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Ella blinked at him. “Why on earth did you do that?” She clutched his arm. “Oh, Fiennes, what if the viscount has another pistol? He might still be angry at you for rescuing my aunt.”

“You need not worry, darling. I’ve offered him an allowance. I’m probably the person whose safety he cares for most. After his own, of course.”

“Isn’t that a sad observation?” Ella said with a sigh. “All right. Let’s get it over with. I doubt he will actually appear.”

A smile touched Fiennes’s mouth, and she changed her mind.

The viscount was wandering around the library, scowling at the empty shelves. His eyes raked down Ella’s body. “Don’t you have fine feathers.” But his scowl lacked force.

“Hello, Uncle,” she said. “How are you?”

“Is Tyrwhitt meeting us?” the viscount asked, ignoring her greeting. “I expect you’d like me to watch him take possession. Kick a man while he’s down.” He gave Fiennes a glare, but there was a cringing note to his voice that made Ella’s smile widen.

Fiennes pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and held it up between two fingers. “Do you recognize this?”

The viscount’s eyelids trembled, but he said nothing.

“You might not since you were rotgut drunk while making the bet, according to the squeals of laughter that accompanied the tale I heard.”

“I might.”

“It’s your handwriting,” Fiennes stated.

“No will had been found at that point,” the viscount shrilled. “My house and mine to dispose of as I—”

“True, you disposed of property you believed to be yours,” Fiennes broke in. He handed the slip to Ella.

She read it before gaping at him. “How did you come by my uncle’s pledge?” She held it up. “You didn’t buy it, did you?”

Fiennes’s eyes met hers: grave, courteous, and everything she ever dreamed of in a man. Not that she’d dreamt of Fiennes, because who could imagine a man like him?

“I won it,” he stated.

“You won my house?” the viscount gasped. “By all that’s holy, I wouldn’t have thought you had the bottom for it. I’ve never seen you in the cardroom.”

“I don’t gamble, as a matter of course. I played a round of snooker for the house that has been in your family for generations.”

“Excellent,” the viscount said, rubbing his hands together. “All in the family, eh?”

“No.”

“What?”

“It’s no longer your house,” Fiennes said.

“No need to be petulant. All’s well that ends well, eh? You can give me back that pledge,” her uncle said to Ella. “A man needs a place to live, after all. Your husband’s solicitors took possession of the Northern estate.”

“No,” Fiennes said.

“Why not?” her uncle snarled, his eyes narrowing.

“I am giving the house to Ella as a wedding present.”

Ella’s mouth fell open. She leaned into him and rubbed her cheek against his shoulder. “Oh, Fiennes.”

“A thorough renovation begins later this week.”

“You don’t need two houses,” the viscount said craftily.