Tristan paused, then continued, “In light of our friend’s unwelcome interest in this place, I want someone sleeping down here. If you’re willing to act as our downstairs nightwatchman, you can sleep here every night legitimately. I’ll give orders you’re to be treated as one of the household. You can stay in and be warm. We’ll rig up a bell so all you need do if anyone tries to gain entry is ring it, and Gasthorpe and the footmen will deal with any intruder.”

The old man blinked as if he couldn’t quite take in the suggestion, wasn’t sure he wasn’t dreaming.

Without allowing any trace of compassion to show, Tristan asked, “Which regiment were you in?”

He watched as the old shoulders straightened, as the old man’s head lifted.

“Ninth. I was invalided out after Corunna.”

He nodded. “As were many others. Not one of our better engagements—we were lucky to get out at all.”

The rheumy old eyes widened. “You were there?”

“I was.”

“Aye.” The old man nodded. “Then you’ll know.”

Tristan waited a moment, then asked, “So will you do it?”

“Keep watch for ye every night?” The old man eyed him, then nodded again. “Aye, I’ll do it.” He looked around. “Be strange after all these years, but…” He shrugged, and pushed himself up from the stairs.

He bobbed his head deferentially to Leonora, then moved past her, looking around the kitchen with new eyes.

“What’s your name?”

“Biggs, sir. Joshua Biggs.”

Tristan reached for Leonora’s arm and propelled her onto the stairs. “We’ll leave you on duty, Biggs, but I doubt there’ll be any further disturbance tonight.”

The old man looked up, raised a hand in a salute. “Aye, sir. But I’ll be here if there is.”

Fascinated by the exchange, Leonora returned her attention to the present as they regained the front hall. “Do you think the man who fled was our burglar?”

“I seriously doubt we have more than one man, or group of men, intent on gaining access to your house.”

“Group of men?” She looked at Trentham, cursed the darkness that hid his face. “Do you really think so?”

He didn’t immediately answer; despite not being able to see, she was sure he was frowning.

They reached the front door; without releasing her, he opened it, met her gaze as they stepped out onto the front porch, Henrietta padding behind them. Faint moonlight reached them.

“You were watching—what did you see?”

When she hesitated, marshaling her thoughts, he instructed, “Describe him.”

Letting go of her elbow, he offered his arm; absentmindedly she laid her hand on his sleeve, and they went down the steps. Frowning in concentration, she walked beside him toward the front gate. “He was tall—you saw that. But I got the impression he was young.” She slanted a glance at him. “Younger than you.”

He nodded. “Go on.”

“He was easily as tall as Jeremy, but not much taller, and leanish rather than stout. He moved with that sort of gangling grace younger men sometimes have—and he ran well.”

“Features?”

“Dark hair.” Again she glanced at him. “I’d say even darker than yours—possibly black. As to his face…” She looked ahead, seeing again in her mind’s eye the fleeting glimpse she’d caught. “Good features. Not aristocratic, but not common, either.”

She met Trentham’s gaze. “I’m perfectly sure he was a gentleman.”

He didn’t argue, indeed, didn’t seem surprised.

Emerging onto the pavement into the teeth of the wind slicing up the street, he drew her close, into the lee of his shoulders; they put their heads down and swiftly walked the few yards to the front gate of Number 14.

She should have made a stand and left him there, but he’d swung the gate open and whisked her in before the potential difficulties of his seeing her all the way to the front door occurred to her.

But the garden, as always, soothed her, convinced her that no problem would arise. Like inverted feather dusters, a profusion of lacy fronds lined the path, here and there an exotic-looking flower head held high on a slender stalk. Bushes shaped the beds; trees accented the graceful design. Even in this season, a few starry white blooms peeked from under the protective hoods of thick, dark green leaves.

Although the night sent chill fingers sneaking along the twisting path, the wind could only batter at the high stone wall, could whip only the topmost branches of the trees.

On the ground, all was still, quiet; as always the garden struck her as a place that was alive, patiently waiting, benign in the dark.

Rounding the last bend in the path, she looked ahead, through the bushes and waving branches saw light shining from the library windows. At the far end of the house, abutting Number 16, the library was distant enough for there to be no danger of Jeremy or Humphrey hearing their footsteps on the gravel and looking out.

