Read the book: «Trial by Desire»

Praise for USA TODAY bestselling author

Courtney Milan and Proof by Seduction

‘One of the finest historical romances I’ve read in years.

I am now officially a Courtney Milan fangirl.’

—Julia Quinn

‘A brilliant debut … deeply romantic, sexy and smart.

I couldn’t put it down.’

—Eloisa James

‘Historical romance fans will celebrate Milan’s powerhouse

debut, which comes with a full complement of humour,

characterisation, plot and sheer gutsiness …’

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

‘A dazzling debut by a multi-talented author who thrills

readers with a twist on a traditional plot and truly

unforgettable characters.’

—RT Book Reviews

‘With a tender, passionate romance, a touch of sly humour,

and a gruff and incredibly sexy hero, Courtney Milan’s

Proof by Seduction is a delicious read from the first page all the way to the very satisfying ending.’ —Elizabeth Hoyt

‘Sexy, hilarious, and deeply, deeply touching. Courtney

Milan writes with the keenest understanding of the heart.

It is a cliché to say so, but I laughed and I cried.

And I cannot wait to read her next book.’

—Sherry Thomas, author of Private Arrangements

‘Courtney Milan is a blazing new talent in the romantic

stratosphere … Warm, witty, wonderful and wise,

Proof by Seduction will steal your heart away.’ —Anna Campbell

Dear Reader,

If you are anything like me, you’ve done something in your past that you wish you could forget. No matter how successful you may be, you still remember that one time (if you’re me, it’s more like those twenty-seven times) you did that really embarrassing thing.

You desperately hope nobody else remembers.

Ned Carhart, the hero of this book, has made mistakes in his past. Those of you who read my first book, Proof by Seduction, already have some idea what I’m talking about, but if you haven’t, rest assured: you’ll find out soon enough.

Imperfect as Ned was, I knew those same mistakes would make him an extraordinary hero once he had time to mature. He would be strong, sensitive … and very, very determined to prove that he’d moved beyond his past.

I give all my books code-names as I am writing them. This book was called “Dragon-Slayer,” even though there are no dragons in it. I hope you have fun finding out why!

Courtney Milan

Trial by Desire

Courtney Milan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Teej. Because when I had to make Ned a hero,

I gave him a little bit of you.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I’ve heard before that second books are hard. This one was … very hard. I am first and foremost grateful for all the readers who contacted me demanding Ned’s story. Without your encouragement and enthusiasm, I might have given up on this.

As always, I am deeply grateful for Tessa and Amy, who offered support, encouragement and advice. Elyssa Papa and Kris Kennedy gave valuable feedback on various drafts. Franzeca Drouin saved me from about a billion errors. And Kim Castillo truly is an author’s best friend.

Kristin Nelson, my awesome agent, and all the Nelson Agency staff—Sara Megibow, Julie Kerlin, Anita Mumm and Lindsay Mergens—provided the absolute best support an author could want.

A great many people who put up with my whining about this book: the Pixie Chicks, the Vanettes, the Bon Bons, and my favourite debut loop ever.

Margo Lipschultz, my wonderful editor, provided the proper balance of encouragement and gentle prodding, and Ann Leslie Tuttle let me know when I was going off the rails. I wish I had space to thank everyone on the entire team at Harlequin Mills & Boon by name for the amazing job they have all done launching my career—from the extraordinary sales force, to the marketing department, to the editorial enthusiasm at my publisher—but that would take pages and pages.

And last but never least, there’s my husband, who never once complained about my writing while he did the dishes, made me dinner and took care of the dog.

PROLOGUE

London, 1838

LADY KATHLEEN CARHART had a secret.

Truth be told, she had more than one—but the secret she had in mind as she sat across from her husband at breakfast had arrived only today. It was wrapped in paper and had been set carefully atop her chest of drawers. And if her husband knew what it was …

She suppressed a faint smile.

Across the table from her, he set the paper down and fixed his gaze on her. His eyes were a liquid brown, three shades beyond her breakfast chocolate. They stood out, uncannily dark against the sandy brown of his hair. He had no notion what it did to her when he looked at her like that. Her toes curled. Her hands clasped together. All he had to do was look at her, and she found herself wishing—wanting—no, desiring. And therein lay the root of her problem.

“I had a talk with my cousin a few days ago,” he said.

Around London, a thousand couples might have been having a similarly prosaic conversation. Kate’s mother had cautioned her to be practical about marriage, to accept that she and her husband would share a genteel, friendly politeness.

But then, Kate hadn’t married the average London gentleman. Mr. Edward Carhart did nothing properly or politely—nothing, that was, except his newly acquired wife.

“What did Blakely have to say?” Kate asked.

“You know that some of our holdings are in the East India Company?”

“Aren’t everyone’s? It’s a good investment. They trade in tea and silk and saltpetre…. “ Her voice trailed off into roughness.

If he’d known what flitted through her mind when she said the word silk, he’d not sit there so sanguine. Because she’d purchased a filmy night rail on Bond Street. It was made of imported silk and fastened together in front by means of lavender ribbons. Those scraps of opaque fabric were perhaps the garment’s only concession to modesty. It lay on her chest of drawers, simply beseeching Kate to wear it one evening.

“Silk,” Ned said, looking off into the distance without seeing her lean forward, “and other things. Like opium.”

“Opium was not on my shopping list.”

He didn’t smile. Instead he glanced away as if uncomfortable. “In any case, Blakely and I were talking about the recent events in China.” Ned shook his paper at her. “And we decided it would behoove someone to personally inquire into what was going on over there.”

For once, he sounded serious. Kate frowned at him. “By someone, you mean Mr. White, and by over there, you mean the office on—”

“By someone,“ Ned said distinctly, “I mean me, and by over there, I mean China.”

He set the newspaper down and bit his lip. The morning sun suddenly seemed too bright. It blasted in from the window behind him, casting his features into shadow. She couldn’t make out his eyes. He had to be joking. At any moment, he was going to grin at her.

She gingerly relinquished her hold on her teacup and essayed a small smile. “Have a lovely journey. Will you be home in time for tea?”

“No. The Peerless is leaving St. Katharine’s at noon, and I intend to be on it.”

Not just the light was blinding. She raised her eyes to him, and his sincerity finally penetrated. “Oh, God. You really meant it. You’re leaving? But I thought—”

She’d thought she had time for that silk night rail, folded carefully in paper.

