avenhurst was a pretty estate, Ian thought as his carriage passed through the stone arch, but not nearly so imposing as Elizabeth’s proud description had led him to expect. Mortar was missing from the portals, he noticed absently, and as the carriage swayed down the drive he realized that the paving was in need of repair, and the stately old trees dotting the lawns were badly in need of pruning. A moment later the house came into view, and Ian, who had a vast knowledge of architecture, identified it in a single glance as a random combination of Gothic and Tudor styles that somehow managed to be pleasing to the eye, despite the inconsistencies of structure that would have sent a modern architect straight to his drawing board.

The door was opened by a short footman, who looked Ian over insolently from head to toe, his chin thrust out pugnaciously. Ignoring the odd behavior of Elizabeth’s servants, Ian glanced with interest at the timbered ceiling and then at the walls, where bright patches of wallpaper marked the places where paintings had once hung. There were no Persian carpets scattered on the polished floors, no treasures reposing on tabletops; in fact. there was precious little furniture anywhere in the hall or the salons off to his right. Ian’s heart squeezed with a combination of guilt and admiration for how proudly she had pretended to him that she was still the carefree young heiress he’d thought her to be.

Realizing that the footman was still glowering at him, Ian looked down at the short man and said. “Your mistress is expecting me. Tell her I’ve arrived-”

“I’m here, Aaron,” Elizabeth’s voice said softly, and Ian turned. One look at her and Ian forgot the footman, the state of the house, and any knowledge of architecture he’d ever possessed. Garbed in a simple gown of sky-blue gauze, with her hair twisted into thick curls bound with narrow blue ribbons, Elizabeth was standing in the hall with the poise of a Grecian goddess and the smile of an angel. “What do you think?” she asked expectantly.

“About what?” he asked huskily, walking forward, forcing his hands not to reach for her.

“About Havenhurst?” she asked with quiet pride. Ian thought it was rather small and in desperate need of repair, not to mention furnishings. In fact, he had an impulse to drag her into his arms and beg her forgiveness for all he’d cost her. Knowing such a thing would shame and hurt her, he smiled and said truthfully, “What I’ve seen is very picturesque.”

“Would you like to see the rest?” “Very much,” he exaggerated, and it was worth it to see her face light up. “Where are the Townsendes?” he asked as they started up the staircase. “I didn’t see a carriage in the drive.”

“They haven’t arrived yet.” Ian correctly supposed that was Jordan’s doing and made a mental note to thank his friend.

Elizabeth gave him a grand tour of the old house that was saved from being boring by her charming stories about some of its former owners; then she took him outside to the front lawn. Nodding to the far edge of the lawn, she said, “Over there was the castle wall and the moat, which was filled, of course, centuries ago. This whole section was a bailey then-a courtyard.” she clarified, “that was enclosed by the castle walls. In those days there were outbuildings here in the bailey that housed everything from livestock to the buttery, so that the entire castle was completely self-sufficient. Over there,” she said a few minutes later as they rounded the side of the house, “was where the third Earl of Havenhurst fell off his horse and then had the horse shot for throwing him. He was most ill-tempered,” she added with a jaunty grin.

“Obviously,” Ian grinned back at her, longing to kiss the smile on her lips. He glanced at the spot on the lawn she’d mentioned and said instead, “How did he happen to falloff his horse in his own bailey?”

“Oh, that,” she said with a laugh. “He was practicing at the quintain at the time. In the Middle Ages,” she explained to Ian, whose knowledge of medieval history was as complete as his knowledge of architecture, and who knew exactly what a quintain was, “the knights used to practice for jousts and battles with a quintain. A quintain is a crossbar with a sandbag hanging off one arm and a shield in front of the sandbag. The knights would charge it, but if a knight didn’t strike the shield squarely with his broadsword, then the crossbar whirled around and the sandbag hit the knight in his back and knocked him off his horse.”

“Which, I gather, is what happened to the third earl?” Ian teased as they headed toward the largest tree on the far edge of the lawn.

