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mourn his brother, whom he’d expended considerable time and effort searching for. Not to mention his uneasiness around her, and his uncle’s enigmatic statements.
    Separately, they were just odd stitches, but together they made a badly patched tapestry. And on this one matter she was resolved—she wouldn’t rest until she unearthed the grimy fabric beneath all those patches.

Chapter 3
    A clean glove often hides a dirty hand.
    English proverb written on a list once mounted on the Templemore schoolroom wall
    O nly after the sound of footsteps along the corridor faded did Sebastian leave his study. A brief walk, another turn, and a flight of stairs later, he entered his former schoolroom, which now served as his workshop.
    Where maps and lists of moralistic proverbs had once hung, pistol stocks and barrels rested on nails. A crude scarred table replaced the schoolboy desks and creaky globe. On one end lay his sketched designs and books. Upon the other were scattered locks, priming pans, copper casings, percussion caps, and bottles of fine-grained saltpeter, charcoal, and sulphur from which he made his own gunpowder.
    It was to that end of the table he moved, snatching up a rasp and a stock for a set of dueling pistols he was designing. The rough maple snagged at his leather work gloves as he sat down and began filing away unfinished portions.
    Working a stock usually relaxed him, but not today. What in God’s name was he to do about this mess?
    The Knightons’ timing was abominable. A pity he hadn’t thought to have someone in the village alert him whenever strangers came to Llanbrooke, so he could avoid them entirely. But after two years, he’d let down his guard.
    Devil take the Knightons for bringing Juliet here. Especially now that she’d grown up. At eighteen, she’d moved with the awkward uncertainty of a girl unsure of her attractions. She’d been oddly untouched, probably because responsibilities at home had kept her from moving in society.
    At twenty, however…She packed an amazing amount of mature woman into that lethal little body. And what had merely tantalized him then was bedeviling him now.
    He was an idiot, as bad as his rakehell father. He should be plotting how to allay her family’s suspicions, not sifting through all her words to glean her memories of their week together. Did she remember the hours playing chess in the cottage in Rye? The easy conversations in the carriage? The kiss they’d shared at the end?
    The rasp fell still in his hands as he stared off at nothing. That final kiss—what had he been thinking? In a week of chaste companionship, he’d not even touched her, and he’d succeeded in freeing them both from the smugglers.
    Then he’d had to go and do something risky like kiss her.
    At the time he’d thought to assuage her anger for when he rode away without her. Instead, his foolish impulse had made him yearn for the budding woman inside the girl. Thank God they’d parted then, or he’d have disgraced the name of Blakely forever.
    Unfortunately, all that long-suppressed desire had surged back at the sight of her today. It was perfectly understandable—he’d lived in austerity all his life, striving to erase his father’s excesses and his mother’s absence by a self-imposed adherence to duty and honor. Of course he would find Juliet appealing. Who wouldn’t?
    But he couldn’t allow that to color his response to the situation. He had much to conceal. He mustn’t let sentimentality or other annoying urges alter his purpose.
    Without warning the schoolroom door swung open, and Uncle Lew entered. With a groan, Sebastian bent over the stock.
    “I thought I might find you here,” Uncle Lew stated as he perched atop a stool across the table from Sebastian.
    Sebastian continued to work the wood, in no mood to discuss this with his blasted uncle. Not until he figured out how to fix the situation.
    His uncle drew out an enameled snuffbox, pinched some snuff, and snorted it as