He shook his head. “Kate, we’ve been married three months. We both know that the only reason we wed was because people found us alone together and imagined more had happened. We married to stave off the scandal.”

Put so baldly, her impractical hopes sounded even more foolish than she’d supposed.

“The truth is,” he continued, “neither of us is ready to be married, not really.”

Neither of them?

He stood and pushed back his chair. “I’ve never had the chance to prove myself to anyone. And … “ He trailed off, his hand scrubbing through his hair. “And I want to.”

He set his serviette atop his plate and turned around. The world swirled around Kate.

He was walking away, as if this had been normal breakfast conversation on a regular day.

“Ned!” Kate vaulted to her feet. The word seemed as like to hold back the breaking floodwaters of her marriage as the insubstantial silk gown waiting upstairs.

His shoulders tensed, two sharp blades beneath the wool of his coat. He stopped in the doorway on the verge of escape.

She didn’t have the words to capture the cold tremor that ran through her. She settled on “I wish you wouldn’t. I wish you would stay.”

He tilted his head, just enough to see her over his shoulder. For just that one second, he looked at her the way she’d dreamed about: with a deep hunger, an almost open yearning, as if she were more to him than a name written under his on their marriage license. He exhaled and shook his head.

“I wish,” he said quietly, “I could, too.“ And then he turned and left.

She wanted to run after him, to say something, anything. But what rooted her in place was a realization. He was as restless as she’d once been.

And she knew well enough that she couldn’t fill that up, not with any number of silken gowns.

At least this way he could imagine her quiet and practical, not hurt in the slightest by his leaving. She’d kept the secret of her attraction all too well, wrapped up in paper.

She’d kept all her secrets, and it was too late to explain.

CHAPTER ONE

Berkshire, three years later

A SHOULDER-HIGH WALL hugged the dirt road that wound its way up the hill Kate was climbing. Last night, when she and the nursemaid had crept by on foot, the dark stones of the wall had seemed menacing, hunched things. She’d imagined Eustace Paxton, the Earl of Harcroft, crouching behind every rock, ready to spit vile curses at her.

But through the diffuse morning fog, she could see little yellow-headed wildflowers growing between the rocks. Even this aging edifice had become friendly and bright. And Harcroft was thirty miles away, in London, unaware of her involvement in his latest misfortunes. She’d won a respite, and for the first time in two weeks, she breathed easily.

As if to belie her certainty, the plod of horse hooves carried to her on a breeze. She turned, her heart accelerating. Despite the flush of heat that rose in her, Kate clutched her heavy cloak about her. She’d been discovered. He was here …

There was nothing behind her but morning mist. She was imagining things, to think that Harcroft would have uncovered her secret so quickly. She let out a covert breath—and then gulped it back as the creak of wooden wheels sounded once more. This time, though, it was evident that the noise came from up the road. As she peered ahead of her, the dark form of a cart lumbering up the hill resolved in the mist.

The sight was as calming as it was familiar. A blanket of fog had obscured the sound’s origin. The cart moved slowly, drawn by a single animal. As Kate trudged up the hill, her calves burning with the exertion, she made out more details. The conveyance was filled with heavy wooden kegs, marked with a sigil she could not make out from here. The animal that pulled this cargo seemed some nondescript color, unidentifiable in the mist. From this distance, its coat appeared to be both spotted and striped with light gray. It strained uphill, bone and muscle rippling underneath that oddly colored pelt.

Kate sighed with relief. The man was a common laborer. Not Harcroft; therefore, not someone who posed a threat if he discovered the role she’d played last night. Still, Kate pulled her hood up to shield her face. The scratchy wool was the only disguise she had.

As if in reminder of the nightmare that Louisa had escaped, a whip-crack sounded in front of her. Kate gritted her teeth and continued up the hill. Half a minute later, and a number of yards closer, the whip cracked again. She bit her tongue.

She had to be practical. Lady Kathleen Carhart might have had sharp words for the man. But right now Kate was wrapped in an ill-fitting cloak, and the servant she was pretending to be would keep her eyes downcast. A servant would never speak up, not to a man with a horse and a whip. He would never believe her the lady of the manor, not dressed as she was.

And besides, the last thing Kate needed if she intended to keep her secrets was for society to hear that she’d been skulking about, dressed as a servant. As she climbed the hill, the lash continued to fall. She gritted her teeth in fury as she drew abreast of the cart. Perhaps that was why, at first, she didn’t hear it.

Above the complaining rumble of the cart wheels, the noise had been at first indiscernible. But the wind shifted, and with it brought the rhythmic sound of a gentle canter to her ears.

Kate glanced behind her. A horseman was coming up the hill.

A simple carter might once have caught a glimpse of Lady Kathleen at a harvest festival—a close enough look to boast, over a tankard of ale, perhaps, about seeing a duke’s daughter. He wouldn’t recognize her when she was swathed in a heavy cloak and a working woman’s bonnet.

But a man on horseback could be a gentleman. He might, in fact, be the Earl of Harcroft, come looking for his missing wife. And if Harcroft came upon Kate dressed in this fashion—if he recognized her—he might guess the role she’d played in his wife’s disappearance.

All he would have to do was trace her path back a few miles. That shepherd’s cottage wasn’t so very far away.

Kate pulled the hood of her cloak farther over her eyes and slunk closer to the wall. Her hand brushed against grit on its uneven surface. Even though she huddled in her cloak, she set her chin. She was not about to surrender Louisa to her husband. No matter what he said or did.

The man on horseback came into view through the mist just as Kate crested the hill. Shreds of fog splashed around his horse’s hooves, like gray, slow-moving seawater. The horse was a gentleman’s beast: a slim mare, gray as the wisps of vapor that clung to its legs. Not Harcroft’s chestnut stallion, then. Reassured, Kate studied the gentleman himself.

He wore a tall hat and a long coat; the tails flapped behind him in rhythmic counterpoint to the fall of his mare’s hooves. Whoever he was, his shoulders were too broad to belong to Harcroft. Besides, this man’s face was covered by a sandy beard. Definitely not Harcroft, then. Not any man she recognized.

That didn’t mean he wouldn’t recognize her, or that he wouldn’t carry stories.

Slowly she let out her breath and turned to look forward. If she didn’t draw attention to herself, he wouldn’t notice her. She looked like a servant; she would be virtually invisible to a man of his class.