“Exactly,” she averred. When they came to the tree she linked her hands behind her back, looking like an enchanting little girl with a secret she was about to share. “Now,” she said, “look up there.”

Ian tipped his head back and laughed with amazed pleasure. Above him was an enormous and very unusual tree house. “Yours?” he asked.

“Of course.”

He cast a swift, appraising look at the sturdy “steps” nailed into the tree and then quirked a brow at her. “Do you want to go first, or shall I?”

“You’re joking!”

“If you could invade mine, I can’t see why I shouldn’t see yours.”

The carpenters who’d built it for her had done their jobs well, Ian noted as he bent over in the middle of it, looking around. Elizabeth had been much smaller than he, and everything was scaled to her size, but it was large enough that she could nearly stand upright in it as an adult. “What’s over there, in the little trunk?”

She sidled behind him. smiling. “I was trying to remember just that when I was in yours. I’ll look. Just as I thought,” she said a moment later as she opened the.lid. “My doll and a tea service.”

Ian grinned at it, and at her, but he saw the little girl she must have been, living alone in relative splendor, with a doll for her family and servants for friends. In comparison, his own youth had been much richer.

“There’s just one more thing to show you,” she said several minutes later when he’d extracted her from the tree limbs and they were heading toward the house.

Ian pulled himself from thoughts of her disadvantaged youth as she changed direction. They skirted the comer of the house, and when they came to the back of it Elizabeth stopped and raised her arm in a graceful, sweeping gesture. “Most of this is my contribution to Havenhurst,” she told him proudly.

The sight that Ian beheld when he looked up made his grin fade as tenderness and awe shook through him. Spread out before him in colorful splendor were the most magnificent flower gardens Ian had ever beheld. The other heirs of Havenhurst might have added stone and mortar to the house, but Elizabeth had given it breathtaking beauty.

“When I was young,” she confided softly, looking out at the sloping gardens and the hills beyond, “I used to think this was the most beautiful place on earth.” Feeling a little foolish over her confidences, Elizabeth glanced up at him with an embarrassed smile. “What is the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen?”

Dragging his gaze from the beauty of the gardens, Ian looked down at the beauty beside him. “Any place,” he said huskily, “where you are.”

He saw the becoming flush of embarrassed pleasure that pinkened her cheeks, but when she spoke her voice was rueful. “You don’t have to say such things to me, you know-I’ll keep our bargain.”

“I know you will,” he said. trying not to overwhelm her with avowals of love she wouldn’t yet believe. With a grin he added, “Besides, as it turned out after our bargaining session, I’m the one who’s governed by all the conditions, not you.”

Her sideways glance was filled with laughter. “You were much too lenient at times, you know. Toward the end I was asking for concessions just to see how far you’d go.”

Ian, who had been multiplying his fortune for the last four years by buying shipping and import-export companies, as well as sundry others, was regarded as an extremely tough negotiator. He heard her announcement with a smile of genuine surprise. ‘“You gave me the impression that every single concession was of paramount importance to you, and that if I didn’t agree, you might call the whole thing off.”

She nodded with satisfaction. “I rather thought that was how I ought to do it. Why are you laughing?”

“Because,” he admitted, chuckling, “obviously I was not in my best form yesterday. In addition to completely misreading your feelings, I managed to buy a house on Promenade Street for which I will undoubtedly pay five times its worth.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” she said, and, as if she was embarrassed and needed a way to avoid meeting his gaze, she reached up and pulled a leaf off an overhanging branch. In a voice of careful nonchalance, she explained, “In matters of bargaining, I believe in being reasonable, but my uncle would assuredly have tried to cheat you. He’s perfectly dreadful about money.”

Ian nodded, remembering the fortune Julius Cameron had gouged out of him in order to sign the betrothal agreement.

“And so,” she admitted, uneasily studying the azure-blue sky with feigned absorption, “I sent him a note after you left itemizing all the repairs that were needed at the house. I told him it was in poor condition and absolutely in need of complete redecoration.”

