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scanned the rest of the letter and laughed. Only Harthorne’s sister would climb a tree to spy on the man she was obsessed with and fall on top of said man and the woman he was kissing. As usual, Colin tried to picture Harthorne’s younger sister but got no further than his friend’s long-ago description of the girl who looked like a skinny branch with two overly long knobby sticks for arms and legs and a mass of unruly pale hair on her head.
    His mood improved, picturing the girl, despite Harthorne’s ridiculous news of his impending marriage. As he recalled different stories about the sister, Colin chuckled, and even as he left to lecture his mother, he kept a tiny slither of that lighthearted feeling with which his friend’s young sister’s antics always filled him.
     

 
     

    St. Ives, Cambridgeshire, England
     
    Colin strode through the sunny portrait gallery of Waverly House with his mother’s butler, Fletcher, on his heels like a yapping dog.
    “Your Grace, Your Grace,” the man implored in a high-pitched voice tinged with the vibrating notes of unmistakable tension. “Please, Your Grace, allow me to announce you first. As I explained, your mother is in a meeting with Mr. Nilbury.”
    With a temper that had gone from a simmer to a boil with every jostling bump from his London home, Colin jerked to a halt, ironically in front of his father’s portrait, and swung around to demand the butler leave him be. Drops of perspiration slid down the man’s forehead as he puffed out short, gasping breaths. Colin clamped his mouth shut and heaved a sigh. He could feel his father’s gaze on him and hear his father’s words of wisdom. It was not this man’s fault that Mother’s idea of a business meeting with the solicitor had nothing to do with actual estate business and everything to do with her pleasure. Consequences be damned, as always.
    Determined to tread in his father’s unusual footsteps and treat the servants exactly as he would want to be treated, Colin clamped a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I promise you, Fletcher, I will ensure my mother understands I barged past you and there was no stopping me. You will suffer no consequences of failing to announce me, but if you feel you do, I will bring you to my home and make you head of all my servants there. Is this acceptable to you?”
    “Yes, Your Grace. Thank you.”
    Colin nodded, and with a sideways glance at his father’s portrait, he continued down the hall, leaving the problem of the butler behind him but not the hollowness he still felt from losing his father. Colin dismissed those emotions as he walked and focused on the strategy he’d use with his mother. He needed to get on the road to Norfolk to stop Harthorne from marrying Lady Mary, and the best way to cut through his mother’s lies in an efficient manner was to catch her in her lover’s arms. His gut twisted at the thought. He paused outside the closed parlor door and said a silent prayer that both parties were fully clothed. The last thing he wanted to do was find his mother in the nude―again―with yet another man. Once was enough.
    Carefully easing the door open, he stepped into the gold-and-green parlor. His chest tightened, and a surge of disappointment filled him. He wasn’t sure why, since he had expected the scene, but seeing his mother with her forehead pressed against Mr. Nilbury’s chest made Colin want to cross the room, rip them apart, and remind the man he had a wife at home. Damn it all.
    Long ago, he’d given up hope that she might change, but the sharp ache in his chest was unmistakably familiar to the pains that had plagued him when he had first learned of his mother’s dalliances.
    “It’s always so nice to see you, Mother,” he called while striding through the room toward her.
    She jerked her head up and swiveled to face him while Mr. Nilbury stumbled back a step, a deep flush covering his fat face as he gaped. Colin stopped in front of his mother and took