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“Seen it? No, of course not,” she said, too quickly.

God help him, she was lying. He could tell. Rosalind had always been an awful liar.

She was lying to him about Templemore. His blood thundered in his ears. Then something occurred to him, and he brightened. The cottage could be an assignation site for Juliet. Since Rosalind would never condone Juliet’s meeting Templemore alone, she might have gone with her sister to act as chaperone. It would explain why she and Juliet had conspired to stay in Shropshire.

Yet Juliet didn’t want to remain anymore. No, it was Rosalind who seemed to have wanted to stay.

He swallowed down the sudden bile rising in his throat as several little niggling details loomed in his mind. Rosalind and Templemore returning from a cozy ride in a sleigh. Them whispering together one day in a corner when they’d thought he wasn’t looking.

Templemore’s father had been known for preying on married women, after all.

He shook his head. No, he wouldn’t even think it. Rosalind would never be unfaithful to him. She wouldn’t.

But that didn’t mean she mightn’t be a bit enamored of the fellow. After all, Templemore possessed that courtly manner toward women that Griff had never managed to acquire. He lacked Griff’s explosive temper. And he always paid attention to what Rosalind said, unlike most men of their acquaintance.

Griff winced. He hadn’t paid enough attention to her of late, too wrapped up in his business affairs. Besides, it had been hard to be around her, knowing that he couldn’t give her the child she desperately wanted. So he’d buried himself in his work. He’d told himself he’d do better once he settled this matter of finding Juliet’s abductor.

How could he have been so blind? Rosalind wasn’t the sort of woman one neglected with impunity. Could she have found in Templemore a companion who’d pay her heed when her husband was not around? And how long would it be before friendship turned to something else? Especially if they were meeting in secret at some cottage…

No, he couldn’t bear to think of that.

“Rosalind,” he whispered, slipping his arm about her waist, needing to touch her. “Are you happy?”

She gazed at him with a bemused smile. “Of course I am. Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You just seem…very distracted lately.”

Twisting around to face him, she looped her arms about his neck. “That’s because you’re always distracting me.”

Her teasing smile and sensual glances were the same as ever. And when she pressed her ample breasts up against him, the band constricting his heart eased a little. Perhaps he was imagining all this secrecy. Nothing was wrong. He was being absurd.

All the same, he wouldn’t feel safe until he had her far away from Templemore.

Chapter 19

Any man can make mistakes,

but only an idiot persists in his error.

Cicero’s Philipics, worked on a hanging by Juliet after her disastrous elopement

Midmorning on the second day after Juliet’s departure, Sebastian stood on the west lawn with a pistol in hand. Could it really have been only two days? It seemed like more. Especially when he spent them wearing himself out beating brass into casings and silver into facings. And spent the nights sleeping at the cottage to avoid his bleak, cold bed at Charnwood.

Not that the cottage was much better, with her lilac scent still fragrant on the pillows. Last night he’d found a long golden hair tangled in the sheets, and only a stern self-lecture had prevented his tucking it away somewhere for a deuced keepsake. What insanity. His craving for her should have lessened once she was gone. But if anything, it had increased.

And now this.

He was so busy loading that he didn’t hear footsteps approach. Only the scent of Russian Oil alerted him to his uncle’s arrival.

“You sent for me?” Uncle Lew asked.

“Yes.” Sebastian sighted down the pistol and fired. This one wouldn’t do—it pulled a little to the right. He’d forgotten about that. He set it with the other two unacceptable pistols. “I’m leaving for London as soon as the trunks are loaded in the carriage and I’ve finished choosing a dueling pistol.”

“A dueling pistol! Whyever would you need that?”

“It’s just a precaution. I don’t know what I’ll have to deal with in town.”

“Surely you are not expecting to face Knighton on the dueling field!”