Rogue’s Lady
Julia Justiss

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To my son Matt as he leaves high school for the

wider world: Like Allegra, may you hold fast to

your dreams, and like Will, may you set forth to

make them come true.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER ONE

STANDING AT THE LIBRARY window, staring numbly at the bare late-winter garden below, Allegra Antinori scarcely registered the footsteps approaching from behind her.

“So this is where you’ve been hiding.”

Wincing at the breathy, little-girl voice—so at odds with the venomous tone in which the words had been uttered—Allegra reluctantly turned to gaze into the hard blue eyes of Uncle Robert’s wife.

Twitching her expensive, jet-trimmed black shawl into place, the young woman continued, “Poor Robert might have been too ill these last few months to prevent your lounging about, but it’s more than time you made yourself useful. Cease your sniveling and go help Hobbs bring the trays of meat and cheese up to the dining room. The mourners will be arriving shortly.”

After weeks spent at her uncle’s bedside as he slowly slipped toward death, Allegra was too drained and forlorn to challenge, as she would have otherwise, the woman’s petty tyranny. “Very well, Aunt Sapphira.”

Those gentlemen-bewitching blue eyes shot her a look that would have frozen the Thames. “It’s Lady Lynton to you now, wench. I may have been forced to humor Robert and take you in after your parents died last fall, but you’ll stay on my terms now. Regardless of the airs you like to give yourself, you’re not really a member of the family and I will not tolerate your pretending otherwise.”

Devastated as she was by the loss in quick succession of the three people dearest to her, Allegra could not allow that claim to go uncontested. “Uncle Robert may not have been my uncle, but he was my mother’s dearest cousin—no matter how much you’d like to deny it,” she said.

“Perhaps by birth, but everyone knows Lady Grace’s whole family disowned her when she married your father. An itinerant musician—and a foreigner, no less! I suppose she learned some grasping Italian ways from her husband, for she certainly managed somehow to keep a hold over Robert. Letting her family run tame in his house whenever they came to London! But he can intervene for you no longer. If you wish to keep a roof over your head, you’ll abandon those pretensions or I’ll send you packing, see if I won’t! Now, go about your work.”

Smoldering fury momentarily overwhelming her grief, Allegra vowed she would be thrown out on the street tonight before she would curtsey to this female barely older than herself or call her “Lady Lynton.”

“I should be happy to help provide for the guests…Aunt Sapphira,” she replied, holding her ground and staring directly into the eyes of the woman who had beguiled her uncle into marriage a mere six months after the death of his beloved first wife.

Apparently realizing she could push Allegra only so far—or not wishing to lose a free extra servant when she expected a houseful of guests—Sapphira looked away first.

“Make sure you do whatever else Hobbs needs,” she said, turning to inspect herself in the library mirror. “And I’d better not see your dark face in the parlor while the guests are here. Why Robert acknowledged any connection to a chit who looks more like a Gypsy than a proper English girl, I’ll never understand.”

With that parting shot, Sapphira smoothed her guinea-gold curls off the porcelain perfection of her brow and walked out.

Her meager strength drained by the confrontation, Allegra sank down on the sofa. She’d rest for a few moments and then go help Hobbs.

For the hundredth time she deplored the susceptibility of the male species to rosebud-pink lips, gentian-blue eyes and blond curls above a well-curved figure. She only hoped that in the year her uncle had been married to Sapphira, he’d never learned how selfish and ruthless was the heart under that outwardly perfect form.

Suddenly released by her uncle’s death yesterday from the sickroom that had been her focus for weeks, Allegra had been drifting in a fog of lassitude and despair. Better to have something, anything, to fill the empty time now heavy on her hands, since she was still too weary and heartsick to decide what she should do next.

For a moment, the sense of being utterly alone in the world overwhelmed her. How she wished Uncle Robert’s son Rob had made it home to see his father one more time before his death! To share with her the agony of his loss, as with elder-brother affection he had befriended her during her childhood visits.

But the cousin Rob she had always—and secretly still—idolized was Captain Robert Lynton now, gone these three years with Wellington’s army. Having survived the slaughter of Waterloo, he was presently on staff duty in Paris.

