Leaving the pot on the sink, she returned to her chair. “So that’s why you didn’t come back for James’s funeral.”

“I managed to get out for Papa’s and Frederick’s, but when James was lost, Wellington’s forces were closing on Toulouse. It was more vital than ever that I stay in place.” Frederick, his eldest brother, had broken his neck on the hunting field; James, the second eldest, had succeeded Frederick, only to drown in a freak boating accident. He, Charles, was the third son of the sixth earl, yet here he now was, proclaimed and established as the ninth earl. One of the vicissitudes of fortune that had overtaken him.

She nodded, her gaze far away; lifting her cup, she sipped.

Eventually, she refocused on him. “Where were you at Waterloo?”

He hesitated, but he wanted the truth-all of the truth-from her. “Behind French lines. I led a few others, half-French like me, to join a detachment from Toulouse. They were guarding artillery on a hill overlooking the field.”

“You stopped the cannons?”

“That’s why we were there.”

Her gaze remained steady on his face. “To reduce the slaughter of our troops.”

By slaughtering others. He left the words unsaid.

“But after Waterloo, you sold out.”

“There was no further need of us-agents like me. And I had other duties waiting.”

Her lips curved. “Duties you and everyone else had never imagined you’d have to take up.”

Indeed. The mantle of the earldom had fallen to him, the wildest, outwardly least suited, least trained to the challenge of his father’s three sons.

She continued to study him, after a moment asked, “How does it feel-being the earl?”