They might, however, hear an altercation on the front porch.

Glancing at Trentham, she saw that his eyes, too, had been drawn to the lighted windows. Halting, she drew her hand from his arm and faced him. “I’ll leave you here.”

He looked down at her, but didn’t immediately reply.

As far as Tristan could see, he had three options. He could accept her dismissal, turn his back, and walk away; alternatively, he could take her arm, march her up to the front door, and, with suitable and pointed explanations, hand her into her uncle and brother’s keeping.

Both options were cowardly. The first in bowing to her refusal to accept the protection she needed and running away—something he’d never done in his life. The second because he knew neither her uncle nor her brother, no matter how outraged he managed to make them, was capable of controlling her, not for more than a day.

Which left him no option bar the third.

Holding her gaze, he let all he felt harden his tone. “Coming to wait for the burglar tonight was an incredibly foolhardy thing to do.”

Up went her head; her eyes flashed. “Be that as it may, if I hadn’t, we wouldn’t even know what he looks like. You didn’t see him—I did.”

“And what”—his voice had taken on the icy tone he would have used to dress down a wantonly reckless subaltern—“do you think would have happened had I not been there?”

Reaction, hard and sharp, speared through him; until that moment, he hadn’t allowed himself to envisage that event. Eyes narrowing as real fury took hold, he stepped, deliberately intimidating, toward her. “Let me hypothesize—correct me if I’m wrong. On hearing the fight belowstairs you would have rushed down—into the teeth of things. Into the fray. And what then?” He took another step and she gave ground, but only fractionally. Then her spine locked; her head rose even higher. She met his gaze defiantly.

Lowering his head, bringing their faces close, his eyes locked with hers, he growled, “Regardless of what happened to Biggs, and having seen the villain’s efforts with Stolemore, it wouldn’t have been pretty, what—just what do you imagine would have happened to you?”

His voice had not risen but deepened, roughened, gained in power as his words brought the reality of what she had risked home to him.

Her spine stiff, her gaze as chill as the night about them, she opened her lips. “Nothing.”

He blinked. “Nothing?”

“I would have set Henrietta on him.”

The words stopped him. He glanced down at the wolfhound, who sighed heavily, then sat.

“As I said, these would-be intruders are my problem. I’m perfectly capable of dealing with any matters that arise myself.”

He shifted his gaze from the hound to her. “You hadn’t intended to bring Henrietta with you.”

Leonora didn’t succumb to the temptation to shift her eyes. “Nevertheless, as it happened, I did. So I wasn’t in any danger.”

Something changed—behind his face, behind his eyes. “Just because Henrietta is with you, you aren’t in any danger?”

His voice had altered again; cold, hard, but flat, as if all the passion that had invested it a moment earlier had been drawn in, compressed.

She replayed his words, hesitated, yet could see no reason not to nod. “Precisely.”

“Think again.”

She’d forgotten how fast he could move. How totally helpless he could make her feel.

How totally and completely helpless she was, yanked into his arms, crushed against him, and ruthlessly kissed.

The impulse to struggle flared, but was extinguished before it took hold. Drowned beneath a tidal wave of feelings. Hers, and his.

Something between them ignited; not anger, not shock—something closer to avid curiosity.

She closed her hands in his coat, grabbed hold, held on as a rush of sensation swept her up, caught her, held her trapped. Not just by his arms but by myriad strands of fascination. By the shift of his lips, cool and hard on hers, the restless flexing of his fingers on her upper arms as if he longed to reach further, explore and touch, longed to pull her closer yet.

Spiraling thrills cascaded through her; licks of excitement teased her nerves, built her fascination. She’d been kissed before, but never like this. Never had pleasure and greedy need leapt to such a simple caress.

His lips moved on hers, ruthless, relentless, until she surrendered to the unsubtle pressure and parted them.

Her world shook when he pressed them wider yet and his tongue slid in to meet hers.

She tensed. He ignored it and caressed, then probed. Something within her rocked, teetered, then cracked. Sensation spilled down her veins, flowing steadily through her, hot, scalding, bright.