"I don't understand."

"Call it internal housekeeping. Offer Devonshire my terms one last time." Only a fool out of his mind with greed would turn down fifty thousand pounds when the average workingman might make a hundred pounds a year. "Should he choose to remain uncooperative, I've authorized Sir Boris to initiate proceedings to have him removed from the board at Ore Industries. We'll give Devonshire ten days to consider his future." Unlike D&B, Ryan nearly owned Ore Industries outright. His board was appointed.

"As your solicitor, I must caution you-"

"How long have you been married, Smythe?" Ryan slipped into his jacket and shrugged it onto his shoulders.

Smythe's British facade faltered. "Is that pertinent to your betrothal agreement, sir?"

"I am married, Smythe," he said, having told his solicitor very little of the events that had transpired in Ireland. "There can be no betrothal agreement, hence no contracts with Devonshire. He's fortunate I'm offering to pay him anything at all."

Smythe's eyes went wide. "You never joke, sir."

Smiling to himself, Ryan closed the button on his jacket. "Miss Bailey is my wife. And I will not allow her to become fodder for the scandal sheets."

"Fifteen years, sir. In September." Smythe adjusted his spectacles. "You asked how long I've been married."

Ryan gave Smythe the velvet box containing the ruby ring. "Happy anniversary," he said. "Here is wishing you another fifteen years."

"Your Grace?" The Ravenspur butler bowed over Lord Ravenspur, who sat at the end of the table finishing supper.

Brianna sat across from Rachel. Paying little heed to the conversation, Rachel stirred sugar into her tea, not realizing that it was her fourth spoonful.

She listened to the hall clock chime the hour of nine and stirred more sugar into her tea with each slow, rueful bong. The last train to the coast would be pulling out of the station. She set down her spoon and lifted the cup to her lips, only to be yanked from her languor. The butler was standing beside her, presenting her with a silver tray.

"You have a special delivery, Rachel," Brianna encouraged. "Better to take the package than drink that tea, I think."

A brightly decorated box sat artfully arranged on the tray's center. "For me?"

"It just arrived," the butler informed her, all but tipping the tray into her lap to get her to accept the package.

Nervously aware that both of their Graces were watching her expectantly, Rachel plucked the package

from the tray. "Thank you."

She stared at her name written on the card. At once, she recognized Ryan's bold script, and her heart began to race.

"Well?" Brianna prompted.

"It's from Ryan," Rachel said, aware that she was behaving like a complete noodle over a silly card, but

as her gaze traced the R in Rachel with its flourish of curves and curls, it dawned on her then; she'd never seen her Christian name written in his hand.

Their entire professional lives, she and Ryan had carried on their relationship separated by a buffer;

everything always filtered through secretaries and secondhand parties concerning some contract. They'd never corresponded on a personal level.

"Open it, Rachel."

"Brianna," Ravenspur said. "Maybe she wants privacy-"

Rachel tore the paper away and revealed a flat pearl case with a sturdy gold hinge. She flipped the latch, opened the lid, and stared in disbelief at the most beautiful, wonderful gift anyone had ever given her.

"What is it, Rachel?"

Tears filled her eyes. Finally, touching the beveled grooves carved into the gold filigree design that lay

atop the velvet, she lifted her gaze and laughed. Proudly, she turned the box to display its beautiful contents. "Drafting tools," she announced. "Have you ever seen anything so perfect?"

Neither Brianna nor Lord Ravenspur replied. Both of them were looking intently at the box. "I believe it

is a compass and divider set," Lord Ravenspur confirmed to his wife.

BRITISH ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARCHITECTS and the year 1863 had been engraved into the pearlescent lid.

"Not just any compass and divider set," Rachel said. Time and use had smoothed the edges of the box,

as it held her heart. "These are part of his personal drafting tools."

Inherently symbolic. A declaration of intent. Intrinsically romantic. For a man who never shared his toys.

Chapter 18.

"Y ou look as if you want to jump."

Rachel gasped. Her hand clutching the collar of her pink wrapper, she turned from her place against the colonnade, overlooking the Ravenspur gardens.

