"But Laura Beth didn't say a word to me, not a single word. And Sam was asleep and I couldn't find Theo-"

"I told them to keep mum. I'm impressed with Laura Beth. She really kept quiet?"

Lily was clearly distracted. A nice job of spiking her guns, Knight thought, and cut a hefty bite of his fillet of grouse.

"Yes, she did. You bribed her. You bribed her. You let her out well before dinner, Knight. That's not fair."

He grinned at her shamelessly. "Anything, Lily. Anything at all until you're my wife, all right and proper. Then I'll revert immediately to my former obnoxious, overbearing, cloth-headed self."

"No," she said, her voice laced with sad acceptance, "no, you won't, because you aren't any of those things. What you will revert to is being nice again."

He arched a dark brow. "Nice, huh? You're sure about that? You're finally convinced that I do have a fine and wonderful character?"

"You shouldn't have gone behind my back with the children."

"Why not? I thought it excellent strategy. You're in my net now, and you're well and truly caught. Give it up, Lily. If you like, we can tell the children about the jewels. If they're anywhere amongst their things, they will turn up. Can you just imagine Sam with an assignment like this?"

"No, I don't want them to know about the jewels. They wouldn't let it rest there; they would want to know everything. I don't want them to know that those awful men killed Tris."

Lily had racked her brains, headache and all, to try to figure a way out of Castle Rosse and away from Knight Winthrop. Now he'd done her in. Aloud, she said, "I don't know what to do."

"If you'll tell me the problem I will try to help, truly."

She looked up, clearly startled.

"You spoke out loud, Lily."

"I didn't mean to. Oh, Knight, can't you simply settle some money on the children? I'll take them away with me and you won't have to be bothered ever again. Please, I'll-"

His partially empty wineglass sailed by her head.

She froze, staring at him.

"Why are you looking so appalled? You have shot missiles at me more times than I can count."

"Just twice."

"With deadly intent."

"You deserved it."

"Well, unlike you, I wouldn't have hit you. I did intend the red wine to spill on your bosom, though. Very interesting result. Would you like me to mop you off, Lily?"

Lily looked down. This one gown wasn't cut high as were her others, but it wasn't low either. She suddenly felt the wine snaking down between her breasts. "You've ruined my gown," she said, not looking at him. "I only have three, you know."

"It doesn't matter. I'll buy you a hundred."

She felt a dull thud of pain at his words. "I don't want a hundred gowns. I don't want you to buy me anything."

Knight sat back in his high-backed chair. He regarded her closely, saying nothing. Finally, in his Adult-to-Sam voice, he said, "I don't really give a good damn what you want at the moment. Your wardrobe is lacking, to say the very least. I will see you suitably gowned. Now, have you anything else to say to me? Take care, Lily, the bottle of wine is at my elbow."

"You're marrying me for all the wrong reasons, Knight. Can't you see that?"

"Be quiet, Lily. Now, here is your betrothal ring." He pulled a ring from his pocket and held it out to her. Lily stared at it. It was an immense emerald surrounded by diamonds set in a delicate gold band. It was the most beautiful piece of jewelry she'd ever seen in her life.

"Billy's Baubles?"

"Amusing, aren't you? The ring belonged to my mother and my grandmother before her."

"It must be ancient, then, given the fact that the Winthrop men never wed until they are forty."

"No, that nonsense began and ended with my father. I am twenty-seven and nearly the husband of a very beautiful woman and stepfather to three children. It's amazing, I freely admit it, but it is very nearly done, Lily. Day after tomorrow, my dear, and you will be a viscountess. I'm rich as well as titled. Doesn't that stir any greedy embers in your soul?"

"Yes," Lily said, smiling at him. "Yes, it does. I am marrying you for your money and what you can give me. You were right about why I came to London when I'd heard you were hurt. I hoped you would marry me on your deathbed, then I would have had everything."

"Excellent," he said, sitting back in his chair and giving her a charming smile. "This way is better, don't you think? You will have all the money you wish, and in addition, you will also have my randy man's body as often as you can handle it."

Lily could think of no words.

It wasn't until she was lying wide awake in her bed some three hours later that it occurred to her that she hadn't even asked Knight how the children had responded to his news.

They'd probably shouted hallelujahs.

Even as she thought it, she shook her head. No, it was much too soon for them to accept Knight in Tris's place. She would speak with them in the morning.

She'd accepted things, she realized. What choice had she but to marry Knight?

She couldn't say that she found him repellent.

Nor could she say that he was wicked and mean like Ugly Arnold.

But she could say that he didn't love her. And that hurt, awfully. Damn his title and his money. Damn his ruthlessness. Damn him for being the most wonderful man she'd ever known in her life.

Lily stopped her damning in an instant at the sound of a loud crash. Sam. She ripped back the covers and pulled on her dressing gown even as she was running out of her bedchamber.

Eighteen.

Lily's yell died in her throat. She skidded to an abrupt halt just inside Sam's bedchamber. She stared.

Sam and Knight were tangled together on the floor, two blankets wound about them.

The night table beside the bed lay on its side, the pitcher cracked and empty on the wooden floor, water snaking toward Knight's elbow.

Sam's splinted leg was nearly vertical to his body. He was laughing.

Knight was trying to keep Sam's leg straight. He was cursing.

"May I ask what's going on?"

"Mama," Sam said, then went off again into a fit of giggles.

"You're not hurt, I gather."

Knight clamped down on his curses. "No, that is, Sam certainly isn't hurt, not with me holding his leg in the air for him. As for myself, this damned splint of his weighs at least five stone. Don't you dare laugh, Lily, help me get Sam up. He's under the influence of a goodly amount of laudanum. He, the dear little chap, doesn't feel a blessed thing."

