexy tonight. No tweed. Do you have a bustier?"

"No!" I yelped.

"Oh, I'd loan you mine, but the Sussex thing is kind of a problem. How about — "

"Don't even think of it," I said grimly. Pammy occupied the fringes of the fashion world. Combine that with an absolute lack of a) taste, and b) shame, and you had the red leather bustier, the dress made out of multicolored feathers, and the hot pink snakeskin pants. Thursday night she had tried to persuade me into an outfit constructed entirely out of two handkerchiefs.