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unmarried,”
    “Pretty?” asked Race, sitting up.
    “Depending on taste.” Con suppressed an urge to growl a warning. “If you’re interested, treat her as a lady, because she is one. She’s niece to the local squire.”
    No need now to get into the more complicated matters of Susan’s parentage.
    To both of the men, he added, “If she asks any questions about me, don’t tell her anything.”
    Diego’s brows quirked, and Con saw mischievous curiosity flit across Race’s face.
    Damnation.
But there was no point hiding all of it. “I knew her years ago and she might be nosy. The important fact is that everyone here is involved in smuggling, and for the moment we’re going to pretend that it isn’t happening.”
    “Which it is, of course,” Race said, coming to full alert. “Hence the lack of servants in the house or horses in the stables. Fascinating.”
    “Remember, Race, we are for the moment blind, deaf, and very, very stupid.”
    Race subsided, giving Con a very ironic salute. “Sir!”
    “My lord.”
    Con turned sharply to see Susan walking toward him. He couldn’t help but stare. He’d not been surprised to see her in men’s clothing, even though he’d never seen her dressed like that before. He was shocked to see her in dull housekeeper’s garb.
    Affronted even. He wanted to tear off the ugly cap and starched fichu. To command her not to wear dark gray that stole the color from her face. The outfit almost did the impossible and made her ugly.
    He recovered and performed the introductions. He noted Race attempting to flirt and being frostily discouraged.
    Good.
    Zeus, could he sink so low as jealousy?
    She turned back to him. “We have simple food ready for you all, my lord. Where do you want everyone to eat?”
    Diego would normally eat with the servants, but Con didn’t want him where he might see smuggling activity. Smugglers tended to keep their secrets with a knife. “In the breakfast room on this occasion, if you please.”
    She nodded. “If you remember the way, my lord, perhaps you could take your party there and I will have the food served within moments.”
    She disappeared again, and that was the last Con saw of her for the night. Two maids brought soup, bread, cheese, and a currant pie into the breakfast room. On request they returned with tankards of ale to go with it. One was past first youth and plain, the other young, thin, and bucktoothed. Con wondered whether Susan saw him and his men as a bunch of seducers and had chosen the plainest servants.
    When they’d finished, he led Race and Diego upstairs, and found a steaming bath ready for him. By then he was almost too tired to care, but since coming home from Waterloo, he had tried never again to go filthy to sleep. He stripped, sat in the wooden tub, scrubbed briskly, and staggered off to fall into bed, asleep almost as soon as he was horizontal.

Chapter Four
    Daylight awoke him. He’d neglected to draw the curtains.
    Daybreak and birdsong—a very English awakening that he still savored every single day. He loved England with a passion built through all the days when loss of life and loss of England had rushed upon him. Perhaps if he could get enough of the true England he could heal.
    The England he loved, however, was the England of the gentle Sussex downs, of tranquil Somerford Court and pastoral Hawk in the Vale. It wasn’t this aberrant house on a heathy headland, haunted by madmen and criminals.
    He climbed out of bed, snarled back at the dragons, and walked naked to the small-paned window to look into the garden. At Somerford his room looked out into the garden, but beyond that lay the valley and a view for miles. Here, the garden was enclosed by dark stone walls. At least the walls were covered with ivy and other growing plants, and the courtyard even contained two trees. They were stunted, however, and a sense of enclosure, of limits, pressed on him.
    Such enclosure had doubtless been deliberate in a monastery or convent, but he had not renounced the world.