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“Will ye
stop
it?” Rowena shot up so fast she knocked Lilias from her perch. She was still quick enough on her feet to keep from hitting the floor, despite her years, so she didn’t need the hand Rowena held out to steady her. “Will ye stop telling me I must go to him? I canna. Ye ken? I like him, I find him attractive, I
want
to want to, but when I get close to him, I just . . . I canna—”

Her breathing turned to gasps that ate up her words until Lilias could understand nothing but the panic within them. She clutched at Rowena’s outstretched arms and pulled her close, ran a hand in circles over her back and prayed the girl wouldn’t feel her shaking.

Ye’re a glaikit idiot, Lilias Cowan
. It was too soon, far too soon. Of course the girl would see nothing but Malcolm before her eyes when a man had his arms about her. “Ye’re right. Ye’re right, Wena. Forgive me. Ye’ve no need to rush, no need to pressure yerself. The horror and fear will fade eventually. His Grace will be patient.” She hoped. “There now. Breathe, lass. Breathe.”

It took an eternity, it seemed, for the gasps and shaking to ease. It left them both exhausted, but Lilias managed to get Rowena tucked into her bed for a rest and took her own in the form of drawing a hot bath for Rowena and turning her attention toward the evening.

The tasks that soothed her, though, didn’t seem to have the same effect on Rowena when she forced her through the motions. An hour later, as the lass sat before the mirror at the dressing table, she looked ready to run all the way back to Scotland.

Lilias withdrew the three evening gowns the seamstress had finished in time. “Which one,
a leanbh
?”

The endearment she hadn’t used since Rowena really was a “little one” earned her a brief smile. “You decide, Lil.”

“Well then. Not much of a decision.” She reached for the deep red that would bring out roses in Rowena’s cheeks and set off so perfectly the rubies—the only jewels she had at the moment, though the Nottinghams had promised her more as soon as they got to Sussex.

Rowena said nothing as she put it on, though it surely felt a far cry from any dress she’d donned before, aside from her wedding gown. She sat on the stool as if it were just another tweed skirt, not even looking in the mirror.

A cold draft whistled in through the window, but this time Lilias didn’t offer her a heavy wrap. She needed nothing in her way as she fetched the curling tongs from the fire and set about styling each lock, pinning it just so. Only once that was done did she reach for the jewels and fasten them around Rowena’s slender neck and wrist.

She stepped back and beheld her creation with a smile. Nora would be proud, if she could see her. So would be the Kinnaird, when next he did. “Stand up. Look at yerself, lass.”

Rowena looked as though she would rather slip it all off again and crawl back into bed. But she obeyed and slid over to stand before the full-length mirror in the corner. Eased forward and lifted a hand to touch the silvered glass.

“’Tis you, Wena. Here and now. And as ye were always meant to be.”

The girl shook her head. “That isna me.”

“It is.” Lilias joined her at the glass and rubbed her hands over Rowena’s chilled arms. “Ye were raised to be a countess, lass. An heiress, worth every bit as much as any of those women, if you care to tally worth in pounds and land. Ye’ve nothing to be ashamed of in their presence.”

Rowena’s gaze dropped, but Lilias had seen the moisture in her eyes. “I dinna care to though. And neither do they. They see only that Father’s a miser. Backwards. Backwater. They hear only how I speak, not what I say.”

“Aye, and what if they do?” Lilias gripped her shoulders and gave them a squeeze. “Ye’re a Highland woman. Daughter of the chief of Clan Kinnaird and the Earl of Lochaber. A heritage worth bragging about if ever there was one.”

For a moment, she thought it would pass right through Rowena’s ears as most of her other words had lately. But then the lass drew in a deep breath. She straightened her shoulders. And she turned, determined, toward the dressing table again.

Lilias stood back, at a loss as to her intention until she saw her pull the brooch from a box of trinkets. Then she clapped her hands together. “Aye, that’s the spirit. Let me help you pin it on.”

