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father was the butler here before he died. He wanted me to take over his position, tried to groom me for it when I was a child, but I was too busy having fun with Dominic to want to spend time doing that! So a new butler was hired after my father died.”
    “What caused the fire?”
    He followed her gaze up to the tower and said solemnly, “Dominic did.”
    “Quite the nasty accident. What was he doing up there?”
    “Setting the fire.”
    She gasped. “Deliberately?”
    “Yes. It was his sister’s favorite playroom when she was a child. The year she died, she took to going up there again, but not to play. She would just stand in front of the window for hours at a time. She died that fall.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “We all are. Everyone here loved her.”
    “Does Lord Wolfe have any other family?”
    “His mother and a few distant female cousins, but he’s the last Wolfe to carry the name—and wants to keep it that way.”

Chapter Eleven

    B ROOKE WAS STILL DRAGGING her feet by the time they got upstairs, desperate now for a delay that would keep her from entering that room at the end of the hall. She stopped for the umpteenth time, asking Gabriel, “Why did you put me in a room that connects with the viscount’s?”
    He glanced back to say, “As I told Dominic, it will save us the trouble of moving your belongings after the marriage. But I assure you the door is locked—now.”
    That would have been a relief if she weren’t so anxious. “Do you know for a fact there’s to be a marriage?”
    He didn’t answer. All he said was “One of these family rooms was his sister’s. It is locked and will always be so. One is his old room—”
    She interrupted hopefully, “Instead of telling me, why don’t you show me?”
    “Perhaps another time. He is waiting.”
    He marched ahead of her and opened the dreaded door. She glanced at the one to her room and wondered if she couldbarricade herself in there. But did she really want to appear cowardly? She was cowardly! No, she wasn’t, she reminded herself.
    It took courage to live with her family, and cunning, and masterful avoidance and deception skills. But at home she knew all the variables and exactly what she had to deal with. This was different. This was the unknown. Her behavior now might affect the rest of her life. First impressions were important. She didn’t want to be labeled a coward here—if she would be staying. It was time to find that out.
    She stepped into the room, her head bowed respectfully. A movement to her left drew her eyes to a fellow in a chair, wiping sleep from his eyes. He quickly stood up and bowed to her, muttering, “M’lady.”
    In a movement to her right, yet another man, this one middle-aged and dressed more formally like a butler, came around a corner on the east side of the suite.
    He bowed, too, and offered a respectful “m’lady” before a third voice said commandingly, “Leave us.”
    She got out of the way of the exodus, stepping farther into the room, closer to the alcove, and winced when she heard the door close behind her. She knew vaguely where Lord Wolfe had spoken from, somewhere in front of her, but without looking up, she saw only the foot of a bed in that direction.
    Then a dog ran over to her and sniffed at her shoes. Her instinct was to crouch down to get acquainted, but that would reveal that she liked animals, and she didn’t want to reveal that much about herself yet. The dog stood almost three feet high and had a long snout and a short coat of brown-and-gray hair with light cream on the neck and underbelly. She couldn’t tell what breed it was, but she imagined that with a snout that long, it would sound like a wolf when it howled.
    When the animal sat down beside her, she was bold enough to ask, “What is his name?”
    “Wolf.”
    “He’s not actually . . . ?”
    “No. I found him on the moors a few years back, still a pup, but half-dead from starvation. He thought he could chew on my leg.