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but he nodded slightly. “I should have seen that. She has never missed an opportunity to criticize me elsewhere. So you expected me to be a blackguard? Perhaps you still do?”
    Margaret wanted to say that the way he spoke to her did not suggest anything better, but she held her tongue because of his wound.
    “And then your half-witted parents insisted you were compromised, as you were not , and that we must marry. Sensibly we both refused. However, you were not told that I had, and I was not told your views. Instead I was neatly maneuvered into chasing after you—and received a ball in the shoulder for my pains. You know, your mother should be the MP. I daresay she would be Prime Minister by this time.”
    “Well, I do not see why you came. I was perfectly all right.”
    “Indeed? And where did you think you were going?”
    “To…Penzance.”
    “And?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “What did you expect to do there?” he added impatiently.
    Margaret was silent.
    “I see. Well, you must go back home, of course. Your mother can no doubt fabricate some excuse for your absence. And I—”
    “I can’t ,” exclaimed the girl. The thought of returning home in disgrace was harrowing. “You need help.”
    “I shall get along. I have done so for a number of years without your assistance.”
    “But they said you require nursing, and I was going to—”
    “I have not compromised you up to now,” interrupted Keighley, “but if we stay together at this inn for any period of time, I would be hard put to defend myself from the accusation. And in any case, I do not want you here. I will send for someone to nurse me.”
    Margaret rose. “Certainly. I shall be more than glad to leave. I was only staying to make up for shooting you.” But she wouldn’t go home, she thought. She’d go on to Penzance.
    A thin smile curved his lips. “What did you find to tell the innkeeper? I wonder. Or have you left that to me?”
    “I told him you were my brother.” A thought occurred to her. “Oh, and I said your name was Harry Camden. I…I didn’t want…”
    “Very resourceful. Should it get back to the squire’s son, I daresay he will be pleased with the imputation that he was shot by an unknown female.”
    “I said highwaymen did it. And that they stole our luggage. Harry won’t hear. The Camdens are quite a distance off. I couldn’t think of another name in a hurry.”
    “Couldn’t you? You have alarming lapses of intelligence, do you not?”
    “I did my best!”
    “God help us. And I suppose you do not see that your clumsy fabrication traps you here?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Is my sister likely to abandon me to my valet, whom I meant to summon? That would cause enough talk to spread the story far beyond this place, whatever it is. And if you stay, I cannot send for anyone else, for I do not want to be recognized here with you. Can you really be so simple as not to see all this?” He frowned up at her with an effort, clearly at the end of his spurt of energy. “Or was this whole thing a plot to entrap me? I warn you it won’t work.”
    “ Entrap you? I wouldn’t have you if you begged on your knees.”
    “Good. Because I won’t be caught so, my girl. I shall marry at my own choice, and it won’t be a wide-eyed schoolroom chit.”
    “I pity the woman you do chose.” And with these words, Margaret stormed out of the room. Let him nurse himself, the odious man. He was every bit as bad as her mother had told her.

Six
    Margaret was down by the seawall before she calmed enough to marvel at her own behavior. She had argued heatedly with a near stranger, a man whom, only two days ago, she had thought she feared. And she never argued with anyone. What had come over her? It had happened almost automatically; she had not thought, she had simply reacted. But what was it about Justin Keighley that made her do so? He no longer terrified her, but somehow he roused emotions stronger than she had ever experienced and