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address her. I hope that you both arrived home safely?”
    “Perfectly, I thank you.” Alice shifted in her seat. This conversation was not going in the direction she had intended and she appeared to have no control over it at all. The clock chimed the quarter hour, reminding her of the fact that Miles had been there quite a while already. She really had to be rid of him soon. Even her mother, with her rather idiosyncratic views on chaperonage, would not tolerate a prolonged private interview. Everyone would be imagining that they were consummating a marriage in here, never mind arranging one.
    “I wish you would not call it housebreaking and…and theft!” she said, knowing she sounded guilty. “We were merely trying to help Mary.”
    “And very laudable, too,” Miles approved. “But still illegal.”
    “Then pray give the gown back,” Alice said, “and I will undertake never to come up with such a foolish plan ever again.”
    “I don’t suppose you did come up with it,” Miles said, once again showing a flash of perception that disturbed Alice. “This has all the hallmarks of LadyElizabeth’s rather wayward planning. She never was one to think matters through. Where is she this morning? I understand that she is staying here at Spring House with you?”
    “She has gone riding with Lord Waterhouse,” Alice said. “Now that Tom is imprisoned and she has fallen out with Sir Montague, Lizzie says the earl is the closest thing to a brother that she has.”
    She saw Miles’s firm mouth twitch into a cynical smile. “One hopes that she will wake up to the falseness of that notion before too long,” he said. “It is plain to everyone that she is in love with him.”
    There was an awkward pause. The sun had crept around the room now and was falling directly on Alice’s chair. The fire crackled and hissed in the grate. Alice felt very hot and bothered. She could not for the life of her see why Miles’s casual reference to Lizzie being in love with Nat Waterhouse should make her feel so uncomfortable. Nor could she see why it should remind her of Miles holding her fast against the wall the previous night with the shocking, intimate press of his lower body against hers. A sensation that was sweet and warm pooled deep inside her, making her want to squirm in her chair. The sweat prickled at her hair. She knew her face would be all red and shiny. It really should not be this hot in February. There was something quite disturbingly unseasonable about it.
    “I believe that Miss Cole is living here with you, too?” Miles asked, breaking the silence. He looked very cool and unrumpled, lounging in his chair. The sunlight struck along the clean, hard line of his jaw and lit his hazel eyes. It was strange, Alice thought, that for all his elegance he still looked virile and tough; the perfection of his tailoring seemed to emphasize rather than detract from that dangerous masculinity. For some reason, looking at him made Alice feel hotter still. She, in contrast to his coolness, felt like a crumpled rag and thought that she might spontaneously combust at any moment.
    “Yes, yes, she is.” Alice jumped to her feet. “It is very warm in here, isn’t it?”
    “I had not noticed it,” Miles said. “Miss Cole is well?”
    “As well as can be expected under the circumstances,” Alice said. “She prefers not to go into company.”
    “So she never sees anyone?”
    Alice shook her head. “Never.”
    She was always extremely careful of discussing Lydia’s situation. When Lydia had first come to live with her at Spring House the place had been besieged by scandal seekers come to gawk and gossip. Poor Lydia had hidden away in terror and Alice had been appalled by the visitors’ capacity for cruelty. It had been like a freak show with people lining up in the hope of seeing the disgraced, pregnant daughter of the Duke of Cole. These days Lydia seldom went beyond the garden and would sit reading for hours on end, or gazing