“And?” “And I told him you would consider paying a fair price for the house, but not one shilling more, because it needed all that. “

“And?” Ian prodded. “He has agreed to sell it for that figure.” Ian’s mirth exploded in shouts of laughter. Snatching her into his arms, he waited until he could finally catch his breath, then he tipped her face up to his. “Elizabeth,” he said tenderly, “if you change your mind about marrying me, promise me you’ll never represent the opposition at the bargaining table. I swear to God, I’d be lost.” The temptation to kiss her was almost overwhelming, but the Townsende coach with its ducal crest was in the drive, and he had no idea where their chaperons might be. Elizabeth noticed the coach, too, and started toward the house.

“About the gowns,” she said, stopping suddenly and looking up at him with an intensely earnest expression on her beautiful face. “I meant to thank you for your generosity as soon as you arrived, but I was so happy to-that is-” She realized she’d been about to blurt out that she was happy to see him, and she was so flustered by having admitted aloud what she hadn’t admitted to herself that she completely lost her thought.

“Go on,” Ian invited in a husky voice. “You were so happy to see me that you-”

“I forgot,” she admitted lamely. “You shouldn’t have done it, you know-ordered so very many things, and from her shop. Madame LaSalle is horribly expensive-I remember hearing about her when I made my debut. “

“You are not to consider that sort of thing,” he said firmly. Trying to lessen her lingering guilt over the gowns, he added jokingly, “At least we’ll have the gowns to show for the expenditure. The night before I ordered them for you, I lost £1,000 on a hand of cards with Jordan Townsende.”

“You’re a gambler,” she said curiously. “Don’t you normally wager such sums on a hand?”

“Not,” Ian said dryly, “when I’m not holding anything in that hand.”

“You know,” she told him gently as she led him across the lawn toward the front door, “if you persist in spending heedlessly, you’ll end up just like my papa.”

“How did he end up?”

“Up to his ears in debt. He liked to gamble, too.”

When Ian was silent, Elizabeth ventured hesitantly, “We could always live here. There’s no need for three establishments-it’s very costly.” She realized what she was saying and hastily said, “I didn’t mean to imply I won’t be perfectly comfortable wherever you live. I thought the cottage in Scotland was very beautiful, actually.”

It delighted Ian that she evidently had no knowledge of the extent of his wealth and yet had still agreed to marry him, even if it meant living in a modest cottage or the town house on Promenade Street. If that was true, it gave him the proof that he desperately wanted-proof that she cared for him more than she was ready to admit.

“Let’s decide the day after tomorrow when you see my house,” he suggested mildly, already looking forward to what he hoped would be a shocked reaction.

“Do-do you think you could try to be more prudent with money?” she asked gently. “I could make out a budget, I’m quite good at that-”

Ian couldn’t help it; he muffled a laugh and did what he’d been longing to do from the moment he saw her standing in the hall. He pulled her into his arms, covered her mouth with his, and kissed her with all the hungry ardor that being near her always evoked, and Elizabeth kissed him back with the same yielding sweetness that always drove him mad with desire.

When he reluctantly let her go, her face was flushed and her beautiful eyes were radiant. Lacing his fingers through hers, he walked slowly beside her toward the front door. Since he was in no hurry to join his chaperons, Ian diverted her by asking about a particularly interesting shrubbery, an unusual flower in the front bed, and even a perfectly ordinary rose.

Standing at the window overlooking the lawn, Jordan and Alexandra Townsende watched the couple heading toward them. “If you’d asked me to name the last man on earth I would have expected to fall head over heels for a slip of a girl, it would have been Ian Thornton,” he told her.

His wife heard that with a sidewise look of extreme amusement. “If I’d been asked, I rather think I would have named you.”

“I’m sure you would have,” he said, grinning. He saw her smile fade, and he put his arm around her waist, instantly concerned that her pregnancy was causing her discomfort. “Is it the babe, darling?”

