"No doubt. Goodnight, Charlie."

"Beth."

"Aye?"

"Nay," Charlie murmured with a sigh. "I meant.I am Beth now. As of now I am Beth and you are Charles."

Her sister smiled slightly at that. "Then should we not switch clothes?"

"Oh, yes." Pulling the door closed, Charlie began to remove her clothes.

When she got to her braies, she suddenly suggested. "You had best roll up one of our stockings and tuck it in your braies on the morrow Just so the tailor does not notice anything amiss."

"Hmm." Beth sighed as she removed her gown. "It will be nice when we have more than one set of clothes each."

"Tomorrow should take care of that," Charlie agreed dryly. There was nothing more annoying in this life than a fitting. Prior to now, she had always managed to avoid those boring hours of being poked and jabbed at with pins.

Usually she would show up late, then claim that since she and Beth were the same size and Beth was already being measured for it, there was no sense in wasting time measuring her as well. Beth could see them both fitted out. That argument had worked wonderfully for years now. In this case it would not. If she was to be Elizabeth on the morrow she alone would have to suffer the dressmaker's attention. Perhaps she would get lucky and it would go quickly.

Charlie should have realized by now that Lady Luck was not exactly feeling generous towards her. After all, had she not found herself engaged to a murderous brute, at the mercy of a whip-wielding harridan, and clobbered over the head by a falling lady's maid all within the last week?

She supposed she should not be surprised then that the seamstress kept her all the day through, tucking, measuring, pinning, and prodding. By the time the woman announced her chore finished and gathered her cloths and workers together to depart, Charlie was nearly ready to break down in tears of relief. She considered lying down for a nap, for as boring as her day had been she could not help but be wearied by it, but decided to relax in the library with a book and a cup of tea. After asking Bessie to fetch her some of the soothing liquid, she retired to the library and walked idly along the rows of books, pulling one from the shelves, leafing through it in a desultory fashion, then slipping it back and moving to find another. Charlie was not big on reading. She was more a doer than a reader of others' doings. In the end, nothing really tickled her fancy and she was relieved when Bessie arrived with the tea to distract her.

Moving to sit in the chair by the fire, she watched Bessie pour her a cup from the service she had brought. The girl was wearing a plain gray gown that had seen better days but was clean and serviceable. She was also looking far more cheerful today and less as if the world could be coming to an end at any moment.

When the maid straightened and offered her a warm smile before heading for the door, Charlie forestalled her leaving with a quick question. "Have you settled in nicely?"

Bessie paused and turned back, smiling widely. "Oh, aye. Thank ye, miss. Mr.

Stokes is most kind, as is the rest of the staff. Well, except for cook, but Joan, the housekeeper, she told me he is the, er, temporaritalNo, that's not it." Pausing, her brow puckered slightly and she hesitated, then tried again.

"Tempermeanal?"

"Temperamental?" Charlie suggested, and the girl's face brightened at once.

"Aye, that's it. He's the temperamental sort, she said. Though I think he's just mean. Everyone seems scared stiff o' him. Even Stokes steps lightly around him, if ye know what I mean." She tilted her head to the side thoughtfully and murmured, "He's like Lord Kentley's valet where me mum works at Woodstock. He's a nasty old sot 'cause he knows he can be. No one would dare dress him down fer it Except perhaps Lord Kentley himself, but then the valet would ne'er be, er, tempermeanal with him"

Charlie frowned slightly at that news. She had heard quite a bit of banging and shouting coming from the kitchens earlier, mere moments after Beth and Radcliffe had left, in fact, and had wondered what was about. The answer seemed to be that the cook had been having some sort of outburst. She wondered if Radcliffe realized that his cook behaved so when he was not about. The man's meals were passable at best; he was hardly in a position to make harassing the staff acceptable behavior. She would have said as much to Bessie, but just then they both heard the front door open.

