"Is it? Good. Damn, I'm a fool—I ought at least to have lifted a cloak for you on our way out. I don't think it would be wise to stop in Bromyard, except to leave your mare. But if you can endure it as far as Leominster, we'll take a chamber there. That's four teen miles or so."

"I'm not in the least cold," she said truthfully. Not while he was holding her close in this gratifying manner.

"You're a heroine," he said, kissing her neck. "Je t'adore."

She accepted this compliment calmly. "But pray, will you enlighten me… when last we spoke, you wished you had never seen me again."

"I was out of my mind," he explained. "I entirely blame your stockings."

She cast him a sideways glance.

He withdrew his arm and put his hand across her wrists, causing the mare to come to a walk. "Callie," he said, turning her face to him. His voice dropped harshly. "Do you understand—you won't even have your own money? Your father made certain of that long ago."

She felt much colder when he sat away from her. "Did he?"

"Aye, he was pleased to inform me that your trust was made ironclad to protect you from fortune hunting scoundrels." In the moonlight she could see a derisive smile curl his lips. "Taking myself as the pattern and type."

"He didn't yet know Major Sturgeon, I suppose."

"And we'll be living abroad," he said doggedly. "I can't bring you back to see your sister or Shelford or England. And I don't keep respectable company. I've money enough, but—"

"Are you trying to make me jilt you too?" she demanded.

"No, damn it all, but you ought to."

"Yes," she mused, "I should return to the masquerade and announce that I've changed my mind and prefer after all not to be forcibly seized. Doubtless that would make heads spin even on the editors of The Lady's Spectator."

"I daresay they'd thank you for the increase in their circulation numbers, at any rate."

She clucked the mare to a trot. "I feel they've been given adequate stimulation. As for me, I should like to break it off with you, of course, after having discov ered these dismaying facts, but it was such great fun to jilt Major Sturgeon that I daren't encourage that sort of fickle behavior in myself."

He fell silent. The mare splashed through a puddle, and Callie allowed her to slow again on the muddy track. "This is Dove Lane," he said, as if he had just noticed it.

"Yes, and I hope it will dry a little by morning," she said. "Lord Sidmouth intends to pay a call on your mother tomorrow, if he isn't kept up too late at the masquerade."

Trev sat bolt upright. "Sidmouth?"

"The Home Secretary, you know."