"He is definitely facing a difficult field of competitors," she said to Lord Andrew, "but Noir loves to race and he's going to win. Which is why we must hurry, my lord, and get our bets in place before the race begins."

Mondale cast a last disdainful glance at Tanner. "Exactly so." He extended his arm. "Come, my beauty."

Lee felt Tanner's eyes on her the moment she took Andrew's arm. She didn't miss the disapproval on his face as they walked away. She tried to smile, but it wasn't that easy to do.


Noir won the race, beating the next two horses, both top competitors in the field, by more than three lengths. Caleb kept his job and even received a faintly grudging compliment from the stallion's pretty owner, who hadn't spoken to him since.

By day he continued his work with the horses. As the youngest son of the Earl of Selhurst, he had been raised at the family estate in York. At Selhurst Manor, his father owned and bred some of the finest racing stock in England. Love of horses and racing were the two things he and his father had in common.

Horses had led him to a commission in the cavalry and a decision to make the service his career. Now, in a strange, unexpected way, he was enjoying his simple day's work in the stable, enjoying the thrill of seeing an animal he had worked with pit itself against a field of the very best livestock—and win.

It was the nights that left him tense and edgy, frustrated with the lack of progress he was making in his assignment.

On top of that, watching Vermillion with her endless string of wilting admirers left a bad taste in his mouth. At Epsom, she had spent most of her time with Mondale. Having lived only briefly in London and rarely moving about in Society, Caleb had never met the man, but gossip about him was rampant. Mondale was one of the most notorious rakes in London.

Caleb couldn't imagine what Vermillion saw in the simpering fop. He was a swaggering boor, as far as Caleb was concerned, and just thinking about the two of them together made a knot form in his stomach. He tried not to think of the man's pale hands on Vermillion's luscious breasts, tried not to imagine him lying next to her in bed. Determinedly he shoved the unwelcome image away and forced himself to concentrate on the job he had come there to do.

It was almost midnight. Darkness had settled over the fields and meadows around the house and quiet enveloped the landscape. Caleb moved away from the window at the rear of the mansion. With a dense growth of leafy foliage surrounding the mullioned panes, it was a safe place to view the drawing room and the stairwell leading to the second floor. The house was quiet tonight—an unusual occurrence—the Durant women retired upstairs to their respective bedchambers.

Earlier, he had seen Lord Claymont arrive, an imposing man in his late forties, and watched him make his way to the rear of the mansion to a private entrance heavily overgrown with ivy. There was a staircase just inside the door, Caleb saw, presumably to the room occupied by his mistress, Gabriella Durant.

Word was, for the past four years, Gabriella had forsaken her other lovers in favor of a long-term liaison with Claymont. From Caleb's observations thus far, the gossip appeared to be true. The woman was getting older, her looks very subtly beginning to fade. Perhaps she felt it was time to fix her interest on an individual. Whatever the reason, Gabriella was in bed with her lover and Vermillion had gone upstairs as well, and as she had done each night since his arrival, she had retired alone.

Caleb still wasn't certain what that meant. During the briefing he had received on his arrival in London, Colonel Cox had relayed a rumor that Vermillion meant to end her string of affairs. On the occasion of her birthday, she had vowed to choose a protector from one of her current lovers. Perhaps she had decided to remain celibate until then.

Whatever the reason, there was little he could discover tonight. Caleb turned away from the house and made his way across the courtyard to the stable, determined to get some long-overdue sleep. Expecting the barn to be dark, he slowed when he noticed the glow of a lantern burning in one of the stalls and heard the soft sound of straw being shuffled about.

Entering quietly, Caleb approached the stall. It was the empty one, he saw, the one the fat yellow cat had commandeered for herself. The animal was stretched out on a bed of fresh hay, her insides heaving in and out as if she had just finished a race. Five tiny yellow kittens lay beside her, and stroking the cat's striped fur, Vermillion bent over, giving Caleb a glimpse of her thick red braid. Dressed in a simple brown skirt and white blouse, she looked more like a servant than an occupant of the house.

