“I’ll not hide in a hole like a frightened rabbit.” He shook his head. “Tony’s men have returned from Paris. Christos is not to be found there.”

“And the portrait found on the Sicilian who tried to kill you?”

“I haven’t an explanation. But Christos did not hire them.”

“You are concerned for him. For his safety,” Cam said, because he knew.

“Always.” He ran a hand around the back of his neck and released a hard breath. “When I saw him last, in December, we quarreled.”

“I assumed as much.”

“Did you?”

“I could not imagine another reason for you to accuse me of misusing a girl of twelve,” Cam said smoothly. “After our little conversation with swords, I wrote to your brother. He told me that before you found me in Paris you and he had spoken about Fletcher.”

“I asked Christos to return home with me.”

“He refused, presumably.”

“He said he had no wish to return to England or Combe.” He took a breath. “My reaction to finding you with the girl was a regrettable consequence of my . . . frustration.”

“Ah.” Cam tapped the crop against his boot.

“How is she?”

“My ward is well, thank you. She would send you her affections, I’m sure, but she is deathly afraid of you. Understandably so.”

“If you had shared with me that you had a ward for whom you were searching before I found you alone with her in a Parisian brothel, I might not have reacted quite so violently.”

“I daresay. What were you doing in that brothel anyway, cousin? Never seemed quite your style.”

“I was looking for you, of course. I hoped that since you were in France you might talk sense into my brother.” His scar ached. Both of them. “He hides here from the past, and yet I don’t think he remembers any of it, Cam.”

“Would that you did not as well.”

Luc met his cousin’s sober gaze. “I was a fool to have imagined even for a moment that you resembled Fletcher in any manner.”

“Ah, he finally apologizes.” He sighed theatrically. “What a tangle. And now you are blind because of it. But it cannot have been helped. The timing was unfortunate, and you are predisposed to protect the weak. You poor chivalrous fool.”

“Enjoying the speechifying, cousin?”

“Merely reveling in the freedom that my lack of concern for the good of others provides me.”

Luc pressed his mount forward. “Enjoy the chateau, Cam, if not the princess.” He spurred toward the village.

THE DAY WAS warm and the door of the dressmaker’s shop stood open. Luc halted upon the threshold, heart in his throat.

In the center of the shop she stood with her face turned away from him. She wore a gown of blue the color of the sea that caressed her subtle curves and exposed her neck and arms and the dip of her bosom. Her hair, cinched with a simple ribbon, tumbled down her back in waves of fire.

“Wear that on our wedding day, duchess, and make me the happiest man alive.”

She whirled toward him, her eyes wide. “Wedding day?”

He stepped into the shop. “A formality for the Church of England’s satisfaction only, of course. But it must be done soon. We depart today.”

“To—” She looked to the modiste. The woman’s brows were perked high, her attention eager.

Luc gestured for her to depart. She curtsied and scurried into the back room of the shop.

Arabella stood poised upon her toes as though she would flee momentarily. “You wish to depart for England today?”

He seemed to study her. “Unless it interferes with your travel plans.”

She pressed her hands against her waist. “You said that you would not stop me from going.”

“I said I would not allow my servants to lock you into the house. I said nothing of myself.”

“You will lock me in?”

“Of course not.” He walked toward her. The ruby and gold ring on its plain ribbon glimmered in the crevice of her bosom. “Did you intend to leave alone?”

“Yes. The princess offered me the use of her brother’s traveling carriage and the escort of a guard.”

“Ah. You concluded that you could not effectively escape me in my carriage. That is, your carriage.”

She said nothing.

He reached up and she did not flinch as he took the ring in his palm and studied it.

“Is it the man who gave you this costly trinket that you go to meet in Paris?” The words came from him without his will. “Is it he that draws you away in such haste?”

She did not respond at once. “If you imagine me capable of giving myself to you as I did last night while intending what you suggest,” she said, “then you have much to learn about me, my lord.”

She might have slapped him. He dropped the ring but could not move away from her. She bound him as surely as if she used lock and key. He could not outmaneuver her. He was moored securely.

“Why do you wish to run away to Paris, Arabella?” His heart beat hard. “What do you hope to find there that I am not able to give you?”

“A man.” Her hand wrapped around the ring and she held it tight to her breast. “But not as you imagine.”

“What do I imagine?”

“I have told you before what sort of woman I am, yet you do not believe me.” She backed away. “Tell me, my lord, is it my hair alone, the harlot shade of red, that convinces you I know nothing of chastity or constancy? Or is it my beauty? Or perhaps it is the immodesty I have exhibited with you. It would not make you unique among men to believe the worst of me. Rather, quite common.”

“I do not believe the worst of you.”

She met his gaze squarely and her chin tilted up in that manner that caught at his chest.

“I will be a good and dutiful wife. I will go with you to England and give you what you wish when you wish it. Upon my word your heir will be yours in truth.”

“I never imagined it would not be,” he managed to utter.

“Then why did you come here to stop me from going to Paris?”

Because he needed her. Because he could not allow her to come to harm. Because he felt insane—not with her but without her. Because for the first time in his life he felt truly unbalanced and that, perhaps, his brother’s madness was not unique, that he would succumb to it as well.

The delicate sinews in her neck constricted. She came forward, moved around him and out the door, leaving him with only the scent of roses and the hated, familiar biting pinch of helplessness.

IN THE MOST unremarkable manner, as though informing her of the weather, at the inn en route to the port Luc told her he would not share her bed. His wound, he said, troubled him greatly. It required more time to heal.

On the road to Saint-Malo he rode alongside the carriage she occupied with Mr. Miles and a maid. They dined alone at the inn, and he spoke to her with civility about the villages they had passed through and the port city to which they were traveling and at which they would await Captain Masinter’s ship to convey them to Portsmouth. After dinner he saw her to her bedchamber, bowed, and with a simple “Good night,” left her.

In much the same manner, they traveled the remainder of the journey to Saint-Malo. In the walled port city they awaited the Victory’s arrival before Luc’s impatience seemed to get the best of him. Mr. Miles informed Arabella that they would not wait for Captain Masinter’s ship, but that the comte had hired passage on a ferry. They would continue on their way to England in the morning.

They embarked early. By noon the sky had grown gray and by mid-afternoon the rain began. By dusk the ocean swells were lapping at the windows of the cabins belowdeck.

The captain of the little ship assured her it was a mild storm and that since the winds were holding steady they were making excellent time. Mr. Miles offered her tea that sloshed in the cup and ran over the table. He mopped up the spill, all the while telling her tales of gales of a much worse caliber that the comte had mastered easily.