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it was gone. He rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, then ran his hands through his hair, pushing it off his forehead. “So, why have you left the Misses Trent?”
    “They didn’t want me there anymore.”
    “Oh?” He raised his eyebrows in interrogation. She seemed to find the question uncomfortable, judging by her suddenly shifting feet.
    Chloe dug the other letter out of her pocket. “It was all because of Miss Anne’s nephew,” she said. “On top of the curate. I don’t think it was my fault, but they seemed to think I’d
led them on.”
This last was pronounced in accents that he assumed were an imitation of the Miss Trent in question. “Although I don’t know how they could think such a thing,” she said, aggrieved. “Anyway, I expect it’s all in here.” She thrust the letter at him.
    He was aware of her anxious scrutiny as he scanned the closely penned sheet. When he’d finished, he scrunched it up into a ball and tossed it toward the fireplace. “What a pretty picture. Reading between the lines of that poison, lass, one can only assume you’re a Jezebel of the first water. A deceitful, designing, lying little flirt from whom no innocent young man is safe.”
    Chloe flushed. “That’s so unfair. I couldn’t help it if the curate made moon eyes at me and dropped his cake on the floor and forgot his sermon in church.”
    “No,” Hugo agreed. “I’m sure you couldn’t. However, again reading between the lines, I suspect the real mischief lies with Miss Anne’s nephew.”
    Chloe’s expression changed to one of deep disgust. “That smarmy toad,” she declared. “His hands were always wet and he had these horrible loose lips, and he tried to kiss me, as if I were a kitchen maid. He wanted to
marry
me! Can you imagine?”
    “Quite easily,” Hugo murmured. “And how did Miss Anne view his suit.”
    “She favored it,” Chloe declared.
    Hardly surprising, Hugo thought. What aunt wouldn’t want a fortune of eighty thousand pounds for her nephew?
    “But when I told her what I thought of Mr. Cedric Trent,” Chloe continued, “she … well … she was horrid. Then she and Miss Emily said I was a bad influence on the other girls and they really couldn’t keep me any longer, although, of course, they were very sorry to send me away, as I’d only just been made an orphan, but I had to go
for the good of the seminary.
So they wrote to you, and since Miss Anstey was traveling in a post-chaise that Lady Colshot had paid for, it seemed convenient that she should bring me on her way to London.”
    “I see.” Poor brat. It was a story that revealed muchmore than the girl realized—a dark stretch of a lonely and unloved existence. Would it have been different if her father had not died in that crypt … ?
    He thrust the thought from him and flung off the sheet, swinging his legs to the floor with an unusual surge of energy.
    The girl’s eyes widened; with a violent oath, he grabbed the sheet again.
“Get out.”
    Chloe fled.
    Hauling the sheet around his waist, Hugo strode out of the room, bellowing for Samuel, who appeared at the end of the corridor.
    “Get that idiot Scranton out here. Send the boy with the message. I want him here by dinnertime.”
    “Right you are, Sir ’Ugo.” Samuel, imperturbable, disappeared.
    Hugo stalked back to his room and flung on his clothes. The girl couldn’t stay here—not even for a night. A bachelor household was a completely inappropriate environment, as that lunatic piece of carelessness had just demonstrated. However heedless of convention he might be, there were limits.

Chapter 3

    C HLOE RECOVERED HER composure in the undemanding, accepting company of her animals. The one-legged parrot swore softly at her from the windowsill, where he preened himself in the sun, and Dante lay with his head in her lap as she sat on the floor beside the hat box, watching the nursing mother.
    Animals had always been her chief companions. She had a sure touch