She burst out laughing and shook her head, but she sobered again almost instantly. “Do you think,” she asked pensively, “he can be trusted not to hurt her? He’s done so much damage that I-I just cannot like him, Jordan. He’s handsome, I’ll grant you that, extraordinarily handsome-”

“Not that handsome,” Jordan said, stung. And this time Alexandra dissolved in mirth. Turning, she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him soundly. “Actually, he rather reminds me of you,” she said, “in his coloring and height and build.”

“I hope that hasn’t anything to do with why you can’t like him,” her husband teased.

“Jordan, do stop. I’m worried, really I am. He’s-well, he almost frightens me. Even though he seems very civilized on the surface, there’s a forcefulness, maybe even a ruthlessness beneath his polished manners. And he stops at nothing when he wants something. I saw that yesterday when he came to the house and persuaded Elizabeth to agree to marry him.”

Turning, Jordan looked at her with a mixture of intent interest, surprise, and amusement. “Go on,” he said.

“Well, at this particular moment he wants Elizabeth, and I can’t help fearing it’s a whim.”

“You wouldn’t have thought that if you’d seen his face blanch the other night when he realized she was going to try to brave society without his help.”

“Really? You’re certain?”

“Positive.”

“ Are you certain you know him well enough to judge him?”

“Absolutely certain,” he averred. “How well do you know him?”

“Ian,” Jordan said with a grin, “is my sixth cousin.” “Your what? You’re joking! Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“In the first place, the subject never came up until last night. Even if it had, I wouldn’t have mentioned it. because until now Ian refused to acknowledge his relationship to Stanhope, which was within his rights. Knowing his feelings about that, I regarded it as a compliment that he was willing to admit our relationship. We’re also partners in three shipping ventures,”

He saw her staggered expression and chuckled. “If Ian isn’t an actual genius, he’s very close to it. He’s a brilliant strategist. Intelligence,” he teased. “runs in the family.”

“Cousins!” Alex repeated blankly. “That shouldn’t surprise you. If you go back far enough, a vast number of the aristocracy have been connected at some point by what we called ‘advantageous marriages’. I suspect, however, that the thing that confuses you about Ian is that he’s half Scot. In many ways he’s more Scot than English. which accounts for what you’re calling a ruthless streak. He’ll do what he pleases, when he pleases, and the devil with the consequences. He always has. He doesn’t care what anyone thinks of him or of what he does,”

Pausing, Jordan glanced meaningfully at the couple who’d paused to look at a shrubbery on the front lawn. Ian was listening to Elizabeth intently, an expression of tenderness on his rugged face. “The other night, however, he cared very much what people thought of your lovely friend. In fact, I don’t like to think what he might have done had anyone actually dared to openly insult her in front of him. You’re right when you aren’t deceived by Ian’s civilized veneer. Beneath that he’s a Scot, and he has a temper to go with it. though he usually keeps it in check.”

“I don’t think you’re reassuring me,” Alex said shakily. “I should be. He’s committed himself completely to her.

That commitment is so deep that he even reconciled with his grandfather and then appeared with him in public, which I know was because of Elizabeth.”

“What on earth makes you think that?” “For one thing, when I saw Ian at the Blackmore he had no plans for the evening until he discovered what Elizabeth was going to do at the Willingtons. The next I knew, he was walking into that ball with his grandfather at his side. And that, my love, is what we call a show of strength.”

She looked impressed by his powers of deduction, and Jordan grinned. “Don’t admire me too much. I also asked him. So you see, you’re worrying needlessly,” he finished reassuringly. “Scots are a fiercely loyal lot, and Ian will protect her with his life.”

“He certainly didn’t protect her with his life two years ago, when she was ruined.”

Sighing, Jordan looked out the window. “After the Willingtons’ ball he told me a little of what happened that long-ago weekend. He didn’t tell me much-Ian is a very private man-.but reading between the lines, I’m guessing that he fell like a rock for her and then got the idea she was playing games with him.”

“Would that have been so terrible?” Alex asked, her full sympathy still with Elizabeth.

Jordan smiled ruefully at her. “There’s one thing Scots are besides loyal.”

