Their acquaintance had started very badly, of course. But there was no point in keeping up an open hostility just for the sake of being nasty and provoking nastiness, was there? Somehow, by unspoken consent, they had laid down their weapons and made a sort of grudging peace.

But how strange it was to be sitting thus, alone with a very handsome, masculine gentleman, who was slouched in his chair, totally at his ease. And to know that they would spend the night within a few feet of each other, alone together on the upper floor of the inn. This was the stuff of fantasy and daydreams. But such fantasies were not quite as comfortable when they became reality.

Good heavens, for the past three years she had lived and consorted with none but females, if one discounted Mr. Keeble, the elderly porter at Miss Martin’s school.

“Your home is in Bath, is it?” Mr. Marshall asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “I live at the school where I teach.”

“Ah,” he said, “so you are a teacher.”

He had guessed it, had he? But it was not surprising. She was obviously not a fashionable lady any longer, was she? Even the private carriage in which she had been traveling was shabby despite the wealth of her great-aunts.

“At a girls’ school,” she said. “A very good one. Miss Martin opened it nine years ago with a few pupils and a very small budget. But her reputation as a good teacher and the help of a benefactor whose identity she does not even know enabled her to expand into the house next door and to take in charity girls as well as paying ones. She was also able to employ more teachers. I have been there for three years.”

He sipped from his glass of port.

“And what does such a school teach girls?” he asked her. “What do you teach?”

“Music and French and writing,” she said. “Creative writing, not penmanship—Susanna Osbourne teaches that. The school instructs girls in all the accomplishments they are expected to acquire as young ladies, like dancing and painting and singing as well as etiquette and deportment. But it also teaches academics. Miss Martin has always insisted upon that, since she firmly believes that the female mind is in no way inferior to the male.”

“Ah,” he said. “Admirable.”

She turned her head sharply to look at him, but it was unclear to her whether that judgment had been spoken ironically or not. His head was resting against the high back of his chair. He looked sleepy. His short curly hair looked somewhat rumpled. She felt a strange little fluttering in her lower abdomen.

“I like teaching there,” she said. “I feel that I am doing something useful with my life.”

“And you were not doing anything useful with it before three years ago?” He rolled his head around to look at her.

Her mind touched upon the two years following her father’s death, and for a moment she felt that she could weep. But her tears for those distressing, bungled years had all been shed long ago. And she had never been sorry for the choice she had then made to teach instead of running off abjectly to the sanctuary of her great-aunts’ house and support. If she could go back, she would do the same thing all over again.

Independence was a marvelous thing for a lady.

“I was not happy three years ago,” she said. “Now I am.”

“Are you?” he asked, his eyes moving lazily and disconcertingly over her face and neck and shoulders and even down to her bosom. “You are fortunate to be able to say so, ma’am.”

“Are you not happy, then?” she asked him.

“Happiness.” His eyebrows rose in obvious scorn. “It is a foolish word. There are enjoyment and sensual gratification, and there are their opposites. I cultivate the former and avoid the latter whenever I may. It is, you may say, my philosophy of life—and of most people’s lives if they are honest with themselves.”

“I spoke unadvisedly,” she said. “I used the wrong word. I ought to have said that I am content with my life. I avoid either of the extremes you named for the sake of greater peace. It is my philosophy of life, and I believe many people have discovered that it is a wise way of living.”

“And also dashed boring,” he said.

And then he did something that caused far more than flutterings within her. It took her breath away for a moment and left her almost panting.

He grinned at her—and revealed himself as a very handsome man indeed.

She reached for a reply, failed to find one, and ended up gazing silently into his eyes and feeling heat rise in her cheeks.

He gazed back, equally silent, his grin fading.

“I think,” she said, finding her voice at last, “it is time for bed.”

If ever she had wished to recall words after they were spoken, this was the occasion. And if ever she had wished for a black hole to open at her feet and swallow her up whole, this was the time.