Turning, the maid moved to open the library door, allowing Beth's excited voice to float in to Charlie moments before her flurried footsteps echoed up the stairs. Bessie closed the door then and turned back to beam at her. "Lord Charles is home."

Eyebrows rising slightly, Charlie nodded. "So he is."

"He is such a nice man and ever so handsome," Bessie went on, adoration obvious in her eyes. "I'll be forever grateful for his saving me from Aggie's. I don't know what I would have done had he not."

"Aye, well," Charlie began uncomfortably, but paused when Radcliffe entered the room.

"Oh!" He halted in the doorway upon spotting them. "I am sorry, I did not realize anyone was inhere."

Relief adding warmth to her smile, Charlie beamed at him. " 'Tis all right, I was just about to have a cup of tea. Would you care for some?"

Radcliffe hesitated, then nodded.

"I shall fetch another cup," Bessie murmured, hurrying from the room.

Radcliffe watched her go, then moved to join Charlie. "She seems a nice enough lass. How is she working out?"

"Very well. She is quite competent as a lady's maid"

"Good," he murmured, settling into the seat across from her before actually looking at her. When he did, his gaze seemed suddenly arrested.

Charlie shifted uncomfortably under his sudden intense stare. "Is something wrong?"

"Wrong?" he murmured faintly, then seemed to snap out of his almost dazed state and smiled brilliantly. "Nay. Nothing is wrong. You look quite lovely today."

"Thank you, my lord," she murmured selfconsciously.

"There is something different about you somehow."

Charlie stilled in surprise at that comment. Could he tell the difference between her and Beth? she wondered a bit frantically. Nay, he could not.

Only their mother and father had ever been able to tell them apart. To everyone else they were identical. Her gaze dropped to her lap under his continued stare, and she blinked at the lavender material, understanding making her relax. "It is simply the new gown. I have worn the same one for days now."

"The gown," he murmured, his gaze chopping to it now. The gown she wore was a plain lavender frock with white piping. It was simple, but clean and fresh and a nice change from the yellow muslin she had been forced to wear for the last few days.

"Hmm. It is a lovely gown. But" He was silent for a moment as his eyes slid back to her face taking in her features, aware of the small changes taking place within his body. He had waited for days for just these blessed reactions to overtake him, terrified each time these tingles had attacked him while with the brother, despairing when he had felt nothing but lukewarm admiration when with the sister. Now, today, everything had switched. He had just spent hours with Charles, silently marveling at the easy amusement and even almost affection that were all he had felt toward the lad that day. And now, alone with the sister, he felt the tingles of awareness, the slight increase of his heart rate, and the shallow breathing that he had heretofore experienced only around the brother and upon espying the girl leaving her bath. This seemed to prove his earlier theory true. He was really attracted to the girl.

Thank God, he thought, grinning suddenly as he peered at her in the new gown, his mind casting back to the night before when he had barged into Charles's room only to find Beth standing naked in a tub of water. He was having much the same reaction to her now as he had had then.

"Madame Decalle sent back to her shop for it when she realized that I had only the one gown," she blurted out as his eyes roved slowly over every detail of her figure in the gown. "She was making it for a duchess someone or other who was of a size with me."

Catching the confusion and discomfort on the girl's face now, he managed to dim his smile slightly as the memory of the bathing vision prompted him to murmur, "I must apolo"

The opening of the door as Bessie returned made him halt and he waited patiently, smiling at the maid as she set another cup on the tray and poured tea into it. She then smiled at them both and slipped quietly from the room.

Charlie took a sip of her tea, then asked, "Did you and my brother accomplish all you wished today?"

Nodding, he picked up his cup. "We visited the jewelers to transfer some of the jewels into cash, stopped in at the tailor's for a quick fitting, then dropped in at the club." He raised an eyebrow at her. "Did your fittings go well?"

Charlie's mouth twisted wryly. "Not as well as my brother's, I can see.

