“You’re mistaken,” Clio said, trying to keep an even temper. “I am the one who broke the engagement. It was my decision. I don’t wish to marry him.”

“You, breaking off with him?” Teddy chuckled. “It’s a nice attempt to save face, but no one’s going to believe that tale.”

“It’s not a tale. It’s the truth.”

But when had these two ever recognized the truth, from Clio’s lips?

“Oh, Lord.” Daphne sank onto the sofa and released a slight, deflated moan. “Oh, no.”

Clio shook her head. For heaven’s sake, Piers had accepted the news with less melodrama than this.

He’d taken it well, actually. He’d expressed a convincing degree of disappointment, but Clio could tell his pride was taking the deepest wound. His heart wasn’t in danger. They were little more than strangers after all these years. She hoped in time they could be friends.

He was a good man. Just not the man for her.

“Can’t you try to mend things?” her sister asked. “Perhaps it’s not too late. Or . . . Or Teddy can ride after them and demand Lord Granville make good on his promises.”

Clio shook her head. “It’s over.”

“It can’t be over,” Teddy said. “After all these years, we can’t give up. You mustn’t let him escape.”

“Escape?” She laughed. “Should I be locking him in the dungeons?”

“Laugh all you like, but this is always your failing.” Her sister clucked her tongue. “You let this drag on far too long, when you should have stood up for yourself years ago. You’re too accommodating.”

She thought on it. “You’re right, Daphne. I am too accommodating.”

“I’m so glad you see it.”

“That’s going to change,” Clio said. “Today.”

“Oh, yes. Let’s go after him. We’ll order the carriage this moment. Teddy.”

Her sister snapped her fingers, and her husband roused himself from the sofa. Together they hurried into the corridor.

Clio followed. But when they approached the entrance hall, she held back.

“It’s your last chance to go first,” she told her sister, smiling sweetly. “Once I marry Piers, I will take precedence.”

Daphne smiled. “That’s the spirit.”

She waited until Daphne and Sir Teddy had walked through. And then she ducked into the nearby alcove, reached up with both arms, and pulled the lever.

With a groan and rattle of iron, the portcullis smashed shut.

“It’s been lovely having you visit,” Clio told her shocked sister and brother-in-law, waving her fingers through the barrier of the iron grate. “Please do come back at Christmas.”

“What on earth are you doing, dumpling?” Teddy asked.

“Using my castle for its intended purpose. Protection. And kindly refrain from calling me dumpling. Rafe taught me how to punch, too.”

Teddy blinked in alarm.

“First you’re letting Lord Granville slip away, and now this?” Daphne asked. “Clio, have you gone raving mad?”

“Perhaps.” She shrugged. “Daphne, you are my sister, and I love you. I know you mean well. But you can be astoundingly hurtful at times.”

Clio had Phoebe’s well-being to consider. She just couldn’t be accommodating anymore. Teddy and Daphne were one of those things best taken in small amounts. Like ground cloves. Or smallpox.

“I know that once you leave, I shall miss you,” Clio told her sister. “I’m looking forward to missing you.”

“You can’t do this!” Daphne rattled the gate. “You can’t just boot us out.”

“Actually, I can. I might still be a spinster. I might never be a lady, or even a wife. You might always be my social superior. But I am mistress of my own castle. On this property, I make the rules. And today, I’m feeling a bit medieval.”

Clio waved good-bye to her shocked sister and brother-in-law through the iron grate. “Do have a safe journey. I hope you don’t encounter much traffic on the bridge.”

That done, she turned to Phoebe. “I don’t suppose you’re interested in helping me start a brewery?”

“I’m not sure what help I’d be.” Phoebe fished a bit of string from her pocket. “But I won eighteen hundred pounds in the card room last night. I want to invest.”

“The stewards tell me these fields could be put to better use.” Rafe drew his mount to a halt on the southern border of Oakhaven. “How do you feel about barley?”

“I don’t know that I possess strong feelings about barley.”

“I don’t know that you possess strong feelings at all.”

Piers gathered his reins and set his jaw. “Actually, I do have a few. None of them especially charitable at the moment.”

Rafe walked his gelding in a tense circle. They hadn’t been back on Oakhaven land for ten minutes, and already they were back to their old, familiar boyhood conflicts. If Clio hadn’t asked him to do this . . .

“Maybe we should have it out, the two of us,” Rafe suggested. “Take off our coats, roll up our sleeves. Get it over with.”

“I’m not going to fight you. It wouldn’t be fair.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Rafe puffed his chest. “I was heavyweight champion of England for four years.”




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