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Miss, you must not, it isn’t seemly.”
    “And is it seemly for a man to ignore his duties to a dead friend, to tell a fourteen-year-old girl who has just lost everyone dear to her that she should go back to an inn to spend the night and then talk to his estate manager? I may be unseemly, but I am not wicked.”
    She walked toward the main corridor leading off from the Great Hall, shouting again, “Cleybourne!”
    Down the corridor a door was flung open, and a man stepped into the corridor. He was tall, with an unruly mop of thick black hair and eyes of nearly as dark a color. His cheekbones were wide and sharp, his jaw firm and his cheeks hollowed. He was dressed in breeches and a shirt, his jacket and cravat discarded, and his shirt unbuttoned at the top. He glowered down the hallway at Jessica.
    “What the devil is going on out here? Who is making that racket?”
    “I am,” Jessica replied, walking purposefully toward him.
    “And who the devil are you?”
    “Jessica Maitland. The one whose message you just flung back in her face.”
    “I am sorry, Your Grace.” The butler hurried toward him, puffing.
    “Never mind, Baxter. I shall take care of this myself.” The man swayed a little, putting a hand up to the doorjamb to steady himself.
    “You’re bosky!” Jessica exclaimed.
    “I am not,” he disputed. “Anyway, the amount of my inebriation is scarcely any business of yours, Miss Maitland. I am still not at home to every hopeful debutante who passes through with her harpy of a mother and hopes to put up at my home. Ever since that fool Vindefors married the chit who put up at his house after an accident, every grasping mama in the Ton has tried to emulate her.”
    “I have no idea what you are talking about,” Jessica said impatiently. “But it has nothing to do with me or my purpose here, as you would know if you had listened to what your butler said.”
    The man’s brows soared upward. Jessica was sure he was unused to hearing anything he said or did disputed, given his rank. “I beg your pardon,” he said icily.
    “As well you should,” Jessica retorted, purposely taking his words in the wrong way. “Miss Carstairs and I have had a long and difficult journey, and it is entirely too much to be told to take ourselves off to an inn at this hour of the night.”
    “Some might say that it is entirely too much to expect a stranger to take one in at this hour of the night.” The duke crossed his arms, glaring back at her. “And who in the bloody hell is Miss Carstairs?”
    “She is the daughter of a man who thought you were his friend,” Jessica replied. “So good a friend that he named you her guardian.”
    His arms fell to his sides, and Cleybourne stared at her. “Roddy? Roddy Carstairs? Are you saying that Roddy Carstairs’ daughter is here?”
    “That is precisely what I am saying. Did you not get my letter? Or have you simply not troubled yourself to read it?”
    He blinked at her for a moment, then said, “The devil!”
    He turned around and strode back into the room from which he had emerged. Jessica followed him. It was a study, masculinely decorated in browns and tans, with leather chairs and a massive desk and dark wood paneling on the walls. A fire burned low in the fireplace, the only light in the room besides the oil lamp on the desk. A decanter and glass stood on the desk, mute testimony to what the duke had been doing in the dimly lit room. On the corner of the desk was a small pile of letters.
    Cleybourne pawed through them and pulled one out. Jessica’s copperplate writing adorned the front, and it remained sealed. He broke the seal now and opened it, bringing the sheet of paper closer to the lamp to read it.
    “I will tell you what it says. I am Miss Carstairs’ governess, Jessica Maitland, and her great-uncle, General Streathern, passed away a few days ago, leaving her entirely orphaned and still underage. As you were named in her father’s will as her guardian if her