She sighed. It wouldn’t do.

Hopelessness surged. Nothing had changed. She hadn’t solved any of their problems. Instead, she had brought more down upon them. She’d invited a lord into their house. Someone who could ruin them all with a single word.

He didn’t seem the type to do so, but he could. And that was enough to set her on edge.

She had to devise a way to win him to their side. So that when he did discover the truth about them, he wouldn’t give them all up.

But how?

“Isabel?”

The sound of her name interrupted her thoughts. She looked up to meet Gwen’s curious gaze. “Is everything all right?”

No. “Yes. Perfectly fine.”

Gwen gave her a look of disbelief. “It shall be all right, Isabel.”

Isabel couldn’t help her little, panicked laugh. “He’s going to find out.” The cook nodded once. “Yes.”

Her agreement opened the floodgates, Isabel’s words coming fast and furious. “And what shall happen to us? At least with my father there was safety. No one cared enough for Townsend Park to care about Minerva House. No one came near us. No, we didn’t have money. We didn’t have protection. But we were safe nonetheless.” She paced across the floor of the barn as she spoke, unable to keep herself still. “And, as though my father had not done enough, deserting us all and setting us up for failure, then he had to die. And he couldn’t leave us anything. Not money, not safety, not even the care of someone we could trust.”

Gwen came toward her. “Isabel—it will be all right.”

The words sent Isabel over the edge. She covered her face with both hands in frustration. “Stop saying that!”

Gwen paused, and the air went heavy between them.

“Stop saying that,” Isabel said again, quietly. “You don’t know that.”

“I know you will find a way—”

“I have been trying, Gwen. I have been looking for a way. Since I received the news of his death, I have been trying to think of a way to make it all right.” She shook her head. “But nothing has gone right: The house is falling apart; James is no more ready to be an earl than he is to fly; we haven’t the money to pay our bills; and I’ve brought a fox into the henhouse.” There was a beat. She huffed a little, self-deprecating laugh. “Oh, how apt a metaphor that is.”

She sat heavily on a bale of hay, hopeless. “Suffice to say, I am out of ideas. And it appears that, with the arrival of this rain, our time is up.”

She could no longer keep them all safe.

She could no longer hold the house together.

She’d always known this day would come. That it was one silly mistake, one change of luck away. She’d never been strong enough to protect them all.

It was time she admitted it.

Tears pricked. “I cannot save us, Gwen.”

There was comfort in the whispered words—words she’d thought dozens, hundreds of times before, but never said. Saying them aloud helped.

There was a long stretch of silence as Gwen considered her words. Then: “Perhaps he is not such a danger to us. I have not met Lord Nicholas, but it seems that his friend is a good enough sort.”

“You couldn’t possibly know that.”

“You forget, I have known enough bad men to have formed something of an expert opinion.”

It was true, of course. Gwen had been raised the daughter of a country vicar with, from what Isabel could surmise, a penchant for fire and brimstone. While she did not speak often of her childhood, she had revealed early in her time at Minerva House that her father had always believed her to be closer to sin than her brothers—who had taken pleasure in agreeing with their sire. Gwen had escaped her house at the very first chance—marriage to a local farmer, who had been far worse than her father or brothers ever could have been. She’d borne his beatings for less than a year before defying the law and finding her way to Isabel.

On her third day at the manor, Gwen had woken and found her way to the kitchens, her bruises already beginning to fade. With the wide grin that had come to be her most recognizable characteristic, she had proclaimed the residents of the house “a battalion of Minervas … all goddesses of war and wisdom.”

Minerva House had been christened.

And Isabel was about to lose it.

“He’s a stranger. We cannot trust him.”

“I am the first to question the nature of men, Isabel. But I don’t believe they are all bad. And I don’t think you do, either.” She paused before repeating, “Perhaps this one is not out to get us.”

Oh, how she wished that were true.

“He’s very distracting,” Isabel said.

“Handsome men often are,” Gwen replied. “I have read that his eyes are impossibly blue …”

“They are.”

Gwen smiled. “Ah. You have noticed.”

Isabel blushed. “I did not notice. I merely …”

“He kissed you on the roof, didn’t he? ”

Isabel’s eyes widened. “How do you know that? ”

Gwen’s smile became a full-blown grin. “I didn’t. I do now, however.”

“Gwen! You mustn’t tell anyone!”

The cook shook her head. “I’m afraid I cannot agree to that. Did you enjoy it?”

The blush flared higher. “No.”

Gwen laughed then. “You’re a terrible liar, Isabel.”

“Oh, fine. Yes. I enjoyed it. He seems a very skilled kisser.”

“You had better be careful. If you fall for this lord, you shan’t know what has happened to you.”