Ro held her gaze, his expression unreadable, then he scowled. “Why the devil aren’t you married?”

He felt like running his hands through his hair. And tugging. Why wasn’t she married and safely ensconced before some gentleman’s hearth, said gentleman’s responsibility and not his, protected from all danger-protected most especially from him? He could see where this was leading, and it wasn’t good-especially for her, let alone him.

She blinked at him, then laughed-a sound he’d forgotten, had tried to forget, had almost succeeded in burying in his memories.

It shivered through him like a caress.

“Oh, Ro-surely you don’t imagine I’m risking my chance to make a good match with this?” The look she bent on him was gently patronizing. “I’m twenty-six-I’ve had my time on the marriage mart, and didn’t like any of the offerings.”

That was something he didn’t understand; although he’d kept his distance, he knew she’d been courted by numerous eligibles, gentlemen as handsome and in some cases even wealthier than he. He’d steeled himself to hear of her engagement, expected the blow to fall a number of times, but it had never happened. The most he’d heard were whispers that she was finicky; even in her rejections, Lydia had been reserved, forever discreet.

She was watching him, that same almost-smile playing about her lips. “I had my choices and I made them, and I don’t regret even one. So now I’m all but an ape leader, and thus protecting my reputation is no longer the absolute imperative it once was. If necessary, as it is in this case, I can, and will, put it at risk.”

More than anything else, her calm, even, serenely rational tone convinced him just how set on her chosen path-on retrieving Tabitha’s letter-she was. She’d thought the matter through, weighed the risks and her chances, and was convinced her course was right.

Neither she nor Tabitha was weak-because, as he knew, they were both bone-stubborn.