Surely when the news of Uncle Robert’s death reached him, Wellington would let him come home, she thought, her spirits brightening.

Not that it would make much difference to her future. Much as she loved her uncle, only the sudden death of her parents at a time when Papa’s finances had been in unusually dire straits had forced her to London to beg his assistance. She’d never intended her sojourn at Lynton House to be more than temporary. But Uncle Robert had already been ailing when she arrived, putting plans to move elsewhere on hold while she tended him—his beautiful new wife, she recalled with a curl of her lip, having professed a horror of the sickroom. With a roof over her head—however precariously, given the rancor in Sapphira’s eyes—and time to prepare, she would far rather find some other way to support herself than remain here on the new Lord Lynton’s charity, and at Sapphira’s mercy.

Not when she’d grown up in a family worthy of the name. Staring into the cold hearth, Allegra smiled. There might have been lean times, but so remarkable was her father’s musical talent that another patron, or a commission for a new ballet, concerto or sonata, always turned up in time to avert disaster. For the virtuoso and the beautiful wife he called his muse and inspiration, being together was worth every trial. Raised in the circle of their love, Allegra had never given a thought to her status in the wider world.

She would need to give it a great deal of thought now. Sapphira had just made it perfectly clear that, having resented every kind word and every morsel of food her uncle had provided during Allegra’s six months at Upper Brook Street, she intended to transform Allegra into an unpaid servant.

But deciding how to avoid that fate would have to wait until later. For now, Allegra thought as she hauled her weary body off the sofa, she would serve her uncle one last time by helping Hobbs and the staff prepare the meal for the mourners who were coming to honor the late Lord Lynton.

HOURS LATER Allegra was carrying a load of empty platters down to the kitchen when Hobbs returned from escorting out the last of the guests.

“I’ll take those now, Miss Allegra,” the butler said, hastening over to relieve her of her burden. “’Twas good of you to lend us a hand. Me and the staff be right sorry for your loss. Lord Lynton were a fine gentleman.”

“He was indeed,” Allegra said, touched and grateful for the deference the butler continued to show her, despite the fact that by now the staff must know their mistress was trying to relegate Allegra to a position among them.

“You been at the master’s bedside near without pause these last weeks. Why don’t you go up and rest?”

Truly, she was so tired she was swaying on her feet. “Thank you, Hobbs. I believe I shall.”

As she started toward the main stairs, Mrs. Bessborough, the housekeeper, put a hand on her arm, her face creased in concern. “Excuse me, Miss, but…” She exchanged a distressed look with the butler. “Oh, Miss, I’m powerful sorry, but her ladyship directed me to move your things out of the blue bedchamber.”

Allegra stopped and exhaled a sigh. Despite the press of guests today, Sapphira certainly hadn’t wasted any time enforcing Allegra’s change of status.

“It’s all right, Bessie.” She patted the arm of the woman, who, like Hobbs, had known her since she’d first toddled into the Lynton kitchen clutching her mama’s skirts some twenty years ago. “Would you show me to my…new accommodations?”

“Yes, Miss. Follow me.” Shaking her head and clucking her displeasure, the housekeeper preceded Allegra up the service stairs.

As Allegra expected, the housekeeper did not stop until they reached the attic rooms where the female servants slept. “She told me to put you in with the maids, but there’s this nice storeroom under the eaves that held the late Lady Lynton’s trucks. Sam helped me move them so we could get a bed in. I’m afraid ’tis a bit cramped, Miss, but you’ll have privacy.”

The woman’s kindness brought tears to Allegra’s eyes. “Are you sure, Bessie? I don’t wish to get you into trouble with Aunt Sapphira.”

The housekeeper sniffed. “Seeing as that one don’t never set her dainty foot to any stairs but the ones to her bedchamber, she’ll never know. And to think, the poor master’s not yet cold in his grave! I never thought I’d live to see such a thing. What do you mean to do, Miss?”

Allegra walked over and sank gratefully onto the bed. “I’m not sure yet.”

