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Tessa, you know that’s not true.”
    Lady Lydiard could hold her tongue no longer. “Apologize to Claire, at once, Tessa.” She rose from the settee. “Your sister would never have involved herself in this unsavory business if I had not appealed to her for help. If you must be angry with someone, let it be me.”
    Claire wasn’t certain which of them her stepmother’s words surprised more—her, Tessa, or Lady Lydiard herself.
    Surprised or not, Tessa made no effort to apologize. “This is worse than I thought, if both of you are allied against me. I don’t care, though. I will
not
let you spoil my chance of happiness!”
    With that, she spun away and ran out of the morning room, slamming the door behind her.
    Claire and Lady Lydiard stood frozen for a moment, listening to the muted pounding of footsteps up the stairs. Then her ladyship wilted down onto the settee again.
    “This is worse than I thought.” She echoed her daughter’s words. “Tessa has always been such a willful child. And I fear I’ve only made it worse by indulging her so often. What if she runs away to Scotland and marries the fellow, just to spite us?”
    Runs away to Scotland.
Those words stirred an idea in Claire’s mind.
    She sank back onto her chair and took a drink of her tea, only to find it had gone cold. “I’m afraid that’s just what might happen if we push her too far. We need to let her feelings cool to the point where she can be reasoned with.”
    “What are you suggesting?” In spite of the early hour, Lady Lydiard appeared in need of a stronger drink than tea. “That we should look the other way while this fellow continues to pursue my daughter all over London in such a scandalous fashion?”
    “Not quite.” Suddenly Claire’s plan took shape with brilliant clarity. For only the second time in her cautious life, she tasted the heady draft of reckless zeal. “We need to keep them apart long enough for Tessa to come to her senses. In the meantime, we must force Ewan Geddes to tip his hand, so she can see him for the fortune-hunting troublemaker he is.”
    “And how are we to accomplish that?”
    A tiny secretive smile tugged at a corner of Claire’s mouth. The more details she added to her plan, the better she liked it.
    “We must present Mr. Geddes with an even more tempting target for his schemes.”
    Her ladyship’s eyes widened. “You?”
    Claire nodded. Then she remembered another bold plan of hers that had involved Ewan Geddes, and how disastrously it had gone awry.
     
    “This is a pleasant surprise, I must say.” Two evenings later, Ewan looked around the table at the three Talbot ladies, his eyes coming to rest upon Tessa, seated opposite him.
    Ten years ago, if anyone had told him the day would come when he’d be sitting down to dine at Lydiard House, he wouldn’t have believed them. It felt as though he was in sight of the crest of a tall peak he’d been scaling for as long as he could remember.
    “I was afraid ye ladies might not take kindly to my renewing Miss Tessa’s acquaintance after all these years.”
    Lady Lydiard
didn’t
take kindly to it. Ewan could feel her critical gaze trained upon him, as if she was just waiting for him to fumble his forks or drink the contents of his finger bowl.
    He would not be sorry to disappoint her.
    From the foot of the table, Claire Talbot spoke up. “I won’t attempt to deceive you, Mr. Geddes. Tessa’s mother and I are concerned about the … haste with which she is making important decisions concerning her future.”
    “Claire …” murmured her sister, a distinct note of warning in her voice.
    Ewan caught Tessa’s eye, then gave a subtle shake of his head. A great family row wasn’t likely to win him sympathy from her mother and sister. “It’s fine. Honestly. I have no objection to hearing the truth.”
    They ate their soup in awkward silence for a while before Claire Talbot spoke again.
    “As you may recall from our younger years, my sister