The little hoyden from the neighboring estate in Kettering had grown up into a spitfire. Wearing men’s clothing and cheating at cards in his hotel. What were the odds?

Lady Ravenna Huntley.

Courtland didn’t doubt who she said she was. When he’d thought her a young gent, something about her face and swagger had struck a vague chord of recognition in him, and when she’d claimed to know him via Richard Huntley, it had clicked. He’d assumed her to be a cousin or some such. But now, as he took in her heart-shaped face, huge eyes, and trembling lips, he saw distinct signs of the girl he once knew. Though she wasn’t a girl anymore—she was grown. In spite of her clever disguise, that much was obvious. His lip curled in irritation. What the devil had she been thinking?

As if she could sense his thoughts, her chin lifted and she met his gaze with defiance.

“Does Embry know you’re here?” he demanded.

“What do you think?” Her tongue was as cutting as he remembered.

“I think he should put you over his knee.”

She rolled her eyes. “My brother is not a barbarian.”

“Then perhaps the task should fall to me.”

A furious copper gaze slammed into his. “Touch me and you will be the one missing a finger, I promise you. I’ve learned a few things since we were children.”

His brow dipped. He didn’t doubt that, considering she was here, and not tucked away in a ducal residence somewhere in England, being waited on hand and foot like the gently reared lady she was. What the hell was she doing here? And come to think of it, did she have a lick of sense left in that idiot head of hers? She had just announced her identity in a public drawing room while scandalously dressed in men’s clothing. And yes, it was a far step away from London, but oceans didn’t stop gossip.

Swearing under his breath, he shrugged out of his own coat, draped it over her shoulders, and shepherded her from the room to his personal offices, which he should have done from the start. Then his own ill-timed ducal news as well as her revelation would have occurred behind private, closed doors. Too late for any of that.

Bloody hell.

“Drink?” he asked.

“No, thank you.”

In silence, he poured two fingers of imported French brandy into a tumbler and took a healthy sip. Coppery irises of the same changing hues as the brandy met his. Had her eyes always been that color? He’d remembered them being brown. Her shorn hair was a surprise, the close-cropped curls lying flat beneath the copious pomade. As a girl, her long hair had been braided tight to her scalp and gingery-red—to the point where her brothers had called her gingersnap mercilessly—and not such a dark auburn.