“Will there be any breakfast at the table at this time?” she asked.

The maid’s eyes widened when she seemed to piece together her intentions. She had probably never seen a houseguest rise before dawn. Noblemen didn’t rise until noon; Annabelle had that on good account.

The footman marched ahead into the breakfast room, then halted abruptly to click his heels together. “Your Grace, Miss Archer,” he announced.

She nearly froze in midstride.

Indeed. There was already someone at the foot of the table. He was concealed by a wide-open newspaper, but there was no mistaking the master of the house.

Naturally, she had to be the guest of the one nobleman in England who didn’t rise at noon.

Montgomery’s eyes met hers over the rim of the paper, startlingly alert despite the hour, and their impact caused a swift, warm bloom of awareness in her belly. She tightly clasped her hands in front of her.

One of Montgomery’s straight brows flicked up. “Miss Archer. Is anything amiss?”

Yes.

He unsettled her.

His damned intelligent eyes and effortless self-assurance impressed upon her, and now her body wasn’t able to shake the feel of him. It remembered the strength of his arm around her, the feel of his hard chest against her back, the cool touch of his lips against her ear . . . his scent, so subtle and yet compelling, had clung to her until she had soaked in the bath last night. Her body knew things about him now and was intrigued when it shouldn’t be. She did not even like the man.

“I was told I may have breakfast here, Your Grace.”

“You may,” he said, and she had the impression that he was making a number of quick decisions as he spoke. He put the paper down and gestured to a footman to begin preparing the place to his left.

Her stomach dropped. That was not where she should sit. But he was already folding up the newspaper as if the matter were very much settled.

It was a long walk past empty chairs and yards of table to reach her assigned seat.

Montgomery was watching her with his neutral aristo expression. A diamond pin glinted equally impenetrable against the smooth black silk of his cravat.

“I trust it was not something in your room that had you rising this early?” he asked.

“The room is excellent, Your Grace. I simply don’t find that it’s that early in the day.”

That seemed to spark some interest in his eyes. “Indeed, it isn’t.”

Unlike her, he probably hadn’t had to be trained to rise before dawn. He probably enjoyed such a thing.

The footman who had moved her chair leaned over her shoulder. “Would you like tea or coffee, miss?”

“Tea, please,” she said, mindful not to thank him, because one did not say thank you to staff in such a house. He proceeded to ask whether she wanted him to put a plate together for her, and because it would have been awkward to get up again right after sitting down, she said yes. In truth, she wasn’t hungry. The maid must have laced in her stomach more tightly than she was accustomed.

Montgomery seemed to have long finished eating. Next to his stack of newspapers was an empty cup. Just why had he ordered her to sit next to him? He had been immersed in his read. But she knew now that he was a dutiful man. Being polite was probably as much a duty to him as riding out into the cold to save a willful houseguest from herself. She would have to make a note on his profile sheet, very polite. As long as he didn’t mistake one for a social climbing tart, of course.

“You are one of Lady Tedbury’s activists,” he said.

Well. Does not mince words.

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Why?”

She could sense interest in him, genuine interest.

Beads of sweat gathered on her back.

She had the ear of their enemy, and she was not in shape. Calm. Stay calm.

“I’m a woman,” she said. “It is only natural for me to believe in women’s rights.”

Montgomery gave a surprisingly Gallic, one-shouldered shrug. “Plenty of women don’t believe in this kind of women’s rights,” he said, “and whether the 1870 Property Act is amended or not will not make a difference for you personally.”

There it was again, the arrogance. Of course he guessed she didn’t have any property to lose to a husband, and thus no voting rights to forfeit. His arrogance was most annoying when it was right on the truth.

She licked her dry lips. “I also believe in Aristotelian ethics,” she said, “and Aristotle says that there is greater value in striving for the common good than the individual good.”

“But women didn’t have the vote in the Greek democracies,” he said, a ghost of a smile hovering over his mouth. One could almost think he was enjoying this.

The gleam in his eyes made her reckless. “They forgot to include women’s rights in the common good,” she said. “An easy mistake; it seems to be forgotten frequently.”

He nodded. “But then what do you make of the fact that men without property cannot vote, either?”

He was enjoying this. Like a tomcat enjoyed swatting at a mouse before he ate it.

A mallet had begun pounding her temples, turning her skull into a mass of pulsing ache. But they were alone, and she had his ear. She had to try.

“Perhaps there should be more equality for the men as well, Your Grace.” That had been the wrong thing to say.

He shook his head. “A socialist as well as a feminist,” he said. “Do I need to worry about the corruption of my staff while you are here, Miss Archer? Will I have mutiny on my hands when I return from London tomorrow?”

“I wouldn’t dare,” she murmured. “There’s probably a dungeon under the house.”

He contemplated her with a hawklike gaze. “There is,” he said, and then, “Are you quite well, miss?”

“I’m fine.” Dungeon? There was no denying any longer that she had a wee fever.

The footman reappeared and placed a plate under her nose. Kippers and fried kidneys and a greenish mush. A hot, salty fragrance wafted up, and her stomach roiled.

Montgomery snapped his fingers. “Bring Miss Archer an orange, peeled,” he said to no one in particular.

She stared at his hand, gloveless and now idle again on the table. An elegant hand, with long, elegant fingers. It could have belonged to a man who’d mastered a classical instrument. On its pinky, the dark blue sapphire on the ducal signet ring seemed to swallow the light like a tiny ocean.

She felt his eyes on her, felt him noticing that she was noticing him.

“That’s the Manchester Guardian,” she said quickly, nodding at the paper he had put aside.

Montgomery gave her a wry look. “I take it you took me for a Times reader.”

“The Morning Post, actually.” A paper even more stuffy than the Times. Suffragists read the Guardian.

“Right on all accounts,” he said, and lifted the copy of the Guardian to reveal the Times. Then the Morning Post.

“That’s very thorough, Your Grace.”

“Not really. When you want to understand what is happening in the country at large, you read all sides.”

She remembered that this was the man the queen had put in charge of leading the Tory party to victory. He would want to know all that was happening in the country, the better to steer it.

Ah, she had sensed it already on Parliament Square when they had locked eyes, had sensed it like any creature recognized one of its kind: Montgomery was a clever, clever man. It was as unsettling as the intimate knowledge that his silky waistcoat concealed a well-muscled body.

She reached for the teacup, and the delicate china rattled and tea sloshed over the rim.

“Apologies,” she murmured.

Montgomery’s gaze narrowed at her.

A footman swooped, picked up cup and flooded saucer, and carried it off.