Bronwyn bit her lip, recognizing the ploy for what it was and admiring how casually it was asked in the same breath. “Why? Because I’m too ‘sheltered?’ I won’t drop a name by accident if that is your hope, Your Grace, but I asked to be involved at a country party in Kettering some while ago.”

“Care to share more?”

She blew out a breath. It wouldn’t hurt; it was already done, and perhaps it might go a little way to dispel the thinking that she was a vile criminal. “I helped foil a plot to blow up a train that Palmerston’s private secretary was supposed to be on.”

His head whipped to hers. “Ashley?”

“One and the same.” Her shoulder lifted in a shrug. “That was the first time, and it was addictive.”

“I remember hearing about the report on that incident. It was the Fenians, they said,” he murmured. “There was no mention of you, however.”

“Why would there be? I did it as a favor to a friend.”

“A friend.”

She huffed a laugh, though she could sense his brain mulling over all the details, trying to narrow down the event and the timing. Perhaps she’d erred in confessing anything at all, but a part of her didn’t want him to equate her with some treasonous creature. What she was doing was for Crown and country. Her efforts had not been for naught. “I think we’ve shared quite enough for the evening, Your Grace. I wouldn’t want you to be late for dinner.”

Thirteen

Deuce it! She was going to climb the bloody walls of her stateroom!

It was her own fault. After the incident on the stern, Bronwyn had been dead set on avoiding her warden at all costs. Not for any other reason than she was tangibly weak for him. Her body was already at his mercy and she feared that her brain would follow. She would not betray Wentworth, or believe the worst of him just yet, but the Duke of Thornbury was too clever by half.

Bronwyn flopped back onto her bed and stared at the painted mural on the ceiling that she’d long since memorized: one of a woman on a swing surrounded by peacocks. The symbolism was not lost to her. In the ton, husbands and fathers controlled every aspect of a woman’s life—when she was to smile, to speak, to act. Her purpose was to look pretty and fetching. The joy of the swing was a trap because once one was on, one could never escape. The peacocks with their beautiful tail feathers and sharp beaks kept her in place.

Or perhaps she was over-reading into it. Perhaps it was just a lady on a swing.