Hunter drew a deep breath through his nose and made an attempt to relax the tight knot of muscles between his shoulders and calm the sick rolling in his gut. He wasn't going to lose his temper. He was not going to begin issuing unreasonable orders just because Kate had once again once again put herself in danger. This time by questioning a known smuggler, whom she'd once had a put herself in danger. This time by questioning a known smuggler, whom she'd once had a tendre tendre for, and who for, and who still still had a had a tendre tendre for her, and who now expected to meet her at dawn so that they might exchange money for illegal goods and- for her, and who now expected to meet her at dawn so that they might exchange money for illegal goods and- "What the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l were you thinking!"

Very well, he was going to lose his temper.

She shifted her weight and gave him a hopeful smile. "That the information might be of use?"

It was, but that wasn't the point. "I ordered you to avoid Lord Martin."

"And so I have, at every opportunity," she countered. "There was simply no way for me to do so in the parlor. Not without giving him the cut direct in front of a room full of people, and I thought it best to avoid that sort of attention. The rumors that would have resulted-"

"I also ordered you not to try your hand at charming information from him."

"Strictly speaking, you said it was too much involvement. You never explicitly forbade it."

The knot in his back grew tighter. "That is-"

"Also, what I did wasn't so much charm as goad." She shifted again. "Strictly speaking."

He bent his head to catch and hold her gaze. "I am ordering you, explicitly forbidding you, from doing anything, speaking to anyone, or going anywhere that has to do with the smuggling operation unless you do so under a direct order from me. Do I make myself clear?"

That, he a.s.sured himself, was a perfectly reasonable order.

Apparently, Kate did not agree. "You're being unreasonable."

"I'm not."

"You are."

"I'm..." He wasn't going to let the argument disintegrate into a childish string of accusations and denials. But b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, if she had made herself a target...

"I am not. And And," he was quick to interject, "if we continue on in this vein, we'll never get around to deciding what's to be done with the information Lord Martin gave you."

She pressed her lips together as if to physically restrain her tongue. Her eyes narrowed. She took a deep breath through her nose. And then, apparently, she caved.

"You are."

He wanted to laugh. Despite the anger and fear, and the considerable amount of energy it took to keep both under control, he wanted to laugh at that one monstrously stubborn comment.

"You are the single most bullheaded individual I have ever met," he informed her and watched her lips twitch. "Are you quite through?"

"That depends."

"On?"

"On whether you made that order simply because you're angry I managed to obtain in five minutes what you and Whit could not in days."

That hadn't occurred to him. Though now that she mentioned it, it was a trifle embarra.s.sing. And he could certainly understand why she'd wonder. He could also see her bringing it up in an effort to shift the focus of blame from her to him. At a guess, he would say it was a little of both.

Taking her hand, he drew her to a chair, and then picked up another to set it close enough for their knees to almost, but not quite touch. He wanted to be near her, but not so near as to be distracted from his purpose.

"My purpose in issuing orders is not to spite or punish you, Kate," he told her as he took his seat. "My primary mission, you'll recall, is to keep you safe. My methods may be different, but I am no less determined than Whit to keep you from harm."

"Is...is that all this is to you? A mission?"

He couldn't help himself, he reached out to brush the backs of his knuckles along the soft skin of her cheek. "You know better."

She gave a small nod, and he let his hand fall away.

Her hands plucked at a ribbon on her peach skirts. "It's only that...you've asked nothing of me in this investigation but to watch the staff."

"I'd have asked you to search the house as well," he reminded her.

"You'd have asked me to re-search the house," she corrected. "It's not quite the same."

"It's only been a matter of days."

"I know." She sat back in her chair with a small huff. "I hadn't intended on goading information from Lord Martin. But he was there. there. Right there and it was so easy. And to have to endure his company and Right there and it was so easy. And to have to endure his company and not not have him speak of the one thing that interests me about him was more than I could-" have him speak of the one thing that interests me about him was more than I could-"

"I know." He remembered well the long hours in town with Lord Martin.

"He's not at all suspicious, I a.s.sure you."

"You can't know that."

"I can," she retorted, frustration creeping into her voice. "I've known him longer than you. He's really not at all clever."

"I'm inclined to agree." He blew out a long breath. "An entire barrel of brandy at five in the morning?"

She nodded. "Oh, and he said something else. He said..." She scrunched her face up a little in thought. "That I couldn't breathe a word to anyone because it wasn't his secret to tell." She relaxed her features again. "That's odd, isn't it?"

"Very."

"What are we to do next?

He gave her a hard look. "I meant what I said, Kate. You do nothing else in this investigation unless I specifically-"

"May I at least offer suggestions?" she cut in with a roll of her eyes.

"I would welcome them."

"Then I suggest you and Whit investigate Smuggler's Beach tonight."

"Thank you," he drawled. "But there is a possibility these particular smugglers use a different beach. Unlikely, if Pallton House is the base of operations, but possible."

"But you will go to Smugglers Beach?"

"Yes."

"And I suppose it would be too dangerous for me to come along and-"

"Yes." Absolutely yes. The very idea made his gut began to roll again.

She sighed and nodded. "Pity."

He waited for another argument, or at least a spot of wheedling. When it wasn't immediately forthcoming, a sliver of unease ran up his spine.

"You're being very sensible about this."

She frowned at him. "What did you expect me to be?"

"Insensible."

"How flattering."

He eyed her suspiciously. "You're not agreeing so readily because you plan on following Whit and me, or sneaking down to the beach on your own in the dark?"

