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bed.”
    “Thank you, sir, but in case Lady Crewe’s tidings require further action, I might wait. In the meantime, I’ll make some coffee.”
    “Bless you.” Silas strode toward the door. “I mightn’t sack you today after all.”
    Dobbs didn’t smile. “Most appreciated, sir.”
    Silas rushed downstairs and slammed into the drawing room. The family had an extravagant townhouse in Berkeley Square, but he preferred to rent rooms here in Albemarle Street where he could preserve a little privacy. Although if his sisters planned to stage more midnight invasions, privacy might be a thing of the past.
    “Helena, what the hell are you doing here?”
    “And good morning to you, too, brother.” She stood near the unlit hearth, tall, striking, stylish in her close-fitting black habit. Apart from the commanding Nash nose they shared, nobody would ever pick them for brother and sister.
    Silas dredged up a smile and sauntered across to kiss her on the cheek. “Is there some emergency?”
    She sank gracefully onto the sofa beside the mantel. “You might think there is.”
    He frowned. His mother and sisters occasionally involved him in small dramas, but he couldn’t recall anything worthy of a predawn visit. “Is all well with Mamma?”
    “As far as I know.” Helena set her riding crop on her lap and stared hard at him. “I’ve come to invite you to ride in Hyde Park.”
    “What drivel is this?”
    Grim humor twisted his sister’s lips. “Perhaps it is drivel, but I’m joining Caro in an hour.”
    “I don’t—” he began, increasingly irritated, but Helena interrupted him.
    “With Lord West.”
    “Hell’s bells,” he muttered, hands fisting at his sides as he prepared to thump his absent rival. When he raised his eyes, he read knowledge in Helena’s expression. “You know.”
    She shrugged. “That you’re head over heels in love with Caro? Of course I do.”
    He hated to think that he’d been so transparent—and that she might find his lack of success amusing. Helena’s sense of humor tended toward the black. “How?”
    “Because I know you, dear Silas. I’ve never seen you so careful with a woman. It’s rather touching.”
    His lips tightened. “You mock me.”
    She shook her dark head, topped with a high-crowned beaver hat tied with a fluttering violet scarf. “Not at all. I’ve always known you had a capacity for deep feeling—you show it to the family, but not to the rest of the world. Nice to see you’re not nearly as self-sufficient as people paint you. I guessed something serious was on the cards when no lady’s name has been linked to yours in more than a year. I fear you’ve become that mythical beast, a reformed rake.”
    He winced. “How dull.”
    Her laugh held the familiar wry note. “No. You’re growing up at last.”
    What in Satan’s name did one say to that? Fortunately Dobbs arrived with the promised coffee and saved him from replying. Silas snatched a cup and emptied it in a gulp, his brain at last starting to function.
    “She doesn’t know I love her,” Silas said when Dobbs had left.
    “No.” Helena lifted her red and gold cup from the table beside her and took a more decorous sip than he’d managed. “Despite ten years of marriage, Caro’s an innocent. She was so young when she was wed, and Freddie Beaumont never recognized her potential to be anything more than a rural wife. She’s clever, but she’s inexperienced in the wiles of wicked fellows like you. For all her wit and beauty, she’s a wide-eyed child in many ways.”
    “I want her to stay that way,” Silas said grimly. He refilled his cup and strolled across to stand beside the sofa. “She won’t if she falls into West’s clutches.”
    Helena regarded him with disfavor. “He’s no worse than you.”
    “He’ll hurt her.”
    Helena shrugged again. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. She’s not in love with him. It’s love that hurts, after all.”
    Silas forgot his romantic troubles long enough to