“Gillian? Wife, where are you hiding? This is no time for play, woman. We should have left an hour ago!” The doorknob rattled ineffectually.

“Papa, have to widdle!” Dante squirmed in his mother’s arms.

“Now you’ve done it.” Gillian nodded, stepping backwards. “Now you’ve annoyed Noble. I would advise you to move away from the doorway since he is sure to—”

Three sudden bangs against the door at her back caused Charlotte to jump a good foot off the ground.

“—want in. We’re in here, my love,” Gillian called. “Charlotte seems to have misplaced the key. We won’t be a moment finding it.”

“WANT TO WIDDLE!”

“What’s that? Charlotte? What the devil is she doing here? I thought she ran off to be some Italian’s mistress years ago.”

“I didn’t run off, we eloped!” Charlotte bellowed at the door. “We were married in Paris. It was romantic!”

“It doesn’t matter. Open the door! Gillian, we have to leave. Now!”

“WIDDLE!”

“Charlotte,” Gillian said, her voice low and urgent. Charlotte eyed the door with alarm as the Black Earl pounded on it, demanding immediate entrance, but she paid heed to the steely note in her closest friend and relative’s voice. “I understand you’re terribly upset,” Gillian continued, “and I know you’ve had a horrible time returning to England from what sounds like a perfectly ghastly old ruins in Italy, but my dear, I have a son full of widdle, two impatient children in the carriage with Nurse, and a husband who”—she paused as a particularly loud barrage of swearing accented the increased pounding on the door—“is fast losing a temper that has been extremely tried today. Please, please, Char, give me the key before Noble is forced to take drastic measures.”

Charlotte glanced from the squirming child to the look of concern in Gillian’s emerald eyes. Tears had always worked well for her in the past. Perhaps if she could work up a few, her cousin would see how serious she was. She waited for the peculiar prickling sensation to indicate that her cornflower-blue eyes would soon be becomingly framed in a pool of tears, and allowed a note of raw desperation to creep into her voice. “Gilly, I need you. I truly do. You’re all I have left. There’s no one else left who will receive me. Papa saw to that. I have nowhere to go and no money. I sold what remained of Mama’s jewels just to buy a few traveling gowns and passage to England on a merchant ship. You’re the only one in the family who will acknowledge me, and now you are sailing to the West Indies…” Her voice cracked as she brushed at the wetness on her cheeks, surprised to find her crocodile tears had suddenly become real. “Oh, Gilly, please stay. Please help me. I’ve never been alone. I don’t know what to do.”

Gillian shifted the child in her arms and squeezed Charlotte’s hand. “You know I will do everything I can to help you—”