"That beach?" she said, taken aback. "Certainly not. Why ever would I do such a thing?"

"For the adventure."

"That wouldn't be an adventure. It would be an unmitigated disaster." She gave a delicate snort. "A midnight walk down a rocky slope to a smuggler's beach, when I can barely walk down a well-lit hall without tripping over my own skirts?" She pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, sometimes I can't can't walk down a well-lit hall without-" walk down a well-lit hall without-"

"If you knew it was foolish, why ask to come?"

"I didn't," she countered, "not to the beach. I had hoped you'd tell me it would be safe enough for me to take a lantern to the bluffs and watch from a safe distance."

"I see...It's not."

"Wouldn't have been able to see much at any rate," she commented absently, studying him. "You truly expected me to be foolish about this, didn't you?"

"I don't recall using the word foolish. But you are stubborn, and you are impetuous. The combination gives me some worry."

"When you cease being charming, you cease altogether," she grumbled. "Stubborn, I'll grant. But I'm not impetuous."

"Really?" he drawled. "I recall you arriving at Suffolk last year, having raced across the country on horseback to warn Evie of danger-"

"I didn't go alone alone," she cut in. "Whit, Alex, and Sophie made the trip as well."

"But you would would have gone alone," he guessed, "because you're impetuous." have gone alone," he guessed, "because you're impetuous."

"I'd have gone alone," she corrected, "if I had no other choice. Evie was in danger. Would you expect expect me to ignore a loved one in danger?" me to ignore a loved one in danger?"

He expected she'd fight to the death for those she loved. But while he admired that about her, he had no intention of encouraging it. "You searched Pallton house and the grounds on your own."

"That wasn't impetuous. The amount of time it took to talk Mirabelle into it alone qualifies it as having been well planned."

"You arranged a rendezvous with a smuggler, and possible traitor, at night, not twenty minutes ago."

"At dawn," she corrected, for the sole purpose of irritating him, he was sure. "And it isn't impetuous to take advantage of an opportunity."

"It is when it's an opportunity to put yourself in danger."

"Of Lord Martin," she said with a humorless twist of her lips. "I think perhaps you are are as overprotective as Whit." as overprotective as Whit."

The disappointment in her voice made him uneasy. The hint of anger made him defensive, which in turn made him uncomfortable. "You can't very well expect me, or anyone else who cares for you, to idly sit about while you blithely stroll into danger."

"Stroll?" She sat up in her chair slowly, her anger becoming quite evident. "Blithely?" "Blithely?"

"There are limits," he tried to explain. "You have limits. You may not always be willing or able to recognize the full extent of them, but-"

"I am not an idiot," she snapped, her blue eyes sparking. "I am fully aware of my limitations. I know I'm clumsy. I accept that I am very easily distracted, and do occasionally speak or act before thinking things through quite as well as I ought. I am not so foolhardy as to dismiss those limitations on a whim, or even fail to take them into account when considering a venture such as searching the house or goading Lord Martin. I can, and do, distinguish between calculated risks taken for the right reasons and tossing myself into peril for no reason at all."

"Kate-"

"You wish for me to understand and accept your desire to protect, but you'll make no effort to understand and accept my desire to not be so...so..." She shook her head, and her lips thinned into a line as she searched, obviously frustrated, for the right word. "So b.l.o.o.d.y well protected."

He felt his brows rise. Kate didn't swear. He'd heard every one of her friends curse at some point, but never once had he heard so much as a "d.a.m.n" from Kate.

"You don't swear." Not the most eloquent response he could have offered in that moment, but there it was.

"I just did." She rose from the chair and looked down at him with cool eyes, just as she had the first time they'd fought. "I may not always make the right decisions, Hunter, but it shouldn't be a.s.sumed that I'll never make any but the wrong ones, nor be unable to weather the consequences should I do so."

With her speech concluded, she spun on her heel and left the room.

Hunter watched her go, equal parts baffled, frustrated and-and he'd suffer the tortures of the d.a.m.ned before he ever admitted it to Kate-just a little impressed. The woman was n.o.bility, through and through.

She was also thoroughly aggravating. What the devil did she expect from him, an invitation to single-handedly apprehend the smugglers at her leisure?

Well she'd have to learn to live with disappointment. He was a man, d.a.m.n it. His store of honor may have been limited, but even he understood that it was a man's duty to protect the woman he meant to make his wife.

She was being irrational. Unfair as well. She hadn't complained when he'd taken care of the business of the vase, had she?

That hadn't been done to protect her, a small voice in the back of his head reminded him, it had been done to charm her.

He ignored the voice and changed the subject.

He wasn't insisting he control every facet of her life, was he?

Not yet, the voice chimed in.

"She's too stubborn," he grumbled. That That at least, he couldn't argue about with himself. The knowledge that he was, in fact, arguing with himself had him dragging a hand through his hair. Arguing with himself, daydreaming about her nose, nearly letting himself be ravished on a ballroom floor-the woman was well on her way to driving him stark raving mad. at least, he couldn't argue about with himself. The knowledge that he was, in fact, arguing with himself had him dragging a hand through his hair. Arguing with himself, daydreaming about her nose, nearly letting himself be ravished on a ballroom floor-the woman was well on her way to driving him stark raving mad.

He wanted a drink. It was barely noon and he wanted a drink. He could add that to the growing list of unhealthy habits directly attributable to Lady Kate.

"Should've chosen a more biddable woman," he muttered.