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Winnie turned her knowing gaze on Sebastian. “Well, you’re not to home just now. It ought to be easy enough for his lordship to manage sumpthin’ like that. All he need do is command his servants not to bring hot water.”

When Juliet and Lady Rosalind glanced to him imploringly, he groaned. “Oh no, you don’t. Bad enough that I’m sneaking around with you two behind his back. Now you want me to deny the poor man his creature comforts—”

“The ‘poor man’ won’t listen to me.” Lady Rosalind batted her eyelashes at him. “Besides, if I have to explain why he can’t take hot baths, I’ll have to explain where I got the notion. Which means telling him who brought me here to meet Winnie—indeed, who told me of her in the first place.”

Blasted blackmailing wench. “How am I supposed to explain why my servants won’t give him hot water?”

“Don’t explain anything.” Juliet busily spread the lap rug over his legs and hers. “Have the servants make the baths warm instead of hot. Let him think they don’t know what they’re doing.”

He glowered at her. “After lecturing me yesterday on how to treat my servants, you now want me to subject them to a guest’s complaints for the next few days—”

“Oh, a few days ain’t near long enough,” Winnie put in. “It’ll have to be longer than that—a week at least until her ladyship is fertile. And if she don’t conceive then, she’ll have to keep at it till she does, however many months that takes.”

“Months!” Sebastian cried.

“No, of course not,” Lady Rosalind hastened to put in. “Griff would never stay that long, and I can’t miss the birth of Helena’s baby. After we leave, I’ll take my chances, but if I could have at least a week to try all of Winnie’s suggestions…” She flashed Sebastian another of those pleading looks. “Once we leave, Griff will simply demand hot water at the inns and in London, and I won’t be able to stop him. It has to be here. That is, if your lordship will extend your hospitality a little while longer.”

Deuce take it, when he’d volunteered his aid, he hadn’t expected to engage in a thousand subterfuges. This was nearly as bad as engineering the kidnapping of a lady.

On the other hand, having them stay would give him time to court Juliet. “How will you convince your husband not to leave for London as soon as the roads are ready?”

Lady Rosalind frowned. “I don’t know…I suppose I could tell him I’m ill. That all this traveling has unsettled my stomach or something.”

“That won’t work,” Winnie put in, “unless your husband fancies taking a sick woman to his bed. No point in you going to the trouble of staying here if you’re not being bedded often in the meantime, you know.”

When both sisters blushed violently, Sebastian gritted his teeth. Sometimes Winnie could be too much for anyone. But she did have a point.

“Then I’ll be the one to be sick,” Juliet ventured. “It’ll be easier for me than for Rosalind, anyway. I can just have Rosalind’s maid Polly proclaim me too ill for visitors, and I needn’t show any evidence of illness.”

“Oh, thank you, Juliet!” her sister exclaimed. “That might actually work.”

It might work for Lady Rosalind, but it wouldn’t help Sebastian’s courtship. Blast. “Now that we’ve got that settled,” he grumbled, “we’d best head back, before the unwitting recipient of all your plotting wakes up. Or worse—has a hot bath.”

As his two companions laughed and said their goodbyes to Winnie, he urged the draft horses into a walk. Once they were on their way, he renewed the discussion, trying to make his voice sound casual. “You know, Lady Juliet, if you pretend to be sick, you’ll have to stay cooped up in your bedchamber all the time.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort. Polly will keep Griff out of the room, and Rosalind can give him regular announcements of how awful I feel.” Her smile was pure mischief. “Then I’ll simply sneak out and do as I please. Charnwood is large enough that I can avoid my pesky brother-in-law with ease. Especially if he’s busy with Rosalind.”

“And you can stay busy with me,” he said, glancing over at her. Beneath the lap robe, he rubbed his calf against hers. “We can play chess. You seem to enjoy that.”

Coloring, she moved her leg away, though it took some doing in close quarters.

Lady Rosalind cast him a sly look. “I’d forgotten Juliet’s fondness for chess. However did you discover it, my lord?”

“Quite by accident. But your sister plays very well. Though she’s a sore loser, prone to decline a challenge.”

Juliet’s gaze was pure ice. “I’ll meet any challenge you propose, my lord, at any time. Especially in chess.”

He smiled. She was so easy to bait. “Excellent. Then chess it is.”

“As long as Griff doesn’t know about it, and there’s a proper chaperone,” Lady Rosalind warned, “I suppose that would be all right.”

“Oh, of course,” Juliet said sweetly. “We’ll have Polly serve as chaperone, shan’t we, Lord Templemore?”

“Whatever you wish.” His blood quickened at the thought of endless hours of keeping Juliet busy without Knighton’s interference. “A chaperone is a small price to pay for the chance at trouncing you in chess.”

“And what makes you think you’d trounce me?” she snapped.

“I trounced you the last time we played, didn’t I?” Without looking at her, he pressed his thigh against hers and was rewarded by her sharp intake of breath. “I reached checkmate with great speed, as I recall.”