Lady Decalle arrived directly after you left and was not finished with me until just moments ere you returned. I spent the entire day being poked and prodded by the woman."

"Oh, dear. It sounds trying." She appeared somewhat irritated when he sounded more amused than sympathetic.

Charles's sister smiled sweetly, then tilted her head to the side, asking innocently, "Did you not start to say something about having to apologize?"

His amusement faded at once. "All, yes," he sighed. "I did. Yesterday, when I burst into the room while you were"

She arched one eyebrow at his hesitation, but could not help a slow blush that crept up her neck as she recalled her nudity when he had burst in on her bath.

"Well, I fear I was rude in not knocking. I had not realized that you and Charles had switched rooms and I It was most rude of me to barge right in like that. I am terribly sorry for catching you in such a state."

"Aye, well," she interrupted him at last and set her cup on the table. She was as embarrassed as he by this apology and the memory of his seeing her so.

Standing, she made to skirt the table between them, suddenly almost eager to slip from the room. Gentleman that he was, Radcliffe stood at once, and when she caught the toe of her slipper on the base of a table leg in her rush and stumbled, he stepped quickly forward to catch her against his chest.

Flushing even darker and feeling rather foolish, Charlie straightened away from his chest. She peered up at him, her breath catching briefly as she took in the expression on his face and the naked hunger in his eyes as they dipped over the mounds of her breasts where the corset she wore and the cut of the gown pushed them together and up like a pair of ripe melons about to tumble from a basket.

Aware of little prickles of awareness tingling along the back of her neck and across the bare flesh of her chest, Charlie swallowed and started to take a step backward, only to bump up against the side of the chair she had just left and nearly fell once again. Radcliffe grabbed for her arm once more to steady her, thenquite without conscious intentfound himself tugging her gently forward, his lips dropping to cover hers.

Chapter Eight.

Charlie went still as Radcliffe covered her month with his. At first her stillness was due to surprise, but she remained that way out of curiosity.

She had spent her whole life in the country, with Beth as her only playmate and friend. In truth, other than her father and her uncle, Radcliffe was the first man she and Beth had spent any time around He seemed a decent enough fellow.

Staid. Masterly. Trustworthy. And she had always wondered about kissing a man.

Who safer, then, to do a little experimenting with than Radcliffe?

She was just getting the hang of this business of kissing, she thought, when Radcliffe suddenly changed the rules on her. One moment their lips were swimming across each other's, the next she felt his tongue licking at her lips like a cat at his paw. When she opened her mouth in protest, the kiss changed tune entirely. It went from the sweet, warm embers of a banked fire as their lips first meshed, to the roar of a full-blown blaze as his tongue invaded her mouth and he began almost to devour her.

Charlie liked it. A lot. There was no thought in her head of stopping him; all she wanted was to get closer. Clutching at his shoulders as his arms went around her, she pressed against him, opening her mouth further under the onslaught of his kiss. It was marvelous. She never wanted it to end and certainly would not have asked that it should. Until he breathed the name "Beth" against her lips.

It was as if someone had opened the front door and the door to the library at the same time, allowing a cold stiff breeze to rush into the room and up her spine. Radcliffe wasn't kissing her. he was kissing Beth. A jumble of emotions crashed down on her. Disappointment,jealousy, resentment. Had he kissed the real Beth before? Like this? She stiffened in his arms, preparing to pull away, but before she could, a sound near the door made Radcliffe himself pull back.

"Yes, Stokes?"

Flushing with embarrassment, Charlie glanced at the butler's expressionless face, muttered her excuses, and fled the room, running upstairs without encountering anyone. She paused in the upper hallway, leaning against the wall and closing her eyes. Her heart was thundering in her chest, her breath coming in gasps, and she had no wish to explain herself to her sister.

Beth. Radcliffe's moan echoed in her head. Had he kissed her just so before?

Nay. Surely her sister would have said something had that been the case.