“What is that?” “Unforgiving,” he said flatly. “They expect the same loyalty as they give. Moreover, if you betray their loyalty, you’re dead to them. Nothing you do or say will change their heart. That’s why their feuds last from generation to generation.”

“Barbaric,” Alexandra said with a shiver of alarm. “Perhaps it is. But then let’s not forget Ian is also half English, and we are very civilized.” Leaning down, Jordan nipped her ear. “Except in bed.”

Ian had run out of diversions and resigned himself to going indoors, but as they reached the front steps Elizabeth turned and stopped. In the voice of one confessing to an action she isn’t certain was entirely wrong, she said, “This morning I hired an investigator to try to locate my brother, or at least find out what has happened to him. I tried to do it before, but as soon as they realized I had no money they wouldn’t accept my promise to pay them later. I thought I would use part of your loan for Havenhurst to pay him.”

It took a conscious effort for Ian to keep his face expressionless. “And?” he asked.

“The dowager duchess assured me that Mr. Wordsworth is extremely good. He’s frightfully expensive; however, we were finally able to come to terms.”

“The good ones are always expensive,” Ian said, thinking of the £3,000 retainer he’d paid to an investigator this morning for the same purpose. “How much did he charge you?” he asked, intending to add that amount to her allowance.

“Originally he wanted £ 1,000 whether he finds news of Robert or not. But I offered to pay him twice his fee if he’s successful.”

“And if he isn’t?”

“Oh, in that case I didn’t think it was fair that he receive anything.” she said. “I persuaded him I was right.”

Ian’s shout of laughter was still ringing in the hall when they entered the drawing room to greet the Townsendes.

Ian had never enjoyed a dinner of state, or dinner a deux as much as he enjoyed the one that evening. Despite the scarcity of furnishings at Havenhurst, Elizabeth had turned the dining room and drawing room into an elegant bower of fresh-cut, artfully arranged flowers, and with the candles glowing in the candelabras, it was as beautiful a setting for dining as any he’d ever seen.

Only once did he have a bad moment, and that was when Elizabeth entered the dining room carrying a tray of food. and he thought she’d cooked the meal. A moment later a footman walked in bearing another tray, and Ian inwardly sighed with relief. “This is Winston, our footman and cook,” she told Ian, guessing his thoughts. Straight-faced, she added, “Winston taught me everything I know about cooking.” Ian’s emotions veered from horror to hilarity, and the footman saw it.

“Miss Elizabeth,” the footman pointedly informed Ian, “does not know how to cook. She has always been much too busy to learn.”

Ian endured that reprimand without retort because he was thoroughly enjoying Elizabeth’s relaxed mood. and because she had actually been teasing him. As the huffy footman departed, however, Ian glanced at Jordan and saw his narrowed gaze on the man’s back, then he looked at Elizabeth, who was obviously embarrassed.

“They think they’re acting out of loyalty to me,” she explained. “They-well, they recognize your name from before. I’ll speak to them.”

“I’d appreciate that, “ Ian said with amused irritation. To Jordan he added, “Elizabeth’s butler always tries to send me packing. “

“Can he hear?” Jordan asked unsympathetically.

“Hear?” Ian repeated. “Of course he can.” “Then count yourself lucky,” Jordan replied irritably, and the girls dissolved into gales of laughter.

“The Townsendes’ butler, Penrose, is quite deaf, you see,” Elizabeth explained.

Dinner progressed among bursts of merriment and revelations about both Alexandra and Elizabeth that amazed Ian, including the fact that Alexandra was evidently as handy with a rapier as Elizabeth was with a pistol. So entertaining was Elizabeth that Ian found himself ignoring his very satisfactory meal and simply lounging back in his chair, watching her with a mixture of amusement and pride. She sparkled like the wine in their crystal glasses, glowed like the candles in the centerpiece, and when she laughed, music floated through the room. With the instincts of a natural hostess she drew everyone into each topic of conversation, until even Jordan and Ian were participating in the raillery. But best of all, she was at ease in Ian’s presence. Artless and elegant and sweet, she turned to him and teased him, or smiled at something he said, or listened attentively to an opinion. She wasn’t ready to trust him yet, but she wasn’t that far away from it, he sensed.

