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well,” a short, overweight man with a shockingly bright gold waistcoat was complaining, and Kit immediately ruled him out. Only a supporter of the tariff would be helping to enforce the blockade.
    “You can’t expect even a wastrel like Prinny to sell goods to a country we’re at war with,” a second man returned. “And three years ago, Bonaparte was confiscating every piece of British property he could get his hands on. I’ll wager you weren’t complaining about commerce then.” He was younger than the first, with a jaunty smile and immaculately cropped brown hair, and he was mounted on a fine bay gelding. Kit took a step closer, using the trunk of the elm as shelter.
    “Only that he wasn’t given a cut of the gold,” a third man chuckled.
    “That’s not amusing, Rawlings,” the stout man snapped.
    “Well,” the jaunty one said, smiling, “I don’t believe Donald’s share would have amounted to much, given the lack of success of the venture.”
    “Indeed, my lord,” Rawlings answered, “and thanks t—”
    Heavy footsteps approached from behind, and Kit jumped as hot wind breathed down her collar. She whipped around to find herself looking into the left eye of a magnificent black stallion, which gazed balefully back at her. The black’s rider sat looking at her with a mildly annoyed expression on his handsome face, his hands crossed at the wrists in front of him.
    “Do you know what a roof is?” Alexander Cale queried.
    “Of course,” she retorted, noting that the Earl of Everton had long, elegant fingers. Gambler’s hands, her father would say—but that didn’t explain why she found them so abruptly fascinating.
    “I would therefore assume you know the difference between being indoors and out of doors,” he continued in the same tone.
    She scowled at him, angry that she had allowed him to distract her so completely that she missed the rest of the conversation behind her. “I’m not a complete idiot, you know,” she snapped.
    Everton looked at her for another moment. “I did not think you were.”
    He kicked one foot out of its stirrup and held down a hand. With a sigh she stepped into the leather brace, swung up behind him, and wrapped an arm about his waist. His stomach beneath her hand was flat and hard, and she took a slow breath. He smelled faintly of cigar smoke and shaving soap, and she leaned forward a little to breathe him in more deeply. “I…was only bored,” she stated shakily, dismayed at what she was doing. She straightened, concentrating on acting like the male cousin she was supposed to be.
    “Obviously.”
    Her father had always insisted that the titled English were thin-blooded, ingrown, stupid, nasty creatures, but as the long-lashed azure eyes glanced over his shoulder at her, she thought that Alexander Cale must be an exception. There was nothing thin-blooded about his tall, lean frame, or about the way the muscles of his thighs played beneath his breeches as he brought the skittish stallion about with deceptive ease.
    “Where did you go today?” she asked, to break the silence.
    “Out,” he responded, kneeing the stallion and heading them back to the edge of the park.
    “Oh, how very exciting.”
    He chuckled. “Not particularly.”
    “Do we have to go back?” she asked, forcing a pleading smile. “Can’t you introduce me to any of your friends?”
    “No.” They crossed the lane to Cale House. At the foot of the front steps he handed her down, then slid to the ground himself as Conklin came up to take the black.
    “Are we going to Lady Sinclair’s soiree, at least?” Kit followed him inside and brushed at the new wrinkles her coat seemed to have picked up.
    Lord Everton stopped to look at her. “I am. You’re not going anywhere else today, Miss Brantley,” he informed her. “You will remain here.”
    Kit frowned. “But it’s so dull here!” she protested. He was making her task even more difficult than she’d anticipated—both by his