“You play the pianoforte and the violin just as beautifully as your pa ever did, God rest his soul. Might you be a musician like him?”

“Were I married to a musician, we might play together, but as a lone woman, I’m afraid ’twould be nearly impossible to establish such a career.”

“Might you go on the stage? When you was a girl, you used to chatter on about all the theaters you’d visited.”

During her father’s occasional stints as a musician in theater orchestras, the family had struck up an acquaintance with a number of actors and theater managers. But while she could envision becoming a musician with enthusiasm, neither dancing nor acting held any appeal.

“No, I don’t think I have the talent to become a Siddons—or,” she added, chuckling, “the desire to display my legs in breeches roles, like Vestris.”

“Well, I should hope not!” the housekeeper exclaimed, looking properly shocked. “The best thing woulda been to find a fine young gentleman to marry you, which we all was hoping the master would do. But then he fell sick…” The housekeeper sighed, her voice trailing off.

Mrs. Bessborough might never have set foot in a Mayfair ballroom, but she knew very well that with Allegra’s mother discredited by her runaway marriage, entering the aristocratic world into which her mother had been born, difficult enough a feat for Allegra with Lord Lynton’s backing, would be impossible now in the face of Sapphira Lynton’s opposition.

“I doubt Uncle Robert would have arranged a match, even had he lived.” Nor, Allegra added silently, had she any desire to insinuate herself into the closed, self-important world that had rejected her mother simply for marrying the man she loved.

“I don’t suppose you know some nice young gentleman musician?” the housekeeper continued hopefully.

Allegra’s thoughts flew back to an incident eight months ago, just before her parents fell ill. Mama had called her aside to confide that a handsome young violinist in her father’s orchestra had requested permission to pay his addresses—and been refused.

“You mustn’t think Papa is not concerned with your feelings, rejecting Mr. Walker without even consulting you,” Lady Grace had assured her. “More than most parents, we believe loving the partner you marry is of absolute importance! Had we any suspicion that your affections were engaged, Papa would have told Mr. Walker to proceed. But since we did not, with Napoleon now banished to St. Helena for good, Papa has other plans for you.”

Gratified as she was to learn of the musician’s admiration, Allegra quickly confirmed that she was more curious about her future than disappointed that Papa had spurned her suitor. But though she pressed Lady Grace to say more, with a laugh and a kiss, her mama told her Papa would speak to her himself when the time was right.

Allegra smiled sadly. Whatever Papa’s plans had been, a virulent fever had carried off both him and her mother before the “right” time arrived. Leaving Allegra unwed, unattached and alone.

“I’m afraid there’s no one,” Allegra replied, swallowing hard at that forlorn truth.

Where in the world was there a place for Allegra Antinori? she wondered. But fatigue overwhelming that despairing thought, she lifted a hand to smother a yawn.

“Shame on me!” the housekeeper exclaimed. “Here I be rattling on when I expect all you want to do is fall into that bed and sleep for a week. Things will look better tomorrow, I daresay. Now, let me help you out of that gown and let you rest. I’ll send Lizzie up in the morning with your chocolate.”

“Thank you, Bessie,” Allegra said, gratitude again bringing tears to her lashes as she turned to let the woman undo her stays. Once tucked into bed, she pulled the covers over her head and went instantly to sleep.

ALLEGRA AWOKE to pale sunlight making a faint warm square on the quilt covering her. Disoriented, she stared up at the small, high window through which the sunlight was streaming before recalling where she was and why.

The pain of remembering Uncle Robert’s death exceeded her sadness in being evicted from the blue and gold brocaded bedchamber that had always been hers and her mother’s when they visited here. Shivering in the cold, she got up quickly and dressed in a plain round gown she could manage on her own, then grabbed the lap desk Hobbs had set on Aunt Amelia’s trucks and climbed back on her bed, wrapping the quilt around her. Now, before Sapphira woke and sent for her to perform some task, she should ponder what she meant to do.

