Gemma became rather painfully aware that she was blushing. Drat. Here she was trying to take Mr. Bing to task when suddenly she was breathless with the memory of water running down Mr. Worthington's flat muscled abdomen. There was nothing she could do about the redness of her cheeks, so she narrowed her eyes at her sometimes-employee, sometimes-father figure, occasional pain-in-the-arse dear Mr. Bing. "I did see that. As I'm sure that you intended me to. May I ask why you felt it was necessary?"

Bing gave up gruff bark of laughter. "Missus, I know you want t' world to think you're made of steel and porcelain, but you forget how long I've known you. If you spend another year alone in this great, crumbling house, you're like to go battlefield mad yourself."

Gemma's jaw dropped. She would have protested, but Mr. Bing was not yet done.

"That fellow's a bit odd, I'll grant it. But he's all right underneath. He saved that worthless dog, didn't he? He gives more than he gets, just like you." Mr. Bing scratched his balding head. "You know I'm as loyal as could be to Dr. Oakes. But he's dead, ain't he? And you're not! I hate to see you wasting that big heart on medicine alone when you orta have a family of your own!"

Gemma had no words to challenge Mr. Bing's sudden outburst. The nerve! The unmitigated gall!

The truth.

Oh, it was a truth she did not want to acknowledge. Especially not before Mr. Bing, who was nearly old enough to be her father! And yet here he was, in his strange way, the closest thing she had to a friend.

He had purposely arranged that bit of theater at the rain barrel! As what, temptation?

Even so, when the hot flush of memory swept her she could do nothing but clench her eyes tight and turn half away from the pity and understanding in his eyes.

He brushed by her on his way out of the room and she stayed right where she was until she could no longer hear the clump of his boots in her house.

Drat the truth.

AS SHE MADE HER weary way to bed, Gemma spotted the book of sonnets on the kitchen table and took it with her.

The manor was incredibly silent this late at night and for the most part, Gemma enjoyed the peacefulness. She had always been a quiet person.

Perhaps that stemmed from being raised in a library. When she'd been very young, her mother had fallen sickly. Gemma's nurse had been enlisted to care for her mother and her absent-minded father had apparently forgot to ever secure another.

Her well-meaning but undemonstrative Papa had simply taken tiny Gemma to work with him. In the vast chambers of the Cambridge University Library, Gemma lived her earliest memories in a forest of bookshelves, as tall as giants and as impenetrable as walls.