The mare’s light hoofbeats pattered up the hill. It moved in effortless contrast to the other poor animal, which was still dragging its Sisyphean burden to the summit. But Kate had her own burden to concentrate on. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the horseman pull ahead of the cart. The tails of his coat flapped briefly across the beast’s blinkered vision. A foot or so of fabric; nothing more.

The horse pulling the cart, however, stopped and shied, pinning its ears against its head in a gesture of equine distress. Kate pressed against the wall as the cart’s wooden shafts creaked. Another flap of the coattails in the wind; when the whip cracked again, Kate winced. The carter’s horse did more than that: it let out a frightened cry and reared up on its hind legs. The cart tilted precariously; the hooves thundered down. Kate heard the crashing splinter of wood, and she whirled to face the animal.

One of the cart shafts had split down the middle. The horse was tangled in halter and traces, and no matter how it strained, it could not escape. When frightened, horses ran; and when they couldn’t run—

Kate caught a glimpse of a dark eye rolled back, ears flattened against the long head. The horse’s blinkered gaze momentarily fixed on hers. Crack went the whip, and the horse reared in response. It was so close, Kate could see its iron shoes as it pawed the air above her head. She felt frozen in that moment, as useless as a rabbit cowering in the grass with a hawk plummeting down. Her hands went cold. Her mind moved sluggishly. She might have counted the horse’s ribs, every prominent ridge, as the hooves descended toward her.

And then the moment of fear passed, and practical considerations overtook her disbelief.

She dropped to the ground in a crouch, just as those massive hooves hit the crumbling wall where her head had been. Once, and bits of stone and crumbling grout rained on her head; twice, and flying chips of rock struck her cheek. The animal whinnied and reared again.

Before the hooves could land a third time, someone stepped in front of her. Whoever it was jerked her to her feet—the sockets of her arms twinged in protest. His body pressed against hers momentarily, a brief imprint of hard muscle fitting against her curves. He turned his back to the beast, shielding her from those iron-clad hooves. It was the horseman—the gentleman with the gray mare. He must have dismounted and come to offer assistance.

She had no chance to protest, even had she wanted to, no opportunity to pull away. His hands clasped her waist, and he lifted her up, up, until her palms scrabbled along the top of the wall behind her. She pulled herself atop it, heart thumping, and glanced down. The horseman was looking up at her. His eyes, liquid brown pools, sparkled at her over that shaggy beard, as if this were the best excitement he’d come upon in weeks. For one instant, she felt a sick thrill of recognition.

I know this man.

But he turned away, and that feeling of familiarity slipped through her fingers, as hard to contain as the gritty pebbles on the wall she clung to.

Whoever he was, he had no notion of fear. He turned back to the careening beast. He moved on his toes with a graceful economy of motion. It was almost as if he were leading the horse in a waltz. The man sidestepped another furious stamp of those hooves.

“There now, Champion.” His voice was quiet but carrying. “I don’t want to crowd you so closely, but you’ll never calm down if I can’t cut the traces.”

“Cut the traces!” protested the carter, clutching the handle of his whip. “What the devil do you mean, cut the traces?“

The gentleman paid him no mind. Instead, he made a half turn, and stepped behind the animal.

The carter held his whip back, his mouth pursed in ugly disapproval. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing?”

The gentleman turned his back on the furious driver. He was talking—murmuring, actually. Kate couldn’t hear his words, but she could catch the tone of his voice, soft and soothing. The beast pawed the air once more, and then danced from hoof to hoof. It whipped its head to the side, trying to keep its eyes on the gentleman behind it. A swipe with his knife, then another; one final adjustment of leather, and the animal came free of the cart.

“What the devil are you doing? That’s my animal you’re freeing, it is!”

The horse surged forward. The carter still held the reins in one hand, and so it couldn’t bolt far. But without the bits of cart swinging around it—and more important, with the carter left to impotently clutch his whip now that the beast was out of range—the horse pranced, pawed the ground in distress once and then, eyeing the people around it, lapsed into a restive silence.

“There,” the gentleman said, “that’s better, isn’t it?”

And like that, it was better. All the other sounds of the autumn morning seemed to resume with his words: the thump of Kate’s heart, the horse’s uneasy stamp on the dust road below her, the impatient sound of the carter beating the handle of his whip against his other hand. She clutched the wall beneath her.

“You gentlemen are all alike. You’re coddling it,” the carter complained. “Stupid animal.”

The last was directed at the horse, which still trembled despite the so-called coddling, its ears flat against the sides of its head. The bearded gentleman—and by the cultured drawl of his voice and the fashionable cut of his coat, he was surely a gentleman—turned to face the carter. He walked toward him and then reached down and gathered the animal’s reins in his hand. The carter relinquished them, staring in front of him in stupefaction.

“Coddling?” the fellow said gently. “Champion here is an animal, not an egg. Besides, I make it a point to be kind to beasts that are large enough to stomp me to bits. Particularly when they are frightened enough to do so. I’ve always thought it foolish to stand on principle, when the principle is about to trample you to death.”

That evanescent sense of familiarity came to her again, troubling as an unidentified smell on the wind. Something in his voice reminded her of something, someone—but no, she would remember that tone of quiet command if ever she’d heard it.

Kate took another deep breath—and froze. She’d seen the beast only in sidelong glances up until now. In the fog, that strange coloration, those odd white spots, had seemed as if they were some curious form of natural marking. But from her vantage point atop the wall, she could see the marks for what they were: scars. Scars where a whip had drawn blood; scars where an ill-fitting harness had rubbed over the course of who knew how many years.

No wonder the poor animal had rebelled.

The carter was holding his hands out. “Here now,” he complained. “It don’t hurt him. My mam always used to say that tribulation was sent to make you stronger. It’s in the Bible. I think.” The carter trailed off, giving the horseman a hapless shrug.

“How curious.” The fellow smiled disarmingly; even through that thick beard, his grin was infectious, and the carter echoed it with a gap-toothed smile. “I cannot recall the commandment to beat animals. But then, I disagree with the premise. In my experience, tribulation doesn’t strengthen you. It’s more like to leave you with a bronchial inflammation that lingers for years.”

“Pardon?”

The gentleman waved a hand and turned back to the animal. “Never trust aphorisms. Any sentiment short enough to be memorable is undoubtedly wrong.”