Lord and Lady Ravenspur were sitting at the stonework table. His arm was stretched across the back of the chair, his ankle resting on his knee. Brianna held a sleeping infant. The scene was so intimate and personal that Rachel felt at once the intruder.

"My apologies...I must have walked past you."

"This is our favorite time of the day," Brianna said, looking like some el?n princess in a high-necked lavender dressing gown. "Just as the sun rises over the trees."

Rachel turned her head. As if on cue, sunlight glittered through the branches and pierced the treetops. A

cacophony of birdsong began to ?ll the air. "They are a boisterous lot," Brianna said.

It had never seemed possible to Rachel that there could be any comparison between London and her home in Ireland, but the sunrise dispelled that notion. For thirty minutes every day, she loved them both equally.

It had been three days. Ryan would be in Paris by now.

Rachel turned and looked uneasily at Lord Ravenspur, trying to assess his mood. His gray eyes, nearly

blue in the morning sunlight, remained hooded from her appraisal. "I swear I only bite on occasion, Miss Bailey." One corner of his lips quirked. "This isn't one."

Accepting his mood as a positive sign, she approached the table and placed her hands on the back of the

chair. "I need to talk."

Lord Ravenspur sat forward. "Would you like for me to leave?"

"No," Rachel rushed to say. "You're the one with whom I need to speak, Your Grace." She sat in the

chair across from him. "Without sounding impertinent, I wish to ask you about something that is weighingon my mind. It's...important.""I'm sure if it wasn't important, you wouldn't ask," he said."What can you tell me about Lord Devonshire and his son, Lord Bathwick?"

His dark brows arched as he considered her request.

"I only ask...because you must know that Ryan has an extensive business association with Lord Devonshire himself." Among other things, she thought.

"Can you be more specific?" Lord Ravenspur.

"Are father and son estranged?"

"Since the death of Bathwick's mother some years ago, they've rarely been seen in public together. I do

not know if they are estranged."

"What manner of man is Lord Bathwick?"

"Not typical," Brianna interjected.

"Bathwick once tried to do something few of his peers would consider," Lord Ravenspur continued. "He

actually wanted to learn about the family business. Just after his mother passed away, he moved to Edinburgh to study mining engineering. Later, considering the learning of a trade abominable for a man of his son's rank, his father threatened the school's funding and had Bathwick removed from classes. I guess it's all right to sit on a university board of trustees, but another thing altogether to watch one's son mingle with the lower orders. Since then, Lord Bathwick has been a drunk and a fop, anything to get in the old man's craw."

"You know much."

His teeth were white behind his grin. "I know a great deal about many people."

Considering he worked in the intelligence branch of the government, Rachel wasn't surprised. Lord

Ravenspur leaned forward on his elbows. "May I ask why you want to know?"

Rachel stood. "I would rather that you not know my reasons for now."

Lord Ravenspur came to his feet. He was tall, his stance casual, but his gray eyes were hardened perceptively on hers. "Devonshire is not a man with whom to trifle. If he has done something..."

"Is he capable of hurting Ryan?"

"Lord Devonshire is a pompous ass," Brianna readily volunteered. The baby cooed, drawing her gaze. "A year ago, he tried to ruin Ryan."

Rachel's fingers tightened on the back of the chair. "I have just one more question, Your Grace." This one she asked as she exhaled in frustration. "Was Ryan sober when he signed those contracts with Lord Devonshire?"

Lord Ravenspur cocked a questioning brow at his wife as if to convey a similar riposte. "None of us believe so." Brianna agreed with a tug of her lips. "But he's begun to change these past weeks. Did you know that last month was the first time he ever allowed me to bring Mary Elizabeth to London? Not that I asked, but I did not suffer his overprotective temper. He still hasn't returned to the Church, but we think it's only a matter of time. Months probably...maybe even weeks."

Rachel folded her hands atop the back of the chair. "What would happen if a marriage did not take place between Lady Gwyneth and Ryan?"

"That's really a moot point. Don't you agree, Miss Bailey?" His Grace asked. "A marriage can't take place."

Appalled, Rachel looked between them both. "You know."

"The entire family knows," Brianna said. "Ryan told us weeks ago."

Rachel looked away. Her thoughts scattered into a hundred directions. "Then this has been one entire conspiracy from the beginning?"