Lily let a giggle escape her own throat until she realized that Knight was in his dressing gown and the dressing gown was open to his waist and he wasn't wearing anything underneath. She gulped and stared at him. He knew that she was staring, and even if he'd been embarrassed to the roots of his hair he couldn't have prevented his body's announcement of his feelings. Thank God the room was cold. That helped, that and the fact that Lily now kept her eyes on Sam's face.

"Oh, dear," she said, then doubled over with laughter. Knight eyed her as she hugged her stomach.

Sam giggled.

Knight gave him a stern look. "You've enjoyed enough laughter at my expense, you foul brat. Go back to sleep now and dream about all the wedding delicacies you'll doubtless eat." He patted the boy's face, straightened his blankets, then stepped back. He looked over at Lily, who had finally stopped laughing.

Indeed, he saw that she was looking up at him, and that look did him in immediately, irrevocably. It could have been fifty degrees colder in the room and it wouldn't have mattered. Oh, God. He was hard, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, to leave to her imagination. He wanted to grab her, he wanted her to take him in her hand and caress him, he wanted to feel her beautiful breasts while her mouth- "Oh, Cousin Knight, could you stay a minute? Er, Mama, would you leave, please?"

"Leave? Whyever for?"

"Mama, I have to relieve myself."

"Oh, that," Lily said and gave an exasperated sigh. "Don't be silly, Sam."

"You shouldn't be here, Mama. Cousin Knight will help me. Won't you, sir?"

Knight patted Lily's shoulder. "You're barefoot, my dear. Go back to your bed. I'll take care of the brat here. Go."

She went, but not before she heard another giggle from Sam.

She wasn't surprised, not really, when she heard her door open quietly a few minutes later.

"Is Sam all right?"

"Certainly. He enjoyed oversetting me, I think. Bringing me to my knees, so to speak. I believe he's just like his mother in that regard."

"But I wouldn't bring you to your knees, I-"

"Lily," he said. He was closer now, standing beside her bed, looking down at her. "Lily, after we are married, you will have me on my knees. First I intend to strip you naked, very slowly, and I'll keep you standing, close to the fire, of course. I wouldn't want you to catch a chill. Then I'll kiss every inch of you-I'll lift the hair off your neck and nibble my way around your throat to your soft mouth. Ah, and then your breasts, Lily. Can you imagine how you will feel when I caress your breasts in my hands and caress you with my mouth? Then you'll feel my tongue on your belly, then lower, until my tongue is sliding inside your beautiful body and then-" He broke off at her gasp and frowned. "Surely you are quite knowledgeable in all matters carnal?"

"No, I'm not."

"Lily, don't." He sat beside her, able to make out her features now in the dim light. "Don't ever lie to me. I don't care about the past, you must believe me. All I care about is you and me and the children and our future together."

"Of course you care about the past. You become incredibly nasty whenever you think about me with other men. I told you, Knight, I didn't live with Tris, I lived in his house. There is an immense difference, if you would but admit to it."

But those men knew of you, he wanted to shout at her. They called you Tris's fancy piece, Tris's whore- "I want you now, Lily." Before she could say anything, he was stretched out beside her. "Kiss me."

I can't let this happen, she thought. She twisted her face away, so that his kiss landed on her left ear. If he kissed her mouth she would succumb immediately.

His right hand held her wrists, his left stroked over her throat, downward, until his fingertips touched her breast. She sucked in her breath, reared up, and pulled away from him. She rolled to the far side of the bed. "Go away, Knight. You won't do this to me."

He lay there, feeling equal parts foolish, bereft, and furious with her. Then he laughed. "You're right. It's just that I want you so much I forget I'm a gentleman, a civilized man." He rose, straightened his dressing gown, and said in a calm voice, "Good night, sweetheart. Tomorrow we'll find Billy's Baubles. Dream about me, Lily."

"Good night, Knight."

He laughed and was gone.

She didn't dream about him. She dreamed about Monk and Boy and knew fear. They had to find the jewels.

They didn't find the jewels. Knight made a game of it with the children. He told them only that if they found anything of interest in their belongings, they would be rewarded. Every item of clothing the children owned was closely examined, every toy squeezed, taken apart, and otherwise probed and prodded. Nothing.

"You were right," Knight said to Lily at luncheon. "Not a blessed thing." Saint John, as Lily now called the young tutor, was speaking to Theo, neither of them paying any attention to Knight or Lily. Laura Beth was happily forking down Mimms's plum pudding. Lily merely nodded, saying nothing. Knight fell silent, and Lily knew he was trying to decide what to do about Monk and Boy.

She was on the point of excusing herself when Knight said suddenly, "Lily, please come into the drawing room in, say, ten minutes. I have something for you."

"What? What?" Laura Beth said.

"None of your affair, snippet," Knight said. "Sit still and finish your plum pudding."

"What?"

"Laura Beth, Cousin Knight wants you to be quiet or else he'll send you to the nursery."

"That's an excellent threat, Theo," Knight said. "It's cold up there, Laura Beth, and you would probably freeze Czarina Catherine's toes off."

The child laughed.

"Mama, I'll go spend some time with Sam."

"Thank you, Theo. John, you deserve some rest."

"Theo and I are going riding later, Mrs. Winthrop. That will be my outing."

"Another martyr," Knight said to no one in particular.

Exactly ten minutes later, Lily closed the drawing room door. "You wanted to see me?"

Knight brought out a huge box from behind his back. She stared at it. "What is it?"

"Why don't you open it and see?"

She walked slowly toward him. "If you like what you find, perhaps you'll give me a kiss," he said.

"Perhaps," she said and took the box. He watched her carry it to the spindle-legged marquetry table. She lifted the lid and pulled away the silver tissue paper and gasped.