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Hall. Papa will be in alt.” Then the excitement drained from her face as her mother studied the fringe on her shawl. “You do not intend to tell him, do you?”
    “Not yet. I cannot. You know how he would wrap me in cotton wool. You are doing it already. And he would insist on coming with me to Dubron.”
    “As well he should. We will all go, of course.”
    “No. That is why I shall not tell him until the summer. You and he must stay in London and find you a suitable husband.”
    “Oh, Mama, what is a husband to your new baby? I can always find an eligible parti in Yorkshire.”
    “What, among your father’s tenant farmers? Those are fine men, I am sure, but they cannot offer you the life you are used to living. And I refuse to have you dwindle into a perpetual aunt, like Lady Ann.”
    Thoughts of turning into a replica of her acerbic aunt did not appeal to Torrie, either. “Then next year. I’ll meet the perfect man next year.”
    “When I shall be less able to escort you to town. No, you needs must wed this year, and before the ton discovers my condition. Think, darling, if I have a son, you will no longer be such an heiress.”
    “Fustian. I have Grandfather’s fortune.”
    “But not your papa’s greater wealth.”
    “Fine, then I will have fewer fortune hunters dangling after me.”
    “You will have fewer gentlemen from which to make your choice. Poorer men can make good husbands, but they would never dare approach you if they cannot keep you in style. No decent man would, at any rate.”
    Torrie could see the sense in her mother’s reasoning. “Still, I would rather be with you!”
    “Bringing your beaux along with you? Filling the house with lovesick swains who are not in your league? No, dearest. I want the peace and quiet of my gardens. I thought to hold your children in my arms next, not a babe of my own. I wish time simply to relish the notion. You and your father will do fine here for a few months. And your aunt is wise in the way of the world. She can guide you in choosing a mate.”
    “Aunt Ann thinks all men are philanderers or fortune hunters or fools.”
    “Good. That will balance your father seeing them all as prospective sons-in-law.”
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Chapter 6
    So Torrie wrote the note to Lord Ingall, asking him to call in the morning. She wanted to thank him, she told herself and Mallen, when she asked the butler to see her message delivered that evening. Of course, she did. The man had saved her life. But she wanted to take a good look at him, too. She recalled dark hair and skin, but that may have been the soot and smoke. She recalled a hard chest and a firm, muscular grip, and that could not have been buckram wadding. She recalled feeling safe and protected—and that she could not have felt in a rake’s arms.
    So was Lord Ingall a hero or a hell-raiser? Was he the best man to have in a crisis, or the worst to have as a life’s companion—or both? She could forgive his history for, as her father had said, the past was past, and years had separated the viscount from a hey-go-mad youth. She could tolerate his ostracism from the haute monde, if her father’s efforts at getting a pardon from the prince did not remove the blot on Ingall’s name. With the viscount’s reputed wealth, he would be accepted in any other social circles, and Torrie enjoyed country life. She thought she might enjoy travel, too, if his business or sheer wanderlust took him abroad again, so that was no strike against his lordship, either. But his mistresses ... Ah, his mistresses.
    Concubines, odalisques, dockside doxies—the journeying peer must have seen them all, and known them all. Could he be content with one woman, one wife, one partner? Torrie could accept no less. What if she grew to love him? Would she have to watch him spread his affections among the demi-monde, or among her own acquaintances, with other noblemen’s wives? That would be a living hell, indeed. She had seen ladies of the ton pretend their