Had her mother been a gypsy? A debutante? A vicar’s daughter? A love-struck girl at a masquerade ball? Liam Boscastle had made pleasure his life’s pursuit. He fell in love with whomever happened to be in his bed. And forgot her in the morning, riding off into the woods without a thought.

Whether or not Edlyn was his love child, he had accepted her. But after a while, he said he did not want to hear another word about Edlyn’s mother. Ever. And Edlyn had to forget her, for she had obviously done the same.

Now, because she had disobeyed him, she’d walked into a trap. She cringed as Mrs. Porter came up behind her, smelling of grease and greed. “You didn’t open that window, did you? It was never so cold in here until you came.”

“What have I been telling you, woman?” Jonathan asked with a grim nod. “We’ve been bewitched. We can’t keep her. She’s gonna bring us down, I swear it.”

“She is only a girl,” Rosalie said, turning toward him. “And she is going to bring us a fortune, unless you ruin-”

He reared back, blinking rapidly and making gurgling sounds in his throat.

Rosalie sighed in exasperation. “What is it now?”

“Your-your-” He gestured at her forehead.

“Yes, it is my cream. You’ve seen it on my face a hundred times before.”

He nodded, finally recovering his power of speech. “Maybe so. But I’ve never seen your face without its eyebrows before.”

Griffin came home to find Harriet asleep on the sofa in his library. He bent and lifted her into his arms. She nestled closer to his chest, hooking one arm around his neck. “Did you find her?” she whispered, opening her drowsy eyes.

He swallowed. The warmth of her body stole over him. He wanted to hold her until he could think again. His mind was exhausted.

He carried her upstairs to her bed, glancing around the room to make certain no chambermaid sat in wait for news of Edlyn’s abduction. Would she be found? Would it turn out to be a hoax? He knew the questions being asked. Unfortunately, he did not know the answers.

“It must be five o’clock in the morning,” Harriet whispered as he sat down on the bed beside her. “Did you learn anything at all?”

He shook his head, staring across the room until she sat up and wrapped her arms around him.

“It’ll all be fine.” She put her head on his shoulder. “I know it will.”

He meant only to kiss her. But then she drew him down beside her, her eyes inviting him. He circled his hand down her back, over her hips, to the hollow behind her knees. “I should know that I can’t help myself whenever I touch you-”

“I want you to touch me,” she whispered. “I don’t want you to be able to stop.”

He closed his eyes, sinking onto the bed beside her. Her skin smelled of soap. He reached for her again, his fingers loosening her heavy braid.

Marry me, he thought as numbness crept over him, not knowing whether she was awake or not. When this is over, please be my wife. It was light when he opened his eyes. With concern not to disturb her, he furtively slid one stockinged foot to the floor and repaired his attire as best he could. He found his boots at the door. He hoped that Harriet would sleep another hour. He hoped she at least would be refreshed this morning. But as he stole into the hall, he heard such a bone-chilling scream come from her room that he dropped both of his boots on the floor.

Damn propriety. Damn what would be said. He returned without an instant’s delay to her side, taking her into his arms with an instinct that would not be denied.

“Harriet, what is the matter?”

She stared over his shoulder with a vacant detachment that raised the hairs on his nape. He shook her gently. “Harriet, was someone here?” he asked when he knew it was impossible.

He heard doors opening in the house, voices talking all at once. “You screamed,” he said under his breath. “What happened?”

“I screamed?”

He shook her again. “Don’t you remember?”

Her gaze came into focus. She regarded him in panic. “Why are you still here? We’re going to be found out.”

The door flew open. He leapt up and went to the window, searching the garden below for the cause of her disturbance. “What is going on?” Primrose whispered in a trembling voice behind him. “What are you doing in here, Griffin? What happened to make Harriet scream like that?”

Harriet drew the bedcovers up to her chin, wide awake and whispering in a sorrowful voice. “Oh, madam, please, I didn’t mean to scare everyone. It was a nightmare. I haven’t had one in ages. But I must have been so tired and worried and-I’m sorry.”

“A nightmare?” Griffin said with a relief he could not conceal. “A nightmare?”

She put her face in her hands. Griffin went to her side, his aunt watching in distress.

“What were you dreaming about, my dear?” she asked.

“My father,” Harriet whispered. “I was standing over the mean sod’s grave-” She paused. “I mean, I was praying for his poor departed soul, and there was a gravedigger flinging sod in every direction.”

“How awful, but not uncommon,” Primrose said in sympathy, “to dream of one who has recently died.”

Harriet shook her head. “I wasn’t screaming because he was dead. I thought he’d come back to life from the grave. I felt this cold hand catch me by the ankle, and when I looked down-you know how you can’t stop yourself from looking at something horrible-I saw him grinning up at me like a ghoul.”

She lowered her hands. Griffin thought he might expire himself. “It’s too much to bear, Harriet,” he heard his aunt say like a dirge. “It is all too much to bear.”

He walked from the bed toward the door. His aunt reached for his hand.

“I forgot until now,” he said. He turned back slowly. “You left a string of glass beads in my carriage. I kept them, not knowing what they might mean to you.”

“They’re nothing. Toss them.”

He frowned. “They were from your father?”

He wondered if she might be crying. But when she looked up, she was composed. “He never gave me anything but grief in his life. Go back to bed, the both of you.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

She slept for three more hours. Once she thought she heard a soft knock upon her door, but she couldn’t muster the energy to crack open her eyes, let alone call out to ask if anyone was there. By late morning she wondered if it had been the rain that disturbed her. When she dressed and went downstairs, the house was full of Boscastle cousins who had come to offer their support. The ladies comforted Lady Powlis in the drawing room. The male members of the clan had sequestered themselves in the library with the duke.

She listened for a long time to the low drift of their voices. She couldn’t bear feeling useless. How could pouring tea find a missing girl? Lady Powlis’s paid companion, a graduate of an elite lady’s academy in London, had promised that she would not put herself at risk during this personal crisis. But Harriet had given the duke notice.

She slipped out the kitchen door to the garden. The grass glistened with drops of rain. She’d be back before anyone even knew she had gone.

She didn’t look around. She blended in with the pedestrians hurrying to and fro, a young woman of modest appearance on an errand for her employer. She walked past the lavender sellers, who stood discussing the fate of the duke’s abducted niece and wondering how girls like them could expect to be safe when a proper lady could be stolen from a private school.

“Harriet?” one of them said in a startled voice, breaking away from her competitors. “Harriet, is that you?”

Harriet put her finger to her lips. The girl shrugged, muttering, “Sorry, I thought I knew you,” and Harriet continued briskly down the street. By the time the hackney coach she hailed deposited her a few streets from her old home, she wished she’d had the foresight to buy a bunch of lavender to hold to her nose. She was more concerned about stepping in a puddle of slop than about her personal safety.