“Oh, my lady, there’s such an awful man outside! He says he’s from The Tatler, and we can’t get rid of him.”

“My goodness,” Charlotte said, startled. “Who exactly has tried to evict the man?”

“Well, there’s three footmen have been out to see him, but no one can stop him from lurking about the house and sneaking up to the windows.”

Patrick rose threateningly to his feet. “I’ll—”

“No, you certainly won’t!” Charlotte snapped. “You can’t be seen here at all. I suppose your coach is waiting for you in front?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick replied. “I had a fresh team this afternoon, so Derby may have taken them for a spin.”

“Molly, send a footman out to intercept Mr. Foakes’s carriage and send it off to Hyde Park.”

“No, no,” said Patrick, his deep voice amused. “He can tell Derby to go home and I’ll take a hackney later.”

Molly curtsied and left the room. There was a moment of silence. Then Patrick laughed ruefully.

“Do you know, I have never had an affair with a married woman? I begin to see that it must be remarkably uncomfortable.”

Charlotte chuckled. Now that she saw Patrick more clearly, she couldn’t believe she ever thought he was Alex. They were entirely different. Patrick looked as if he was always about to burst out laughing or say something whimsical. Whereas Alex … Charlotte thought longingly of Alex and the way he would grimace when she teased him for wearing his “brooding look.”

“London is dashed dull after India, anyway,” Patrick said frankly. “I thought I might go into Leicestershire and visit Braddon. I shall be off in the morning, and that ought to kill the gossip.” He looked disgusted. “All this devilish propriety! I never could abide it. Although I must say I never got up to as freakish an exploit as Alex did in Italy, and he always seems the sober one. Annulling his marriage!” Patrick had caught up on all the family gossip the night before, and he was feeling rather refreshed at the thought of his somber twin getting himself into such a bumble broth.

Charlotte blushed faintly. She felt a bit diffident about the subject of Alex’s first wife.

“Anyway, how the deuce am I to get out of here?” Patrick demanded. “I’m very pleased to have met you, but unless I’m to spend the night I need to find a back door, or some such.”

Charlotte had been thinking this over. “The problem is that you’re so very tall,” she said, dismissing the idea of disguising her brother-in-law in a maid’s dress. She had read a novel in which that worked, but somehow it didn’t seem very likely in reality.

“I’ll just wait until the cove outside lopes off.”

“The cove outside lopes—off?” Charlotte repeated in a bewildered tone.