“I didn't ask you,” Penelope said with a sniff.

“You should have,” he snapped. “Caroline's presence here is vital to the security of England, and only the worst sort of unpatriotic buffoon would use that to ruin her reputation.” So he was exaggerating a bit about the national security. Desperate times did occasionally call for desperate measures.

James chose that moment to wander in. “I suppose you're still talking circles around Caroline's future,” he said.

They both leveled annoyed stares in his direction.

“Well,” James said, stretching his arms like a cat and yawning as he sank onto a sofa, “I've been thinking about marrying her.”

“Oh, how lovely!” Penelope exclaimed, clapping her hands together, but her comment was drowned out by Blake's yell of, “WHAT?”

James shrugged. “Why not? I have to get married eventually.”

“Caroline deserves someone who will love her,” Blake bit off.

“I certainly like her. That is more than most marriages can claim.”

“That is true,” Penelope said.

“You,” Blake snapped, pointing at his sister. “Be quiet. And you—” He turned his furious visage toward the marquis, but intelligent discourse escaped him, so he just blurted out, “You be quiet, too.”

“Well said.” James chuckled.

Blake glared at him, feeling quite capable of murder.

“Tell me more,” Penelope begged. “I think that Caroline will make a lovely marchioness.”

“Indeed she would,” James replied. “And it would be a rather convenient match. I do need to marry at some point, and it appears that Caroline needs to marry quite soon.”

“There is no reason for her to marry,” Blake growled, “as long as my sister keeps her mouth shut.”

“Penelope is certainly discreet,” James continued in a voice that Blake was beginning to find irritatingly jovial, “but that cannot be a guarantee that no one will find out about our peculiar living arrangements. Caroline might not be a member of the ton, but that does not mean that she deserves to have her name dragged through the mud.”

Blake jumped to his feet and roared, “Don't you dare accuse me of wanting to sully her good name. Everything I have done—”

“The problem,” Penelope smoothly interrupted, “is that you have done nothing.”

“I refuse to sit here and—”

“You're standing,” Penelope pointed out.

“James,” Blake said in a dangerously low voice, “if you don't restrain me, I shall surely commit a great many crimes in the next ten seconds, the least regretful of which shall involve the painful death of my sister.”

“Er…Penelope,” James said, “I'd move out of his reach were I you. I think he might be serious.”

“Bah!” was Penelope's response. “He's just out of sorts because he knows I'm right.”

A muscle started twitching in Blake's jaw and he didn't even bother to look at James when he said, “You don't have a sister, do you, Riverdale?”

“No.”

“Consider yourself blessed.” Then he turned on his heel and stalked away.

James and Penelope stared at the doorway through which Blake had just exited until Penelope finally blinked a few times, turned to James and said, “I don't think he's very pleased with us just now.”