Theo, who was studiously examining a likely piece to fit into the corner of Brighton's Royal Pavilion, looked up. "Oh, do, Mama. And tell Cousin Knight how much I accomplished in the library today."

"Do," Sam said. "Tell him I shan't draw any mustaches on anyone, including the pictures of the ladies."

"He'll be very relieved, I'm sure," Lily said and nodded.

"I'll go, too," Laura Beth said.

Mrs. Allgood smiled. "His lordship did request that you bring the children down so he could enjoy them, Mrs. Winthrop."

Lily agreed. There was nothing else to do. Sam and Theo were excited and Laura Beth was dancing a little jig, far too close to the partially assembled puzzle.

She didn't trust Knight. She imagined that Duckett had informed him of their visitors. And of the name by which they'd requested her.

"Oh, dear," she said. She looked at the boys. "Never," she said, "never tell a lie. It turns into a monster maze with more twists and turns than you can imagine. It doesn't end. Don't do it."

Theo gave her an odd look, but Sam, who couldn't wait to see his lordship, was already at the door.

"Let's go, Mama," said Laura Beth and lifted her arms.

Ten.

Knight stood in isolated splendor in the middle of the drawing room, waiting. He was dressed in evening garb, stark black and white, an impressive display, so Stromsoe had assured him earlier.

"You've the form, my lord," Stromsoe had said in an unheralded emotional outburst, "the form so, er, well formed to make gentlemen gnash their teeth in envy."

Knight had regarded his usually morose valet with some amazement. Then Stromsoe had ruined his promising beginning by quickly moving from compliments of his master to a whining diatribe about Sam's naughtiness-if indeed it was only naughtiness-to the inappropriateness of children in general in a gentleman's town house, to ladies who were widows who behaved improperly in his, Stromsoe's, view.

Knight had halted his monologue, harking back to Sam. "That painting would not have been hung even by the artist's doting mother. My ancestor was very likely blind, or possessed of execrable taste. It would only have helped had Sam added the mustache. In fact, I may yet let him do it. Now, Stromsoe, you will cease your complaints. Mrs. Winthrop and the children will be leaving Wednesday for Castle Rosse."

Stromsoe had looked as if he'd burst into happy tears at the news, or at least shout a few hallelujahs, and Knight wondered suddenly if he and all his servants had become so used to their placid, predictable existence that threatened change upset them inordinately.

Knight now looked toward the double doors, wondering what was keeping Lily and the children. He'd backed her against the wall, he knew, smiling at his strategy. With the invitation to the children, she would be forced to come. And that, he'd already admitted to himself, was why he'd returned home. He had truly intended to stay away until midnight at the earliest. He'd planned to visit the opera and take Janine, a lovely and large-breasted courtesan, to bed with him, but it hadn't happened. He'd been walking along, trying to enjoy the late afternoon, but had found his thoughts going to Lily. Always Lily. It was damnably porous of his brain to do this to him.

She was the only woman in his entire adult life who had made him lose control, who'd brought him to his knees. He'd behaved abominably. Had he continued his assault the previous night in the hackney, he wouldn't have given her pleasure, he would have hurt her. He'd been a savage, a barbarian, and he was appalled at himself. He didn't like it, not at all.

Damnation, he was a gentleman. He'd mentioned that fact to his brain on and off since the previous night, but it hadn't slowed the furious lust he felt for her, the instant and overpowering effect even her name had on him.

He'd known her for such a short time in the infinite scheme of things. His reaction to her was absurd.

He heard her soft voice just outside the drawing room doors and felt his body respond. He cursed, swallowed, and willed himself to indifference. All in all, a very tall order.

Sam bounded through the door and came to a panting halt six inches from Knight. "Sir, I'm sorry, truly, it wasn't Mama's fault, she stopped me and scolded me but good, and I swear I won't do it again."

Knight looked down at the worried little face that wasn't anything like Tris's face but nevertheless was becoming dear to him, and thought, I never wanted to protect my mother as much as he does. And she's his stepmother, not his real mother. "I never assumed it was your mother's fault," Knight said mildly. "It has all the earmarks of a Sam operation, not a Lily operation." Sam laughed, as Knight had intended.

