“Peter doesn’t mean to be critical,” he said suddenly. “He has a high opinion of his own consequence, but he’s a very good sort, for all that.”

Gabby answered at cross-purposes. “Is there any chance that your father might let Codswallop go?”

Quill turned around, even though the sight of Gabby cuddling Phoebe gave him a queer feeling about his heart. “Feeling guilty, are you?” He grinned at her.

Gabby felt too ashamed to respond to his teasing. “I cannot conceive why I fibbed, Quill,” she said earnestly. “It was just that Peter looked so horrified—”

“I think it was quite a useful lie, as these things go,” Quill pointed out.

“He is right, Miss Gabby,” Phoebe piped up. “Don’t you remember that you told me that a lie was acceptable if it made the person feel better? And Mr. Dewland felt much better once he thought that the butler ruined your gown.”

“From the mouths of babes,” Quill murmured.

Gabby gave him a sharp glance. “It’s all very well for you to make fun,” she pointed out. “I have told a terrible fib about poor Codswallop, and his injuries are actually my fault!”

She looked so dejected that Quill felt a qualm of sympathy. “Don’t worry about Codswallop. My father would cut off his right hand before he dismissed the fellow—he’s been in the household for years. I’ll go down and bring him your sincerest apologies, how would that be?”

“I shall do it myself,” Gabby said with resolution.

“You most certainly will not!” Quill retorted. “Ladies do not descend into the servants’ quarters with impunity, Gabby!”

“When it comes to one’s own culpability, propriety should stand aside,” Gabby responded. “I’m quite sure that Papa would say so.”

“Your father sounds most peculiar,” Quill observed. “At any rate, Phoebe is right. Peter is now feeling quite happy about the whole episode. It wouldn’t be fair if you leapt into another indelicacy before he’s even recovered from glimpsing your ankles.”

Gabby colored and looked down at her dress. The ripped section of her gown exposed her ankles above her half boots. She met Quill’s eyes as he, too, looked up from her hem. Something in the depth of his eyes gave her a simmering sensation deep in her stomach. She glanced down again. They were perfectly unremarkable ankles, trimly clad in white cotton. And she didn’t believe for a moment that the sight of them stirred Peter in any way.

Quill was discovering that, in fact, his punctilious brother might have been right when he forbade him to accompany Gabby to her bedchamber. Perhaps it was the intimacy of the nearby bed that was making his blood throb. The mere glimpse of Gabby’s slender ankles had thrown him a heady vision of her legs under that drab—and now indecent—gown.