He must have made some sound. Her head jerked up and her gaze turned toward him. He saw that her face was free of paint. Her expression was bleak, her aqua eyes luminous with tears. This woman was Lee, not Vermillion, and her obvious distress bothered him in a way he hadn't expected.

"What's wrong?" His stride lengthened as he walked toward her. "What's happened?"

She swallowed, shook her head. "It's Muffin. I came out to check on her and found her in labor. It must have been going on for hours. She's had five kittens so far, but there's still one more. It think it may be breached or something. She can't push it out. I think she's dying."

Caleb moved farther into the stall and quietly knelt next to the cat and her tiny newborn kittens, still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Vermillion was out here in the middle of the night, helping to birth a litter of kittens. "What have you done so far?"

"I fixed her some warm milk laced with choke-cherry and honey. I thought it might help with the pain, but I couldn't get her to take it." She gnawed her bottom lip. "I've seen Jacob reach into a mare to turn a foal. I know that can sometimes be done with a woman who's with child, but Muffin is too small."

Caleb ran his hand over the cat's protruding stomach. He could feel her fluttering heartbeat, her too-rapid panting breaths. The cat looked up at him and he could have sworn he saw resignation in her deep blue eyes.

"My hands are too large, but yours might not be." He reached over and caught her wrist, lifted her small, pale hand and examined it. Her fingers were slim, the nails carefully trimmed and buffed to a glossy sheen. The backs had a few stray freckles Caleb somehow found appealing. Her skin felt soft. He had the oddest urge to press his lips against her palm, to suck on the tips of her fingers.

He let go of her hand as if it had just caught flame. "I think you should try it. Perhaps if you could manage to get your fingers inside the womb, you could stretch the opening. Perhaps you could adjust the kitten and it would be able to slide out as the others have done."

She sniffed, dried her eyes on the sleeve of her blouse and looked up at him. He could read the spark of hope he had just ignited, and something tightened in his chest.

"All right. Yes… let's give it a try." She blotted her eyes again, bent over and petted the cat, stroking its soft fur, whispering encouragement into its ear. Licking her fingers, she eased them inside the mother cat. She stretched the opening and began to probe the womb.

Muffin meowed, but barely moved. Caleb gentled the cat, praying her efforts would work.

"I think the kitten is turned a little bit sideways," Vermillion said. "Maybe it's caught or something."

"Can you move it?"

"I'm not sure." Moving very slowly, Vermillion continued to work. Beads of sweat appeared on her forehead and he thought she might give up. She stopped once during a contraction and spoke a few encouraging words to the cat. Then she took a deep breath and started all over again.

"I think I moved it," she said, looking up. "I think I turned it so it's lined up in the proper direction." She removed her fingers and leaned down to stroke the cat. "Now if Muffin just has enough strength left to push the kitten out."

But it was only a few seconds later that the pouch slid onto the straw, the tiny kitten enclosed in its protective sack.

Vermillion grinned and laughed with relief. "We did it, Caleb, we did it!"

It was the first time she had used his first name and the intimacy washed over him like a gentle spring breeze. "Yes…" he said softly. "We did."

Very carefully, she helped the exhausted mother cat turn around in the straw enough to lick the sack from the kitten, then sat back on her heels in the stall, her entire face wreathed in a smile.

"She's going to be all right," she said. "I can hardly believe it." She turned to look at him and he thought she appeared almost shy. "Thank you, Caleb. She would have died if you hadn't come to help."

"You did all the work."

Vermillion made no reply, just turned and gazed softly down at the kittens. "They're beautiful, aren't they?" But he was thinking it was she who was lovely, this girl who cried over a barnyard cat, who sat in the straw like a servant, who called him Caleb and smiled so sweetly an ache formed in his chest.

Vermillion turned to the yellow-striped cat. "Mon Petit Pain," she whispered, saying the cat's name in French. More French words poured out, the endearments reminding him of who she really was and why he was there at Parklands, jolting him out of the fantasy he had allowed to creep into his head.

"It looks like your cat is going to be fine," he said brusquely. "If you don't require my services any longer, I think it's time I went to bed."

She glanced up, saw the harshness that had seeped into his features, and her gaze turned uncertain. "No… I won't be needing you any more tonight. You're free to go anytime you wish."