"All letters are placed in a basket expressly used to collect them. You may have noticed it. It is located on a table in the entrance hall, close to my apartments. There is usually at least one trip each day to Gillhollow, and whatever correspondence there is in the basket is taken at that time."

"Then anyone might remove a letter."

"I don't think that is very-" She stopped, realizing that West was making no accusation. It was merely an observation on his part, and one she should be willing to consider, rather than defend. "Yes," she said after a moment. "Anyone might do so."

"And letters that come to the students and teachers at the school? How is the post managed then?"

"It is brought directly to me for sorting. When I have removed what is meant for my attention, I give it to one of the teachers to make the appropriate deliveries."

"Brought to you by whom?"

"By whomever picked it up in Gillhollow."

"And that is rarely you."

It was not a question, but Ria confirmed his supposition. "Rarely."

"Then you do not really see it first."

"No, but-" Ria bit her lip, gathering her composure. She did not want to go where he was leading her.

"No. I am not the person who generally sees the post first."

West was not unfeeling of Ria's dilemma, but at the root of this lay what trust they had been able to nurture. If they believed that each of them had written to the other, then some explanation for the disappearance of the letters was necessary. For Ria to place her full trust in him meant accepting that she had been betrayed by someone else.

"Tell me about the letter I did receive," he said. "Miss Taylor's drawing of Sir Alex... how was it posted?"

Ria stared at her glass of sherry, thinking back. "I put it in the basket... No, I gave it to Mr. Dobson, who was collecting the letters from the basket."

"Then it did not have opportunity to be seen by anyone else."

"No. He took the post immediately to Gillhollow."

"And it arrived here." "Yes."

"And none of your other post did. Nor any of mine to you. Can we agree the failure does not lie with my staff or the post delivery?"

Ria took a large swallow of sherry and relished the warmth of it all the way to her stomach. "We're agreed," she said. "Someone at the school is responsible."

"Do you wish to suggest a name?"

"No. I cannot."

"I think we can eliminate Mr. Dobson as the culprit," said West. "Everyone else, I'm afraid, remains."

"I doubt it is Mrs. Abergast. I cannot recall the last time she elected to go to Gillhollow, and she almost never is the one to deliver the post to me. It must be someone else."

West finished his drink and put his glass down. "It is probably less important to know who than it is to know why."

Nodding faintly, Ria's fingers tightened around the stem of her glass. "Before I sent the drawing, there was another letter I wrote. Did you receive it?"

He tried to catch her eye but failed. "Yes, you sent it by express post."

Her slim smile was apologetic; she wished she had not asked the question. "Of course. I had forgotten."

She glanced up at him. "Then you know I'm not here because of a child."

"I know," he said gently.

Ria's eyes swiveled away quickly as she wondered at the hint of regret in his voice. Had she imagined it, or were his thoughts about a child as confused as her own? "My other letters to you... and yours to me... should we assume they were not only taken but read?"

"I think it is a safe assumption."

"I see." She hesitated, then plunged ahead in spite of her reservations. "You will probably want to know what sort of things I wrote to you."

"That would be helpful."

"I doubt it. You will not find it particularly edifying. It is more of what I wrote in the missive I sent with Sir Alex's portrait. I described the routine of the school and what manner of mischief the girls were devising. I believe I reported in some detail on the health of the teachers, the inclement weather, the success Amy Nash had at learning and reciting the 'quality of mercy' speech from The Merchant of Venice."

"Impressive."

"Yes, it was." She had not missed the mocking gravity of his tone but went on as if she had. "Amy is the youngest student ever to have learned the speech." "There was a reward, I hope, for such an accomplishment." He caught Ria's small, negative shake and came upon the truth in a flash of insight. "Aaah, she was made to learn it in penance for some bit of mischief."

"How did you know?"

West grinned with devilish charm. "How do you think I learned it?" He dropped to the cushion of the chair and stretched his legs before him, a posture that declared himself entertained. "What else did you write?"

As weary as she was, Ria was also not proof against this encouragement. "I informed you of Margaret and Tenley's visit. In fact, they visited several times, and I wrote in great detail of each one. I believe I lamented that our time together was so short."

"A great change, indeed. You were comfortable in Tenley's presence?"