After dinner the ladies adhered to custom and adjourned to the drawing room, leaving the gentlemen to enjoy their port and cigars at the table.

“Ian was lighting a cigar the first moment I saw him,” Elizabeth confided to Alex when they were comfortably seated in the drawing room. Glancing up, she saw the worried frown on Alexandra’s face, and after a moment she quietly said, “You don’t like him, do you?”

Alex’s gaze flew to hers while the faint disappointment in. Elizabeth’s voice registered on her. “I-I don’t like the things he’s done to you,” she admitted.

Tipping her head back, Elizabeth closed her eyes, trying’ to know what to say, what to think. A long time ago Ian had told her he was half in love with her, yet now that they were betrothed he’d never spoken a word of it. had not even

pretended. She wasn’t certain of his motives or his feelings;

she wasn’t certain of her own, either. All she really knew was that the sight of his hard, handsome face with its chiseled features, and bold amber eyes never failed to make her entire being feel tense and alive. She knew he liked to kiss her, and that she very much liked being kissed by him. Added to his other attractions was something else that drew her inexorably to him. From their very first meeting, Elizabeth had sensed that beneath his bland sophistication and rugged virility Ian Thornton had a depth that most people lacked. “It’s so hard to know,” she whispered, “how I ought to feel or what I ought to think. And I have the worst feeling it’s not going to matter what I know or what I think, “ she3dded almost sadly, “because I am going to love him.” She opened her eyes and looked at Alex. “It’s happening, and I cannot stop it. It was happening two years ago, and I couldn’t stop it then, either. So you see,” she added with a sad little smile, “it would be so much nicer for me if you could love him just a little, too.”

Alex reached across the table and took Elizabeth’s hands in hers. “If you love him, then he must be the very best of men. I shall henceforth make it a point to see all his best qualities!” Alex hesitated, and then she hazarded the question: “Elizabeth, does he love you?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “He wants me, he says, and he wants children.”

Alex swallowed embarrassed laughter. “He what?” “He wants me, and he wants children.”

A funny, knowing smile tugged at Alexandra’s lips. “You didn’t tell me he said the first part. I am much encouraged,” she teased while a rosy blush stole over her cheeks.

“I think I am, too,” Elizabeth admitted, drawing a swift, searching look from Alex.

“Elizabeth, this is scarcely the time to discuss this-in fact,” Alex added, her flush deepening. “I don’t think there is a really good time to discuss it-but has Lucinda explained to you how children are conceived?”

“Yes, of course,” Elizabeth said without hesitation. “Good, because I would have been the logical one otherwise, and I still remember my reaction when I found out. It was not a pretty sight, “ she laughed. “On the other hand, you were always much the wiser girl than I.”

“I don’t think so at all,” Elizabeth said, but she couldn’t imagine what there was, really, to blush about. Children, Lucinda had told her when she’d asked. were conceived when a husband kissed his wife in bed. And it hurt the first time. Ian’s kisses were sometimes almost bruising, but they never actually hurt, and she enjoyed them terribly

As if speaking her feelings aloud to Alexandra had somehow relieved her of the burden of trying to deal with them, Elizabeth was so joyously relaxed that she suspected Ian noticed it at once when the men joined them in the drawing room.

Ian did notice it; in fact, as they sat down to playa game of cards in accordance with Elizabeth’s cheery suggestion, he noticed there was a subtle but distinct softening in the attitudes of both ladies toward him.

“Will you shuffle and deal?” Elizabeth asked. He nodded, and she handed the deck of cards to him, then watched in rapt fascination as the cards seemed to leap to life in Ian’s hands, flying together with a whoosh and snap, then sliding out in neat little piles that flew together again beneath his fingers. “What would you like to play?” he asked her.

