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CHAPTER ONE

AUTUMN, 1817

A knock on the door in the dead of night could only mean disaster

Jerehtshirt and stumbled toward the bedchamber door A fire? He didn’t sent e from his steward, maybe—unrest at Corbinsdale would not come as a surprise

AHis heart thudded wildly in his chest He paused, clutching the door handle, cursing his body for recalling so quickly what he’d worked long years to forget

Logic caught up to his racing pulse, reining it in The dilow of banked coals cast ominous shadows, but Jereht He was in his usual bedcha Corbinsdale Woods More than twenty years had passed, and he was no longer a boy Whatever surprise awaited him on the other side of the door, he was fully equipped to face it

When he slid back the rusted bolt and wrenched open the door, Jeremy was prepared for the worst

“Hold still,” came the whispered command

He had an instant to register a ferasping his shoulders Then Lucy Walthaer sister of his oldest friend, popped up on her toes and pressed her lips to his with such force, he stuainst the doorjamb

Good Lord The girl was kissing him

Well, he thought ironically, he’d been prepared for the worst And of the many kisses Jeremy Trescott had experienced in his nine-and-twenty years, this was, undoubtedly, the worst

Lucy kissed with her lips perfectly puckered and her eyes open wide And if she lacked in finesse, she compensated with bold enthusias in his hair, ski the broad expanse of his chest

This wasn’t a kiss It was a siege

Furtherical, and a dozen different shades ofwrong

Somehow Jeremy’s hands found their way to her elbows, and he wrested hier e?”

“Shhhh ” Her eyes darted to either side, scanning the darkened corridor Then her gaze tilted back up to his, narroith a disturbing intensity, and Jereet on his face

“I’ over his arms “Let me try one more time ”

She swooped up for another kiss, and he instinctively ducked, pulling her into the roo the door behind theht have occurred to hi his host’s sister in the corridor would only be co her into his bedchamber But Jeremy’s faculties of reason had temporarily vacated Waltham Manor

Lucy had, quite literally, kissed him witless

“Did it work, then?”

He stared at her, mute with confusion Did ork? At theworked, least of all his brain Shock had frozen his limbs He certainly couldn’t force an answer from his lips

Stepping back, she crossed her arown and surveyed his forrew uncohtshirt to worn breeches to bare feet

A satisfied smile spread across her face “It must have worked You did pull me into your bedchamber ” She reached for the door handle “Very well, Jeh practice I’ll see you at breakfast ”

She cracked open the door Jeremy put out a hand and slammed it shut

Shooting hied “I beg your pardon I’ll be on my way, then ”

“No, you won’t ” He leaned his weight on the door, effectively bolting it closed Lucyher brother’s half-hearted atteuardianship, but Jeremy had four inches and two stone on Henry Waltham, not to mention an iron will Lucy did not walk all over him

He mustered hisanywhere You’re going to sit down and explain yourself ” She opened her rabbed her by the elbow and steered her toward a chair “But first,” he said, “I a to have a drink ”

She stopped struggling under his grip and dropped gracelessly into the chair “A drink,” she repeated “Why didn’t I think of that? A drink would be just the thing, thank you ”

Shaking his head, Jerelass of whiskey He downed half the liquor in one greedy s, closing his eyes to savor the burn spreading down his throat When he opened theain, he looked around to assure himself this was, indeed, the sae Roughhewn bea Muted tapestries covered the walls, and an unfussy, tied his bare feet The rooht years, any more than it likely had in the past one hundred

In decor, in landscape, in the quartet of old friends enjoying their annual sporting holiday—Waltham Manor had remained a welco had changed

“Why couldn’t everything just go on as it was?” Lucy stirred the fire with a poker, sending swirls of agitated sparks into the air “Why did Felix have to go and get”