For a few ghastly moments she could not look away from him, and he did not look away from her. The air between them seemed to sizzle. And then he spoke.

“I presume,” he said, “that you mean alone, Miss Allard. And you are quite right—it is time for bed. If we were to sit here much longer, I daresay we would both nod off only to be awoken later when the fire had burned down, with cricked necks and frozen toes. You go on up, and I will see to banking the fire and putting the guard across it. I’ll check the kitchen fire too, though I daresay Peters and your Thomas will be playing cards in there and grumbling darkly at each other for some time to come.”

He got to his feet and bent over the fire even as he spoke.

She wondered as she rose from her chair if her knees would support her. What a ghastly slip of the tongue! She should have made her home in the kitchen after all.

“Good night, Mr. Marshall,” she said to his back.

He straightened up and turned to her, one mocking eyebrow cocked.

“Are you still there?” he said. “Good night, Miss Allard.”

She fled, stopping only long enough to take up one of the candles from the counter. She hurried upstairs to her room, where she was surprised to see a fire burning. Although Mr. Marshall had said earlier that he would get Wally to light one, she had not heard him give the order. She undressed and made her other preparations for bed quickly even though the room was not cold, and dived beneath the covers, pulling them up over her head as if to shut off her thoughts.

There were feelings, though, as well as thoughts—and they were definitely not the feelings of one who cultivated calm contentment in her life. Her breasts felt uncomfortably tight. Her lower abdomen throbbed. Her inner thighs ached. And she was not such an innocent that she did not recognize the symptoms for what they were.

She desired a man she did not even know—and probably would not like if she did. She had even despised him for a few hours. How mortifying!

She waited tensely beneath the covers for the sound of his footsteps coming up the stairs and entering his room.

But though she did not fall asleep for a long time, she did not hear him come.

The snow had stopped falling by the time Lucius got up the next morning and peered out through a small circle he cleared with his warm breath on the window of his bedchamber. But a great deal had come down and the wind had blown it into massive drifts. In addition, the sky had still not cleared off, and if the temperature of his room was anything to judge by, there was not going to be much melting for a while.

Although it was still dark and impossible to see any distance with perfect clarity, nevertheless it was painfully obvious that no one was going to be doing any traveling today.

He waited for gloom and ill-humor to descend upon his spirits again and was surprised to discover that instead he was feeling more cheerful than he had since before Christmas. None of the new conditions of his life had changed, of course, but fate had provided him with this slight respite from them. There was going to be nothing he could do today that would in any way further his plans to reform his life and be the model grandson, son, brother, and bridegroom, and so he might as well enjoy what the day might offer.

It was a strange thought when he was stranded at a sorry apology of a country inn without his valet—and without most of the other comforts he usually took for granted.

He shaved in the cold water that had been sitting in the pitcher on the washstand since the night before, got dressed, and pulled on his top boots, his greatcoat, and his hat. He held his gloves in one hand as he descended the stairs. All was in darkness. As he had fully expected, Wally was still in his bed—and maybe the coachmen were still in theirs. They had still been playing cards and voicing dark suspicions about each other’s honesty when he had finally felt it safe to go up to bed well after midnight—safe for his own peace of mind, that was. When she had said that it was time for bed, he had felt for a few moments—again!—that the top of his head might well blow off.

He had an excess of energy this morning despite the fact that he had not slept much. And since he could not go riding—his favorite early morning exercise—or boxing or fencing, which would have been worthy alternatives, he would clear some of the snow away from before the door, he decided, pulling on his gloves, letting himself out into the dusk of approaching daylight, and wading back to the stables in search of a shovel and broom. With the help of Peters, who was already out there tending the horses, he found what he was looking for.

“I’ll do it myself after I’ve finished in ’ere, guv, if you like,” Peters said. “I’d rather that than wash bloomin’ dishes again. But I can see you are fair to bustin’ with wanting something to do yourself. So you go ahead.”