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Grace, I— I did not mean to… I beg your pardon, Your Grace. What I meant to say was—and I don’t mean to be forward, and I don’t mean any disrespect and you know that. I only meant to tell you in a way that I am sure will leave no doubt. I’m obliged to you. I’ll follow your wishes—without heed for your reasoning—and you know this of me. But I cannot, and will not, tell you what I’m unable to, Your Grace. I do not know the state of the lady’s mental faculties. Now, I’ve said my piece.”
     
    “I understand,” he said as he righted the chair and took a seat. “Why have you come?”
     
    “Your Grace, the lady needs clothes beyond a nightdress and a robe. The gown she had was ruined. She needs day gowns, as well as the—er, other necessaries. It’s right improper for a young lady to be covered by others’ leavings. If she had her own gowns and such she might feel better, and she needn’t be hidden like an unwanted chore. It’s only right, if she surely is a guest.” He could see the challenge in her stare.
     
    He considered Mrs. Weston as he shifted the papers on his desk with one finger. There was the gown he’d torn asunder on the track. Even though she was—at the time—unable to breathe, he did owe the woman at least that, if not more, and he and Mrs. Weston both knew it.
     
    At last, he inclined his head. “So be it. You will see to her needs.”
     
    “Of course, Your Grace. She will be delighted.” Mrs. Weston gave him a relieved smile, but something about that statement rankled and he narrowed his eyes on her. “Did she bid you come here to ask this of me?”
     
    “No, Your Grace, she would not think of it. She’s more than content to wander in a borrowed nightdress and drawers. In fact, she has difficulty accepting all offers of help. In fact, she’s been quite timid,” she said with concern.
     
    He nodded and dismissed her with a gesture, but called her back before she reached the door. Mrs. Weston waited. His shoulders were tense; his troubles swam in his mind. His fingertips were once again white from being pressed into the surface of his mahogany desk, and he felt the muscles of his arms twitching as though he were wrestling with an unseen foe.
     
    When he finally spoke, he rose and looked directly at Mrs. Weston. “I appreciate your effort. Please send Ferry to my quarters and have Davis ready Samson.”
     
    Not wanting to push his difficult mood, she curtseyed. “Yes, Your Grace,” she said with a smile.
     
    When Ferry entered Roxleigh’s bedchamber from the door behind the large fireplace, Roxleigh had already managed to change into a pair of doeskin-lined riding trousers. A fresh white shirt hung open at his neck and sleeves. “My boots,” he said as Ferry went to the wardrobe.
     
    Roxleigh looked around his bedchamber as he waited. The paneling was dark imported cherry, deeply tinted with hues of burgundy. The center of the room was overtaken by a large fireplace that stood out from the wall, providing a passage in the depths beyond.
     
    As a child Roxleigh had run the passages, hiding from his father who could never catch up to him. He remembered one time in particular, not long before he lost his mother. He’d run from his angry father who thought to ambush him at the front staircase, but Roxleigh ducked through a panel next to the great entrance and ran through the winding passages and up the stairs to the first floor behind the master suite, only to be caught up in a flurry of skirts by his mother coming from the other direction.
     
    She’d kneeled, clutching him to her chest, wrapping him in her softness, kissing his tear-streaked face, quietly repeating his name to soothe him. He could almost smell her skin again, sweet and fresh, like the gardens. She swept him away, his face hidden against her neck, into a room filled with soft, translucent panels hanging throughout like a willowy maze. The breeze from a window he couldn’t see moved the