The Inconvenient Elmswood Marriage. Marguerite Kaye

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      ‘So they didn’t want to lose you again, and they didn’t want anyone to know where you were,’ she continued. ‘It was important to get you home safely unnoticed, which is why they needed me. I mean, they knew you’d need nursing, and they were concerned that you might be indiscreet in your fevered state, so were reluctant to send a regular doctor. But the main point of my being there was to play Lady Elmswood, the dutiful wife, bringing home her sick explorer husband.’

      ‘So I was playing the Earl, was I?’ Daniel said, his lip curling. ‘I’m glad I was blissfully unaware of that.’

      ‘Well, it was a first for me to play the Countess, and though it wasn’t a role I thought I’d relish, any more than you, it did ease the journey considerably. I think I became rather good at it.’

      Daniel laughed. ‘I can just see you, all five foot nothing of you, looking down that very nice little nose of yours and demanding service now!’

      ‘Well, that’s what I did,’ Kate said, willing her cheeks not to flush—because it was a very small compliment, really, and she was thirty-three, and thirty-three-year-old women did not blush. ‘I arrived in Cyprus via Paris, Marseilles, Lisbon, Naples and Athens—as I think I’ve told you, though you might have forgotten.’

      ‘I remember. Lady Elmswood’s lightning tour of Europe’s ports.’

      ‘They are also, with the exception of Marseilles, very popular with English travellers who would, if required, be able to testify that they’d seen Lady Elmswood on her European tour which was rudely interrupted by her explorer husband having been taken ill while investigating an ancient site on Cyprus. Personally, I thought it a quite unnecessary embellishment.’

      ‘That would have been Sir Marcus’s idea—he loves that sort of subterfuge.’

      ‘If I hadn’t been so wrought with worry I’d have enjoyed it. When I set sail from Portsmouth, though, I had no idea I’d be away for so long. I thought they would extricate you immediately, but when I arrived in Cyprus in February it was another two weeks before they finally brought you to me. Why did it take so long?’

      Daniel shifted uncomfortably on the bench, refusing to meet Kate’s steady gaze. ‘I imagine they were obliged to bring me out by a circuitous route. But it doesn’t matter how I made it out. I made it. And you were waiting. And now I’m here. And I’m to remain here until I accept the error of my ways in disobeying protocol, and until the fuss over my last assignment has died down, and they’ve decided I’m fit enough to be put to use again.’

      Or at least that was what he bloody well hoped. Sir Marcus had, dismayingly, been vague on the subject, committing only to a review. But he’d persuade them when the time came—he knew he would. He was good, one of the best they had, and they knew it.

      ‘I think,’ Daniel said, ‘we should concentrate on the present and not worry too much about the future. I have no choice but to remain here for now. Sir Marcus, being extremely attached to the cover story he has concocted, insists that I cannot recuperate elsewhere. Though who he imagines will be checking up on me—But there’s no point in going over that. I am obliged to stay here, so we’re going to have to find a way of brushing along together for the next three months without murdering each other.’

      Kate smiled uncertainly. ‘I’m sure it won’t come to that. Despite what you think, I’m a very easy-going type.’

      ‘Are you? I’m not. I’m used to living on my own, on having everything my way and, more importantly, not allowing anyone else a say.’

      ‘Good grief—and you call me a despot!’

      Daniel grinned. ‘I prefer to think of myself as self-sufficient.’

      ‘I prefer to think of myself as practical and pragmatic.’

      ‘Now, that I know to be true, for I’ve seen you in action. You managed to keep me fed and watered and washed on ships where I’m pretty sure the crew were living off ship’s biscuit and had not seen a change of clothes, let alone a change of bedsheet, in weeks.’

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