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stood inside the room. He was the only member of the household staff she’d been introduced to. After all, he was Draven’s valet who accompanied his master everywhere.
    “Welcome back, m’lady,” he said.
    “Thank you, Rogers.”
    He seemed pleased that she recalled his name. “I’m here to lock up the library. The master don’t want no one in here.”
    Isabella started to question him, but the valet gently closed the door in her face.
    She followed the straight-backed housekeeper down a long stretch of wall. As she passed a hanging mirror, she stopped and glanced at her reflection.
    How am I supposed to seduce Draven in this pathetic state?
    She managed to rub the last smudge of mud from her cheek and smooth a frizzled curl, but she’d only made a small improvement. It would take at least a dozen salon attendants skilled in coiffures and couture to make her resemble the countess she was supposed to be.
    Isabella hastened to the end of the hall where a pair of curtains exposed a comfortably furnished parlor. Illuminated by the patchy light of a fireplace, the room displayed an inviting ambience the others lacked.
    The housekeeper stood just inside the room. “Ye’ll be comfortable in ’ere while we see to yer luggage, yer ladyship.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Eaton.”
    The woman nodded icily and Isabella began to regret that her father had not accompanied her.
    “Yer chambers are the first set of rooms on the second floor. Gwyneth is yer abigail,” Mrs. Eaton said. “She will be visitin’ yer suites to introduce herself.”
    “Very well,” Isabella said.
    “Oh, and the countess wishes to have a word with ye before ye retire for the night, m’lady.”
    Draven’s mother is here? Isabella let out a groan. Helena was the last person besides her unscrupulous husband she wanted to see.
    When Mrs. Eaton left the room, Isabella sat on the divan and removed her travel-stained bonnet. Her stomach rumbled. She had forgone supper during a travel stop in order to pay for the last leg of her journey. Pressing her hand against another hollow gurgle, Isabella listened to a clock in the corner tick away in the silence of the room. The unnerving sound made her wish she were anywhere but here.
    Beckoned by the crackling hearth, she strode to the fire. She dried herself in front of the flames and studied the details of the unfamiliar room. Above the mantel hung a portrait of a strapping man standing beside a black stallion. Her pulse accelerated as she raised herself on the tips of her toes and peered up in the dim light. Could the subject of the painting be Draven?
    Indeed it was. The smooth olive skin, the firm jaw, and the muscular shoulders were just as she recalled. Swept back in a collar-length queue, her husband’s hairstyle, though it rebelled against the short curls fashionable today, enhanced his angular cheekbones and full lips. He was inarguably handsome, but it was Draven’s black eyes that rocked Isabella to the very core. In the brief time they’d spent together, she had been unable to pinpoint precisely what they housed.
    Anger?
    Determination, perhaps?
    Or were they void of emotion altogether?
    For a moment she tried to envision her husband’s stare as it had devoured her with a sizzling chemistry on their wedding night—before everything had gone horribly wrong.
    The swish of the curtains breached her thoughts.
    “So, it’s true.” Lady Winthrop pinned Isabella with a stare. “You have returned.”

Chapter Five
    I sabella frowned. “Yes, your ladyship.”
    Flickering light jumped from the hearth and cast strange shadows across the noblewoman’s face. “You may call me Helena, as I permitted you to do the day you married Draven.”
    Although she was attractive in her own right, Isabella’s mother-in-law looked nothing like her son. Rather, Helena resembled a fair-skinned, ill-tempered queen. The countess’s strongly arched eyebrows and flared nostrils gave clues to a challenging character while