Wouldn't she have? Charlie frowned at the thought. Mayhap Beth would not. They had shared all their secrets through their lives, howbeit this oneWell, Charlie had no desire to share this experience with Beth, so perhaps her sister in turn would not have wished to share it with her. Had he kissed Beth just so?

"There you are!"

Charlie straightened guiltily as her sister appeared suddenly before her.

"Goodness, I was about to search the house for you," she announced, grabbing Charlie by the wrist and dragging her into the room that was "Elizabeth's."

"You would not believe the fun I had today," Beth exclaimed excitedly, pausing to push the bedroom door closed before dragging Charlie to the bed. "We went to the jeweler's. A Mr. Silverpot. Can you imagine? What a funny little man he was.

I swear his stomach was as large and round as a pot. And his hair was silver, too. Not white or gray, but silver. Is that not amusing? But he was very nice and he gave us loads of money for Mother's diamond and emerald set.

See?" She whipped a bag of coins out as she spoke, a very heavy bag that jingled merrily.

"Radcliffe wanted to lock it away, but I convinced him to let me show you first," she announced as she opened the bag and tipped its contents onto the bed.

When Charlie's eyes widened at the number of coins, Beth laughed and hugged her.

"Is it not wonderful? We are rich. Mr.Silverpot said that the stones were the finest quality he had ever seen and he would be most grateful to buy more of Mother's jewels if they were of similar quality. We shall have the finest gowns in all of London with this."

Charlie smiled at her enthusiasm, then helped her collect the coins and return them to the bag as Beth continued, "We went to the tailor's from there.

What a fancy-pants he was. Goodness! Were his nose stuck any higher in the air, he would be sure to bump it against the doors he walked through. And he had the most dreadful habit of nudging my stocking every time he measured my inseam Which he insisted on doing three times."

Charlie glanced automatically toward the crotch of Beth's braies, her eyes widening in shock. "Beth!"

"What?"

"What is that?" She pointed at the lump in the girl's pants and Beth followed the gesture, then frowned in confusion.

" 'Tis a stocking. You said to roll one up and put it down my braies."

"Aye, butGood Lord, 'Tis a perfectly round ball. It looks like you have a grapefruit in your drawers," Charlie said with exasperation. "Could you not haveI don't knowshaped it to look a bit more natural?"

"Well, how was I to know what would look natural? 'Tis not as if I walk about gaping at a man's nether regions."

Charlie sighed, then gave a burble of laughter. At Beth's questioning glance, she shook her head. " 'Tis no wonder the tailor kept nudging you. He was most like trying to figure out whether you were deformed, or just sporting a melon down there."

When Beth didn't join in her laughter, but merely looked dejected over her mistake, Charlie quickly changed the subject. "What did you do after you left the tailor's?"

"We went to Radcliffe's club," she murmured, brightening at once.

"His club!" Charlie exclaimed jealously and Beth nodded.

"Oh, aye! It was Well, it was just marvelous. All these men looking important and officious, servants everywhere and Goodness, Charlie, men do not act nearly so stiff and polite when women are not around. Why, they were positively boyish!

Joking, and laughing and having a jolly good time. I met all sorts of nice young men. Radcliffe made a point of acquainting me with as many of the fellows our age as possible. He said it would be good for me to make some chums.

He left me with a bunch of them while he spoke with some business acquaintances.

It was jolly fun and a good opportunity to size them up. Oh, that reminds me, should you meet a dark-haired fellow named Jimmy or a blond named Freddy, give them a wide birth. They are having some sort of competition to see who can seduce the most young women of the ton this season and are taking wagers on it.

From what was said this afternoon, they have ruined nearly half this season's females already."

She nodded firmly when Charlie gaped at her, then lay back on the bed with a sigh. "I am positively exhausted, yes indeed, what a day." She stretched, smothered a yawn, then glanced at Charlie to ask politely, "How was your day?"