"His attentions to Margaret were just as she would desire them, and he was in every way like an older brother to me."

"You put that to paper?"

"No." She pressed herself to be certain of that answer, aware again that her most private thoughts had been read by at least one other person. "No, I don't believe I did."

West nodded. "Did you inquire about my progress with Jane Petty?"

"Yes. In every letter."

"And you probably asked why I wasn't keeping you informed."

"Yes. Most of my questions had to do with Jane, but I also wondered why you did not tell me about the Gentleman Thief. I learned about his apprehension from Margaret and Tenley. There was also no news about Miss Parr. I thought I had given you offense in some way, or that you had reconsidered helping me, or perhaps you thought I had no interest in your friends. I did not know how to-"

West shook his head, interrupting her. "I wrote to you of the Gentleman and Miss Parr and more besides. Do you believe me?"

Ria believed it absolutely. "I do." She set her sherry aside and smoothed the folds of her dress over her knees. "I cannot like it that someone else has been privy to what was meant for me. Will you tell me what you wrote?"

"There was precious little regarding Jane, though Lady Northam confirmed for me that Sir Alex was indeed the gentleman who was with her at the dressmaker's. Jane is not, however, staying at his residence in town. Sir Alex also maintains a home that he uses to set up a mistress. There is no one living there now. It is disappointing, I know. You had hoped for there to be more."

She nodded. "And what of the rest that you wrote?"

"The rest?" he asked. "I'm afraid I did not stray far from expounding on a single theme." "Oh? That is unlike you. What theme?"

"Marriage."

Chapter Thirteen.

"Marriage?" Ria had to swallow hard to dislodge the word from her throat. "Were you advocating or opposing?"

"I was proposing."

This time Ria did not try to force a response. She came perilously close to gaping at him.

"I see that you are not prepared to answer the question I put to you in every one of my letters." Before she could give any indication that this was true, West stood and turned his back on her. He drew a short, steadying breath. "It is just as well," he said, striding toward the bell pull. He gave it two sharp tugs. "I have gone about the thing badly. It deserves a prettier speech, even if I am to be rejected." Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Ria was hardly yet recovered. She looked paler now than at any time since she entered the room. "When did you last eat?" he asked. "Did you make the journey from Gillhollow in two or three days?"

"Three," she said, shaking off her torpor. "And it does not matter when I ate last. I am not hungry. But I should like to know if you have a pretty speech at the ready."

"No."

"Will you not say it plainly, then?"

"Will you marry me?"

"That is plain."

"I believe I mentioned that." He regarded her closely, but for once Ria's thoughts were shuttered from him. "Well?"

"No," she said quietly.

"That is also plain."

She nodded, her smile slightly rueful. "I think I should like to hear the prettier speech."

"Of course." West opened the door to his valet's knock. "Rouse Mr. Blaine. I want a light repast for my guest. I will also need a cab that can take Miss Ashby to the residence on Oxford Street. Make certain the driver is not deep in his cups and gives a good accounting of himself. Mrs. Corbell should accompany her and see that everything is made ready there." Ria started to protest, but West stepped into the hallway and gave the last of his instructions to Finch there. When he reentered the room, Ria was visibly resigned to him having his way.

"I did not think you would send me away," she said. "I suppose that was foolish of me."

"I am not sending you away. I am sending you away for what remains of the night. You cannot stay here.

There is no suitable chaperone, and you are familiar with the house where the duke lived when he was in town. I have not cared to make it my own home, but there is no reason you cannot stay there. In the morning I will send a letter around to Lady Northam. I think she will be willing to accompany you as necessary so that we may meet without rumor attaching itself to us."

"You are my guardian. There is no reason I cannot be alone in your company."

"Rumor knows no reason. I have heard so much idle talk taken as fact among the ton that it would fill all the betting books in London if it were recorded. It is necessary to look no further than Eastlyn's coil to be certain of the truth of it. The gossips had it for months that he was engaged, and where did that set him but squarely before the altar?"

Ria raised one eyebrow. Her tone was wry. "I hope he was happier about the turn of events than you seem to be."

West gathered the threads of his patience. "I am not unhappy about it, but as you are the one set so intractably against marriage, I am honor bound to put the consequences of rumor before you."

