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dinners.
    Visitors to their home often found the twins’ presence disconcerting, and one future earl who had been assiduously courting Kyria even went so far as to tell Kyria that he found the boys impertinent and could only wonder at the laxity with which they were raised. Kyria had responded by suggesting that he would be happier, then, if he no longer called on her.
    But Mr. McIntyre seemed to have no such qualms in dealing with the boys. He talked and laughed with themin his slow, slurry way. He looked, she thought, to be accustomed to boys.
    When she said as much a few minutes later, he turned that slow smile on her and said, “Oh, I’m afraid you’ll find that I don’t have much trouble talking to just about anybody. Whether that’s a good trait or one that will drive you crazy just depends on you.” He glanced over at Con and Alex and added, “I guess I wasn’t much different from them—I had a tendency to get in trouble myself at that age.”
    “And has that changed?” Kyria asked, a little surprised at the teasing note in her voice. If she wasn’t careful, she thought, the man would assume she was flirting with him— which she absolutely was not.
    Rafe’s smile broadened and he winked at her. “Well, now, I reckon a lot of people would say that I still manage to get in some trouble.”
    There was something about his voice, slow and rich like warm, golden honey, that stirred something inside her. She glanced away quickly, and it was a relief when Alex distracted Rafe’s attention by asking another question.
    When they got back to the great, solemn pile of gray stone that was Broughton Park, they were told by the footman who opened the door that the Moreland family was waiting for them in the formal drawing room. Alex and Con slipped off to run up the back stairs to the nursery, murmuring in suddenly quiet voices that they had best see if their parrot had survived his adventure unharmed.
    Kyria and Rafe started up the grand front staircase, but as they climbed a man and woman appeared at the top of the stairs, smiling down at them.
    “Kyria! Rafe!” The woman started down the stairs,followed by her companion. She was a small woman with large, expressive, brown eyes and deep brown hair, and her face was wreathed in smiles. She was dressed in a reddish brown velvet gown, and the paisley shawl flung around her shoulders had fallen from one arm, so that it floated out behind her as she walked. She was Kyria’s sister Olivia, whose nuptials were to take place in two days.
    “Smeggars told us what happened!” she went on worriedly as she reached them. “Are you all right? Thank you, dear.” This last remark was addressed to Stephen St. Leger, who had picked up the trailing end of her shawl and tucked it solicitously around her shoulders.
    “Yes, of course,” Kyria assured her automatically. She had spent her childhood tagging along after her older brothers and sister, and she had grown accustomed long ago to downplaying any danger to herself. “I am sure Smeggars exaggerated.”
    “Rafe! I was beginning to wonder if you were going to come,” Olivia’s fiancé said, reaching out to shake his friend’s hand. “I expected you days ago. I thought perhaps you’d decided to put down roots in Ireland.”
    “I got delayed purchasing a horse,” Rafe explained, taking his friend’s hand. “I have no timetables on this trip. I am completely committed to operating on my whims.”
    “I am well aware of how you operate,” Stephen retorted, and the four of them continued up the stairs.
    The formal drawing room was filled with Kyria and Olivia’s large, rather noisy family, and when they first stepped into the room, it seemed a blur of noise and people to Rafe. Then a tall, statuesque woman stepped forward, assuming easy command of the situation.
    “How do you do?” she said, smiling and extending her hand to Rafe. “You must be Mr. McIntyre. We have heard how you rescued my daughter this afternoon,