A few minutes later Caroline had her paper bird in her hand arid was regarding the rosebushes from the other side. "You are in dire need of pruning," she said aloud. Someone had once told her that flowers responded well to conversation, and she had always taken the advice to heart. It wasn't dif­ficult to talk to flowers when one had guardians like hers. The flowers inevitably compared quite favor­ably.

She planted her hands on her hips, cocked her head, and perused her surroundings. Mr. Ravens-croft wasn't the sort to boot her out while she was tidying his garden, was he? And Lord knew, the garden needed tidying. Aside from the rosebushes, there was honeysuckle that needed to be cut back, hedges that ought to be trimmed, and a lovely pur­ple flowering bush she didn't know the name of that she was convinced would do better in full sun.

Clearly this garden needed her.

Her decision made, Caroline marched back into the house and introduced herself to the house­keeper, who, interestingly enough, didn't look the least bit surprised by her presence. Mrs. Mickle was quite enthusiastic about Caroline's plans for the gar­den, and she helped her to locate a pair of work gloves, shovel, and some long-handled shears.

She attacked the rosebushes with great enthusi­asm and vigor, snipping here and trimming there, chattering to herself-and the flowers-all the while.

"Here you are. You will be much happier with­out"-snip-"this branch, and I'm sure you'll do better if you're thinned out"-clip-"right here."

After a while, however, the shears grew heavy, and Caroline decided to put them down on the grass while she dug up the purple flowering plant and moved it to a sunnier location. It seemed pru­dent to dig a new hole for the plant before moving it, so she surveyed the property and picked out a nice spot that would be visible from the windows.

But then she saw some other lovely flowering plants. These were dotted with pink and white blos­soms, but they looked as if they ought to be pro­ducing more blooms. The garden could be a delightful riot of color if someone would only care for it properly. "Those should also get more sun," she said aloud. And so she dug up some more holes. And then some more, just for good measure.

"That ought to do it." With a satisfied exhale, she went over to the purple flowering bush that had initially captivated her and started to dig it up.

Blake had gone to bed in a bad mood and had woken up the next morning feeling even worse. This assignment-his last assignment, if he had any­thing to say about it-had turned into a fiasco. A nightmare. A walking disaster with blue-green eyes.

Why had Prewitt's stupid son chosen that night to attack Caroline Trent? Why did she have to go off running into the night the very evening he was expecting Carlotta De Leon? And worst of all, how the devil was he supposed to concentrate on bring­ing Oliver Prewitt to justice with her running about underfoot?

She was a constant temptation, and an aching re­minder of all that had been stolen from him. Cheer­ful, innocent, and optimistic, she was everything that had been missing from his heart for so very long. Since Marabelle had been killed, to be precise. The entire bloody situation seemed to prove the existence of a higher power-one whose sole purpose was to drive Blake Ravenscroft absolutely and ir­revocably insane.

Blake stomped out of his bedroom, his expression black.

"Ever cheerful, I see."

He looked up to see James standing at the end of the hall. "Do you lurk in dark corners, just waiting to bedevil me?" he growled.

James laughed. "I have far more important peo­ple to bedevil than you, Ravenscroft. I was just on my way down to breakfast."

"I've been thinking about her."

"I'm not surprised."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

James shrugged, his expression beyond innocent.

Blake's hand descended heavily on his friend's shoulder. "Tell me," he ordered.

"Merely," James replied, removing Blake's hand and letting it drop, "that you look at her a certain way."

"Don't be stupid."

"I've many bad qualities, but stupidity has never been among them."

"You're insane."

James ignored his comment. "She seems like a nice girl. Perhaps you should get to know her bet­ter."

Blake turned on him in fury. "She isn't the sort one gets to know better/' he roared, sneering the last word. "Miss Trent is a lady."

"I never said she wasn't. My my, what did you think I was implying?"

"Riverdale," Blake warned.

James just waved his hand in the air. "I was merely thinking that it has been quite some time

since you've courted a female, and as she's conven­iently right here at Seacrest Manor-"

"I have no romantic interest in Caroline," Blake bit out. "And even if I did, you know that I will never marry."

"Never is a very strong word. Even I don't go around saying I will never marry, and Lord knows I have more reason to avoid the institution than you do."

"Don't start, Riverdale," Blake warned.

James stared him hard in the eye. "Marabelle is dead."

"Do you think I don't know that? Do you think I don't remember that every single bloody day of my life?"

"Maybe if s time you stopped remembering that every single bloody day. It's been five years, Blake. Almost six. Stop doing penance for a crime you didn't commit."

"The hell I didn't! I .should have stopped her. I knew it was dangerous. I knew she shouldn't-"

"Marabelle had a mind of her own," James said with surprising gentleness. "You couldn't have stopped her. She made her own decisions. She al­ways did."

"I swore to protect her," Blake said in a low voice.

"When?" James asked flippantly. "I don't recall attending a wedding between the two of you."

In half a second Blake had him pinned up against the wall. "Marabelle was my affianced bride," he ground out. "I swore to myself that I would protect her, and in my view, that oath is more binding than anything sworn before God and England."

"Marabelle isn't here. Caroline is."

Blake abruptly let him go. "God help us."

"We have to keep her at Seacrest Manor until she's free of Prewitt's guardianship," James said, rubbing his shoulder where Blake had grabbed him. "It's the very least we can do after you abducted her and tied her to the bedpost. Tied her to the bed­post, eh? I should have liked to have seen that."

Blake glared at him with a ferocity that could have felled a tiger.

"And beside that," James added, "she may very well prove useful."

"I don't want to use a woman. Last time we did that in the name of the War Office she ended up dead."

"For the love of God, Ravenscroft, what will hap­pen to her here at Seacrest Manor? No one knows she's in residence, and if s not as if we're going to send her out on missions. She'll be fine. Certainly safer than if we turned her out on her own."

"She'd do better if we packed her off to one of my relatives," Blake grumbled.

"Oh, and how are you going to explain that? Someone is going to wonder how you came to be in possession of Oliver Prewitt's ward, and then any hope we have of secrecy will be destroyed."

Blake grunted in irritation. James was right. He couldn't let his connection to Caroline Trent be made public. If he was going to protect her from Prewitt, he had to do it here at Seacrest Manor. It was either that or turn her out. He shuddered to think what would happen to her, alone on the streets of Portsmouth, which was where she'd been heading when he'd abducted her. It was a rough harbor town, filled with sailors-definitely not the safest place for a young woman.