"Ryan went through a very public and ugly battle in his acquisition of Ore Industries a year ago. Devonshire and son, Lord Bathwick, no longer own the company."

Yet Devonshire had agreed to a betrothal between Ryan and Lady Gwyneth, she thought, recognizing that Lord Bathwick had not seemed pleased about that last night.

Like everyone else in London, Rachel had read the betrothal announcement in that morning's broadsheets-a titanic society event judging by the amount of space dedicated to the bride's pure blue pedigree. Ryan had stepped into a little fiefdom, worthy of his own growing financial kingdom. Last night, when she'd thrown herself at him and made such a fool of herself-he'd known there could never be anything between them.

"D&B is certainly a smaller firm compared to the worldwide giant, Ore Industries," she managed. "D&B must be of little importance to Ryan, now."

"Don't count on it." Johnny shook his head. "He still sits at the head of this board."

Johnny continued to lean both palms on the drafting table, and she returned to the diagram they had been discussing most of the morning. A flood had taken out the bridge near Rathdrum two years ago. The Irish division of D&B had received the contract to repair that bridge. Except that wasn't why she was there. "We have nearly finished," she said. "But the flooding will only be abated in the future with this levee. I want to be the one to build it. Not as the person who sits in the Dublin office and oversees the running of various departments, but as the project engineer for the job."

Johnny slanted her a glance. "It isn't done, colleen."

"I refuse to be a figurehead in this company any longer, Johnny." She was in no mood for lectures on professional protocol or anything remotely associated with the fact that she was a woman in a man's business. She'd spent years of her life in the field and auditing classes to complete the necessary mathematics, physics, and engineering requirements it took to become an engineer, and much more to understand the internal machinations of the company she'd inherited from her father. Rachel only knew that she'd staked her reputation and her financial survival on this entire venture.

"Hundreds of people are depending on me to put food on their table. I just need your approval to send it through the committee for funding."

"I don't have the authority to approve this. You know it as well as I."

"I don't know any such thing, Johnny."

"Ryan is the only one who can approve this as it stands. I can tell you, he won't."

She steeled herself against the unexpected urge to argue with him, for there was truth to Johnny's statements about women in the engineering profession, she reluctantly conceded. She could put Allan Marrow's name as the project head and send the report through the committee as she'd done on many occasions before. But she'd made many decisions about her life before coming here, wanting to take a stand on them all. Indeed, she was finished hiding behind the wall of perpetual anonymity when it came both to her proficiency as an engineer and her heart, believing that she and Ryan not only shared a desire to see Donally & Bailey thrive but something else as well. Something that had always been present between them from the days they'd been children.

She'd set out for London with an elaborate dream, wishful illusions to conquer the love of her life, never thinking that Ryan didn't feel even a miniscule drop of similar feelings for her. She'd danced with him like some belated Cinderella-only the slipper he held in his hand today did not belong to her.

"So be it then." She rolled up the top diagram, careful not to crease the fragile paper. She understood bargains made with the devil. She'd been making them for years.

"Will you tell me what happened last night?" Johnny peered down at her.

Her braid fell forward over her shoulder. "I don't know what you mean."

"When my brother takes me from a dance with my wife and tells me to go out to the terrace and make sure that you get to your hotel room for the night, it leaves me a little concerned, colleen."

Rachel's spine stiffened. Leave it to Ryan to come up with the worst possible rationale for her confession and think her foxed.

A steam whistle sounded from outside.

Rachel tipped open the blinds and looked out the window that fronted the drafting room. The D&B office sat off the bank of the Thames. In another month, the London climate would prevent the window from staying open, though the stench coming off the Thames was far less, now that the embankment had been completed.

The door in the outer office opened, and she heard the low mumble of voices.

"The painters are here," Johnny said, rolling up the rest of the papers she'd scattered over the drafting table and handing her the tubes. "You don't want to be here when they begin work."

"Are you leaving?"

"I don't work all the time." Johnny took his jacket from the stool next to hers. "Moira and the children are taking me to Lords for the cricket match this afternoon. Have you seen Mary Elizabeth yet?" He shoved his arms into the jacket sleeves.

She had wanted very much to see Kathleen's daughter, but she had not pursued the quest. Children in general made her uncomfortable, and that particular one scared her to death as much as the thought of facing Ryan again after last night.

