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prisoner. And if he claimed her as his wife, what was to stop her from fleeing on the next boat to America or Canada or Italy?
    Besides, he wasn’t ready to open his past to public scrutiny—it might damage Max, who’d done so much for him, or put a stain on Manton’s Investigations.
    He needed to play this very carefully.
    Tucking his notepad into his pocket, he rose and went to the window, positioning himself where he might get a look at her before she spotted him, since presumably she would head right for her hostess.
    As if through a fog, he heard the butler announce her, and he turned to see a woman enter. For one heart-stopping moment, Victor thought it wasn’t Isa. Though the hair was the right color, the woman was too fashionably dressed. Isa would never have possessed the courage to wear such a vibrant red. This woman’s breasts were bigger than Isa’s had been, and she was a bit taller than he remembered.
    Then she bent to press the hand of the baroness, who hadn’t bothered to rise, and he saw the high heels of her half boots. The height came from those.
    But the trim, pretty little ankles were hers—he would recognize those anywhere. So when he heard her murmur, “Good afternoon, my lady, I hope you are well,” in a lightly accented voice, he wasn’t surprised that it was Isa’s—though her tone was more self-assured than he remembered.
    “My dear Mrs. Franke,” Lady Lochlaw said, “we have another guest for tea today, whom I thought you might like to meet. May I introduce my cousin, Mr. Victor Cale?”
    With her back to him, Isa froze.
    Good. He hoped he’d thrown her into a panic. He was looking forward to seeing her alarm at being caught, after all these years. Or better yet, worried about what vengeance the husband she’d betrayed might mete out.
    She began to turn toward him slowly, as if in a dream. He just had time to glimpse the porcelain skin, full lips, and other sweet features he’d found so compelling nearly ten years ago, when her gaze met his.
    To his shock, it was ablaze with fury.

2

    I SA WANTED TO throttle him. She’d known something was up when Lady Lochlaw, who didn’t seem to like her, had invited her for tea. But she’d never dreamed that the woman had somehow unearthed her worthless scoundrel of a husband!
    How dared he show up now , after she’d finally accepted that he would never return? She had a good life. She and Angus Gordon had built their jewelry shop into one of the preeminent ones in Edinburgh; she had friends who cared about her; and, most important, her daughter, Amalie, was happy and healthy and doing well at an expensive boarding school in Carlisle.
    Yet now, after years of abandonment, he meant to trample on all her achievements by insinuating himself into her life as her husband. As Amalie’s father.
    Oh, Lord, he could take Amalie away! It was his right under the law in every country. Especially if he revealed her part in the theft years ago.
    Though he could hardly do that without implicating himself, could he?
    Suddenly Lady Lochlaw’s words registered— May I introduce my cousin . . .
    Victor couldn’t possibly be related to the baroness. He was Belgian, not English.
    But what reason would the baroness have to lie about it? And as her sister had pointed out years ago, Isa didn’t really know much about the man she’d once been in love with.
    After a decade of parsing every interaction for clues to his real nature, she still didn’t. But the cold, calculating look in his eyes told her that he had known that she was here. He had come here specifically for her, curse him to hell.
    How had he found her? And how much did Lady Lochlaw know? Was Isa about to find her business concern compromised because the baroness had learned that she was living under a false name? Or worse yet, that her family had been involved in a crime?
    If he revealed that, Amalie would be taken from her for certain. Oh, Lord!
    She squeezed the reticule that held the