“Of course, his lordship is not captaining this ship, if a sloop can rightfully be called such,” the little man said with a persnickety shake of his head. “So who is to say, my lady, how well we will fare in this squall?”

The night came and she lay on her side in bed, curled around her clasped arms, her hands cold and damp and her breaths fast. The ship creaked madly and the wind howled, buffeting the sides of the vessel until she could not hear even her thoughts. Exhausted, she sank into nightmares of violence and suffocation.

She awoke to the dark and the warmth of Luc’s hand curving around her cheek. She reached for him and held onto his fingers like a buoy.

He sat on the edge of the bed and drew her into his arms.

“Do not be afraid, little governess,” he said beneath the groaning of the ship and the lash of rain. “I am here. You are safe.” He held her securely. She burrowed her face against his shirt and clung to him. He kissed the top of her head and smoothed his hand over her hair and down her back. “You have survived much worse.”

The beat of his heart, strong and steady, played against her cheek.

“You know about the shipwreck?” she whispered.

“I know,” he said against her hair. “A man in my position must know something of the woman he weds.”

She lifted her head and in the darkness saw only the shadow of his features. “It matters nothing to you? That I know nothing of my real family? That my mother sent three tiny daughters off to an uncertain fate? That she might have been a—”

He captured her lips.

He kissed her softly, tenderly, then deeply until she wrapped her arms around his neck. With great gentleness he bore her down to the mattress. Her fingers tangled in his hair and he drew her close with his hands around her waist and she pressed against him. Strong and solid and warm, he held her to him and kissed her so that she knew only his mouth and her need for him and the safety to be had in his embrace.

“Thank you,” she whispered, because she had never said it to him.

He kissed the corner of her lips, then beneath her ear, then her neck. Then he shifted his arm to pillow her head.

“Sleep now.” He stroked a single fingertip across her cheek. “I promise, when you wake the sky will be clear and you can again practice standing atop with all the advantages of gravity on your side.”

She curled into the shelter of his body, the rolling of the ship only a distant threat.

“Will you control the weather now as you control everything else?” she murmured, sleep catching her eyelids and dragging at her limbs.

“Not everything,” he whispered, and touched his lips to her brow. “Not my duchess,” she thought she heard. “Not my heart.” But she knew she was already dreaming.

THE DAY BROKE splendidly clear and blue, as he had prophesied. Arabella awoke alone. She climbed from the cot, dressed, and made her way to the top deck. He was there and greeted her as he had since their journey began: pleasantly, lightly, impersonally.

He did not come to her at night again. When they set out on the road to Shropshire, he once more rode alongside the coach. It was a magnificent carriage, lined in the softest fabrics and leather, with gold tasseled curtains on the windows and the ducal crest on the door. Four gorgeous black horses drew it, their harnesses gleaming, and the coachman and postilion both in crisp blue livery. The innkeeper at the posting house at which they stopped along the road fell over himself backward to make the comtesse happy after the comte made it clear that was his only wish. Her husband immersed her in luxury and comfort and showed her no more intimacy than he did the servants.

She did not fight it. He had thwarted her plan to visit his brother in Paris. In some manner she would manage to discover the truth behind their rushed wedding, even if he remained distant from her.

By Jacqueline’s account, Christos Westfall was an entertaining companion when he lived at the chateau during her time there. An artist, he kept mostly to himself in the studio he had in a cottage at the far end of the gardens tucked just inside the woods, and the princess had seen him little. She said he was mercurial of spirit and devoted to his brother, who adored him equally. He seemed unexceptionable.

But because of his unsuitability to inherit, Arabella had married his brother. She hoped the Duke of Lycombe’s ancestral estate would offer her answers. The Duke of Lycombe’s heir clearly would not.

ARABELLA HAD PASSED the residences of dukes in London many times, but she had never seen a duke’s country house. The first glimpse of Combe dropped the bottom out of her stomach.

Presiding over emerald fields dotted with sheep and here and there a solitary grand old oak, it sprawled atop the crest of a hill in a majestic expanse of turreted limestone tempered with windows that caught the rays of the waning sun and set the house afire. Below in the valley, a curving river reflected the house’s brilliance like a protective band.

She dragged her gaze away and to the man astride his horse nearby. He had halted and sat very still with his face to the house.

The drive wended its way around the north side of the hill until it came level with the house. Passing between rows of ancient firs, abruptly it burst into the open and Combe was right before them, towering and broad and indisputably ducal.

Two dozen servants stood in perfect lines from the colonnaded front door along either railing of the front stairs. On the bottom step stood Arabella’s sisters and a huge black dog.

Ravenna ran to the coach, Beast loping in her wake. Eleanor followed. The moment the footman lowered the step, Arabella burst from the carriage door and fell into her younger sister’s arms. Eleanor grasped her hand and they embraced without speaking. There was too much to say. It had been too long.

Arabella pulled back.

“Welcome home, duchess,” Ravenna exclaimed, her dark eyes laughing.

“I told her that she must call you ‘my lady,’ ” Eleanor said, squeezing Arabella’s hand tightly, “but the servants are all insisting you will be a duchess soon anyway, and in any case our sister will do whatever she wishes no matter what I say.” She smiled sweetly.

Arabella kissed her on the cheek. “How I have missed you both.” Her voice broke.

“But you have been busy, it seems,” Eleanor said with another smile, and glanced over her shoulder.

Luc was dismounting. He gave the reins to a servant and came forward.

“Good Lord, Bella,” Ravenna whispered, “he is smashingly handsome. I thought you were determined to marry some scabby old hoary-headed prince, but this is— Ouch.”

Eleanor’s hand slipped away from Ravenna’s elbow. She dipped her golden head and curtsied deeply as Luc came to them. “My lord,” she said.

“Miss Caulfield.” With great elegance he bowed.

Ravenna offered a quick dip of her knees. “Hello, Duke. It’s lovely to have you in the family. Who had the mending of that wound across your eye? Whoever he was, he made a wretched hash of it.”

Luc’s beautiful mouth slipped into a one-sided grin. He bent to give her old dog’s furry brow a rub. “I thought the same thing, Miss Ravenna, so I had him dispatched. Easy to do aboard ship, you know. One just pushes a fellow over then sails away very quickly.”

Ravenna’s mouth split into a sparkling smile. “I approve, Bella. You may keep him.”

Eleanor smothered her chuckle.

“Now, ladies,” he said, “if you will allow me to make your sister acquainted with the household, I will then give her fully into your keeping.”

He did not look at Arabella as he took her hand upon his arm and introduced her to the butler and the housekeeper.

The housekeeper looked fondly at Luc. “May I say, we are all happy you’ve come home to stay . . . your grace.”