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contacted my grandmother at all.”
    She gave him a wan smile. “No, that’s not it in the least. I’m disappointed because I need someone who believes we can make something from nothing.” She sighed. “But you don’t believe it’s possible, do you?”
    “I never said—”
    “You rely on money to solve your woes,” she said flatly. “Not that I blame you. I’m trying to reach the point that I have enough money to do the same thing. But there’s one good thing about not having any. When you’re poor, you develop a very good imagination. You need it to survive. To have hope. Because sometimes … there’s nothing else.”
    There was a split second of silence, and she puckered up her brow, as if she were thinking.
    Thinking hard.
    It was rather adorable of her. And yet she’d unsettled him, too.
    “That’s not it at all,” he answered, but inside, he felt she was dangerously close to understanding him. Surely it had been a lucky guess. “Have you ever considered that you’re asking too much of a godmother—or a godmother’s grandson?”
    She tilted her head. “Isn’t it a godmother’s duty to demonstrate the great virtues for her charges? Courage, fortitude, nobility, and usefulness?”
    “It might be, but must I remind you, I’m—”
    “And it’s been my impression,” she went on equably, “that the duty of your English peerage is to demonstrate those same virtues for the masses. Therefore, you’re under double obligation here, sir.”
    She folded her hands in front of her.
    “Miss Montgomery, you’re carrying this idea of duty a bit too far—” He pulled a squashed cheroot from his pocket, leaned round her—coming perilously close to brushing her waist with his arm—and lit the cheroot on a taper.
    The expression on her face as she waited for him to take a puff—half annoyed, half impatient—was surely going to ruin a good smoke.
    Why was it that women tended to do that? Sure enough, after one measly draw, her brow furrowed deeper, and his pleasure in the cheroot evaporated.
    Thank God he wasn’t married.
    She put her hands on her slender hips. “Lord Lumley.” Her tone was point-blank. “You’re obviously a devoted grandson to have traveled such a long way on your grandmother’s behalf. And I already know that when your purse isn’t under lock and key, you’re a wealthy viscount. But what kind of man are you? For the purposes of my project—the Restore-Castle-Vandemere-to-Its-Former-Glory project, I’ve just now dubbed it—that’s what I’d like to know. What I need to know.”
    A beat of charged silence passed. He felt an odd thrill at her boldness of speech.
    “Well?” She peered at him with genuine curiosity and not a little impatience.
    He needed to think on the question a moment, so he inhaled on his cheroot. “I’m the sort of man who keeps his promises,” he eventually said. “I told you I’d stay and see you through, and I shall.”
    “In that case, you’ll need to become noble and useful immediately.” She stared at his black eye. “ If that’s possible for a bachelor of your ilk.”
    “And what kind of ilk is that?”
    “The naughty kind, of course.”
    “How astute of you to peg me so quickly,” he countered, and took a step toward her, the way a cold man instinctively takes a step toward a fire. He felt the need for some feminine attention. But not from a tavern wench or a milkmaid with a wandering eye. He wanted it from a girl who wasn’t so easy to land. A girl like this one. Then the notice would feel hard-won.
    Nothing was hard-won in his world.
    “I wouldn’t mind kissing you,” he said, “to prove to you that your suspicions about my ilk are founded. I should tell you that after I conclude my duties here, the very same ilk will travel the world with fancy women and get stinking drunk wherever it goes, while your ilk will stay bored in the north of Scotland.”
    She stood staring at him, completely unfazed by his shocking speech. And