Her heart was breaking. It had all gone wrong. She had insulted Wick. Of course, he couldn’t do as she asked. It was as ridiculous as the idea that he should marry her. He was the son of a grand duke. She was a fool—a stupid, naive fool from a small village, and she should have stayed there. Though if you looked at it another way, he was a servant, and she was a lady. The outcome was obvious.

Besides, her idea was ridiculous, born of desperation. Obviously Wick would never, ever, sleep with an unmarried lady—even if she had begged him.

Her cheeks were burning, as she followed Wick into the corridor and shut the door behind her.

But she came from strong stock, and she would not crumple. “I apologize for asking you to do something so insulting to your sense of honor,” she said, keeping her voice steady. And she even managed to summon up a wisp of a smile. “I know you are no debaucher of maidens.”

He did not return her smile. “My father was as much. My mother worked in the castle’s laundry. I cannot, ever, act as he did.”

Philippa nodded. “You are not like your father. And you mustn’t think twice about Rodney. I shall explain everything to my father, and I will make him understand.” She would not burden Wick with the truth: that her father would marry her to Rodney willy-nilly.

“I could kill Rodney, if you wish. Perhaps I should do it whether you wish me to or not.”

She blinked and saw that his eyes were entirely serious. She let out a muffled laugh. “No! Rodney is . . . Rodney is not terrible. I exaggerated the matter when I told you about him. I will tell my father that I don’t wish to marry Rodney, and that will be that.”

She held out her hand. “I have heard that fine ladies in London shake hands.”

He looked down at her hand in the dim corridor. “Are you a fine lady?”

“No, but I wish I were, for your sake.”

“So you could buy me?”

Her hand dropped. “Buy you?”

“I’m pretty, in my own way,” he said neutrally. “Ladies have indicated that they might be willing to support me in a grander fashion than does Gabriel.”

For a moment she didn’t understand him, then a flash of rage went through her body. “Now you have insulted me, as surely as I did you,” she snapped. “I think this conversation has gone quite far enough.” She turned to open the door to the nursery.

His hand shot out, held the door shut.

“Wick,” she said, staring at his hand against the dark wood, “I must enter that nursery. I should pack. I am leaving tomorrow.”

She didn’t feel him move, or sense a flash of his arms, nothing . . . and yet suddenly she was spun around and found herself wrapped in his arms.