Though she had as yet only a hazy idea what that might be, she did know that she could not remain at Lynton House. She refused to jump at Sapphira’s bidding, nor did she wish to endanger her friends on the staff by making them choose between supporting her and obeying their mistress.

So what did she wish to do?

More than anything she wanted a place to settle in and call her own…not a dreary succession of rented rooms with their mismatched and tattered furnishings which, using imagination and careful economy, her mama made into a home, only to begin all over again when Papa’s work took them to the next town and the next. Her mother might have been born a viscount’s daughter, but Lady Grace prided herself on how well she’d learned to deal with the most unprepossessing of accommodations, to direct a handful of servants when times were good, to cook, clean, mend and entertain without assistance when times were lean. Along with music, dancing, literature, needlework and the deportment required of a lady of birth, she’d made sure Allegra acquired those more practical skills, too.

Yes, Allegra thought, she’d love to have a permanent home and a position in which she could exercise her talents, perhaps provide some useful service.

Suddenly she recalled the visit she and her mother had paid years ago to Lady Grace’s former governess. After a career serving the children of the viscount’s family, that lady had retired to a snug cottage on a small parcel of land surrounded by a large kitchen garden and an orchard.

Ah, that would be security indeed, to possess a sturdy house on land of one’s own, something that did not depend upon the whims of society, that no disapproving relation could ever take away!

Perhaps she should seek work as a governess. A governess at a country estate with an extensive library and fine pianoforte, where she might spend her nights playing or reading after instructing her young charges in music, dance, literature and geography. Where she might set the little girls on her lap, as her mother had done with her, and teach them to embroider and mend, or help with the babes in the nursery. Since it was nearly certain, she thought with a deep pang of regret, that she would never marry and have children of her own.

Of course, a governess could be dismissed just as quickly as an unwanted relation, nor could one count on obtaining a pension and a house, even after a lifetime of service. She’d have to choose her position carefully.

She would begin a list of her qualifications and start looking for an employment agency immediately, she decided.

Allegra had just begun her list when, after a knock at the door, the maid Lizzie burst in.

“Oh, Miss, ’tis so exciting! Hobbs said a letter just come from France and the young master—that is, the new Lord Lynton—be on his way home!”

Rob was coming home! A frisson of joy penetrated the grief lying heavy in her heart. “When?” she demanded.

“Hobbs didn’t say, Miss, but the staff thinks ’twill be soon.” Setting down her tray, she added, “Mrs. Bessborough said to tell you to take heart, ’cause things was gonna be different around here!”

After thanking Lizzie and assuring her she need not come back to fetch the tray, Allegra gestured the maid out.

Rob would soon be here. Allegra closed her eyes and savored the thought, as comforting as the scent of the hot chocolate. Warmed by the first good news she’d heard since her parents expired what seemed a lifetime ago, Allegra sipped the frothy beverage, a wistful smile on her lips as she remembered her last visit with Rob Lynton.

Blond, handsome, five years her senior and very much on his dignity as an Oxford man, he’d discouraged her from trailing after him as she had when they were both younger, saying it was past time for her to tidy her hair, modulate her voice and behave like a proper young lady instead of a hot-tempered hoyden who argued with him at every turn. Though he’d refused her pleas for a renewal of the fencing lessons begun on her previous visit, he’d unbent enough to challenge her at chess, trounce her at billiards and allow her to ride with him in the park in the early morning when no one of consequence might observe his ramshackle cousin trotting at his heels.

The ache in her heart sharpened as she recalled that moment in the park when the romantic—and admittedly hoydenish—sixteen-year-old she’d been had suddenly decided her dearest wish was for Rob to realize she was a proper young lady, and the only lady he wanted. Casting covert, adoring glances at him as they rode, she’d envisioned him galloping up to her father’s lodgings, leaping from the saddle, declaring his undying love, and swearing his life would be meaningless unless she agreed to become his wife.

That had been…six years ago? Though she needed a gallant knight’s rescue now more than ever, she’d long outgrown that adolescent dream. Still, just knowing Rob was coming home sent a bubble of excitement and anticipation rising in her chest.

