“Madam, remove your foot.”

“Not in this lifetime,” Ellie shot back, squeezing her elbow and shoulder inside. “I'll see the earl, and—”

“The earl doesn't associate with your kind.”

“My kind?!” Ellie shrieked. Really, this was beyond tolerable. She was cold, wet, unable to get her hands on money that was rightfully hers, and now some puffed-up butler was calling her a prostitute? “You let me in this instant! It's raining out here.”

“I see that.”

“You fiend,” she hissed. “When I see the earl, he'll—”

“I say, Rosejack, what the devil is all this commotion?”

Ellie nearly melted with relief at the sound of Billington's voice. In fact, she would have melted with relief if she weren't so certain that any sort of softening on her part would prompt the butler to squeeze her out of the doorway.

“There is a creature on the doorstep,” Rosejack replied. “It refuses to budge.”

“I'm a ‘she,’ you cretin!” Ellie used the fist she'd managed to wedge inside the house to bat him in the back of the head.

“For the love of God,” Charles said, “Just open the door and let her in.”

Rosejack whipped open the door and Ellie tumbled in, feeling very much like a wet rat amidst such splendidly opulent surroundings. There were beautiful rugs on the floors, a painting on the wall that she would swear had been done by Rembrandt, and that vase that she'd knocked over as she fell down—well, she had a sick feeling that it had been imported from China.

She looked up, desperately trying to peel the wet locks of hair from her face. Charles looked handsome, amused, and disgustingly dry. “My lord?” she gasped, barely able to find her voice. She sounded decidedly unlike herself, raspy and hoarse from her arguments with God and the butler.

Charles blinked as he regarded her. “I beg your pardon, madam,” he said. “Have we met?”

Chapter 3

Ellie had never had much of a temper. Oh, she was, as her father frequently pointed out, a bit mouthy, but on the whole she was a sensible and levelheaded lady, not given to outbursts and tantrums.

This aspect of her personality, however, was not in evidence at Wycombe Abbey.

“What?!?” she screeched, vaulting to her feet.

“How dare you!” she then shrieked, launching herself toward Billington, who was trying to back up, hindered considerably by his injury and cane.

“You fiend!” she finally squawked, pushing him over and tumbling down to the floor with him.

Charles groaned. “If I have been knocked to the ground,” he said, “then you must be Miss Lyndon.”

“Of course I'm Miss Lyndon,” she shouted. “Who the devil else would I be?”

“I might point out that you look remarkably unlike yourself.”

That gave Ellie pause. She was certain she bore more than a passing resemblance to a drowned rat, her clothes were liberally streaked with mud, and her bonnet…She looked around. Where the devil was her bonnet?

“Lose something?” Charles inquired.