This is how it begins, she thought.A single misstep, and the world spins out of control.
“I expect a tray for supper,” she said, “and at least three blankets. I will not be cold on your account.”
He gave a fractional nod, as though approving the terms of a treaty. “You will have four blankets and two fireplaces if you wish.”
She could not stop the smile then, though she hid it behind a pretense of severity. “Then we are agreed.”
He gestured to a footman, who appeared instantly, as if from a trapdoor.
“Show Lady Lavinia to the guest room,” Tristan said. “And see to it she is comfortable. No one is to disturb her unless she requests it. Also, fetch Mrs. Woods and inform her that Lady Lavinia is to wait out the storm here.”
The footman nodded, and Lavinia started to follow him. Sophia poked her head from the drawing room doorway and grinned. “I am glad you are staying.”
“So am I, my dear,” Lavinia said for the girl’s benefit.
Sophia grinned again, then darted away, her footsteps clapping like the memory of laughter.
You should be frightened,Lavinia told herself as she was shown into the guest room.
She changed into the nightclothes that the housekeeper, Mrs. Woods, provided—a thing so starched and pristine it might have been made for a bishop—and sat at the edge of the bed.
Hours later, sleep would not come. Not after the day’s lessons, nor after the standoff in the entryway. Not even after the footman delivered a tray laden with hot tea, fruit preserves, and four scones, the last of which she devoured in a single bite.
Her mind spun with worries for Frances, though she had sent word home via the stableboy. They spun with the memory of Sophia’s wide, hopeful eyes and the helplessness of the small gray kitten, hidden away in the gardener’s shed at the edge of the rose walk.
She tried to read, but the words swam. Every time the wind moaned, she saw the kitten, shivering and hungry, alone in the storm.
She lasted until half past eleven.
Then she threw off the blankets, pulled on her cloak, and stuffed a crust of scone in her pocket. She tied her boots, checked the hallway for sentries, and, finding none, she crept down the servants’ staircase with the stealth of a burglar.
The halls were cold and dark, the only light a single candle guttering in a bracket by the kitchen. Lavinia snatched it, shielding the flame with her hand, and tiptoed through the scullery to the back garden door.
The wind nearly knocked her flat and completely blew out the candle. She fought the handle, braced her back against the jamb, and slipped out into the night.
It was worse than she had expected. The rain did not fall so much as fly, driven sideways by a wind that smelled of damp earth and shattered branches. She stumbled across the yard, her boots instantly sodden, and skidded down the muddy path to the kitchen garden.
The shed loomed up, black and hunched. She ducked inside and called, “Whisper?”
A faint, desperate mew answered her.
She found the kitten curled in a ragged nest of burlap, shivering so violently she feared it might fracture. Lavinia scooped it up and tucked it into the hollow of her cloak, pressing it to her chest.
“There, darling,” she murmured, “you’re not alone now, though you look nothing more than bones and hope.”
She touched her finger to the kitten’s nose, and it licked her fingers. She should have felt foolish. She should have felt anything but this immense, absurd tenderness.
Stepping out of the shed with the kitten held tight, she nearly collided with a wall of black.
Tristan.
He stood in the storm, his hair plastered to his head, his face full of white-hot fury as lightning flashed.
“What in God’s name are you doing?” he demanded.
Lavinia’s first impulse was to shield the kitten, as if he might seize it from her arms and hurl it into the darkness. “I am rescuing him,” she said. “If you must know.”
“Who?”