"Brace up, colleen. Ryan may not even be home," Johnny said, lifting his satchel from the floor. "But you need to talk to him about the project. Not me."

She let go of an exhalation. "He probably wishes I'd just go back to Dublin."

Johnny turned. Wearing the dark coat, with his brown eyes and hair the color of Ryan's, he studied her briefly, as if unsure what to say. "The wedding will take place in October at Devonshire's estate," he said quietly. "I should have told you last night."

Rachel said nothing more. For that was that-as Memaw would say-the sound of her heart breaking as it crashed into a thousand pieces against her ribs. She hated weakness, especially in herself. She hated feeling like a shrew, when she went out of her way to be nice-at the very least not mean-believing in her heart that what went around in this world would come back around and smile on her with benevolence. Fate was indeed keeping score, but not in the way that she'd hoped.

Rachel remained on the stool, her skirts spread primly over her legs, her leather half boots moving in agitation beneath the hem. Ryan might not be interested in her-he might not even be able to abide her- but whether he willed it or not, as the daughter of an original charter member, she sat on the board of this company, and, for the first time in her life, she felt qualified to share in company decisions. He would have to accept her in that capacity at the very least. For she was not folding up and going away.

"You are reckless this morning, Mr. Donally."

"Indeed, Jacques." Breathing hard, Ryan tested the grip of his foil with a slice through the air, his eyes narrowed on the fencing master through the mesh of his mask. "Let's go at it again."

Two steps, he met the other man's riposte, the click of their foils the only sound in the glass studio. He'd been working out for over an hour. Tempered by his fickle mood, Ryan had awakened early, something he rarely did, especially since he'd returned to his country estate and not his London residence last night. He'd not fallen asleep until dawn.

Circling counterclockwise to his opponent, Ryan struck the other's weapon in a steady forward thrust. He had taken up fencing last year, as a way to alleviate the restlessness that seemed to be the driving force in his life. Jacques had come to him at the recommendation of Lord Ravenspur, his sister's husband.

Ryan moved with the agility of a man who had not yet lost his reflexes, countering with graceful steps. They went around the floor twice more before the Frenchman nicked him again, this time in the chest. "You are dead, Mr. Donally. I've skewered your heart."

Ryan snatched off the mask. "No, Jacques." He tossed the foil to one of his footmen standing at the glass doors. "That untrustworthy organ was skewered sometime ago." He removed the protective leather vest and accepted a towel from the other man's outstretched hand. Even with the glass doors opened to the cool air, sweat dampened his shirt and hair. Looking out across the expanse of rolling green yard that stretched to the woods, he drank from a pitcher of water a servant brought him.

"I understand a betrothal between you and Lady Gwyneth was announced this morning, sir," Jacques said, joining him by the window. "My congratulations. She is beautiful. I am envious, oui?"

Ryan slapped the towel around his neck, aware of an irritation he felt without quite knowing why. "Thank you, Jacques."

"Da!" A little girl's voice sounded from across the room.

His daughter's nanny could barely restrain the squirming three-year-old.

"You know your way out, Jacques," Ryan said. "I will see you again next week."

He walked across the vast room to greet his daughter. His knee-high boots clicked on the polished floor. Miss Peabody set down the wriggling ball of energy.

"I thought you would sleep the morning away." He swung his daughter into his arms, and, giggling, she flung her arms around his neck.

"She should not be allowed to sleep so late," Miss Peabody said.

Holding his hand against his daughter's baby-fine curls, he pressed his mouth against her hair. She smelled like sweet clover. "Has she eaten, yet?"

"No, sir. Boswell said you wished to take your meal with her."

"I wants to fish and ride my pony, Da."

Ryan looked over her head at the gray-haired nanny. "Was she coughing again last night?"

"No, sir. I left the door open between our rooms to make sure. It was my opinion that she should not

have been allowed to play so long outside yesterday, sir," Miss Peabody said pointedly to the elderly man who stood like a military sentry at the door. "But Boswell seems to have a difference of opinion on that matter."

"Were you ill yesterday, poppet?"

"It hurted, Da."

Ryan surveyed her face. "What hurted?"

Mary Elizabeth held up a finger, the single digit revealing the sore where a splinter had been removed last

week.

"Maybe I should throw that bad finger back where it came from," he said. "What do you think?"

