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devil’s own work.
    Which Forde had done, proving him a skip-brain, if not a lunatic, in her too obvious estimation. She bent to pick up the pitchfork, being careful not to let the gown drag on the ground.
    Hah! Now who was being blockheaded? One more handful of dirt was not going to make a ha’penny’s worth of difference to that garment’s demise. And Forde was not leaving yet. He had not settled his dressmaking debt, and he had not settled his mind about Gerald’s nuptials.
    “If your daughter is from home, perhaps I might speak with you? I shall not need much of your time.”
    Mrs. Cole looked at him in the same horror that Smoky had viewed the ghost. Forde could not tell if that was because she did not wish him and all his mud in her house, or merely him. “Please, until the rain passes.”
    She shook her head, sending droplets of dampness scattering. “I think you should call again when Susannah will be here. She will want to meet you, too, after hearing so much about you from your nephew. I can send word when she returns. You are lodging at the inn in town, I suppose? It is the only respectable place hereabouts, if you have not already taken rooms there. You really should get out of your damp clothes. At the inn,” she hurried to add, “where Mr. Roundtree will fix you a hot toddy. I am sorry I cannot invite you to stay here.”
    She sounded as sorry as a man who had won a fortune at the racetrack. Forde raised one eyebrow in a gesture that never failed to gain him respect and instant obedience to his wishes. This time the gesture won him a drop of mud in his eye. He reached for his handkerchief, which was as sodden as the rest of him, but looked at the back of Cole Cottage, as if counting the windows, and the bedrooms. “Oh?”
    “We are preparing for the wedding, naturally, refurbishing the guest rooms for Mr. Wellforde’s mother and sisters. They are at sixes and sevens right now.”
    Forde had no intention of staying the night here. Lud, sleep at the house of a poor widow with no chaperone in sight? He was liable to wake up as ensnared as Gerald. “I do have rooms at the inn, and my valet will have a hot bath waiting, but I would rather not ride back through the coming deluge. The roads were poor enough on my way here, and the livery horse is too excitable. We could have our conversation now, and I would not need to bother you on the morrow.”
    “Oh, I am too busy right now. Today is my handyman’s afternoon off, and I have a great many chores.”
    One of which seemed to be discouraging visitors. Forde was not willing to concede defeat—or to be dismissed like a lackey by a woman who kept chickens and wore a faded, moth-eaten cloak. Of course, she had been working in the barn.
    He looked in that direction. “I could help. And I would like to get my horse out of the rain.”
    Katie was standing there, getting colder and wetter by the minute. Her beautiful wedding gown was ruined, and this pompous, pea-brained peer was worried about his mount?
    “Your horse, of course, Lord, ah, Forde.”
    He smiled, looking not half as arrogant. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? Forde will do.”
    She did not smile back. “I am sorry, my lord, but there is no room in the barn, either. I use it for storage, and the hens. We keep the gig and our riding mares at Squire Doddsworth’s stable.” She pointed to a cart track that passed behind the barn. “It is a short walk to his property.”
    “Young Doddsworth was my nephew’s schoolmate, I believe.”
    “Yes, Squire’s eldest son, Roland. He fancies himself a Tulip, to his father’s dismay. He would adore seeing you if you choose to call there. After you see your valet, of course. Otherwise he will be sorely disappointed. And Squire will be also, to miss meeting Mr. Wellforde’s uncle.”
    The viscount agreed he should call there, to thank them for their hospitality to Gerald, unlike other of Brookville’s residents, who showed no such generosity at all. “You