“I’ve got it.” Rowena moved back to the mirror, hands and eyes both steady as she fastened the tartan flower front and center, where the neckline dipped into a V.

Lilias nodded at their reflection. “Good lass.” She would have said more, but a knock interrupted. With a few steps and one hard tug on the door that wanted to stick, she let in the dapper-looking duke—who looked at his duchess as though she’d just stepped from the pages of a fairy tale.

Lilias gave Rowena a smile and slipped silently from the room.

Fragile
. That had been the word that had crowded Brice’s mind the past few days, whenever he spent time with his wife. She had a delicacy about her that had nothing to do with her slender frame or petite height. Something twined through her hesitant smiles and wary company. Something warning that one false move on any of their parts and she’d run away like a startled hare.

Brice smoothed his tie and wondered where that girl had gone. The one standing before him now radiated . . . beauty. Confidence. The softest kind of pride. His lips tugged into a smile even as his pulse kicked up. “You look stunning, darling.”

The girl standing before him, however, didn’t smile. She just regarded him with a cool detachment that said he’d made a false move somewhere along the line—but rather than run, she’d turned to ice. Regal as a queen, she waved a hand toward a chair near the fire. “I assume you came early because you have something to tell me. Something you could have mentioned before you brought me here, don’t you think?”

Blast.
He slid over to the chair and settled on the edge of the cushion, leaning forward to brace his elbows on his knees. “I’m sorry. I . . . you were finally emerging from your shell a bit, and I didn’t want to ruin it with talk of unhappy things.”

She didn’t fold her arms. Didn’t scowl. Didn’t so much as lift a brow. She just kept regarding him with cold, empty eyes. “A misstep on your part.”

Brice sat back, unable to avoid a frown. In high emotions, her accent thickened. Just now, it had all but vanished. “Again, I’m sorry. You’re right—I should have spoken with you sooner. What have you heard?”

“Not enough to make any sense of why we’re here. Perhaps you should just start at the beginning.”

He barely kept himself from passing a hand through his hair. “It’s Brook’s story more than mine.”

She muttered something in Gaelic. He paused, but when she didn’t translate, he decided he’d better just let it slide and keep going. “She was in possession of certain jewels, diamonds left to her by her mother. Given to her mother by a cousin, Major Rushworth. But apparently the major’s brother and their best friend—the elder Lord Pratt—expected to split the profits when the jewels were sold. When he instead gave them away, they were . . . angry, let’s say. Pratt was actually killed over it when the buyer learned he hadn’t the diamonds after all. So then Pratt’s son, only a child at the time, decided they were by rights
his
. His and the Rushworths’. And when his attempts to marry Brook to get at the jewels failed, he married our hostess instead—thereby increasing their share to two-thirds, with the remaining one for her brother—and he kidnapped Brook. He held her here at Delmore for several days before she escaped.”

The story had earned gasps and wide eyes all over England, though the most intriguing detail—that the jewels in question were the rarest diamonds in the world—had been kept from the press.

His wife didn’t bat a lash. “Was she privy to it? Lady Pratt?”

Brice held out his hands, palms up. “She says not, and there wasn’t evidence enough to arrest her after Pratt was killed. But I cannot believe she was uninvolved. She knew too much, and she married Pratt just days before he kidnapped Brook.”

Now she lifted her brows—and for the second time in their short acquaintance, he saw a bit of Lochaber in her. “Well, that certainly isn’t proof. It would seem husbands have no difficulty acting without the knowledge of their new wives.”

He winced and pushed to his feet. “I grant I deserve that, but they are hardly the same thing. He was plotting out a complicated crime. I am only—”

“What?” Finally, heat came into her eyes and the burr reentered her voice. “What has any of it to do with you? What exactly are ye here to do?”

At the moment, his careful plan looked foolish and impossible. What was he doing, trying to lure a coldhearted viper into attacking him? His every plan hinged on the basic assumption that she would make a mistake, and that he could have the authorities ready to catch her. But what if he was wrong?

