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He’d only just met her. “Nothing,” he said, his voice clipped by years of concealing his emotions.
    “Is your hand bothering you again?”
    He almost laughed. If only it were that simple. Pain could be willed away. Fear could be controlled. Nothing could have prepared him for Lucy. Nothing.
    They completed the journey in silence. Lucy wondered if she’d said or done something to upset him, but for the life of her she couldn’t recall what. Their time on theroad had been almost magical, like those mornings when mist rose up from the ground and swirled about her feet, making her feel as if she walked upon a giant cloud. She hugged herself. Truly, she would treasure the memory of this trip to keep with her when he was gone.
    They rounded the bend of the road to her aunt’s house, relieved beyond words that they had finally made it, only to crash into Garrick’s back two steps later. She looked past his shoulder.
    The place was lit up like Vauxhall Gardens.
    “’Twould appear your absence has been noted,” he drawled.
    Anxiety made her voice tremble when she replied, “’Twould appear so.”
    And any hope that her absence
hadn’t
been noted was banished the moment Lucy opened the front door. Garrick was momentarily forgotten as she peeked inside, light spilling like milk onto the porch to illuminate the mellowed granite steps she had paused upon.
    She blinked, her eyes adjusting to the light, only to wish for the blackness to swallow her up again when she spied her aunt standing in the middle of the spacious hall. She leaned heavily on her silver-tipped cane, one foot tapping on the marble floor, an expression on her face akin to the look she wore the time Lucy’d been caught drawing eyes on the back of Lord Craven’s bald head. He’d fallen asleep, and she’d been unable to resist the smooth drawing board.
    She tried not to cringe. “Good eve, Aunt Cornelia,” she said after a very long and awkward silence.
    Her aunt’s eyes narrowed and Lucy recognized the look on her face. It was her I-do-not-trust-myself-to-speak look and it meant Lucy was in deep, deep trouble.
    Lucy’s feet felt as heavy as cannonballs as she slowly stepped into the foyer. When her aunt spied the costume she wore, her nostrils pinched together and then released, much like an enraged horse.
    It was perhaps fortunate that at that moment her Aunt Cornelia spied Garrick entering the hall, for she was positive that once her aunt found her tongue, Lucy’s ears were going to be scorched from the tirade that was sure to follow. She glanced back, deciding to try a diversionary tactic.
    “Ahh, Garrick, this is my Aunt Cornelia. Auntie, umm, this is Mr. Garrick Wolf.”
    “Garrick
Asquith-Wolf,”
he corrected.
    Strangely, Cornelia looked even more enraged when she heard his name. “My lord Cardiff?” she all but snapped.
    “At your service.” He bowed.
    Lucy turned to face Garrick.
Lord Cardiff?
Good heavens, the man she had kicked in the family jewels, the man who had cupped her chin and looked at her so kindly, was the infamous Lord Cardiff? The most famous rake in all the Royal Navy? How amazing. How … disconcerting. How utterly wonderful.
    Why, she imagined every virgin in the county had spun fantasies about the man, as she had, fantasies about what he looked like, what it would feel like to be held in his arms, always wishing he would make one of his rare appearances at a ball. He was a legend among members of the
ton.
He had scorned his title to fight for the king’s navy. But, heavens, he was no rake and he was twentytimes more handsome than her dreams had ever conjured.
    She glanced back at her aunt, only to cringe when she noted the dark scowl. Not surprising since his
lordship
was the sort of man any chaperone in her right mind would beat over the head with a club. Lord Cardiff was called “Wolf,” she suddenly remembered, and not because of his appetite for food. The thought brought her back to reality with a