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justice.
    Though it might also bring about his own madness if he didn’t take care with its execution.
    “He’s big, you know,” she said against the back of his neck, a steamy little burst of anger that leaped down his back and lodged itself in his groin, becoming a bolt of pure, hot, uncivilized lust for her.
    “So I’ve heard. Mumberton!” Charles was halfway down the stairway to the servants’ hallwhen the man appeared on the landing below. He stopped cold, his eyes saucer-wide.
    “Blazes, my lord! What have you got there?” Mumberton blinked quickly and then straightened his thin shoulders. “You can’t really mean to do this!”
    “Do what, damn it?”
    “Do…” Mumberton indicated Miss Finch’s wriggling derriere and Charles’s hand spread so possessively across it to keep her still and in place. “Miss Finch.”
    The woman propped her pointy elbows on the ridge of his shoulder and whipped around to Mumberton. “That’s Mrs. MacGillnock, if you please, Mumberton. And if his lordship tries anything at all, believe me, he’ll regret it—exactly where men most regret their injuries.”
    Charles was quite sure of her aim. Though, God in heaven, she was willowy and finelimbed. He could tell that easily through the flannel, warm flesh and scented invitations. But she belonged to another man—a cowardly bastard who sent out his wife to fight his battles. Still, she was a duly wedded and bedded bride. And he’d long ago made it a rule to stay clear of married women and their unpredictable husbands.
    “My lord, do you hear that? She’s a married—”
    “Yes, Mumberton, but she’s still shackled. I want the key.”
    Charles had always kept his private affairs away from the eyes of his household staff, but inrecent years he’d lost interest in those shallow dalliances, and had begun to yearn for something more. A wife. A child.
    Are you my papa, sir?
    “Put me down this instant!” The woman pedaled her feet and he staggered sideways, then caught his balance with his hip against the newel.
    “Hold still, madam. The key, Mumberton, before she wakes up the entire county.” Charles held out his free hand, but Mumberton was still staring raptly up at Miss Finch’s backside with a perfectly blended expression of scandalized horror and deeply male appreciation that Charles resented.
    “Keys, my lord? Oh, yes!”
    “Now, Mumberton!”
    Mumberton scowled, muttered beneath his mustache as he dipped into his coat pocket and drew out the key, then sniffed his dissatisfaction. “Here, my lord.”
    Charles grabbed the key and set the woman on her feet, but held fast to the appealing curves at her waist to keep her from taking off down the hall and into the night. “And make up the West Room.”
    “The lady’s staying here tonight?”
    “No, I’m absolutely not staying here, Mumberton.” Miss Finch fixed her fury on Charles and pointed a finger at him in a clatter of iron. “You said we had an appointment in the library.”
    “It’s two o’clock in the morning, madam. We’llsort this out tomorrow in the clear light of day.” When his head was less cluttered and the woman was wearing a decent gown and garments that would keep her from bobbing and swaying.
    “Oh, no, you don’t, Everingham! You promised to let me go home if I confessed. I’ve done just that and I’m not staying here another moment!” The lunatic woman gave a sharp yank to the side that would have sent her tumbling down the stairs if Charles hadn’t grabbed the chain between her wrists.
    “That’s enough, madam.” He stooped and hoisted her over his shoulder again before she could protest. “The West Room, Mumberton. And hurry.”
    Charles tightened his grip on her backside, which only intensified his irrational need for her, and took the stairs two at a time, not certain what he would do with her once he got up there.
    “I might have known all those rumors of your sins and your debauchery were true,