“No, thank you,” she said impatiently. “It’s really most important that—”

“So you spoke with Captain James,” he said, his voice pleasantly bland.

“Yes,” she said. “He needs your help.”

She told him everything. There was nothing in his demeanor that encouraged such frankness, but Andrew had told her to trust him.

And she trusted Andrew.

At the end of the tale, she handed Mr. Walpole the note she’d been given by the bandits. “It’s written in Portuguese,” she said.

His brows rose. “You opened it?”

“No one told me not to.” At Mr. Walpole’s censorious look, she muttered, “It’s not as if it was sealed.”

Mr. Walpole’s mouth tightened, but he said no more on the subject. Poppy watched as he read the missive, his eyes moving from left to right six times before reaching the end.

“Will you be able to help him?” she asked.

He refolded the note, creasing it much more sharply than before.

“Mr. Walpole?” She wasn’t sure how much more of this she could tolerate. The man was all but ignoring her. Then she remembered Andrew’s most urgent directive.

She cleared her throat. “I was told to tell you that I long for blue skies.”

The envoy’s head snapped up. “That’s what he said?”

Poppy nodded.

“That’s what he said exactly ?”

“Yes. He made me repeat it.”

Mr. Walpole swore under his breath. Poppy blinked with surprise. He had not seemed the type. Then he looked up as if a thought had just occurred to him. “And you said your name is Bridgerton?”

“Have you even been listening to me?”

“You are related to the viscount?”

“He is my uncle.”

Mr. Walpole swore again, this time not even trying to muffle it. Poppy watched him warily as he muttered to himself, seemingly trying to work out a problem in his head.

Finally, just when she was about to say something, he strode to the door, wrenched it open, and yelled, “Martin!”

The butler appeared immediately.

“Escort Miss Bridgerton to the yellow bedroom. Lock the door. Under no circumstances is she to leave.”

“What?” Poppy wasn’t sure what she’d expected the British envoy to do, but it wasn’t this.

Mr. Walpole gave her a quick glance before heading out the door. “It’s for your own good, Miss Bridgerton.”

“No! You can’t—stop that!” she snarled when the butler took hold of her arm.

He sighed. “I really don’t want to hurt you, miss.”

She shot him a belligerent look. “But you will?”

“If I have to.”

Poppy closed her eyes in defeat. She was exhausted. She hadn’t the energy to fight him, and even if she had, he outweighed her by at least six stone.

“It’s a nice room, miss,” the butler said. “You’ll be comfortable there.”

“All my prisons are comfortable,” Poppy muttered.

But they were prisons, nonetheless.

Chapter 22

A few weeks later

It was strange, Poppy thought, how so much could change in a month.

And yet nothing changed at all.

She was changed. She was not the same person who had attended soirees in London and explored caves on the Dorset coast. She would never be that girl again.

But to the rest of the world, she was the same as she ever was. She was Miss Poppy Bridgerton, niece to the influential viscount and viscountess. She was a well-bred young lady, not the biggest matrimonial catch (it was her uncle with the title, after all, not her father, plus she’d never had a massive dowry), but still, a good prospect for any young man looking to make his mark.

No one knew that she’d gone off to Portugal.

No one knew she’d been kidnapped by pirates.

Or by a gang of Portuguese bandits.

Or, for that matter, by the British envoy to Portugal.

No one knew that she’d met a dashing sea captain who should have been an architect, or that he’d probably saved her life, and she might have sacrificed his.

Bloody British government. Mr. Walpole had made it clear that she was to keep her mouth shut when she returned to England. Indiscreet questions could hamper his efforts to rescue Captain James, he’d told her. Poppy had asked how that was possible, given that Captain James was in Portugal and she would be in England.

Mr. Walpole found nothing to celebrate in her curiosity. In fact he had said to her, “I find nothing to celebrate in your curiosity.”

To which Poppy had replied, “What does that even mean ?”

“Just keep your mouth shut,” he had ordered her. “Hundreds of lives depend upon it.”

Poppy rather suspected this was an exaggeration, possibly even an outright lie. But she could not take that chance.

Because Andrew’s life might depend upon it.

When Poppy had knocked on Mr. Walpole’s door, she had never dreamed that she would be shuttled out of Portugal before learning of Andrew’s fate. But the envoy had wasted no time returning her to England. He’d got her onto a ship the very next day, and five days after that she was deposited at the Royal Dockyards in Chatham with a purse holding enough money to hire a carriage to take her to Lord and Lady Bridgerton’s home in Kent. She supposed she could have gone all the way home, but it was only a two-hour journey to Aubrey Hall, and Poppy was certainly not equipped to make an unchaperoned overnight stop at an inn on the road to Somerset.

It should have been amusing that she was worried about that when she had spent six days as the only female on a ship to Lisbon.

And then a night alone with Captain James.

Andrew . Surely he was now Andrew to her.

If he was even still alive.

It had taken a few days and more than a few lies for Poppy to sort out all of the details—or rather, the lack of details—regarding her two-week absence, but her cousins now thought she’d been with Elizabeth, Elizabeth thought she’d been with her cousins, and to her parents she’d sent a breezily ambiguous letter informing them that she’d accepted Aunt Alexandra’s invitation after all and would be in Kent for an unspecified amount of time.

And if anyone doubted any of that, they weren’t asking. At least not yet.

Her cousins were blessedly tactful, but eventually their curiosity would win out. After all, Poppy had arrived—

Unexpectedly.

With no luggage.

And wearing a wrinkled, ill-fitting frock.

All things considered, Poppy supposed she should be grateful it had fit as well as it had. Her blue dress had been beyond repair by the time she reached Mr. Walpole; a housemaid had to be sent out to purchase something ready-made to replace it. It was nothing Poppy would have picked out for herself, but it was clean, which was a whole lot more than Poppy could have said for herself at that moment.

“Oh, there you are!”

Poppy looked up to see her cousin Georgiana on the far side of the garden. Georgie was only one year younger than Poppy, but she had somehow managed to avoid a Season in London. Aunt Alexandra had said it was due to Georgie’s delicate health, but aside from a pale complexion, Poppy had never seen anything particularly sickly about her.

Case in point: Georgie was presently striding across the lawn at a fierce clip, beaming as she approached. Poppy sighed. The last thing she wanted just then was to sit and have a conversation with someone so obviously cheerful.

Or any conversation, really.

“How long have you been out here?” Georgie asked once she’d sat down at Poppy’s side.

Poppy shrugged. “Not long. Twenty minutes, perhaps. Maybe a little more.”

“We have been invited to Crake for dinner this evening.”

Poppy nodded absently. Crake House was the home of the Earl of Manston. It was just a mile or so away. Her cousin—Georgie’s older sister Billie—lived there. She had married the earl’s heir.

“Lady Manston has returned from her trip to London,” Georgie explained. “And she’s brought Nicholas.”

Poppy nodded some more, just to show she was listening. Nicholas was the youngest Rokesby son. Poppy didn’t think she’d ever met him. She hadn’t met any of the Rokesby sons, actually, except for Billie’s husband, George. She thought there were four of them. Or maybe five.