Lord Collins stared in horror first at Geoffrey, then at Dare. “But…but…he shot you! I saw the blood!”

Dare looked down to his chest. “Oh that? Just a bladder of red ink. Geoffrey fired over my head. I expect if you look, you’ll find the ball in the tree behind where I stood.”

Collins looked from Geoffrey to Dare, his eyes wild. “I don’t…I don’t…how…”

“Oh, honestly Matthew, are you dense? It was a trap, set to catch you out. Even I could see that, once I realized Dare wasn’t dead.” She turned to him and gave him a good glare. “And don’t think I won’t have a few words to say to you about letting me believe you were going to your death without even saying good-bye to me.”

He frowned his sternest frown at her. “Just as I will have a few things to say to you about following me to a morning appointment, madam.”

Charlotte rewarded his frown with her dimples. “You can’t intimidate me; you love me too much.”

“I do, eh?”

“Good God, they’re both alive!” Lord Beverly yelled, having just caught sight of the men. He raced over, Crouch at his heels. “I’m confused. You’re not injured, either of you?”

“Yes, you do,” Charlotte answered her husband. “Why else would you go to the extreme lengths of this polluted plan if it wasn’t for me?”

“No, we’re both fine. Neither of us is injured,” Geoffrey told Lord Beverly.

Dare tugged Charlotte toward him until her breasts were pressed into his chest. “You’re so clever, you tell me why I would dream up such a convoluted plan?”

“But why did you both pretend to be dead?” Lord Beverly asked in confusion.

“Really? Convoluted? That doesn’t sound right.” Charlotte’s lips brushed Dare’s as she spoke.

“It is, however, the correct word.”

“No!” Lord Collins shrieked, and would have run had not Crouch suddenly appeared behind him, his hook glinting in the sun as it twisted in the cloth against Collins’s neck.

“It was all part of our plan, Beverly,” Geoffrey replied as he took a step closer to Matthew, ignoring the stream of snarled obscenities that came from the earl’s mouth. “Dare and I talked it over yesterday. He pointed out how Collins here was manipulating me and suggested that the manipulation might go back further than either of us had realized. We agreed to trap him into admitting the truth by making him think we were both dead. Batsfoam was supposed to goad Collins into admitting that he was behind my abduction, since Collins was sure to feel that as a murderer, Batsfoam could pose him no threat, but when Lady Charlotte came along—” Geoffrey shrugged. “She served the purpose far better.”

“Very well, I’ll believe you on the convoluted issue, but as for this other, you cannot make me believe you don’t love me as much as you clearly do. No other man but one deeply in love would go to such lengths to protect his wife’s reputation.”