"I might have you strung up and disemboweled. I might do that."

Barton gave a gloomy sigh. "Very well, sir." His feet shuff led on the gravel. "But I don't know what's to become of us."

"For the love of God, you had two percent of sixty thousand guineas not a fortnight ago. How'd you manage to spend twenty years' wages in two weeks? Or need I ask?"

"We ain't got your head for a numbers game, sir," Barton said humbly. "You're the lucky one. Charlie botched the calculations, and we come up short to pay out on St. Patrick when he won at Doncaster."

"That short? You'd better marry an heiress and be done with it."

"Ain't no heiress would have me, sir," Barton said.

"Then follow my example. Become an honest man."

Barton gave a snort. Then he began to chuckle.

"Go on," Trev snapped. "Get out of here before you wake the dead."

Callie was sitting at her dressing table, dreaming of escaping from pirates, wielding a sword like a muske teer while Trev kicked a scalawag overboard at her side. As her maid unwound the length of purple silk from Callie's head, Hermione peeked inside the door, interrupting Trev's desperate lunge to pull Callie from the path of a cannonball.

Her sister slipped into the room, holding her wrapper close about her. "You're home," she said. "I was hoping you wouldn't be too late. Mrs. Adam said they hadn't a thing to eat at Dove House."

"Nothing," Callie said. "And I'm afraid Madame has not long to live."

"Poor woman." Hermione walked restlessly to the window, plucking at the latch as if it were not closed properly. "But her son has come home? High time for that, they say. I didn't see him; is he a toler able gentleman?"

"Oh yes. Elegant manners." Callie watched her sister in the mirror. Hermey took after their mother, everyone said, with skin of smooth perfection and soft golden brown hair falling loose now down her back. The maid plucked at the ends of Callie's own red braids and began to unravel and spread them over her shoulders.

"Elegant," Hermey said. "Well, that's to be expected, I'm sure. He's Madame's son, after all. And a duke, or whatever sort of title they have over there now." She stopped her agitated pacing and made a sweeping f lourish with her thumb and pinkie finger, as if she were taking a pinch of snuff. "So very continental!" There was a f lush to her cheeks, a high color that was unlike her.

"Crushingly modish, I assure you," Callie said lightly.

"I'm sure you took him in dislike, then. It was good of you to offer to help."

Callie did not correct her. "I intend to do what I can for them," she said merely. "I mean to find some servants and see that the house is put to rights."