Ellie's eyes flew to his face in horror. He didn't really think she would kill someone, did he? If this wasn't proof that she hadn't known this man well enough to marry him, she didn't know what was. Then she saw telltale crinkles of humor form around his eyes, and she exhaled with relief. “If you must know,” she finally said, “I was trying to console myself over the awful incident this morning—”

“The fiery incident, you mean?”

“Yes, that one,” she said, not appreciating his facetious interruption. “As I was saying, I was trying to console myself by thinking of all the things that could have happened that would have been worse.”

One corner of his mouth turned up in a wry smile. “And killing someone qualifies as worse?”

“Well, that depends on whom.”

Charles let out a bark of laughter. “Ouch, my lady. You do know how to wound.”

“Alas, but not lethally,” Ellie replied, unable to suppress a grin. She was having far too much fun sparring with him.

There was a comfortable moment of silence, and then he said, “I do the same thing.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Try to make a bleak situation seem better by imagining all the scenarios that could be worse.”

“Do you now?” Ellie felt absurdly pleased that they both dealt with adversity in the same fashion. It made her feel they were better suited, somehow.

“Mmm, yes. You should have heard what I thought up last month, when I was convinced that my entire fortune was going to go to my odious cousin Phillip.”

“I thought your odious cousin was named Cecil.”

“No, Cecil is the toad. Phillip is merely odious.”

“Did you make a list?”

“I always make lists,” he said flippantly.

“No,” she said with a little laugh. “I meant did you make a list of what would be worse than losing your fortune?”

“As a matter of fact, I did,” he said with a slow smile. “And, as a matter of fact, I have it in the next room. Would you like to hear it?”

“Please.”

Charles disappeared through the connecting doorway for a moment and reemerged carrying a slip of paper. Before Ellie realized what he was about, he hopped up onto the bed and stretched out beside her.

“Charles!”

He looked at her sideways and smiled. “I need one of your pillows to prop me up.”

“Get out of my bed.”

“I'm not in it, I'm on it.” He yanked one of the pillows out from under her head. “There now, this is better.”

Ellie, whose head was now perched at a bizarre angle, didn't think it was better in the least and she said so.

Charles ignored her and said, “Did you want to hear my list, or no?”

She waved her hand around in assent.

“Very well.” He held the paper in front of him.”‘Number One’—Oh, by the way, this list is titled, ‘Worse Things that Could Happen to Me.’”

“I hope I'm not on it,” Ellie muttered.