"That is very good of you, but I sincerely doubt my presence in town will be noted."

"I think it will. There is a reception in Colonel Blackwood's honor tomorrow evening. The East India Company and certain very happy members of parliament are thanking him for his assistance in raising support for the Singapore settlement. It is East's tinkering, of course, that made it possible, but the colonel is ultimately responsible and will accept the accolades that East cannot. I should like it if you would plan to attend."

Ria blinked. "Has finding Jane Petty interfered with your receptions and galas and musicales?" She saw a muscle jump in West's jaw but went on without pause. "I suppose that you must honor your obligations to go to such events, but I cannot see that I will have a free moment to do the same. I must prepare for the governor's meeting three days from now and do whatever I can in the meantime to locate Jane. I thought that you-" She broke off when his glance became so sharp she thought it might cut her.

"Go on," he said. "Say it all."

"I thought that we would search together. I came here with that uppermost in my mind. Even without knowing about the missing letters, it was clear to me that we were found out. Mr. Beckwith did not say as much, yet I cannot ignore the odd nature of his visit to the school. I thought you should know before we are in the meeting together. It could be awkward at best, calamitous at worst."

Ria took a deep breath. It shuddered through her upon release. "I apologize for intruding upon you. You may well comprehend now that I didn't know I was unexpected. I wrote. I knocked. And I can find my own way out. The hack has probably already been summoned." She was halfway to her feet when he ordered her to sit. "I am your ward, Your Grace, not your subject." She straightened, her chin coming up in the same motion, and started off in the direction of her cloak and gloves. "In the event you decide tooffer marriage again-and in the event I decide to accept-know that I am unlikely ever to be a biddable wife."

West felt as if all the air had been driven from his lungs and the last vestige of reason pounded from his brain. He stepped in front of the door when she approached and blocked her exit. "Until I recover my wits," he said, "a show of force is all that is left to me."

"Have the courtesy or good sense to step aside."

He didn't move.

Ria laid her cloak across her shoulders and began to put on her gloves. "You are being ridiculous."

"Quite possibly. You will perhaps not credit it, but it does not disturb me in the least. I will also have my say, Ria, and you will listen."

In her agitated state, Ria was finding it difficult to manage her kid gloves. She pulled on them with clumsy fingers, stretching the leather, cursing softly under her breath when they would not settle smoothly over her hands but twisted uncomfortably instead.

West enclosed Ria's hands in his, stilling them in a sure clasp. When she looked up at him, bewildered and uncertain, he gave her benefit of his most steady reassurance. He meant to have his way, and he meant her to know it.

"Will you detain me at the point of your knife?" she asked.

"If it comes to that, yes." He squeezed her hands gently. "Sit with me, Ria. Please."

She nodded once. Her sense of loss was quite real as he released her hands and guided her to the bench. He removed her cloak and waited patiently for her gloves, then he placed them on the chair he had occupied so he could take his seat beside her.

"You have said a great deal that I must answer," West said. "It is difficult to know how to begin."

Ria waited, offering no encouragement for him to begin at all. She wanted nothing so much as to leave.

"I see," he said softly. "You feel I have betrayed you, then. It is understandable. I am also finding it difficult to reconcile that we are not to blame for the lack of letters between us. I find myself thinking that if you had written more often, another letter would have slipped through. I think I should have written daily, hourly, then perhaps you would have received one and known something of my thoughts.

"Do you know I grieved because we had not made a child between us? No, don't say anything. Let me say it all. I grieved, true, and at the same time I was glad of it. I could not brook the thought of you bearing my bastard child, nor did I have the stomach to force a marriage upon you that you did not want.

You know it is not my way to try to convince others that I am in the right of any matter, yet I broke with my own beliefs and began a campaign to convince you that marriage would suit. I described all the benefits of marriage, the reason it exists, the purpose of sustaining it, how it brings a certain order to society and security to a family. I wrote that you would not find me intolerable as a husband, that I would settle your inheritance on you so that you might always have control of it. I knew it would be important to you not to abandon the school, and I offered my assurances that you could involve yourself in its operation, even as my duchess. It occurred to me that your influence might be more widely felt in thatposition than as the headmistress, so I set out to persuade you of the same.