Lisa turned onto her side again and stared at the window as she contemplated what she should do. She would ask Charles to kiss her passionately. If that worked out all right and he did ask her to marry him, she would tell him about Robert and see how he reacted, and then . . . She supposed the “and then” would depend on how he reacted.

It wasn’t much, but it was the first bit of hope Lisa had felt in days. She might not be able to have the kind of marriage her sisters enjoyed, but then again she might. After all, neither Suzette nor Christiana had known their husbands for years before marrying them. Actually, they’d both only known them for a matter of days. There was still hope for her without Robert. She just had to keep her spirits up and resist the temptation he offered in the meantime.

It was the temptation that was her biggest worry. All the man had to do was touch her and her resistance crumbled like a house of cards. It was pathetic really, when she thought about it. She’d been raised better than that. But so long as he was guarding her, she very much feared—

Lisa sat up in bed abruptly. As long as he was guarding her . . . That was the problem. Richard and Daniel had arranged things so that he would have to guard her in the hopes that he would admit he loved her and give up this ridiculous idea about a curse on the Langley men. But Christiana wasn’t with child, and the women knew about the suitor. There was no longer any excuse not to hire a proper bodyguard to trail her around rather than Robert. And doing that would remove temptation for her.

“Damn,” Lisa muttered, dropping back in bed. She should have thought of this before. She would talk to Richard about it tomorrow. With any luck, Robert and his temptation would be out of the house by tomorrow afternoon.

“Oh, it’s you.”

Robert stopped his pacing of Richard’s office and turned at that comment to find the man standing in the open office door.

“I heard someone in the hall upstairs and got up to investigate, but by the time I pulled on my trousers the hall was empty, so I thought to check the rest of the house,” Richard explained, moving into the room and pushing the door closed behind him.

“I couldn’t sleep,” Robert muttered, turning away to pace to the fireplace again.

“How is the wound?” Richard asked, moving to the sideboard to pour himself a whiskey.