that had her spinning around in delight. “Unless your cook is even worse than ours.”
“Dan!” She hurried forward to meet him, both hands stretched out in welcome. He was strolling up the terrace steps, looking as he always did: relaxed, mildly disreputable, and wildly handsome. Gun, pulling on the end of his bizarre lead, had his tongue lolling in ecstatic welcome.
“Good day, Mr. Stewart,” Kitty said more properly.
Hastily, Juliet dropped one hand, holding it out to the dog instead, while letting Dan take the other. But she couldn’t stop smiling. “I am so glad to see you! Have you come for tea?”
“Oh, no, not with Gun here. Just dropping in with my regards and my mother’s, to see how you are. Sit, boy,” he added to the dog. “Now greet Lady Katherine in a civilized manner. Lady Kitty, this is Gun.”
“Because he’s liable to go off like a rifle shot,” Juliet explained, and Kitty laughed, patting the dog’s big head from a safe distance.
“How are you?” Dan asked, looking directly at Juliet.
She wrinkled her nose but smiled. “We’re getting through the days. The Alfords are here.” But, of course, he knew that. It was why he had come. “Oh, and I had a letter from a friend who is also caught in this scandal, and we now know who is responsible. We were indeed tricked with malicious intent.”
He frowned, all laughter gone from his dark, steady eyes. “Who?”
She shook her head. “I can’t say until Papa has spoken to him, not even to…” Not even to you. Fortunately, she broke off before she said the words, for she suspected Kitty wouldn’t understand. She wasn’t sure she did. “Anyone,” she finished lamely. “How is your grandfather?”
“Cock-a-hoop,” Dan said wryly. “Because he has set everyone at everyone else’s throats. Mine, mainly, because he has made me the heir to Myerly.”
Juliet’s eyes widened. “But that is splendid! Have the others departed in high dudgeon?”
“No, they have stayed put with their dudgeon since my grandfather has condescended to feed us all until Wednesday.”
Kitty said faintly, “Congratulations. Oh, dear, is that the right thing to say in the circumstances?”
“I have no idea, but I’ll take it in the spirit you intended.”
“So, what will you do now?” Juliet asked. “Go back to London?”
“Nothing to do in London,” he said casually. “I thought I might skulk here a bit longer, annoying the old gentleman’s steward. If he’ll let me.”
“Well, you’ve already got around the cook,” Juliet reminded him.
He smiled faintly, but his eyes had gone beyond her. She and Kitty both turned to see Jeremy standing just outside the window. Her stomach tightened unpleasantly as he walked toward them.
“Kitty, your mother is asking for you,” he said, giving Dan a nod of acknowledgment before turning expectantly to Juliet for an introduction.
“Mr. Stewart, Mr. Catesby,” she murmured, wondering how she could make Jeremy go away.
“Catesby?” Daniel repeated in response to Jeremy’s elegant but minimal bow. “Good Lord, is this the weasel?”
Her laughter was sudden, almost hysterical, and she had to choke it back with a somewhat unladylike sound.
Jeremy, quite unused to such blatant rudeness, flushed and looked down his long, aristocratic nose at the shabby stranger. “I perceive you mean to insult my name, sir.”
“Not your name,” Dan said frankly. “Your person.”
Fresh anger flashed in Jeremy’s eyes. “I cannot recall ever meeting you in my life before, so I fail to see why you imagine you may insult me with impunity.”
“I don’t ask for impunity,” Dan said at once. “But a man who treats a lady whom he is supposed to love, honor, and cherish, in the shameful way you treated Juliet, is most certainly more weasel than gentleman.”
“Dan,” she protested breathlessly, for the laughter still lurked very close to the surface.
“You know nothing of the matter!” Jeremy exclaimed, flushing under Dan’s contempt.
“I know more than you,” Dan retorted. “Because you didn’t trouble to listen to her.”
Jeremy turned furiously on Juliet. “Have you been gossiping to strangers about our private—”
“Don’t you dare,” Juliet interrupted, glaring at him. “Don’t you dare lecture me on gossip.”
To her surprise, he dropped his gaze with the first hint of shame.
“Oh, it’s you, Stewart,” came Ferdy’s cheerful voice. He strolled toward them, holding his hand out casually to Dan. “Come to be trounced again at pall-mall?”
“I trounced both of you at pall-mall,” Juliet said, relieved to change the subject.
“Only because I wasn’t playing seriously,” Ferdy said. “Come in for tea, Dan?” He eyed the enthusiastic Gun who, forced to sit on Dan’s foot,