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though he is a mere mister. Grandpapa did not even want my aunt to marry him at the time.”
    “Ah,” he said. “I suppose I had better deliver you to Mr. and Mrs. Ermingford’s tomorrow, then, instead of into the clutches of your libertine duke.”
    “You are very obliging,” she said. “I thank you.”
    “In the meantime,” he said, looking about him in some distaste at the sodden wallpaper, two scattered heaps of broken china, and the source of the smell on the floor beside the bed, “you had better get some sleep, ma’am. And behind locked doors. You must exchange rooms with me, the lock being broken on this door.”
    “You must have broken it, mustn’t you,” she said admiringly, “when you rushed to my rescue? You are quite splendidly brave, sir. I think that punch to the jaw would have killed me.”
    The duke thought so too.
    “But I hate to think of your having to sleep in here,” she said, wrinkling her nose again.
    “Bring your valise, ma’am,” he said. “I shall see you safely into the next room and collect my own bag from there.”
    “You are very kind,” she said, following his directions and preceding him from the room.
    A delightful night he was going to spend, the Duke of Mitford thought, following her glumly out into the corridor. The wit downstairs must be in action again. The inn was fairly rocking with raucous laughter. There was the sound of heavy boots on the stairs behind him, denoting the arrival of yet another potentially noisy guest. And he was to sleep amidst broken china and spilled water and vomit, his unlocked door an open invitation to thieves and pick-pockets.
    Some adventure, indeed.
    And by some unfortunate coincidence he had met his prospective bride, a delightfully demure young lady who had taken to her heels with a scoundrel rather than stay and listen to his addresses. It seemed that the day had had nothing but humiliations to offer.
    However, he must try to see the humorous side of it all. He would arrive back in London in a few days’ time a wiser man, but basically unscathed. He would deliver this untidy, pretty, and foolish young girl to her aunt’s the following day, drive on to Rutland Park to find her gone—he would greet that news with the haughtiest surprise—make his excuses for not awaiting her return, and effect his escape with Henry and his baggage and his restored consequence.
    He would don his titles again for the return journey. Adventure was not all he had dreamed of its being. Better the dull world he knew than the far less comfortable one he had just glimpsed.
    Miss Middleton turned to smile up at him—at least she was smiling up , he thought, and not down—as he leaned around her to open the door into his room. And then she hurtled against him, wrapped her arms about his neck—her valise crashed against his spine—and was kissing him with desperate passion before he could even begin to defend himself from attack.
    She backed into the room, dragging him with her, and slammed the door shut with one foot. For a moment, he thought she was about to use her knee on him without the fair warning she had given to Mr. Porterhouse. But it seemed that she had merely wanted to ensure greater privacy for her passion.
    Before he could decide whether to encircle her with his arms and surrender to the novelty of being ravished by an amorous female or to wrestle her arms to her sides and hold her firmly away from him while he lectured her on morality and decorum and feminine modesty, she released his mouth, though she still clung to his neck. Hot eyes—they were a darker, more interesting shade of gray than his own, he noticed irrelevantly—were wide and focused on his.
    “Oh, Lord,” he said.
    “Did you see who that was?” she hissed in a loud stage whisper. “Did you see?”
    “Coming up the stairs?” he asked. “Not having eyes in the back of my head, I would have to say no, though I thought I recognized the landlord’s voice.”
    “But you