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your company that ships his tobacco to England? If so …”
    He shook his head. “My business with him is personal.” His tone was faintly repressive. Lilah wasn’t interested enough to probe further. His business with Uncle George had nothing to do with her. She was interested in the man, not what he did.
    Another couple strolled toward them. Lilah recognized red-haired Sarah Bennet with a gentleman she thought was Thom McQuarter, and hurriedly tugged Mr. San Pietro down a bisecting path. She did not want to go through the process of performing introductions, and then have their tête-à-tête turn into a quartet. Knowing how sweet Sarah Bennet was on Mr. McQuarter, she guessed that Sarah would be grateful for her quick action.
    “This garden seems a trifle crowded,” Mr. San Pietro observed with rueful amusement as minutes later theyperformed a similar dodging maneuver to avoid another couple.
    “Yes. It’s a lovely night.” She echoed his regret. Then a thought occurred to her that was so daring that she was shocked at herself for even entertaining it. With any other gentleman, she would never have made the suggestion. And if the gentleman had had the bad taste to do so, she would have excused herself from his company and made her way back to the house. Mr. San Pietro might think her bold. … But then she remembered that they had only this one night.
    “We could walk along the creek to the summerhouse, if you’d like.”
    He looked down at her with a quick grin. The white gleam of his teeth in the darkness was dazzling.
    “I’d like that very much.”
    The scent of roses faded behind them, to be replaced by the earthier fragrances of grass and woods and water. A mosquito buzzed around her head, and Lilah swatted at it. She would probably pay for her daring in the morning with a rash of insect bites.
    Put In Creek sliced through the property at an angle. Uncle George had built an open-walled gazebo of whitewashed birch where the creek formed a vee as it headed toward Chesapeake Bay again. This summerhouse, as everyone at Boxhill called it, had become a favorite retreat of Lilah’s, though she had never before been there at night. Now she saw that it stood amidst the grove of rustling willows in which it had been built like a graceful lady ghost. More honeysuckles grew up around the elaborate scrollwork of the railings, their sweet scent lending a heady kind of enchantment to the night. In the creek a pair of ducks swam, their passing silent, marked only by rippling curves of water that gleamed in the moonlight.
    Lilah hesitated. She had not realized quite how isolated the summerhouse would be at night.

    “Mr. San Pietro …,” she began.
    “Call me Joss. As I said earlier, my friends all do.”
    “That’s the trouble,” she said with a nervous laugh. She made an instinctive move that put a little distance between them. Up to then she had been walking pressed almost against his side. He could not be blamed if she had given him the wrong impression. But though she had been carried away by the man and the moonlight, she was still bound by some proprieties. No matter what he might have been led to believe, beyond a certain point she would not go. “I’m not quite sure how good a friend of yours you expect me to be. I confess I hadn’t realized the summerhouse was so … so isolated,”
    He let her hand slide away from the crook of his arm, let her put a few more paces between them until she stood facing him.
    “Don’t worry, I know a lady when I meet one. You need not concern yourself that you’ll have any reason to regret your trust in me. I won’t take advantage of it, I promise. But I’d like us to be friends.”
    She looked up at him a moment, wavering. What she saw in his face reassured her. He was no bounder who would take disgraceful advantage of her lack of discretion in bringing him to this isolated spot. For all his flirting and his roguish smile, he was, as he had assured her earlier, a