Dangerous Weakness by Caroline Warfield

worried when you didn’t come back,” he said while he surveyed Lily with open curiosity. “Stewart sent men to search. Is there a story here? I hope it’s a good one.”
    Glenaire repeated the story Lily suggested with few words.
    “You’ve been walking all night?”
    “Until we found the Justice farm, yes,” Richard said. His haughty expression brooked no contradiction. “We will, of course, want to hide the fact that we were gone all night if possible.”
    Will looked at Lily kindly and nodded.
    “We need to get Miss Thornton into the house, seen by as few eyes as possible,” Richard went on. “And into the care of your countess.” He no longer called her Lily.
    “Give me a moment. I’ll find work for my people and clear out a path,” the earl said. He left them alone.
    Richard started to speak, and again Lily stopped him. “You will bring my father home,” she demanded.
    “I have already arranged it, as you know. I’ll have Volkov watched. You needn’t fear him,” he responded.
    “There will be no marriage,” she repeated. “I will not have it.”
    “Very well, Miss Thornton. Let it be on your head, but you will tell me if there is a child. You have no choice. My child will not be born outside of marriage.”
    There are always choices, Lord High and Mighty. Not always good ones, but choices nonetheless. Most men would accept my decision with relief.
    “I could dine out on that story, you coming in looking like a bedraggled sheep-boy,” Will hadn’t stopped laughing at him all day. It had become one more thing to hold against Miss Lilias Thornton; she had made him a laughing stock.
    Richard sat—bathed, groomed, and trussed in a pristine suit—and sipped the earl’s fine whisky. His hair had been cleaned. His nails had been filed. His clothes had been burned. A hefty bonus calmed his valet and removed all trace of the horrid night.
    Not all so horrid. He shook the traitorous thought away.
    “My couriers will reach London quickly, but I suspect Sahin Pasha sent his ahead on Mercury. They will be at sea to Thessaloniki by nightfall or tomorrow at the latest, tide and wind permitting. I am sorry about Mercury.”
    “We don’t know that he’s gone for good,” Will pointed out. “I have hope Sahin will recall himself enough to return my property.”
    “Perhaps. He has other priorities.” Richard tried to keep the conversation on the diplomatic mess, not his night on the road. “They’ll kill the agent, of course, and possibly unleash more unrest. Russia may find the need to avenge their man.”
    “Or they may take care of Volkov for going rogue,” Will suggested.
    “Perhaps. It depends on how successful it turns out for them. In chaos they win either way.”
    “Catherine pronounced Miss Thornton fit. No harm came to her as a result of your misadventure,” Will put in abruptly, searching Richard’s face.
    Richard broke eye contact and made his face a mask of indifference.
    “Most of society would consider her compromised,” Will ground on.
    Indifference fled. “ I consider her compromised. I made an honorable offer. She refused.”
    Will did not hide his astonishment, although Richard couldn’t be sure if the offer or the refusal surprised the earl more.
    For a moment Richard feared his friend would ask awkward questions. He glared until the earl looked away and changed the subject.
    “Catherine quite likes the woman,” he said. “She believes there will be little talk and any that arises easily squelched by the Countess of Chadbourn and the sister of the Marquess of Glenaire.”
    “Georgiana?” Richard asked, “I shouldn’t be surprised. My sister has become the advocate of self-willed women everywhere.”
    “She gets no help from your mother, however,” Will grimaced.
    Richard’s sister Georgiana and her husband, who were estranged from his parents, kept a house in London in addition to their home in Cambridge. Their salon had a wide list of devotees among the more