Kate suppressed a smile. As if the gentleman could see her, his lips twitched upward. Of course, focused as he was on the trembling cart-horse, she doubted he even knew she was still here. Slowly, she slid from the top of the wall to the ground.

The gentleman fished in his pockets and pulled out an apple. The animal’s nostrils widened; its ears came forward slightly. Kate could see its ribs. They were not prominent enough to indicate starvation, but neither were they covered with a healthy amount of skin and muscle. Underneath those healed lacerations, its coat might once have been chestnut. But coal dust and road mud, stretched over scarred skin, had robbed the pelt of any hint of gloss.

“Oh, don’t feed it, for the love of all that is precious,” the carter protested. “The beast is useless. I’ve had it for three months, and no matter how I beat it, still it shies away from every last mother-loving noise.”

“That,” said the gentleman, “sounds like an explanation, rather than an excuse. Doesn’t it, Champion?” He tossed the apple on the ground next to the horse and then looked away into the distance.

He seemed good with the beast. Gentle. Kind. Not that it mattered, because whoever he was, she couldn’t speak to him. No matter how kind he was, he couldn’t know what Lady Kathleen had been doing, not if she intended to keep her secrets safe. Kate began to sidle away from the scene.

“Champion? Who’re you calling Champion?”

“Well, has he got another name?” The man had made no move to get closer to the horse. He stood, a rein’s distance from the beast, looking away from the valley. Toward Berkswift, actually. Kate’s home, just beyond one last rise and a row of trees.

“Name?” The carter frowned, as if the very concept were foreign. “I’ve been calling it Meat.“

“Meet?” The gentleman frowned down at the reins gathered in his hands. “As in a championship meet? A tourney?”

“No. Meat. As in Horse Meat. As in I could get a ha’penny per stringy pound from the butcher.”

The gentleman’s fingers curled about the reins. “I’ll give you ten pounds for the whole animal.”

“Ten pounds? Why, that’s barely what the knacker—”

“If Meat here panics on the way to the knacker, you’ll be out far more than that in property damage.” The man glanced at Kate, where she’d been sneaking away from the battered cart.

It was the first time he’d looked at her directly, and Kate felt his gaze settle against her, disturbing and familiar all at once. She pressed against the wall.

The gentleman simply shook his head and looked away. “You should be brought up on criminal charges, for endangerment.” He reached into his pocket, produced a small purse, and began to count coins.

“Here, now. I haven’t agreed. How am I supposed to move my cart?”

The gentleman shrugged. “With that shaft broken? I don’t imagine a horse would prove much help.” But as he spoke, he added a few more coins from his purse and then dropped them on the cart driver’s seat. “There’s a village yonder.”

The carter shook his head and collected the pile. Then he stood and left his cart, trudging on toward the village. The gentleman watched him go.

While the man was still distracted, Kate began to walk away. The horse was safe, and if she left now, her secret—Louisa’s secret—was safe, too. Whoever this man was, he couldn’t have recognized her. No doubt he thought her some servant, off on her mistress’s errands. An unimportant thing, as nondescript as the beast he’d rescued.

He touched his hat at her, and then turned back to his own manicured steed, which waited in nonchalant obedience ten yards down the track.

Kate had supposed the newly purchased beast would follow docilely in the gentleman’s footsteps, beaten-down specimen that it was. But it did not hang its head; instead as the fellow led it back to where he’d loosely tossed the reins of his steed, Horse Meat tossed its ragged mane. It lifted one lip in disdain and stamped its bone-thin, lacerated legs.

The gray mare ducked its head and backed away a step.

“Do you suppose they’ll walk calmly together?” the gentleman asked.

With the carter gone, there was nobody else around. He had to be addressing her.

Kate glanced at him, in the midst of her escape. She didn’t dare speak. Her voice would betray her as a lady, even if her clothing hadn’t. She shook her head.

Horse Meat curled its lips at the mare, showing teeth. It could not have communicated more clearly, had it spoken: Stay away from me. I am a dangerous stallion!

The gentleman looked from animal to animal. “I suppose not.” A soft smile of bemusement passed over his lips, and he turned to meet Kate’s eyes, once again halting her forward progress.

There was a restless vitality about those eyes that resonated with her. Something about him—his voice, his easy confidence—set her skin humming in recognition. She knew him.

Or maybe she just wanted to know him, and she’d invented this subtle sense of familiarity. She would have remembered a man like him.

Unlike other gentlemen, underneath his hat, his skin was sun-warmed gold. His shoulders were broad, and not by any artifice of padding. He was walking away from his steed, toward Kate.

No, she couldn’t possibly have forgotten a man like him. His gaze on her made her feel uneasy, as if he knew all her secrets. As if he were laughing at every last one.

“Well,” he said, “this is a pretty pickle, my lady.”

My lady? Ladies did not wear itchy gray cloaks. They didn’t cower under shapeless bonnets. Had he seen the fine walking dress she wore underneath when he lifted her up? Or did he know who she was?

His eyes flicked up and down, once, an automatic male survey of her figure, before returning to her face.

Kate was not fool enough to wish he’d let the horse trample her. Still, she wished he’d been on his way earlier. At least he didn’t remark on her outlandish garb. Instead …

“This,” he told her, gesturing with the reins of the animal he’d just acquired, “puts me in mind of one of those damnable logic puzzles a friend of mine used to pose when we were at Cambridge. ‘A shepherd, three sheep and a wolf must cross a river in a boat that fits at most two….’”

Understanding—and disappointment—took root. No wonder he wasn’t courting her ire by asking inconvenient questions about her cloak and her lack of companionship. He was one of those men. He addressed her with easy intimacy. A tone of expectation warmed his voice, entirely at odds with his formal “my lady.” She recalled his hands on her waist, that brief flash of heated contact, body to body. At the time, she’d noticed nothing more than a fleeting impression of hard muscle pushing her out of harm’s way. Now her skin prickled where he’d touched her, as if his gaze had sparked her flesh to life.

If he knew her well enough to attempt to win that wager, then he knew her well enough to gossip. He knew her well enough to spread the word in town, and well enough for that word to travel round until it reached Harcroft’s ears. It was no longer a question of if Harcroft would hear about this episode; it was a matter of what and when.

Kate didn’t dare panic, not now. She took a deep breath. She needed to make sure that the crux of his story had nothing to do with the clothing in which he found her.

“This isn’t the time for games of logic,” she said. “You know who I am.”

