She regarded him doubtfully. The night seemed to have grown colder. A faint shiver ran through her. She couldn't quite discern from the tone of his voice exactly what the new complexion on matters might be. He might wish to reconsider his position. He might even wish to reconsider marrying her at all. Now that he was a free man, he might want to find some other heiress, one who wouldn't have so readily agreed to accompany him to Shanghai. She bent her head, preparing herself to appear perfectly unconcerned if he should suddenly become unworthy to abduct her.

"For one thing," he said, "it means we don't have to drive fourteen miles to Leominster and arrive looking as if we took a wrong turn at the Barbary Coast."

"I rather like you as a pirate," she said shyly.

"I assure you, Mademoiselle, my feelings about you as a harem girl are beyond description," he informed her. "But I don't arrange a very good abduction, I'm afraid. In my haste to seize you and carry you off to the ends of the earth, I seem to have forgotten a few of the important articles. Such as baggage."

"It was a perfect abduction," she declared. "Pray do not carp about the details."

"No doubt the press will add such embellishments as are required to satisfy the public taste. And since I had already determined that my life is a vast wasteland without you, in spite of my best and repeated efforts to abscond like a worthless cad—"

"Usually through a window," she interposed.

"—and you appear to have agreed that you would accompany me to Shanghai if you must—"

"With the greatest happiness," she concurred.

"—I wonder if I might prevail upon you to forgo some of the minor particulars of this plan, such as driving all night to Leominster and sailing to Boston in the dead of winter, in favor of the simpler expedient of sleeping in a warm bed here at Dove House tonight?"

Callie tilted her head, considering. "Well, I'd been hoping for a Chinese adventure, but if you're so poor spirited as to want to forgo storm and shipwreck…"

"Shabby of me, I must admit, but there's the added advantage that I'll be able to debauch you thoroughly before sunrise," he pointed out.

She gave a contented sigh. "I daresay your mother will be shocked."

"I daresay she'll be purring like a hat in a cream pitcher," he said. "And I must warn you that if you continue to giggle in that provocative manner, I shall be forced to accost you right here on a carriage seat, in my customary French scoundrel style. Drive on to the stable, my sweet life, before The Lady's Spectator catches us in the open."

Epilogue

Epilogue

"IT'S TIME."