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doesn’t change.”
    “She’ll read my letters. If I have to have Nicholas read them to her, she’ll read them.” He was very sure of himself. She’d expect no less of him.
    “Who is Nicholas?” Sara’s words came out sleepy, not quite slurred, and Mr. Haddonfield made the same gesture again, smoothing her hair back over her ear. She should rebuke him, except there was no disrespect in his touch.
    Only an inability to abide disorder—Sara suffered from the same penchant—or perhaps a passing inclination to offer comfort.
    “Nicholas is my older brother, the heir to the earldom, whose job while I’m immured here is to marry his prospective countess.”
    A little silence ensued, broken only by the crackling of the fire. He caressed her hair a couple of more times, his touch lingering.
    “Mrs. Hunt?” Mr. Haddonfield’s hand slid to her shoulder and shook it lightly. “Sara?”
    “Hmm?” Her eyes fluttered open, and she focused on him with effort. Too much laudanum and too little sleep. What must he think of her?
    “You’re falling asleep. North claims it can be done with the eyes open. I can carry you to your bed.”
    “Carry me?” Sara straightened her spine through force of will, but between fatigue, the dragging of the poppy, and the mesmerizing pleasure of Mr. Haddonfield’s hand, it was an enormous effort. “That won’t be necessary.”
    His smile was slow and slightly naughty, like a small boy would be naughty, not a grown man. “If I wanted to carry you, you couldn’t stop me.”
    “But you are a gentleman, so you will not argue this point with me.”
    “Suppose not, though I’ll see you down the stairs, at least.”
    “I’m a housekeeper, Mr. Haddonfield.” Sara rose, only to find her hand placed on Haddonfield’s arm and held there by virtue of his fingers over her knuckles. “Your gallantries are wasted on me.”
    Though they were sweet, those gallantries. Sara liked them probably about as much as Mr. North liked his chocolate mousse.
    “I respectfully disagree.” He took up the candle and escorted her from the room. “If I lose favor with you, I’m out of clean laundry, candles, coal and wood for my fire, clean sheets, and God help me if I should split the seam of my breeches.”
    “God help us all, in that case.” Sara gave up trying to hold her weariness at bay and moved at his side through the darkened house. “You really aren’t going to sell the place?”
    Beside her, Mr. Haddonfield stopped, a sigh escaping him in the near darkness.
    He set the candle down and turned her by the shoulders, while Sara felt her heart speeding up for no good reason.
    “You’ve managed as best you can, managed brilliantly, but you’re battle-weary, Sara. You keep firing when the enemy has quit the field.” He kept a hand on her shoulder, his thumb sliding across her collarbone in a slow, rhythmic caress.
    He made no other move; he didn’t use that seductive baritone on her in the darkened corridor, just circled his thumb over the spot where neck, shoulder, and collarbone came together. A vulnerable, lonely point on a woman’s body.
    Her mind did not comprehend what he was offering, but her soul longed for it, and her body leaned closer to his, then closer still. In the cold, dark corridor, she leaned on him, despite her pride, despite common sense, despite all the reasons she couldn’t lean on any man ever again.
    His arms came around her, and it felt so good. He’d called her Sara, and that had felt good too.
    “I give you my word I will not recommend to my father or to Lady Warne that Three Springs be sold,” he said, his voice sounding near her ear. “The house has good bones, and the resources are available to set it to rights. And even if Lady Warne should die and leave the property to some distant relation, I’ll see you and yours situated. I give you my word on that too, and I’ve the means to do it, easily.”
    She lingered in his embrace for a few precious moments,