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focused on the man she’d attacked.
    Like Ben, Somener was tall, well-built, and dark haired. Unlike Ben, he wore fencing garb, a salient fact she’d failed to notice in her earlier agitation. He was dressed in low leather shoes, snugly tailored trousers, and a short jacket with a standing collar and buttons down the side. The fabric was pale gray and heavy. Neither man, however, wore a face mask. If they had, Diana thought, she’d have realized at once that they were engaged in an épée bout and not trying to kill each other.
    “This is my fiancée, Diana Spaulding, Graham. I’d consider it a personal favor if you did not skewer her.”
    Somener had himself under control, but his icy expression was anything but conciliatory. Like Ben, he had a beard and mustache, but where Ben kept his neatly trimmed, Somener had clearly not visited a barber in some time. The result was an unkempt thicket that made him look less than civilized.
    “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Somener,” Diana said. Her voice came out as a tremulous squeak.
    “How did you get to Keep Island?” Somener demanded. “I told Captain Cobb no visitors. And the guard—”
    “Didn’t see me,” Diana interrupted. She swallowed convulsively. This was not how she’d imagined her reunion with Ben would go, or her first meeting with the wealthy recluse, Graham Somener. “Your captain did his job.” Gradually, her voice steadied. “I found alternate transportation. A boy with a small sailboat. I’m sorry to invade your privacy by coming here unannounced and uninvited, but it was imperative that I speak to Ben.”
    Ben’s amusement vanished. “Is everyone all right? Aaron? My—”
    She hastened to reassure him. “No one is hurt or ill.” She glanced at Somener, who was still regarding her with intense dislike and considerable suspicion. “May we speak in private? The matter is ... personal.”
    “This is Graham’s house, his island,” Ben reminded her.
    “Go wherever you want,” Somener snarled. “I need to have a word with my worthless excuse for a watchman.” The guard, looking astonished to see Diana, had just appeared at the edge of the lawn.
    “The parlor is quite pleasant,” Ben suggested. “Or the library.” He seemed to notice her dishevelment for the first time. “Or perhaps you would like the opportunity to freshen up?”
    “Why are there armed guards?” she hissed at him.
    “It’s a long story, but I can promise that no one will shoot you. Come inside, Diana. Put yourself to rights while I change my shirt and find my jacket. Then we can discuss why you came here.”
     
    A short while later, Ben watched Diana move away from the porch. From his window he had a bird’s eye view of more than half the island. She was easy to track as she retreated—a bright spot of red moving without much sense of direction through a landscape of artfully arranged shrubs and flowers. If she kept going, she’d probably end up on the promontory.
    Behind him he heard Graham stomp into the room. “Why is she here?” he demanded.
    “I won’t know that until I talk to her.”
    Graham came up beside him, his glower fading slightly as he stared at the rapidly moving female figure below. “Good-looking woman.” He sounded grudging.
    “Yes.” Beautiful, to Ben’s mind, with her wide-spaced blue eyes and her soft skin and that glorious mahogany-colored hair. But he loved her mind as well, and that quick, unpredictable, impetuous streak that so often led her into trouble. 
    “Can you control her?”
    “Yes.”
    It was simpler to reassure Graham and deal with Diana later, but Ben wished he’d never told his friend that Diana was employed by the Independent Intelligencer . The New York City scandal sheet had a bad reputation, well deserved in Ben’s opinion. He’d felt he should warn Graham that although Diana had given up reporting on theatrical gossip and on crime, she now intended to focus on interviews.
    It was her plan to write