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little disguise in no time.”
    “She’s hardly likely to give us away. She has her own secrets. What do you suppose she is—a runaway heiress? Maybe she’s the answer to my problems. After all, you’re the heir. I don’t have a feather to fly with.”
    Phelan glared at him. “Don’t count on it. She’s older than she looks, probably in her early twenties. And if shehad some convenient fortune, she’d hardly be racketing around Exeter, wearing someone’s castoffs.”
    Valerian yanked the dress over his head, glaring at his reflection. “Then who do you think she is?” he demanded, flinging himself down in front of his dressing table and staring at his reflection. He’d already shaved himself very smoothly indeed, and the careful application of makeup covered any incipient beard growth.
    “I don’t know,” his brother said. “But I mean to find out.”
    Valerian glanced up at him as he whisked a hare’s foot full of powder across his chin. “Are you planning to bed her?” he asked bluntly. “Is that why you brought her here? Because you wanted her for yourself?”
    Lesser men would have quailed before Phelan’s cold glare, but Valerian had never been afraid of his older brother. “Just because you’re wearing skirts doesn’t mean I won’t thrash you if you deserve it,” Phelan said in an even voice.
    “You could always try.” Valerian’s response was equally pleasant. “All right, so you acted out of the purest motives. What are you going to do about her?”
    “I haven’t decided. You refuse to leave England, and short of coshing you over the head and carrying you off, I’m stuck here as well. Without me, you’ll be staring the hangman in the face in no time.”
    “I can take care of myself!” Valerian shot back.
    “Why do people keep telling me that?” Phelan asked wearily. “With your hot temper you’d end up challenging someone to a duel, or something equally outrageous. I can imagine you storming back to Yorkshire and insisting thatLady Margery tell the truth. Something with which she has little acquaintance. If you refuse to leave England, so do I.”
    “I don’t want to stay forever,” Val said in a more conciliatory tone. “Lord knows I can’t wait to get out of these damned skirts. But running is so blasted cowardly!”
    “We’ll have to leave eventually,” Phelan said, apparently unmoved by his brother’s bitterness. “You’ll be expected to produce an offspring sooner or later, and that’s beyond even
your
acting abilities.” He leaned forward and tugged one of Valerian’s flaxen strands of hair. “Though you do make a lovely girl, brother,” he teased.
    Valerian batted his hand away. “A diamond of the first water,” he said wryly. “My nose is too aquiline, my mouth too big, my chin too stubborn, my chest too flat—”
    “And your feet too big. At least you’re fully as vain as any woman I’ve ever met,” Phelan said smoothly, and ducked when Valerian sent a perfume bottle hurtling in his direction.
    “You’re still avoiding the subject. What are you going to do with the girl now that you’ve brought her here?” Valerian persisted.
    Phelan shrugged. “Not what you’d do in my place, obviously.”
    “The more fool you, then. I wish you joy of her, though you don’t seem very appreciative of her subtle charms. I have better things to do today than watch you waste a lovely woman. I’m off for a round of morning visits.”
    Phelan frowned, but Valerian was unmoved. “Whom do you plan on visiting?”
    “Oh, I thought I might stop in at the Fowl and Feathers and see if Mowbray has some of that excellent brandy he’d be willing to part with.”
    “I imagined he does. The free traders are active in these parts, and I have no doubt Mowbray’s cellar is filled with finer French wine than we’ve seen in a decade.”
    “And then I thought I might stop in at Hackett’s Library and see if they have any new gothic romances.”
    “You don’t really