“I would like to see you cheat,” Elizabeth said impulsively, smiling at him.

His hands stilled, his eyes intent on her face. “I beg your pardon?”

“What I meant,” she hastily explained as he continued to idly shuffle the cards, watching her, “is that night in the card room at Charise’s there was mention of someone being able to deal a card from the bottom of the deck, and I’ve always wondered if you could, if it could..” She trailed off, belatedly realizing she was insulting him and that his narrowed, speculative gaze proved that she’d made it sound as if she believed him to be dishonest at cards. “I beg your pardon,” she said quietly. “That was truly awful of me.”

Ian accepted her apology with a curt nod, and when Alex hastily interjected, “Why don’t we use the chips for a shilling each,” he wordlessly and immediately dealt the cards.

Too embarrassed even to look at him, Elizabeth bit her lip and picked up her hand.

In it there were four kings.

Her gaze flew to Ian, but he was lounging back in his chair, studying his own cards.

She won three shillings and was pleased as could be. He passed the deck to her, but Elizabeth shook her bead. “I don’t like to deal. I always drop the cards, which Celton says is very irritating. Would you mind dealing for me?”

“Not at all.” Ian said dispassionately, and Elizabeth realized with a sinking heart that he was still annoyed with her.

“Who is Celton?” Jordan inquired. “Celton is a groom with whom I play cards,” Elizabeth explained unhappily, picking up her hand.

In it there were four aces. She knew it then, and laughter and relief trembled on her lips as she lifted her face and stared at her betrothed. There was not a sign, not so much as a hint anywhere on his perfectly composed features that anything unusual had been happening.

Lounging indolently in his chair, he quirked an indifferent brow and said, “Do you want to discard and draw more cards, Elizabeth?”

“Yes,” she replied, swallowing her mirth, “I would like one more ace to go with the ones I have.”

“There are only four,” be explained mildly, and with such convincing blandness that Elizabeth whooped with laughter and dropped her cards. “You are a complete charlatan!” she gasped when she could finally speak, but her face was aglow with admiration.

“Thank you, darling,” he replied tenderly. “I’m happy to know your opinion of me is already improving.”

The laughter froze in Elizabeth’s chest, replaced by warmth that quaked through her from head to foot. Gentlemen did not speak such tender endearments in front of other people, if at all. “I’m a Scot,” he’d whispered huskily to her long ago. “We do.” The Townsendes had launched into swift, laughing conversation after a moment of stunned silence following his words, and it was just as well, because Elizabeth could not tear her gaze from Ian, could not seem to move. And in that endless moment when their gazes held, Elizabeth had an almost overwhelming desire to fling herself into his arms. He saw it, too, and the answering expression in his eyes made her feel she was melting.

“It occurs to me, Ian,” Jordan joked a moment later, gently breaking their spell, “that we are wasting our time with honest pursuits.”

Ian’s gaze shifted reluctantly from Elizabeth’s face, and then he smiled inquisitively at Jordan. “What did you have in mind?” he asked, shoving the deck toward Jordan while Elizabeth put back her unjustly won chips.

“With your skill at dealing whatever hand you want, we could gull half of London. If any of our victims had the temerity to object, Alex could run him through with her rapier, and Elizabeth could shoot him before he hit the ground.”

Ian chuckled. “Not a bad idea. What would your role be?” “Breaking us out of Newgate!” Elizabeth laughed. “Exactly.”

After Ian left for the Greenleaf Inn, where he planned to stop for the night before continuing the trip to his own home, Elizabeth stayed downstairs to put out the candles and tidy up the drawing room. In one of the guest chambers above, Jordan glanced at his wife’s faint, preoccupied smile and suppressed a knowing grin. “Now what do you think of the Marquess of Kensington?” he asked.

Her eyes were shining as she lifted them to his. “I think,” she softly said, “that unless he does something dreadful, I’m prepared to believe he could truly be your cousin.”

“Thank you, darling,” Jordan replied tenderly, paraphrasing Ian’s words. “I’m happy to see your opinion of him is already improving.”