He stared at her in befuddlement. One hand rose to touch his chin, and he shook his head. “Of course I know who you are. I knew who you were the instant I set my hands on your hips.”

No true gentleman would have alluded to that uncouth contact. But then, no true gentleman would make her want to wrap her arms around her own waist, to press her palms where his had been before.

She cast him a brilliant smile, and after a moment he responded with a like expression. She crooked her index finger at him, and he took a step toward her.

“You’re thinking about that bet, aren’t you?”

He stopped in his tracks and shook his head stupidly—but all that false bewilderment could not fool Kate. She’d seen too many variants upon it over the years.

“It’s been on the book for two years now,” Kate said. “Of course you’re thinking of it. And you—” here she extended her gloved hand to point playfully at his chest “—you have convinced yourself that you will be the one to claim the five thousand pounds.”

His brows drew down.

“Oh,” Kate said with false charity, “I know. A lady ought not to mention a gentleman’s wager. But then, you can hardly be deserving of the term gentleman if you’ve entered into that pact to seduce me.”

That brought his shoulders straight up and wiped all expression from his face. “Seduce you? But—”

“Am I making you uncomfortable?” Kate asked with pretend solicitousness. “Are you perhaps feeling as if your privacy has been violated by my inquiry? Now, perhaps, you can imagine how it feels for me to have my virtue discussed all over London.”

“Actually—”

“Don’t bother protesting. Tell the truth. Did you linger here, thinking you would have me in bed?”

“No!” he said in injured tones. Then he pressed his lips together, as if tasting something bitter. “To be perfectly truthful,” he said in a subdued tone, “and come to think of it, yes, but—”

“My answer is ‘no, thank you.’ I already have everything a lady could wish for.”

“Really?”

He was watching her intently now. She could imagine him reporting this speech to his friends. If he did, the sum of the gossip would be her words, not her clothing. Harcroft would hear, but he’d think nothing of it. Just the story of another man who failed to collect. Kate counted items off on her fingers. “I have a fulfilling life filled with charitable work. A doting father. Virtually unlimited pin money.” She tapped her little finger and shot him another disarming smile. “Oh, yes. And my husband lives six thousand miles away. Now why in heaven’s name do all you fools believe I should want to complicate my life with a messy, illicit love affair?”

He froze, then recovered enough to reach up and rub the tawny bristle on his chin. “Would you know,” he said softly, “my solicitor was right. I should have shaved first.”

“I assure you, your slovenly appearance makes not one iota of difference.”

“It’s not the beard.” His hand clenched briefly into a fist at his side, and then relaxed.

She felt a grim delight at that sign of confusion. It wasn’t fair to take all men to task for her husband’s failings—but then, this one had set out to seduce her, and she was not in the mood to be kind. “You seem out of sorts,” she said, imbuing her voice with a false charity. “And foolish. And bumbling. Are you quite sure you’re not my errant husband?”

“Well, that’s the thing.” He glanced at her almost apologetically. And then he took another step toward her.

This close, she could see his chest expand on an inhale. He reached for her hand. She had time to pull away. She ought to pull away. His thumb and forefinger caught her wrist, as gently as if he were catching a dried leaf as it fell from a tree. His fingers found the precise spot where her glove ended and her flesh began. She might have been that leaf, ready to combust in one heated moment.

She desperately needed to escape, to reconstruct the feeling of success that had been so rudely taken from her. He smiled at her again, and his eyes twinkled ruefully. And suddenly, horribly, she knew what he was going to say. She knew why his eyes had seemed so unnaturally familiar.

She did know this man. She had imagined meeting him a thousand ways in the past years. Sometimes she had said nothing. Other times she’d delivered cutting speeches. She always brought him to his knees, eventually, in apology, while she looked on regally.

There was nothing regal about her now. In all of her imaginings, not once had she met him wearing an ill-fitting servant’s cloak, with smudges on her face.

Her wrist still burned where he touched her, and Kate jerked her hand away.

“You see,” he said dryly, “I’m quite sure that I am your husband. And I’m not six thousand miles away any longer.”

CHAPTER TWO

SIX THOUSAND MILES. Three years. Ned Carhart had convinced himself that when he returned, everything would be different.

But no. Nothing had changed—least of all, his wife.

She stared at him, her lips parted in shock, as if he had announced that he had a penchant for playing vingt-et-un with ravens. She drew her cloak about her. No doubt she wanted to shield herself from his gaze. And like that, it all came back—all the ragged danger of that old intensity—burning into the palms of his hands.

Her cloak was dusty all over and, thank God, falling about her as it did, it hid the curves of her waist. After all these years of careful control, the check he performed was almost perfunctory. Yes. He still controlled his own emotions; they did not jerk him around, like a dog on a chain.

But then, it had been a long while since he’d felt these particular emotions. Ten minutes in his wife’s presence, and already she’d begun to befuddle him again.

“You really didn’t recognize me,” he said.

She stared at him, suddenly mute and uneasy.

No, of course not. All that easy conversation? That, she’d produced for a stranger. A stranger who she believed had intended to seduce her, no less. Ned scrubbed his hand through his hair.

“Two years? There’s been a wager running for two years to seduce you?”

“What did you suppose would happen? You left me three months after our wedding.” Kate turned away. She took two breaths. He could see the rigid line of her shoulder even under all that wool. And he waited, waited for an outpouring of some kind. A diatribe; an accusation. For anything.

But when she turned back, only the clutch of her gloved hand on her cloak betrayed any unease.

That smile—that damnably enchanting smile—peeked out again. “And here I supposed your departure was the masculine equivalent of sounding the bugle to presage the hunt for your fellow gentlemen. You could not have declared it hunting season on Lady Kathleen Carhart any more effectively if you’d taken out an advertisement in the gossip circulars.”

“That’s certainly not what I intended.”

No. His thinking had taken a different cast altogether. When he’d left for China, he’d been young and idiotic; old enough to insist that he was an adult, and not wise enough to realize how far he was from the truth. He’d spent his early years playing the dissolute and useless spare to his cousin’s rigid, rule-bound heir.

He’d made himself sick on the uselessness of himself. When he’d married, he had hungered to prove that he wasn’t a child. That he could take on any task, no matter how difficult, and demonstrate that he had grown into a strong and dependable man.

He’d done it, too.

One woman—one who had already sworn to honor and obey him—shouldn’t have seemed so insurmountable a prospect.

