LITMIR.BIZ

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were searched, on the off chance she was thrown from the coach when the horses bolted, but there was no sign of her. I was away at school—both my brother, Jeremy, and I—and we only heard about most of it in letters from our parents. But the late earl’s brother, Thomas, now the eighth Earl of Witham, spared no expense in searching for her.”

      “Or so you heard,” Caroline broke in, pointing a finger at him, so that he noticed, not for the first time, that the nail was badly bitten. For all her show of bravado, for all her seemingly thick hide, the girl must have some vulnerability to fall prey to such a nervous habit. “Continue,” she ordered imperiously, so that he had to struggle to suppress a smile. “How long did the new earl search? Did he soon call it off so that he could enjoy his new position?”

      Yes, the girl was smart, perhaps too much so for her own good—most certainly for his. “The new earl and his wife and son were devastated by the tragedy, and had the full sympathy of the neighborhood. There was a rash of arrests in the succeeding months, and many a highwayman hung in chains from gibbets up and down the roadway, although not one of them would admit to having taken Lady Caroline. But the murders had been committed in October, and with the coming of winter and several heavy falls of snow, hope for finding the child began to fade. In the end, there was nothing to do but assume that she was dead.”

      “For fifteen years,” Caroline said, as if speaking to herself. “Yet you came searching for her—and found me. Why?”

      Morgan abandoned his chair to move to the window and look out over the darkened inn yard. How much of the truth would he have to reveal in order to put an end to her questions?

      He turned to face her, wishing her rather exotically tilted green eyes weren’t looking at him so closely, wishing that she didn’t look so vulnerable beneath her atrocious clothing and overlong mop of unruly dark blond hair. She was little more than a child, yet she had seen more in her few years than most old men. Could he, too, now use her and then discard her, as society discarded its orphans, and still live with himself?

      “I met a man recently,” he began, deliberately tamping down any further misgivings about what he planned to do. “He was dying and made his last confession to me, including the admission that he had been involved in the disappearance of Lady Caroline. His last wish was for me to find her and return her to the bosom of her family, in expiation of his sin.” He smiled, spreading his hands wide as if to bestow a blessing on this dead sinner. “How could I, as a God-fearing Christian, refuse?”

      Caroline looked at him levelly for some time from across the dimly lit room, then shook her head. “You’re lying,” she pronounced flatly. “Or, at the very least, you are not telling me all of the truth. But it doesn’t really matter, I suppose. I’m out of Woodwere, and Aunt Leticia, Ferdie, and Peaches are with me. I don’t need to know why you want to use me, as long as you keep your promise to take care of my friends.”

      “Oh, so you noticed my reluctance to adopt those three sterling characters, did you?”

      “I would have had to be blind as a cave bat not to,” Caroline returned, grinning. “They’ll be nothing but trouble, you know, even if they mean well. Except for Peaches, of course. She’ll be after your silver, bless her heart. So why did you? Adopt them, that is.”

      That was a good question. Morgan, smiling thinly, squashed the cheroot into the tin dish holding a small candle. It had cost him a good deal of blunt to convince Woodwere that he could deal without Haswit and Miss Twittingdon, and he felt certain—as their relatives never visited anyway—that the director planned to continue to collect fees for housing them. “As soon as I have an answer for you, imp, I shall race hotfoot to report it to you.”

      She uncurled herself from the chair and stood, tilting her chin at him defiantly. “You just do that, my lord. We made a bargain, you and me, and I’ll see that you stick to your end of it.”

      Morgan stood and executed an elegant leg. “I am your servant, Lady Caroline,” he said mockingly, then added as he straightened, “although there has been one small alteration to my plans. I had not really counted on finding you—for from this moment on you are to consider yourself the true Lady Caroline—and my plans were more slapdash than well thought out. I cannot take you and the rest of our traveling freak show to Clayhill. It’s too dangerous, as I wish to keep your discovery private until I have groomed you sufficiently to take your place in London society.”

      Caroline pulled a face, her mobile features turning mulish. “Aunt Leticia has been preparing me for my come-out for over a year. I know how to behave. I even know how to eat turbot.”

      “My felicitations, Lady Caroline,” Morgan returned affably, watching as she scratched an itch on her stomach—an itch that probably signaled the existence of a family of fleas that had taken up residence in her gown. “However, Miss Twittingdon’s undoubtedly comprehensive instructions to one side, I fear I must insist upon some further education in the ways of the ton. To that end, and because my father no longer moves in society, either in London or here in Sussex, I have decided to move directly to The Acres, his estate. There we can prepare you for your reunion with your relatives without them immediately locking you up somewhere as a disgrace to the family name. Now, are there any more questions, or may I bid you a good night, my lady?”

      Caroline looked at him through narrowed eyes, then quickly snatched up another apple from the wooden bowl. “I think I understand everything now,” she said, her grin once more turning her into a scruffy wood sprite. “Good night, my lord. I look forward to seeing your father’s house. Is Mr. Clayton as arrogant as his son?”

      “There is no Mr. Clayton, my lady,” Morgan told her, deciding to begin her education. “My name is Morgan Blakely, and I am the Marquis of Clayton, among other, lesser titles. My father’s name is William Blakely, and his most senior title is that of his grace, Duke of Glynde. Do you think you can remember that?”

      “If I’m ‘well recompensed,’ I suspect I can remember anything—and forget anything just as easily. Miss Twittingdon didn’t teach me that, but Peaches did,” Caroline said, then skipped out of the room, closing the door behind her, leaving Morgan to wonder if, this time, his revenge, his planned retribution for an unpardonable sin, was truly worth the bother.

      And to wonder why Caroline Monday’s intelligent green eyes pleased him so—on a level much more personal than thoughts of revenge.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      It is impossible to please all the world and one’s father.

      Jean de La Fontaine

      CAROLINE SAT COMFORTABLY on the soft leather seat of Morgan’s closed coach, enjoying the unfamiliar feeling of having her stomach filled with good food. She had been eating almost constantly since driving away from Woodwere, and warranted that no single ambition in this life could be loftier than to continue filling her belly at regular intervals until she was as immense as a wheelbarrow and rocked from side to side as she walked.

      Not that she believed she would get that chance, certain that she would soon be sent on her way. She had seen the marquis briefly this morning as they all exited the inn, before he climbed on his beautiful bay horse, vowing he would not ride inside with the four none-too-sweet-smelling additions to his entourage while he retained a single sane bone in his body. He had said much the same yesterday, Peaches had told Caroline, while the two of them were traveling to Woodwere, a statement that just proved that the marquis was “too high in the instep by half.”

      But it wasn’t his desertion, riding ahead to The Acres and leaving the coach to follow along as best it could, that had forced Caroline to conclude that her introduction to polite society was still no closer to becoming a reality than it had been in Miss Twittingdon’s room as that lady taught her the correct way to curtsy to the Prince Regent. No, it was more than that.

      Morgan Blakely, Caroline had decided, had spent the night adding up one side of his personal ledger with the benefits to be had from declaring Caroline Monday to be Lady Caroline Wilburton, then deducting the drawbacks to such a scheme on the other side. Peaches, Aunt Leticia, and Ferdie—who

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