And how was he to look his stranger-wife in the eye, knowing the danger she’d run from, and confess to that? On the other hand, how could he lie to her, when she was already furious, thanks to his silence?

He sighed and lowered his hands. “I was there when her husband was killed. Stafford and I were searching for Brook, and she found us—but Pratt did too. He was about to shoot at me when the constable intervened, shooting
him
. Catherine loved him. In her eyes, his death was my fault.”

She slid backward a step and to the side, putting another chair between them. The hands she rested on its back trembled. “I ask again, sir. What exactly are ye here to do?”

They were back to
sir
? Brice blew out a breath and half-turned away from her for her own peace of mind. “Nothing really. It is only . . . if I’m right about her, she’ll seek vengeance. And you know what they say about the best defense.”

She just blinked at him.

He motioned with a hand. “It’s a strong offense. If I can sound her out, figure out if and how she means to act—”

“This isna a game of football on the green! The best defense, when it comes to matters of kidnapping and murder and vengeance, is to be off the field!” She shook her head and retreated farther from him. “Ye must be daft to think otherwise.”

Maybe he was. Not just to think that Catherine might tip her hand, but to think Rowena could possibly understand, being tossed into the thick of it like this. He dredged up a smile. “Well, as you say. There’s no reason beyond my personal feelings on the matter to think she was involved. I’m as likely to find reason to put it all to rest, which would be a blessing.”

“But that’s not what ye believe. Ye think she has mischief or worse in mind, and yet here ye are, on her turf. And ye brought yer family with you.”

“She’s too smart to do anything at her own home, given what happened here before. The authorities have too close an eye on her.”

Her eyes went cold again. She turned and strode with stiff elegance to her wardrobe, reached in, and pulled out a wrap. Her face was as immobile as the statuary in Whitby’s maze when she returned to his side and rested her hand on his arm. “We had better go.”

“Rowena.” He covered her fingers with his. Even through her arm-length gloves, he could feel how cold they were. “I’ll not put you in any danger. You have my word.”

The eyes she turned on him, silver and compelling, didn’t warm. “You think me so selfish that it’s only
me
I’m concerned about? I don’t want to see you hurt, Brice. Or dead.”

“Really.” He grinned and led her toward the door. “Well now, that’s progress. At this rate, you may well be in love with me before our tenth anniversary.”

“Hmm.” She led the way into the hall but then, as he paused to close her door, surprised him by stretching up her toes and pressing a kiss to his cheek. Then again, perhaps it was just to put her mouth near his ear so she could whisper, “Only if ye’ve already fallen for me. I’m planning an ocean voyage when I win that wager.”

Teasing him—she was teasing him. He grinned and caught her fingers in his. “So long as you let me come with you.”

A cleared throat farther along the hall brought him around. The Abbotts were standing outside Miss Abbott’s door, watching them with unabashed interest.

Brice secured Rowena’s hand in the crook of his elbow and aimed the grin at his old friends. Abbott’s returning smile looked relieved. His sister’s was directed toward Rowena. “Look how beautifully it turned out! You look breathtaking, Your Grace.”

“Why thank you.” Brice drew his wife down the hall. “I do try to clean up well.”

Miss Abbott sent her gaze heavenward. “I don’t know how you mean to tolerate him for the rest of your life, Duchess.”

Rowena merely—thankfully—hummed. Brice covered it with an exaggerated widening of his eyes. “Oh, you were speaking to my lovely wife? I should have known. She certainly took
my
breath away.”

“Your dress is beautiful, Miss Abbott.” Rowena leaned across him to study it as they drew nearer. “Such detail in the embroidery!”

At the pride that lit Miss Abbott’s eyes, Brice smiled. “She is as talented with a needle as she is with a primer—and has long been putting her skill to use in making herself outshine the ladies in her company. You’ll have to keep an eye on her tonight, Abbott, or you’ll have gentlemen questioning you about dowries by tomorrow noon.”