She pressed her hands to her churning stomach, recalling how Mama had arranged Hermione's marriage with a tactical brilliance that would have rendered Wellington breathless. True, Hermie was happy, but the poor dear had barely known Reginald when they'd wed. She just as easily could be miserable, although Sammie couldn't imagine sweet-natured Hermie being anything but content. And Reginald worshipped the ground his beautiful wife's petite slippers tread upon.

Sammie could not imagine Major Wilshire so much as noticing whether she even wore slippers unless he could somehow relate them to military strategy.

Flopping down on the chintz-covered settee, she huffed out a frustrated breath. If she refused to honor the arrangements Papa made, her family would suffer from the ensuing gossip and scandal. She couldn't disgrace them. But neither could she marry Major Wilshire.

Heaving a tired sigh, she rose and closed the window. After extinguishing the candles burning on the mantel, she left the room, closing the door behind her.

Dear God, what was she going to do?

In the flowerbed, Arthur Timstone heard the window click shut and drew his first deep breath since he'd heard the voices above him. He slowly rose from a crouch, his knees creaking in protest, then stifled a yelp when his backside found the rose hedges.

Glaring at the offending bush, he muttered, "I'm too bloody old fer this sneakin' about in the bushes in the middle o' the night. Unseemly, that's wot it is."

Stubble it. A man approaching his fiftieth year shouldn't be gallivanting about after midnight like a randy lad. Ah, but that's what love did to a bloke, made him act like a slow-witted, puppy-eyed fool.