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cracking voice from behind him. Trevor turned to see the boy, Grady, running toward them. He sank to his knees at the woman’s side. “Ah, yer grace, what have you done to yerself?”
    “I am fine, Grady,” the Duchess said through cracked, dry lips. “Just bone tired.” She utteredall this without moving an inch, or opening her eyes.
    “Your grace!” Trevor turned to see Andrew Stuart mincing over sooty rags toward them. “What on earth happened?” He came close and turned questioning eyes upon the woman on the ground. The man gasped. “What is she doing here?”
    Trevor glanced down at the Duchess. She had opened her eyes, and now wiggled her fingers at Stu. “Hello, Mr. Stuart.”
    The lawyer stared at the woman in dismay for a moment, then turned on Trevor. “The woman is insane, your grace, you must not believe . . .”
    “I am not insane!” Sara yelled, her voice cracking and sounding terribly strained. She groaned and pushed herself up on her arms, then grunted and rolled about before Trevor realized that she was trying to stand. He leaned down and cupped her arms in his hands, helping her to her feet.
    They stood for a moment, very close, her hair sliding against his arm, her soft body against his chest. Then she moved away quickly and brushed at her hopelessly filthy skirts. “I own all of my wits, thank you very much.” Her gaze bounced between Trevor and Stu. They both stared back. Trevor took in her soot-covered hair standing about her head as if she had just seen a ghost and the torn dress and came to thesad conclusion that the duchess was truly a bit crazed.
    “It is all right, your grace.” He tried to take her arm, but she pulled it away and set her hands on her hips.
    “Duchess,” Stu said in a soothing voice. “Why did you not continue to Rawlston in the coach I hired for you?”
    “I had to get to the Duke!” she cried. “Do you not understand? Either of you?” She ran fingers through her hair, causing the mess to become even more tangled. “You sit here in your elegance with not a care, except which woman you will take to your bed this eve, and you give not another thought to your responsibilities!” She flicked a glance at Stu. “Both of you!”
    Stu clucked his tongue. “It bothers you to see money spent on luxuries, your grace?” The man pointed to the smoldering townhouse. “The townhouse bothered you, so you set it on fire?” He spoke as if to a child.
    “Oh!” Sara cried.
    “I set the fire!” Grady interrupted vehemently.
    “Shush, Grady!
    Stu’s eyes widened. He looked at Trevor, then shook his head. “’Tis a sad thing,” he said, under his breath.
    Trevor had to agree. He crossed his arms over his chest and stared at the luscious woman glaring at him. She was small in stature and perhaps a bit thin, but she certainly had some nice rounded curves. Unfortunately, the lovely package seemed to house a rather absurd person.
    With a sigh, Trevor thought of his nice little apartment in Paris, where no one realized that he had been saddled with a title—a dukedom, no less—the food was good, and the women were knowledgeable in all the ways to make a man completely happy. He missed Paris immensely and he had been away only two days. And it was all the fault of this woman, his third cousin’s widow.
    “Answer me truthfully,” he said to her. “Did you put this young man up to burning down my house?”
    Her lovely eyes rounded and her mouth opened, showing small white teeth, the two canine ones tilted slightly forward over the front, giving her a pixie look. He remembered running his tongue over them, and wished, for about the hundredth time, that she had truly been the whore he had thought her at first.
    “Of course she did not!” Grady interrupted then. “I told you, it was an accident.”
    “Hmm,” Trevor said.
    The Duchess rolled her eyes wearily. “Are you going to throw me back in jail, your grace?” Sarcasm dripped from her words.
    “I think we