"No." She laughed, her favorite word of late.

"We'll lunch outside." He glanced at Boswell, sure that his trusted valet of ten years would edify him with

a list of complaints against Miss Peabody the moment they were alone. "Pack her fishing pole," he said, handing his daughter to him. "I wish to have a word with Miss Peabody."

"Yes, sir, Mr. Donally. I'll see that Amy dresses the tyke for an outing."Mouth pursed, Miss Peabody remained behind. Ryan watched his daughter disappear around the corner.Still sleepy-eyed, she'd plopped a thumb in her rosebud mouth, her blond curls bouncing with Boswell'sgait.

Ryan turned to the nanny he'd hired only two months ago because he was told she was the most sought after in London. "I was informed that Mary Elizabeth woke up last night crying. When I came home, her room was dark."

"She's almost four years old, sir-""I don't care if she's forty. It's not so much trouble to leave a light in her room."The woman's chin lifted, but there was a noticeable set to her jaw. "She rarely wakes in the night when you are not here, sir."

Ryan didn't believe his daughter had nightmares because she wanted attention.

"Catering to her fears will only teach her to cry at night," Miss Peabody stated. "If you leave her alone,

she will learn quickly enough-"

"I pay you salary enough to see that you're a nanny, not a heartless taskmaster. I warned you once before she's always to have a light on in her room."

"Mr. Donally," his butler interrupted. Carrying a packet, he stopped behind Peabody. "A courier from D&B arrived and brought this. She told me that it is your mail."

"She?" Ryan took the packet, turning it over in his hand.

"Yes, sir. She is in the salon awaiting you."

Ryan wondered who the hell Johnny or Stewart would send over on a Saturday? Women weren't couriers. He thought of Mary Elizabeth waiting for him. "Pay her and send her on her way."

"I don't think she'll leave, sir." His butler's voice lowered discreetly. "She's not dressed like any courier. And she's...bossy."

"Jaysus." Ryan started to roll his eyes, aware that he was going to have to go downstairs.

The harsh rustle of taffeta betrayed Miss Peabody's intention to leave. Ryan turned, abruptly stopping her with a look. "Is there anything else, sir?" she asked.

"I don't care who you are, Miss Peabody. If you want to stay in this household, don't question my authority again. Is that clear?"

Her mouth sagged open to speak, but she only nodded, as Ryan turned on his heel and left her standing alone in the corridor to contemplate her future as his employee.

Coming to a dead stop downstairs in the salon, Ryan gripped the towel around his neck. Still in his shirtsleeves, he was clothed improperly for guests. He did not expect to see Rachel and, in any case, her own unchaperoned appearance in his home made his lack of dress irrelevant.

She sat with her back straight on a blue-and-white-striped settee. She had not yet heard his approach, and he moved into the airy room. The crystal lamp on the table next to her chimed a musical cadence to the air stirred by his movement and, as her eyes fell on him standing in the doorway, she rose to her feet in a subtle rustle of fabric.

A long moment passed as they considered each other in silence.

"And after six days of hard work, he retires to the country castle and rests." She smiled nervously.

"I think the official day of rest is the seventh."

"Since when have you ever done anything the official way?"

He cocked a brow. Now that they had gotten the initial awkwardness out of the way, Ryan assessed her more thoroughly. His eyes slid down her body. The virginal severity of her high-necked white blouse contrasted with her copper hair; barely tamed in a braid that ran down her back and touched her bottom. She looked primly spinsterish and free from the nonsense frills and frippery that the women he seemed to be acquainted with embraced in fashion. No one would ever find Rachel Bailey wearing feathers or waxed fruit. She'd always liked that about herself.

She thought herself sensible.

Sensible like the hen in the fox's lair, forbidden to him all his life. After last night, his first instinct was to

tell her to go away.

Yet he watched with a strange sort of possessive energy as her hazel eyes went over his belongings.

Artwork lined the richly paneled walls to the high ceilings. "Everything is still as beautiful as I remember."

She offered him a tentative smile.

He almost felt sorry for her-but not enough to put her out of her misery."Why do I get the feeling that you're following me around, Rache?""You've already shown that you aren't very good with apologies," she said, for lack of any articulate explanation to describe why she had thrown herself into his arms last night and kissed him. "I wish I could tell you that I was drunk. I wish I had been drunk."