"I imagine they're both quite painful," Caroline said, lifting the wadded pillowcase and examining the wound. She turned him gently and looked at his back. "I think it went through. You've a hole in the back of your shoulder as well."

"Trust you to injure me twice."

"You lured me into your room under the pretense of needing a cup of tea for a head cold," she snapped, "and then you tried to rape me! What did you expect?"

"Why the hell did you bring a gun?"

"I always carry a gun," she replied. "I have since ... well, never you mind."

"I wouldn't have gone through with it," he mut­tered.

"How was I to know that?"

"Well, you know I've never liked you."

Caroline pressed her makeshift bandage against Percy's bloody shoulder with perhaps a touch more force than was necessary. "What I know," she spat out, "is that you and your father have always quite liked my inheritance."

"I think I dislike you more than I like your in­heritance," Percy grumbled. "You're too bossy by half, you're not even pretty, and you've the ser­pent's own tongue."

Caroline clamped her mouth into a grim line. If she had a sharp way of speaking, it wasn't her fault. She'd learned quickly that her wits were her only defense against the parade of horrible guardians she'd been forced to endure since her father's pass­ing when she was ten. First there had been George Liggett, her father's first cousin. He hadn't been such a bad sort, but he certainly didn't know what to do with a small girl. So he'd smiled at her once- just once, mind you- told her he was happy to meet her, and then tossed her into a country home with a nurse and governess. And then he proceeded to ignore her.

But George had died, and her guardianship had passed on to his first cousin, who was no relation of hers or her father's. Niles Wickham was a mean old miser who'd seen a ward as a good substitute for a serving girl, and he'd immediately given her a list of chores longer than her arm. Caroline had cooked, cleaned, ironed, polished, scrubbed, and swept. The only thing she hadn't done was sleep.