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to stop myself from asking… who is at the top of the list?”
    Annabelle refused to answer. Even as she cursed her own tendency to fidget, she could not keep from reaching over to the lumpen stub of a candle and picking at it with the edges of her fingernails.
    “Westcliff, probably,” Hunt guessed.
    Annabelle made a scornful sound, half-sitting on the table. The aged stone surface was sun-warmed and glossy-smooth. “Certainly not. I wouldn’t marry the earl if he fell to his knees and begged me.”
    Hunt laughed richly at the blatant lie. “A pedigreed lord, with his fortune? You’d stop at nothing to get him.” Casually, he sat on the opposite side of the table, and Annabelle steeled herself not to shrink from his proximity. Usually a conversation between a gentleman and a lady was underwritten by the understanding that there were certain things a gentleman would never do… he would not embarrass or insult her, or take advantage in any way. However, with Simon Hunt there were no such guarantees.
    “Why are you here?” she asked.
    “I’m a friend of Westcliff’s,” he said easily.
    Annabelle was unable to imagine the earl claiming someone like Hunt as a friend. “Why would he associate with you? And don’t try to claim that you have anything in common with him — the two of you are as different as chalk from cheese.”
    “As it happens, the earl and I do have some common interests. We both like to hunt, and we share a remarkable number of political beliefs. Unlike most peers, Westcliff does not allow himself to be chained by the restrictions of aristocratic life.”
    “Good Lord,” Annabelle mocked, “you seem to view nobility as a condition of imprisonment.”
    “I do, as a matter of fact.”
    “Then I can hardly wait to incarcerate myself and dispose of the keys.”
    That made Hunt laugh. “You would probably do quite well as a peer’s wife.”
    Recognizing that his tone was far from complimentary, Annabelle frowned at him. “If you dislike the peerage so much, I wonder that you spend so much time among them.”
    His eyes glinted wickedly. “They have their uses. And I don’t dislike them — it’s just that I have no desire to be one of them. In case you haven’t noticed, the peerage — or at least the way of life they’ve known ’til now — is dying.”
    Annabelle reacted with a wide-eyed glance, genuinely shocked by the statement. “What do you mean?”
    “Most landholding peers are losing their fortunes, seeing them divided and shrunken by ever-increasing numbers of relatives who require support… and then there is the transformation of the economy to contend with. The rule of the great landowner is fast coming to a end. Only men like Westcliff — who is open to new ways of doing things — will weather the change.”
    “With your invaluable assistance, of course,” Annabelle said.
    “That’s right,” Hunt said with such self-satisfaction that she couldn’t help laughing.
    “Have you ever considered making at least a pretense of humility, Mr. Hunt? Just for the sake of politeness?”
    “I don’t believe in false modesty.”
    “People might like you more if you did.”
    “Would you?”
    Her nails dug into the soft pastel-colored wax, and she flashed Hunt a quick glance to measure the depth of mockery in his eyes. To her bewilderment, there was none. He seemed seriously interested in her answer. As he watched her intently, she felt a dismaying tide of pink creep over her face. She was not at all comfortable in this situation, conversing alone with Simon Hunt while he lounged beside her like a lazy, inquisitive pirate. Her gaze fell to the large hand he had braced on the table, the fingers long and clean and sun-browned, with nails cut so short that the crescents of white were barely visible.
    “ ‘Like’ may be going a bit far,” Annabelle said, releasing her biting grip on the candle. The more she tried to control her flush, the worse it became, until it surged into