"He won't do it again, sir," Theo said, coming up to stand beside his brother.

"Don't ever make assurances you have no way of keeping, my dear Theo. Given Sam's record, I shouldn't venture even one very small assurance."

"Oh, sir," Sam said. "I'm not that bad."

"You're probably a good deal worse," Knight said and then grinned, ruffling Sam's hair.

Knight looked up to see Lily, a wriggling Laura Beth in her arms. She wasn't dressed for the evening-he hadn't given her the time. But she looked so exquisite in her plain muslin gown that his heart ached. He wanted her, desperately.

"Good evening, Lily."

When she raised her eyes to his face, he had the overwhelming urge to grab her, throw her over his shoulder, and ride away into the night with her. Good God, he thought, appalled, if his sire could see him now he'd howl with uncontrollable laughter. And call him a fool, among other things, to confuse old-fashioned manly lust with something else, a something else that didn't exist except in the minds of weak females and between the pages of lurid romances.

"Hello, my lord."

He cocked an eyebrow at that formality but had no time to respond. Laura Beth was at his feet, tugging at his trouser leg. "Good evening, snippet." He hoisted her up and felt her thin arms go about his neck. She gave him a very wet kiss on his cheek.

"Yeck," Sam said. "Don't, Laura Beth. That's slimy."

"She's just a little girl and doesn't know better," Theo said and earned a sotto voce "Prig" from his brother.

"I brought them to see you," Lily said quite unnecessarily.

"Yes, I appreciate it. Now, all of you come over by the fire and tell me what you did today."

Lily hung back, watching the viscount with the three children, smiling at how each of them clamored for his attention. Laura Beth sat in marked splendor, quite like a little princess, on Knight's lap, while the boys took up positions on either side, both of them talking at once. She heard Knight laugh and slow them down.

She seated herself in a stiff-backed chair away from the group. I could have stayed gone, she thought, staring at the intimate family tableau. They wouldn't have missed me. They have him, they- "Mama," Sam called over to her, "what did you say the name of that thing was?"

Lily shook off the altogether silly thought. The fact of the matter was that she couldn't do without them.

"What thing, love?"

"Come here, Mama," Theo said, moving away from Knight. He patted the chair to the right of the viscount.

Lily walked over to them. She met Knight's eyes, and the look in them nearly undid her. Fierce and tender, all at once, and hunger-wild and gentle-again, both at once. She shivered, wondering how he could evoke such opposites together to such a devastating effect on her.

"Come closer to the fire, Lily."

She wanted to shout at him that he was the one making her quiver and shake and shudder, not the temperature of the bloody room. Instead she smiled.

"Now, my dear Sam, what thing are you talking about?"

"The thing I found behind that ugly chair in that awful green bedchamber."

Lily swallowed, her eyes avoiding Knight's. "I don't remember anything about that," she said very firmly. "Now what-"

"Of course you do, Mama. It was long and skinny and very old, you said, like something out of the sixteenth century. Cousin Knight wants to know all about it."

Cousin Knight realized at that point that this thing of Sam's was likely something forbidden and that Lily was covered with fear that he'd pounce on the lot of them for disturbing a precious family heirloom of yore. He said easily, "Tell you what, Sam, why don't you bring me this infamous thing tomorrow morning. We'll examine it together, just the two of us."

"Yes, sir."

There, Knight wanted to tell Lily, does that convince you that I'm not a monster?

Thirty minutes later, after the children, complaining and carping, were finally induced to go with Betty to their beds, Knight and Lily were seated in the formal dining room, she at his right. There was silence save for the sound of clattering forks and knives. Duckett was flanked by only one footman-Charlie.

"More rump steak pie, ma'am?" Duckett inquired.

"No, thank you, Duckett. I'm quite stuffed."

"On what?" Knight asked, eyeing her plate askance.

"I could say the same of you. You haven't given a thought to your roast suckling pig."

She was right, he knew, but all appetite had fled when she'd first come into the drawing room. Only an insatiable appetite for her filled his mind. He drank his wine, then dismissed Duckett and Charlie. When the door closed quietly behind them, he said abruptly, "Duckett told me about your visitors."

Lily froze, her fork suspended over a cold mound of mashed potatoes, and automatically began shaking her head.

