Kitty flipped a page in her book and tried to focus. “Not yet. I have a bit more to read, then I will turn in.” And remain awake staring at the ceiling beneath which she had made love to a barbaric Scot, this time with her nerves strained in fear and anticipation.

She should not have done this. It was unpardonably rash. Either Mr. Cox would never arrive and she would waste away waiting for him in a tiny Shropshire inn with a French widow as her only companion, other than a little boy and a pair of the most solicitous innkeepers she had ever met, due to Madame Roche informing them of Kitty’s delicate condition. Or Mr. Cox would arrive and she would be in serious danger.

Madame Roche stood. “Good night, then, ma belle.” Kitty watched her mount the stairs, somewhat bemused as always by the woman. But the widow had begun to call her ma belle as she called Emily ma petite. During this journey Kitty had apparently become one of her charges. That suited her. She would need friends in the coming months while she determined what to do with her life that was to change rather dramatically.

The front door rattled against its bolts. Kitty’s heart leaped. She stood, every nerve stretched. A heavy knock sounded on the panel. Mr. Milch came from the kitchen. He shook his head as he moved toward the foyer.

“Now don’t you be worrying yourself over this, my lady. We won’t be inviting in anybody we don’t know.”

She nodded. It was an inn, for pity’s sake, yet he had cleared out the whole place for her and her traveling companion so she could wait upon a man who might never show. But she had a cameo portrait of an angelically lovely lady in her pocket to prove that if Mr. Cox had seen the pamphlet he must at least be on his way now.

From where she stood in the center of the sitting room, she heard Mr. Milch snap open the lock on the peek window.

“Well, now, good evening, sir! Welcome back.”

The bolts on the door clanked, Kitty’s palms went damp, and the door creaked open. It could not be Mr. Cox. A gust of wind smelling of snow caught up the flames in the hearth. Boots sounded in the foyer, then the new arrival’s voice, deep and familiar.

“I trust you are well, Milch?”

Her knees turned to porridge. There was nothing for it but to grasp the back of the chair for support and hope she did not collapse.

“I am, my lord. My good wife too. There’s to be snow tonight, by the looks of it.” The door thumped shut.

“Tell me at once if you will, has Lady Katherine returned here of late?”

“She’s just within, sir. I’ll take your coat now.”

Boot steps, and he came through the door. He halted.

“Kitty.” Her name was a mere breath. His shoulders seemed to settle as he scanned her face, then all of her from neck to toe, then her face once more. Mr. Milch crossed the chamber to the kitchen and out, and Kitty drank in the sight of the man she loved.

“Hello, Leam.” She folded her hands in a vain attempt to still their mad trembling. “What brings you to Shropshire?”

Remarkably, he laughed. “I suppose I should say the fishing.” He smiled, and everything inside her fused together into one messy heap of honey. “But instead I shall tell the truth. You brought me, of course.”

“Then did you see Lady Justice’s pamphlet, or speak with my servants?”

“Kitty, Cox is apprehended. I left him in a magistrate’s jail not thirty miles from here.”

She clutched the sofa harder. “Then he was the one? Oh, I am relieved.”

His gaze seemed quite warm. “How did you discover the business with the cameo?”

“Ned had it on Christmas Eve. He said he’d found it months earlier on the road.”

“And you doubted his word so much that you connected it to Cox, then to me?” His beautiful mouth still hinted at a smile.

“Well, yes. And no. At the time I thought it strange how Mr. Cox had been so friendly with you at first, then decidedly less so later. Also anxious. Then that day at the park—” For the first time in days her throat was thick with tears. Being so near him, alone in this place where she had fallen in love with him, was not conducive to her well-being. “She is very beautiful and I thought I had seen her before.

Then I remembered Ned’s cameo and realized how I recognized her. When you told me Mr. Cox had lost something valuable and believed you had it, it all seemed to make sense, although I am not certain it should have. But I felt I had to do something and you could not find him, so I sent the letter to Lady Justice hoping that she would print it and he would see it and show himself. Really, I never imagined it would all work out.” But it had given her another excuse to flee.

