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every right to do so with that slight amusement in his eye.
    “Americans prefer coffee. And we did win the war. Apparently your sainted tea is a bit weak. Perhaps that’s why we didn’t like it. Perhaps if you’d been more concerned with winning than with tea time, things might be different.”
    What was she doing? She knew better than to speak to a man thus. She stilled and looked away from him, focusing on a single candle flame in the silver candelabrum. She was in his home, wounded, ill and he could do anything he wanted to if he so chose.
    Stupid, so very foolish. Had she learned nothing? The flame weaved, then stilled.
    His laughter startled her, a deep rumble that faded as he softly said, “You need not fear.”
    She wanted to yell at him that she wasn’t afraid, that she feared nothing. Never again would she fear anything, but the slight tremors and her own bruised spirit quaked at the thought, the truth whimpering.
    She’d been afraid for so long, she hardly knew what else to be.
    “I didn’t mean to be impertinent.”
    Another chuckle. “But I like impertinence, it keeps one on one’s toes. Don’t you think?”
    “I wouldn’t know.” She licked her lips, darting a quick look from the corner of her eye, and picked at the counterpane.
    A long moment passed. “No, something tells me you wouldn’t.”
    What did that mean?
    He shifted off the bed. “Well, Madam Impertinence, I mean to see you well again.” The man sat down in a chair close to the bed. “And I’d rather address you by your name than just Madam, or some other inane title.”
    The tea was making her sleepy. She yawned again, and snuggled deeper in bed, wincing at the now-dull ache in her shoulder. She should ask him for something to wear…
    “A name, a name, what’s in a name…”
    “Like Shakespeare do you? Is your name Elizabeth? Very Shakespearean. Or Ophelia? Desdemona. It cannot be Juliet, that would be too mediocre.”
    She grinned. The man was a charmer, even if she didn’t trust him, but he hadn’t hurt her thus far. “No, that’s my mother’s name.”
    “God’s bones. What a long one it is. Elizabeth Ophelia Desdemona. What did your father call her?”
    Did he always talk as if he were about to laugh at some joke? And she wasn’t about to answer the last question.
    “Her name is Elizabeth.”
    “Ah.” He steepled his fingers and tapped the index ones against his mouth. “The mother’s name. Dare I hope to acquire the daughter’s?”
    Sleep beckoned. “ Rebeckah Emmaline Merryweather Smith.”
    “Yet another long name.” She closed her eyes even as she heard him whisper, “I never thought of Rebeckah .”
    The name slithered a tingle down her spine, black in its memories. Why had she told him that? She hated, hated Rebeckah . She could still hear the way Theodore said it.
    She shook her head. “No, Emmaline . Though friends call me Emily.”
    Anne had called her Emmy.
    “ Emmaline . Emily. Now that suits you, I think.”
    Did it? To her Emily was the free girl in the fields, wild and impetuous, and maybe even brave.
    She would be that person again.
    “ Rebeckah sounds very cold,” he said. “Whereas Emily… Well, Emily would leap out of a runaway carriage.”

Chapter Three
     
    Jason sat behind his desk at Ravenscrest and finished the missives he’d just written.
    The first was to one of his two partners who was still in the country and the other missive was to his superior, Sir Vincent Taber. Both recounted the events of the carriage murders as he knew them, and the latter explained how he’d missed his appointment in Portsmouth, thanks to the storm.
    “My lord?” Grims inquired.
    He looked up at his domineering butler. “Yes?’
    “You wished to know when your guest was again awake.”
    Jason stood. “Indeed.” Handing the messages to Grims , he said, “Have these sent immediately.”
    “Yes, my lord.”
    He strode to the door, the late afternoon sun slanting through his study windows.