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long as you know..."
    "Oh, I know. So does she. And now you do, as well. It's going to be a very interesting Season with Miss Morgan Becket as one of its debutantes."
    Morgan pushed the apple, hard, into her brother's stomach. "Soon you'll be hugging, and drooling all over each other's shoe tops. Enough of the both of you. I'm going to see Julia and Alice."
    Both men watched her go before Ethan said, "Now, having been duly warned and threatened, how about we all step inside in case there are other curtain-twitchers about, and discuss how I am going to procure your sister's voucher to Almacks, hm m ? Because, no matter what you do or say, even a brother can't be so blind about that magnificent creature. Steel yourself, Becket. I am not going away."

CHAPTER SIX
    After rather hasty introductions, Morgan was whisked off upstairs by her sister-in-law, Juli a —a polite, minor beauty who nonetheless looked more than prepared to drag Morgan out of the room by her ear if she didn't have the good sense to go willingly.
    Leaving Ethan alone with Chance Becket in the tastefully appointed drawing room. "Julia's taking her up to the nursery, to see our daughter, Alice. And probably to ask a dozen questions about you. I don't think you have to worry about me, Aylesford , half as much as you have to worry about my very astute wife. If she decides you're a rotter, you won't get within fifty yards of Morgan again."
    "Thank you for the warning."
    Ethan ha d been given only a few moments to visually inspect the man he'd judged to be two or three years his junior, and had come up with no familial resemblance between Chance and Morgan Becket. Absolutely none.
    Chance was blond, like his wife, like Ethan himself. Tanned, but obviously fair-skinned, a well set up gentleman who seemed more than capable of knocking Ethan down. At least once.
    Both Chance and Morgan were tall. Other than that, they appeared to be as "related" to each other as chalk was to cheese.
    But Ethan did recognize the man, remember him. Just as Chance had recognized and obviously remembered him. Now to discover if this would make things easier for Ethan, or even more complicated. He'd much rather have Chance Becket as an ally, although if the man knew precisely what Ethan planned for his sister, Ethan felt certain he would already be a dead man, and Becket wouldn't bother about the consequences.
    Strong-willed people, these Beckets of Ro m ney Marsh. Perhaps it was something in the air there, at the back of beyond.
    "Thank you," Ethan said, accepting the wineglass Chance offered. "I'll speak honestly here, Becket."
    "Is that so, Aylesford? You know how to do that?"
    Ethan answered without rancor and, in fact, with some humor. "I'm making an exception here, Becket, and being quite unusually jovial and forthcoming. But don't push, and neither will I .   I failed to make any connection between you and your sister, as we've never been formally introduced. My mistake entirely. Not that you and your father can be held blameless as, while Saul and his Bessie are both quite formidable, the young man she calls Jacob is so thoroughly enamored of, and cowed by, your sister that he's of no worth at all."
    Chance gave up his slightly threatening stance, since it didn't seem to have any affect on the earl in any case. "I've been worried about that from the moment I received my father's latest letter informing me that Jacob would be accompanying her. Jacob's a good enough lad, but that's rather like putting the pigeon in charge of the fox."
    "You do seem to know your sister very well. I'd like to add that, had I realized your relationship to her, I would have made other arrangements to get her back into her coach and safely to Upper Brook Street, and gone on my way. Looking back , I would say those 'arrangements' would have been to bind and gag her before tying the coach doors closed."
    Ethan took a sip from his glass. "I repeat, I would like to say that. But that last little bit would be a