"I see. So you wouldn't have mentioned it to me, would you? Just like the lady and gentleman in the park-you would have been protecting me? Or is it something else? You have a stained past, Lily?"

"No, how absurd."

"Duckett told me they had all the earmarks of thieves, smugglers, or even murderers." Knight paused for a moment, looked at her full in the face, and added in quite a grave voice, "He also said they asked to see Lily Tremaine."

Lily quickly looked away from him. She stared hard at those mashed potatoes. They didn't move. She forced an indifferent shrug. "It is odd, isn't it? I have no idea who they were. Duckett got rid of them. He's completely unflappable."

Knight rose and fetched the brandy decanter from the sideboard. She was telling him the truth. It was strange, but after so little time he knew her, really knew her. "I'll pour each of us some. I fancy you need it."

She didn't demur. She sipped at the fine brandy, feeling its warmth down to her knees. It was wonderful. She'd never tasted brandy before. She said as much.

Knight chuckled. "It has a way of soothing all the world's ills. That is why, I think, gentlemen drink it after their meals. It helps digest their food and fortifies them for the female company waiting in the drawing room."

"How very cynical you are."

"I used to be, in any case," Knight said and frowned.

"What's the matter now?"

"Those two men. You're positive that you've never seen them before?"

"I don't think so. No, I'm sure. I haven't the faintest idea who they are."

"But you've thought about it, haven't you? Obviously they knew of you from Brussels. Could it be that they were cohorts of your father's? Of Tris's?"

"It seems likely," she said. "After Duckett slammed the door, I went upstairs and saw them across the street in the park. They're truly horrid-looking men, candidates for Newgate, as my father would have said. What could they have had to do with my father? Or Tris, for that matter? I assure you, neither my father nor Tris hired assassins."

"Why did they call you Lily Tremaine?"

She didn't move a single unnecessary muscle. "I haven't the remotest idea."

"It does give rise to speculation, does it not?"

"If one is a speculator, I suppose."

He laughed, then asked quickly, "What did Tris do to support all of you?"

"I don't know, he never told me, but-" She broke off, her eyes flying to his face, knowing that he'd baited her into unwise speech and she'd almost given too much away.

"Continue, Lily."

She shook her head, mute.

"What could you possibly not want to tell me? What does it matter? Tris is dead, well beyond our mortal coils. I must confess that you confuse me, Lily."

"Very well," she said. "If you are so interested, I can tell you that with Tris things seemed to be either feast or famine." Careful, Lily. You didn't live with them until six months ago. But she remembered the previous two years when Tris would visit her father. "More feast than otherwise," she said. "My father was just the opposite."

"More famine than feast?"

"Exactly." Lord, that was certainly true. If it hadn't been for Tris, she and her father would have been booted out of their small house in Brussels innumerable times.

"Feast or famine," Knight repeated, looking into his brandy. "That must have been difficult for you, as his wife, during the famine times. And as a daughter during your father's lean times."

"Perhaps."

"You have no idea how Tris made his money?"

"No, I truly don't know, except-no, that's ridiculous, just a feeling I had, but-"

"What feeling? Come, tell me."

"I understand that ladies consider such things as money quite beneath their notice, as do gentlemen."

"I don't. You might as well spit it out. What were you going to say?"

Lily frowned. "I said that my father or Tris wouldn't ever have needed assassins. Well, that's true, I'm sure. But occasionally Tris would be gone for up to two weeks at a time, without explanation, really, and he invariably came home with money, lots of it. He'd just laugh if I or anyone asked him what he'd done while away, and give the children the most outrageously expensive presents."

"You're thinking perhaps that Tris was involved in some shady dealings?"

Lily shrugged. "I don't know. You wanted me to tell you and I did. That's all there is to it."

"Did you ever see him with other men? The criminal-looking sort?"

He saw the look of surprise on her face as she nodded. "Yes, once I did. Not those men who came today, but two others who were equally repulsive. When I asked Tris about them, he just laughed again in that dismissive way of his and told me my imagination was far too active."

"Possibly it was." She'd given him a lot to think about. He said after a moment, "Drink your brandy, Lily. Then perhaps you'd care to play piquet with me?"