She heard no footfalls on the thick Persian carpet, but a moment later the man spoke from no more than a few feet away.

"Good evening, Miss Ballinger. I trust you have found something suitably edifying to read down there behind Enfield's desk? But surely the light is rather poor in that location."

Augusta recognized the terrifyingly calm, unemotional male voice at once and groaned silently as her worst fears were confirmed. It was Graystone.

Just her bad luck that of all the guests who were inhabiting Lord Enfield's country house this weekend, her discoverer was her uncle's good friend. Harry Fleming, Earl of Graystone, was the one man in the house who probably would not believe any of the glib tales she had carefully prepared.

Graystone made Augusta uneasy for several reasons, one of which was that he had a disconcerting manner of looking straight into her eyes as if he would look into her very soul and demand the truth. Another reason she was wary around him was that he was simply too bloody damned clever.

Frantically Augusta began sorting among the various stories she had planned to use in just such an eventuality as this. It would have to be a very clever story. Graystone was no fool. He was gravely dignified, chillingly correct, and at times solemnly pompous as far as Augusta was concerned, but he was no fool.

Augusta decided she had no choice but to brazen out the embarrassing situation. She forced herself to smile very brightly as she looked up with a feigned little start of surprise.

"Oh, hello, my lord. I did not expect to encounter anyone here in the library at this hour. I was just searching for a hairpin. I seem to have dropped one."

"There appears to be a hairpin stuck in the lock of the desk."

Augusta managed another amazed start and jumped to her feet. "Good heavens. So there is. What a very odd place for it to have landed." Her fingers trembled as she snatched the pin out of the lock and dropped it into the pocket of her chintz wrapper. "I came downstairs to look for something to read because I could not sleep and the next thing I knew, I had lost my hairpin."