A flash of pity crossed Cleo’s face. “No wife should be in a box or an attic,” she said, adding, “Parliament adjourned a week ago. What’s more, you wrote him that important letter. Two of them. He should be here.”

“What if Giles refuses to accompany your husband?” Yasmin asked, swallowing back tears.

“No one refuses Jake Addison,” his wife said with satisfaction. “It’s the American side of him. You’ll have the father of that babe at our front door in no time.”

Embarrassment was a cold lump in Yasmin’s stomach. Her fiancé had to be fetched, like a recalcitrant schoolboy. “I’ll have to tell Giles about the baby.” A sob forced its way out of her chest. “I don’t know why I’m so emotional. I never cry.” She snatched up a handkerchief Cleo offered.

“The baby does it,” Cleo said. “Merry told me that when she was carrying her first, she came across a dying heifer with a newborn calf and cried for two days.”

Yasmin’s eyes widened. “Its mother had died?”

“Merry fed it with a bottle!” Cleo said hastily. And then got up to fetch another handkerchief.

Chapter Thirty

Giles saw his sister and her new husband off for their wedding trip with a rush of relief. It wasn’t just that Lydia was safely married. Yasmin’s silence was driving him mad.

If she thought he would allow her to break their engagement, she was wrong. He would sue her for breach of promise. He was compelled to find her, to keep her. Even if, as he thought in his worst moments, she had chosen another man.

His trunk had been loaded on his traveling coach since dawn.

Bidding farewell to guests at the marriage breakfast following the ceremony was an excruciating exercise in patience. He didn’t encourage chattering; he had Duckworthy bring outer garments to the entry long before people might have expected to depart.

He was saying goodbye to a set of distant cousins when he realized that one man remained.

He wasn’t a guest.

Jake Addison was leaning against the door to Giles’s library, arms crossed over his broad chest. Giles stilled. Jake had the promise of violence in his eyes.

“May I be of service?” Giles asked. He had no fear of Jake. In fact, he would welcome an opportunity to box him. It would be a fair match; they were both burly men. These days he felt buffeted by rage and happy to make use of it.

“Yes. You can come with me.”

“I’m sorry, but I have somewhere I must be.”

“You can postpone it, or I can knock you unconscious and throw you in my carriage.”

“Are you out of your mind?” Giles asked in disbelief. “I don’t care to fight you, but you couldn’t knock me unconscious.”

The American’s eyes narrowed.

Giles didn’t bother to flex his muscles. “Why are you here? Where do you want to take me?”

“Where’s your fiancée?” Jake replied insolently.

Fury spilled through Giles’s limbs like acid. “My fiancée.” He spoke through his teeth. “Why do you ask? She’s with friends.”