Ned shook his head and looked at Kate. “No,” he repeated. “When I left, I wasn’t trying to send any message. It didn’t have anything to do with you at all.”

“Oh.” Her lips whitened and she looked ahead. “Well. Then. I suppose that’s good to know.”

She turned around and began to walk away. Ned felt the pit of his stomach sink, as if he’d said something utterly stupid. He couldn’t think what it was.

“Kate,” he called. She stopped. She did not look at him, but there was something—perhaps the line of her profile—that suggested a certain wariness.

He swallowed. “That wager. Did anyone succeed?”

She stiffened slightly, and then her shoulders lowered in defeat. Now she did turn around.

“Oh, Mr. Carhart.” It was the first time she had spoken his name since he’d returned, and she imbued those few syllables with all the starch of sad formality. “As I recall, I vowed to forsake all others, keeping only unto you, for as long as we both should live.”

He winced. “I wasn’t questioning your honor.”

“No.” She put her hands on her waist and then looked up at him. “I merely wish to remind you that it was not I who forgot our wedding vows.”

And with those words, she glanced up the packed dirt of the path to where his gray mare stood. She let out a deep sigh and turned away once more. For a second, Ned imagined grabbing her wrist again, imagined himself swiveling her around to face him. She wouldn’t look at him with sadness or that wary distance. In fact, distance was the last thing he wanted between them—

She cast him one final glance and then crossed to his mare, which was cropping grass by the side of the road. “One solution to your logical dilemma?” she said. “Get another boat.”

She took his horse’s reins and wrapped them around her wrist. And before he could say another word, she set off down the track.

Champion’s reaction to Ned’s mare meant that he could not walk close to Kate, not without risking a repeat of that skittish rearing and bolting. He perforce trailed after her, feeling rather like a clumsy duckling to her elegant swan.

The English countryside smelled like dust and autumn sunshine. His wife walked ten yards ahead of him. She strode as if she might outrun his existence entirely, if only she put one foot in front of the other quickly enough. Maybe it was madness, that he imagined he could catch the scent of her on the breeze—that half remembered smell of fine-milled soap and lilac. It was even more foolish to watch her retreating backside and wonder what else might have changed about her while he wasn’t looking.

Her hair, or what he could see of it from under that floppy gray bonnet, was still such a pale blond as to appear almost platinum. Her eyes still snapped gray when angry. As for her waist … He hadn’t lied when he said he recognized her by the feel of her waist in his hands. He hadn’t touched her often, but it had been enough. She was delicate, with that fine, elegant figure and those pale gray eyes ringed by impossibly long lashes.

When he’d married her, she had seemed like some bright creature. A butterfly, perhaps, its wings vibrant and shimmering in the sunlight. When she had smiled at him, Ned felt himself wanting to believe that it would be June forever, all warmth and blue skies. Instinctively, he’d shied away from that promise of eternal summer. After all, one didn’t talk to a butterfly about the coming snow, no matter how bright its wings appeared to be.

Fewer than twenty-four hours back in England, and he’d rediscovered how much of a threat his wife still posed to his equanimity. A man in control of himself wouldn’t have wanted to press her against that damned gritty stone wall, in broad daylight. A man in control of himself enjoyed his wife within the careful, pleasant confines of marriage.

Well. Ned had faced down a captain in Her Majesty’s Navy. He’d issued orders to an officer in the East India Company. He wasn’t the foolish boy who had left England, eager to prove himself. And he wasn’t about to let a little desire get the best of his discipline now.

The road ran on, and a fine sheen of dust gathered on the wool of his coat. They turned off the track and onto a wide, tree-lined way. Ned knew the road well. They were approaching Berkswift, his childhood country home. He supposed it was her home now, too; odd, that their lives had intertwined so, even in his absence.

As he walked down the lane, the lazy smell of cultivated earth recently turned in preparation for winter wheat, wafted to him. Even before they broke through the line of trees that shielded the estate from the road, Ned could conjure up the image of the manor in his mind—the golden-rose of the stone facade, the three long wings, the graveled half ring out front for carriages. At this time of the morning, the yard would stand empty, waiting to be filled by the day’s activities.

But as they came through the final copse of young birches, they did not find quiet. Instead, the drive was busy: positively boiling with servants. The cause of their work was clear. Three heavy black carriages stood on that circular drive before the house. Ned could make out a coat-of-arms, picked out in blue and silver, on the one standing nearest him.

In front of him, Kate stopped. Her entire body froze, her posture as rigid as a duelist poised at thirty paces. As he came abreast of her, she cut her eyes toward him.

“Did you invite him?” She gestured toward the coat of arms. “Did you invite him here?” She had not raised her voice, but her pitch had risen a note or two.

“I just arrived in England myself.”

“That’s not an answer. Did you invite the Earl of Harcroft?”

That would be Eustace Paxton, the Earl of Harcroft. Most of the ton was related in some twisted fashion. Harcroft was Ned’s third cousin, twice-removed, on his father’s side. They’d been friends, of a sort, for years. He’d married even younger than Ned had. And just before Ned had left London, Lord and Lady Harcroft had done Ned a favor.

Kate was still watching him, her lips compressed in sudden wariness.

“No,” he said slowly. “The only one I’ve spoken to so far was my solicitor.” And even if word of his return had traveled, as no doubt it would, Ned didn’t see how Harcroft could have mustered himself out of bed in time to actually beat Ned to Berkswift, and traveling by heavy carriage no less.

Beside him, Kate frowned, as if he’d committed some egregious breach of manners. Maybe he had. Eight months aboard ship and a man forgot a great many things.

“I think that’s Jenny and Gareth’s carriage in front. Maybe they’ve come with Harcroft?” Gareth was his cousin, Gareth Carhart, the Marquess of Blakely; Jenny, his marchioness.

Kate smoothed her skirts with her hands, brushing them away from Ned subtly, as if whatever disease of gaucherie he carried might be catching.

“Lord and Lady Blakely,” she said primly, “are welcome here.” She stared forward fixedly and let out her breath.

She said nothing of Lady Harcroft or her husband. Kate and Lady Harcroft had seemed on their way toward friendship when Ned had left. Clearly, a great deal had transpired in Ned’s absence.

When Kate inhaled again, she straightened. It was as if she’d taken in a lungful of sunshine. Her face lifted, her eyes relaxed, her shoulders lost their rigid cast. If he hadn’t seen her unease just seconds before, he might have believed her expression genuine. “Unexpected houseguests,” she said. “What a pleasure this will be.”

