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cutting up stiff over the gift of a dead man, do you?”
    “You’re not dead.”
    “Not yet, at any rate. Although”—mischief sparkled inthe depths of his eyes—“what do you think he would do if he discovered I was alive? Worse, that I’d returned to woo you away from him.”
    He reached out as if he might touch the stone, but she warded him off, color creeping up her throat, burning her skin. “You and I both know you’re not.”
    His hand hovered before lifting to stroke her cheek. His gaze scalded a path over her face as if memorizing it. The very air between them charged with anticipation. She held her breath.
    “No.” His hand finally dropping away. “More’s the pity.”
    How did he manage to make her feel hot and cold at the same time? To make her stomach swoop and dive and her throat close? It wasn’t fair. It shouldn’t be so. It was improper. Unseemly. Downright humiliating. She tore away from him to stalk the length of the gallery, arms crossed over her chest as if warding off a blow. “Gordon is everything a husband should be. He comes of a good family. He’s responsible and trustworthy and safe.”
    “Sounds like a sheepdog I once owned.”
    “Tease if you like, but if you so much as hint at who you really are, so help me, I shall murder you myself.”
    “You’re so bloodthirsty, sweet, fickle Lissa.”
    “Don’t call me that. And I am not fickle.”
    He came up behind her, leaning close, his warm breath tickling her neck, his tone mocking and smooth and tinged with hidden laughter. “No? Then why do you wear a gift from one man on the eve of your wedding to another?”
    Far from enjoying her outing, Elisabeth spent the hours worrying over what might be transpiring back at the house.Visions of Brendan disrupting, delaying, or destroying her wedding crowded her head. What he might do remained foggy, but that he’d take pleasure in causing trouble, she didn’t doubt. He was a monumental bomb-thrower. Delighting in mischief and reveling in mayhem. Should she reveal him, she’d be up to her eyebrows in both.
    A trouble shared is a trouble halved, or so Aunt Pheeney would say. But there was no one to share her trouble with. Despite what she told Brendan, Lord Kilronan was away from home and none knew when he was expected back. Lady Kilronan had been Aidan’s bride for less than a year. She might not know anything of Brendan. Aidan might have chosen to remain silent on those more sordid bits of his family’s history.
    No. Best to keep quiet. Brendan would leave. All would be as it was. She’d be married and leave for London as Gordon’s wife.
    London. They had spoken of it. Gordon had been so excited and energetic in its praise. His position as an undersecretary’s assistant in the department of the Exchequer had been such a wonderful opportunity, and she had so wanted to please that she’d nodded and smiled and placed it aside to be worried over later. But later had become now.
    She clenched her hands on her reticule. Replace Mr. Adams? What was Gordon thinking? The estate agent had served the Fitzgeralds of Dun Eyre since her grandfather’s day. He knew every stone, stick, tenant, and servant. He could recite annual crop yields, recall to the penny what he spent in outlays during any given season, loved Dun Eyre as much as she did. And who would replace him? Some stranger who would renovate and improve the house until she didn’t recognize it as her home? Someone who wouldsupervise the destruction of her grandmother’s beloved gardens in the name of the latest fashion?
    She reached for her pendant before remembering she’d torn the odious thing from her throat with a half-sob and tossed it in her jewelry case right after leaving that disastrous encounter with Brendan. She should have worn it. She could have tossed it from the cliffs and been done with it once and for all. Anger with Gordon easily became anger with Brendan.
    How dare he bait her? Ask her impertinent questions? As