“And what if he should forfeit the title? What then?” Allendale addressed St. Clare. “You haven’t the coin to keep a wife. Not one who’s accustomed to living in a fine house with a full staff of servants, and…what else?” He gave Maggie a hard look. “A string of hunters, and a coach and four? Trips to London for the season?”

“You mistake me,” Maggie said. “I require none of those things.”

“And what of my grandson? What about what he requires? A lad meets a gel in his youth, puts her on a pedestal. Doesn’t mean she’s suitable for the gentleman he becomes.”

Maggie lowered her teacup back into its saucer with a sharp clink. “There’s no one more suitable for Lord St. Clare than I am. And surely it’s his choice?”

“It is my choice,” St. Clare said. “And it’s been made. Miss Honeywell and I are to be married, as soon as we can contrive it.”

“No matter the consequences?” Allendale asked.

“I hope,” Maggie said, “that the compensations of the match will outweigh any consequences.”

St. Clare’s gaze met hers. And he felt it there, the love for her anchored deep inside him, as elemental as his own heart’s blood. It didn’t seem possible that it could grow stronger. And yet it did; the more he was with her, the closer he came to making her his.

He prayed she was right. That marrying him, giving up her claim to Beasley Park, wasn’t something she’d regret for the remainder of her days.

A better man—a nobler man—might have prevented her from making such a sacrifice. He might have withdrawn his suit and saved her from giving up her home and her fortune.

But St. Clare was neither good, nor noble.

This time, when he left Somerset, he was taking Maggie Honeywell with him.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“St. Clare was here?” Fred’s enraged voice exploded from the door of the Beasley Park library. He stormed across the room to where Maggie was sitting by a tall window, curled up in an oversized armchair. “And you received him?”

She glanced up from the book she’d been reading. “You’re back early.” She looked past him. “Where’s Miss Trumble?”

“To blazes with Miss Trumble,” he said harshly. “Is it true? You entertained him here? Alone?”

“I was in no danger. He was accompanied by the Earl of Allendale. Unless you mean to suggest that Lord St. Clare would ravish me in front of his own grandfather?”

A wash of color darkened Fred’s face. “Did you know he was coming? Is that why you claimed to be too tired to join us on our outing? Did you have an assignation with the man?”