And, handing the horse she had been leading to a groom, she walked in.

CHAPTER THREE

KATE HAD DRESSED FOR BATTLE, donning her finest pink muslin morning dress. With lace at her wrists and mother-of-pearl buttons at her throat, instead of that itchy servant’s cloak, she felt capable of matching wits with anyone.

And yet she could not make out the conversation coming from the morning room a few yards distant, where the guests had been ensconced. She only heard the low murmur of voices, echoing down the wood of the hall. Her company was waiting, and the sound they made reminded her of thunder lurking on the horizon.

It was a good thing she was wearing her mother’s pearls. With those clasping her neck, she felt as if she could conquer anything. Harcroft would mock her, no doubt, if he knew her thoughts. He’d dismiss her attire as frills and furbelows—a woman’s only armor. Idiocy on his part.

There were a great many problems that could be solved with a visit to the mantua-maker. And fine gowns or no, this meeting promised to be a war, however politely and subtly it was joined.

Kate took a deep breath and readied herself to enter the room.

“Kate.”

The voice behind her—that deep, now too-recognizable voice—pierced through her gathering sureness. She whirled around. She felt a strand of hair fall out of her carefully pinned coiffure as she did so, to dangle in untidy fashion against her neck.

“Ned.” Not even his name; the nickname his intimates gave him escaped her in a breathless rush. She’d meant to use a careful, distancing surname. Kate cursed that betraying slip. He could probably hear her heart hitting her ribs in staccato emphasis, revealing every last emotion she wanted hidden. Likely he was taking note of the blanch of her cheeks, the pinch of her lips.

“I thought you’d gone ahead.” She’d intended the words to come out an accusation. But to her ear they sounded unfortunately breathy. “I was sure you would hurry to greet the Marquess and the Marchioness of Blakely, if not Harcroft himself.”

“I did hurry.” If he had, though, his breath came evenly. Kate felt as if she were gasping for air.

He didn’t seem the least out of sorts to find her here. In fact, he smiled at her, almost as if he knew a joke that she did not. “But I had to shave.”

“I see that.”

It was half the reason her heart had accelerated to this unsustainable pace. With his beard shorn, Kate could see every last feature—chin, lips and, worst of all, that assured smile. She could find only the roughest sketch of the man she had married in this man’s face. The man Kate had married had been scrawny, a youngster barely out of adolescence. That youthfulness had made him seem sweet.

The intervening time had washed the youth from her husband’s features. His jaw was no longer set in awkward apology; now it was square, and he looked at her in clear command. His nose no longer seemed too sharp, too piercing. It fit the look of canny awareness he’d developed.

Once, he’d seemed clumsy, constantly tripping over feet that were too large for the rest of his body. But over the past years, he’d grown into those feet. What had once seemed a surfeit of bumbling motion had transmuted into a restless economy, a sheer vitality highlighted by the sun-darkened gold of his skin.

Her husband had stopped being safe.

“Shall we go in together?” he asked, holding out his elbow.

Even that slight motion tweaked her perverse memory. Where once he’d apologetically claimed the space he needed, constantly pulling his elbows into his side, now he seemed to fill an area far beyond his skin. It seemed an act of bravery to reach out and set her fingers in the crook of his elbow. He radiated an unconscious aura now—as if he were more dangerous, more intense. Give this man a wide berth, her senses shouted.

Instead, she closed her hand about his finely woven wool coat. She could feel the strength of the arm underneath.

“I don’t think we’ll fool any of them, coming in together.” She forced herself to look up, to meet the intensity of his gaze. “If anyone knows the truth about our marriage, it’s the people in the room in front of us.”

His head tilted to one side. “You tell me, Kate. What is the truth of our marriage?”

He did not smile at her, nor did he waggle his eyebrows. His question was seriously meant. As if somehow, he did not know. His ignorance, Kate supposed, must have been bliss for him. For her, however, it sparked a deep ache beneath her breastbone.

“Our marriage lasted a few months. Once you left, what remained faded faster than the ink on the license. And what’s left … well, it could blow away in one tiny puff of wind.”

“Well, then.” He spoke with an air of certainty. “I’ll try not to exhale.”

“Don’t bother. I stopped holding my breath years before.”

Even when he’d been a young, deferential boy, he hadn’t truly been safe. He’d hurt her when he left. Now she felt a stupid surge of hope at his words. A damnable, irrepressible whisper of a thought, suggesting that something might yet come of her marriage.

The real danger wasn’t the strong line of his jaw or the powerful curve of his biceps under her fingers. No; as always, the real dangers were her own hopes and desires. It was that whisper of longing, a list that started with, step one: find a night rail….

Those old girlish wants would return unbidden if she gave them the least encouragement. It wouldn’t matter how lightly he breathed.

And nowadays, she had far more important secrets to occupy her worries than a little scrap of silk.

“Well,” he said, “let’s give it a go anyway. Our guests expect us.” Without waiting for an answer, he set his hand over her fingers, clasping them to the crook of his arm. The gesture was strong and confident. He didn’t know what awaited them. Kate ignored the queasiness in her stomach and walked with him into the room.

After the dimness of the hall, blinding white morning light filled her vision. All sound ceased, swallowed up by an immense shocked silence. Then fabric rustled; a flurry of lavender blurred across Kate’s vision, and before she could blink and get her bearings, a silk-clad form cannoned into Ned beside her, breaking Kate’s contact with her husband.

“Ned,” the woman said, “you ridiculous man. Not a word of warning, not one hint that you’d arrived. When were you planning to tell us?”

“I just landed,” Ned said. “Late last night. You’ll find the missive on your return.”

The woman was Jennifer Carhart, the Marchioness of Blakely. She was Ned’s cousin’s wife, and as he’d explained to Kate after their marriage, also one of Ned’s dearest friends. “I missed you,” Lady Blakely was saying.

Lady Blakely was pretty and dark-haired and clever, and Kate felt a prickle of unworthy resentment arise inside her. Not jealousy, at least not of that sort. But she envied the easy friendship Lady Blakely had with her husband.

When the marchioness pulled away, her husband, the marquess, took her place. “Ned.”

“Gareth.” Ned clasped the offered hand. “Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. I know my good wishes are much delayed, but I only just had the news from the solicitor this morning.”

