She leaned out again. The branch nearest her window, the big one with the special crook where she had always taken the first step, was impossible to see. And really, she had no intention of climbing down from her window—it was simply beyond the pale.

She thought of telling him to meet her at the cow barn, but one of her farm lads would be sleeping there. The boxwood maze would be miserable on a night like this. The gamekeeper would be on alert for poachers in the wood, and a groom was always on night duty in the stables.

Truly, the range of possibilities had not altered much in the past nine years.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and called down as softly as she could. "The carriage house."

"Bless you!" he responded instantly. The vague shape below her vanished.

Callie wore her oilskin overcoat and work boots. She had made her way out the servants' entrance, locking the door behind her, prepared to say that she was going to tend the orphan calf if she'd encountered any of the staff. But no one stirred, not even the hall boy snoring on his cot by Dolly's bell.

It was all too easy, as it had always been. She should have been born a housebreaker.

The door to the carriage house was closed. She could see enough by the light of the lowering clouds to let herself in, but it was utterly black inside.

"Trev?" she whispered. "Are you here?"

She heard the carriage springs squeak with some sudden move.

"Callie?" His voice sounded muff led and shocked.

"Of course," she said. She had no idea why he had mounted into the carriage itself. "What's happened? Is it your mother?"

There were more sounds, and then the creak of the door opening. "Callie. You didn't have to come out."

She paused in consternation. "I thought you needed help."

She heard him moving on the steps, and then suddenly he bumped against her in the dark. He sucked in a swift, sharp breath and then touched her arm, resting his fingers there as if to steady himself.

"You're not hurt, are you?" she asked, uncertain of the sounds.

"Ah," he mumbled. "A little."

She could smell strong drink on his breath, some thing she had never noticed with Trev before, though it was common enough among the older gentlemen of her acquaintance.

"I only need a place to sleep," he said, enunciating his words carefully. "I can sleep in the carriage."

"What's happened?" She pulled off her gloves and fumbled in the deep pocket of her overcoat where she always kept a cache of useful items. "What have you done to hurt yourself?"

He blinked and squinted at the f lare of her brim stone match. "I fell."