He shook his head slowly, then took a deep breath and opened his mouth. But she could not allow him to speak and say things she would remember forever, such as he thought her wonderfully clever.

“It was to my advantage to rout him out,” she said quickly, “but I am glad you did because I honestly don’t know what I would have done except try to blackmail him if he had come here. But I am not a blackmailer by nature. A snitch, certainly, but—”

“Kitty, I am not leaving here tonight. You cannot talk me gone from this place no matter how you go on.”

“I was merely explaining. And you did ask. Yesterday Ned admitted to me that Hermes found it out by the stable and brought it to him the night of the storm.” Beneath his intimate gaze, the familiar ache of longing wound its way around her so tightly it stole her breath, wonderful and awful at once.

“What did Mr. Cox want of her cameo?”

“He kept it to ensure he could extort money from me through her. When he lost it, he became somewhat unglued, it seems. Thus the shooting and threats.”

“That is nonsensical.”

His eyes intensified. “Did you read the inscription on the back?”

“No.” She reached into her pocket for the trinket. It felt like tiny knives every time she touched it.

She flipped it over.

Her breaths stuttered.

“I—I do not understand. Did—did he divorce her before she married you?”

“He never divorced her. They are still married, as they were when she and I said our vows.”

Kitty’s heart slammed against her lungs.

“Oh, Leam,” she breathed. “I am sorry.”

His eyes widened. “You are sorry?”

“Yes, I am sorry this time. So very sorry for you, and for your son of course.” And miserable again in a manner she could never have anticipated. Euphorically miserable. She suspected what was to come next. She wanted it more than life, yet she could not bear it. “Here.” She went forward and placed the cameo on the table, then moved away from it. “You must wish at least to have this.”

“I’ve no wish whatsoever to have it.”

“But—”

“Kitty, marry me.”

For the second time in as many months, her palm met her nose and she could not seem to detach it.

“Oh. That was abrupt.”

Through her fingers she saw him swallow jerkily.

“That is not precisely how I hoped you would respond.” His voice was tight. “Is that a no? Do you wish, after all, to remain unwed?”

Kitty’s hand slid from her face to her constricted throat. “No,” she whispered. “Not remotely. But —but…”

“But perhaps you have another offer, or simply wish to await one from another quarter.”

“No. I have no such offers or wishes.” She must say it aloud, no matter how painful. “But your feelings for her, Leam—I cannot compete with that. Before, it was imaginable, but now that she is actually still alive…” Perhaps it was too painful to say after all.

Incomprehension shifted across his features. Then, abruptly, understanding.

“Kitty,” he said, his voice quite low, “my feelings for her were shallow and disintegrated swiftly.

Half of the guilt I carried these years was because of my sheer relief over having narrowly missed living my entire life with a person so ill-suited to me. I was relieved I had driven her to the grave. You may despise me now for it, but it is the truth and I told you I wish no secrets between us.”

She gaped. “But all these years, people—Gossips have said—”

“It was all an act. To gain sympathy and trust.”

“All? Did you never feel for her anything profound?”

“I desired her then, infatuated as only a young man can be, foolish beyond measure and full of my own consequence and vanity.” He stepped forward. “But, my sweet girl, I had no idea then—” His voice was rough. “Nothing within me of this longing to give until I am empty, of drowning in the deluge of being filled again with each word, each touch. I had no idea of you.” His eyes were so beautiful, full of everything she dreamed.

“Poetry, my lord?” She could barely grasp breath to whisper. “How very fine.”

His brow knit. “Don’t toy with me, Kitty. With a word you can crush me. If it is to be that word, give it to me now. I am not a patient man and I have already had to wait too long to know if you will ever be mine.”

“Oh, Leam.” Her voice nearly failed. “How can you be asking me this now? After everything?”

His handsome face washed with despair. “Then I am too late, or perhaps too recklessly honest. I am dismissed.”

“You are not dismissed. You—” She sucked in breath, flooded with his mistaken anguish, her fear, their love. “I love you. I love you so desperately. So—” He crossed the space and crushed her in his embrace, then her mouth beneath his. Kitty gave herself up to his kiss, to his arms holding her and the fantasy of his love, now real. She wrapped her arms about him and willed it to go on forever.