“My thanks.” The marquess glanced at Kate, briefly, and then looked away without meeting her eyes. “Lady Kathleen.”

Naturally, Ned did not notice that little dismissal. Instead, he clapped his cousin on the shoulders. “I do wish you’d hurry up and spit out an heir, though. It’s uncomfortable dangling on your hook.”

“No.” Lord Blakely spoke directly, almost curtly. But his gaze cut to his wife, who poked him. “No,” he amended with a sigh. “But thank you for the sentiment. I’d much rather have children than an heir. I’ll keep my girl—you and yours can have the damned marquessate when I’m gone.” His gaze flicked to Kate again, as if it were somehow her fault she hadn’t burst forth with twin sons, with her husband half the world away.

Kate should have been playing the hostess here, setting everyone at ease. Instead, she felt as if she were an interloper in her own home, as if she were the one returning after a bewildering absence of three years. And perhaps her feelings had something to do with the precariousness of Louisa’s situation. But this gap, this feeling of not belonging, had arisen long before she had even known the danger Louisa was in.

It had happened so gradually, on her husband’s disappearance from England. Kate had blamed Blakely for sending her husband to China. Foolish; she’d known Ned had volunteered, that he’d wanted to leave as much as she had wanted him to stay. She’d blamed the marchioness, out of a deep envy for the woman’s easy friendship with her husband. Kate had known the response was neither reasonable nor rational, but her resentment at being left behind had been too large to direct at only one person.

Over the years, the familial relationship had quietly strained. A different woman might have made some attempt to mend what had frayed; instead, Kate had excused herself. She had her own set of friends. She didn’t need to add her cousins by marriage to that number.

And so it had come to this: everyone in the room, if they knew what she had done, would see her as the enemy.

Her greatest enemy stood next in line to greet her husband. The Earl of Harcroft was slim and tall. He was Ned’s age, but he looked as if he were still eighteen, his face unlined by worries or age. The earl, Kate thought bitterly, appeared to be quite the golden child. He was a master at cricket, a veritable genius at chess and an expert when it came to appraising Flemish paintings of goat-girls. He gave to charity, never swore and attended church, where he sang hymns in a delightful baritone.

He also beat his wife, taking care to hit her only where the bruises wouldn’t show. It was his legal right, as Louisa’s husband, and if he discovered that Kate had hidden her away, he could compel her at solicitor-point to give her up.

Kate wasn’t about to give him the chance.

Ned relinquished Harcroft’s hand and looked expectantly around the room. “Where’s Louisa?” he asked brightly. “Is she lying in, finally? I certainly hope she hasn’t taken ill again.”

Silence fell. The three guests exchanged glances. Kate’s spine straightened; Lady Blakely subsided into her chair and spread her hands carefully down the light purple of her gown. She did not meet Ned’s eyes. Instead, she glanced at her husband, who by a shake of his head clearly delegated the task of divulging the truth back to her.

“We don’t know where she is,” Lady Blakely said simply. “But you’ve just returned. Don’t concern yourself with it.”

Of course. They’d come to talk with Kate. Not a good sign, then, that nobody in the room was looking at her.

“Jenny,” Ned said carefully. “Are you trying to protect me?”

The smile on Lady Blakely’s face wavered.

“I should think that if I’ve earned anything over the last years, I’ve earned the right to the truth. I’ve proven to you by now that I can help.”

“Ned, that’s not what I meant. I simply thought—”

Ned held up a hand. “Well, stop thinking simply.” He spoke lightly, but again something passed between them, and Lady Blakely nodded.

Oh, it was irrational to feel that stab of jealousy. And it was not because she suspected that anything untoward could happen between them. Lady Blakely was devoted to her husband. Still, that exchange of glances bespoke a trust, a friendship between them that Kate had never had a chance to develop with her husband. All she’d had was a handful of breakfasts, and a smaller handful of nights that had more to do with marital expectation than ardor. She’d had three months to raise her hopes, and years to watch them dwindle into nothing.

“If anyone has the right to the truth,” Kate said with some asperity, “it is I. Louisa is one of my dearest friends. I thought, after she gave birth three weeks ago, the danger had passed. Has something happened to her?” Kate didn’t have to pretend her concern for her friend. “Is she well? And did you come to fetch me to her side?”

Harcroft’s cold gaze fell on her as she delivered this speech. But as much as she quaked inside, she did not let herself show more than natural worry.

Lady Blakely must not have seen anything amiss in her expression, either. She let out a sigh. “There’s no easy way to say this. Louisa’s gone.”

“Gone?” Ned asked, his shoulders drawing together, his head snapping up.

“Do you mean she’s passed on?“ Kate echoed in perfidious concern.

“I mean,” Lady Blakely clarified, “she is missing. She was last seen yesterday shortly before noon, and we are absolutely frantic trying to locate her.”

“Was she taken by ruffians?” Kate asked. “Have you received some sort of a demand letter from abductors?”

Ned turned to Harcroft. “Harcroft. You used to find misplaced books in the Bodleian Library for amusement. How could you be so careless as to misplace your own wife?”

Harcroft scrubbed his hands through his hair. He made a fine picture of a distraught husband, Kate thought bitterly. “You know,” Harcroft said softly, “about the illness she’s suffered. The problems she had conceiving. Well, after she got with child … The physician said some women don’t take to childbirth. Something about too much excitement laid upon the feminine sensibility. She wasn’t herself afterward. The female mind is delicate as it is, you know. She changed during her confinement. She was less biddable, more excitable. More given to hysterics.”

Harcroft shrugged. The gesture conveyed helplessness, and Kate’s lip curled. Helpless, Harcroft was not. Kate suppressed the urge to lift the nearby oil lamp with her delicate, female hands. She felt excited and unbiddable right now; why, she might slip and use her own delicate, female sensibility to bash all that heavy brass into his head.

However satisfying that exercise might prove, it wouldn’t help Louisa.

“And no,” Harcroft continued, turning to Kate, “we’ve had no notes of ransom. Whoever it was that took her—” his voice took on a sour note, and he tilted his head to look Kate directly in the eyes “—whoever it was, packed a valise for Louisa and clothes for the child. They took my son, without his uttering a cry to alert the nursemaid.”

“Oh, no,” Kate said. She froze her face into a mask of perfect sympathy and met Harcroft’s eyes. “Not little Jeremy. What sort of wicked, depraved, awful person would hurt that little angel?”