The young Rob she remembered would be a man now, a seasoned soldier who had survived desperate battles and gone on to keep the peace in a restive Paris. Decisive and commanding, he would be more than capable of prying the reins of his household from the clutches of his stepmother.

Bonaparte had just made his break from Elba, sending Rob racing to Belgium to coordinate the gathering of Wellington’s forces, when Sapphira began her assault on his father’s sensibilities, so Rob had never met the late Lord Lynton’s young bride. What would he make of his new “mama”? Allegra wondered.

Send her to the rightabout immediately, pouty pink lips, gilded hair, jutting bosom and all, Allegra devoutly hoped. But though Rob wasn’t elderly or grieving for a beloved wife’s touch, he was a man. She couldn’t be certain he would prove any more immune than Uncle Robert to Sapphira’s charms.

She should go forward with her plans to find employment elsewhere, Allegra concluded as she finished her chocolate, firmly banishing the stubborn relics of her old romantic dream. Though she would stay and see Rob established here as Lord Lynton before she embarked on a new life, the nauseating possibility that Sapphira might succeed in cozening Rob as successfully as she had beguiled his father made Allegra determined to have alternative plans for her future in place by the time Rob returned.

With one last sigh over the handsome countenance she so vividly remembered even after all these years, Allegra set aside her cup, took up her pen and went back to her list.

CHAPTER TWO

ON THE OTHER SIDE OF TOWN, a knock at the door of his Chelsea parlor distracted William Tavener from his reading. Glancing up as the door swung open, he discovered his cousin Lucilla, Lady Domcaster, standing on the threshold, hands on hips as she surveyed the small, untidy space. In her elegant ruby pelisse and bonnet, she looked as out of place in his shabby sitting room as her expression of distaste proclaimed her to feel.

Covering his shock—and a surge of gladness—at seeing his favorite childhood cousin after a gap of two years, he rose from his chair and drawled, “Lucilla, my dear, what a surprise! Not a wise move coming here, you know. Leave immediately and I shall swear I never saw you.”

With a sniff, Lady Domcaster advanced into the room. “Oh, rubbish, Will. And you may save that forbidding look to intimidate your boxing opponents. You know it won’t frighten me. Gracious, what a dingy set of rooms!”

Realizing with perhaps too great a sense of relief that Lucilla wasn’t going to allow him to scare her off, he gave an affected sigh and gestured languidly to the sofa. “Come in then, if you must. My apologies that the accommodations aren’t up to your standards. Though I’d still advise you to reconsider this call.”

“If you’d answered either of my two notes,” Lucilla replied as she seated herself, “I wouldn’t have to do something as scandalous as visiting my bachelor cousin in his rooms.”

Will brought one hand up over his heart. “Dear me! My wicked reputation. Is Domcaster likely to call me out?”

“Oh, I can handle my lord husband,” Lucilla assured him, a sparkle in her eye. “Besides, the on-dit says you only seduce married ladies in their own boudoirs or in love nests of their providing. Now, since I’ve already committed the impropriety of coming here, you might as well offer me refreshment—if there’s any to be had?”

“Give me a moment and I’ll see if Barrows can scare up some wine.” After delivering her a courtly bow, which she waved off with a grin, he entered his chamber to hail his valet, friend and man-of-all-work.

Barrows stepped back so abruptly, Will knew he must have been listening at the door. “Quite an astounding development!” Barrows said in an undertone. “Shall I fetch wine or stay to play chaperone?”

“Wine,” Will replied softly. “The better to send her on her way more quickly.”

“Excellent point,” Barrows replied and headed toward the back exit.

The errand gave Will a moment to trap the joy his cousin’s unexpected visit had surprised from him and bottle it back under the urbane, bored demeanor he affected.

“Wine is forthcoming,” he announced as he walked back in. “So, to what do I owe the honor of this highly irregular visit?”

“Did you not even read the notes I sent?” Lucilla asked with a touch of exasperation.

As if he would not have immediately devoured the contents of the first correspondence he’d received from any relation in nearly two years. But afraid, if he called upon her as she’d bid, he might not be strong enough to resist the temptation to renew the friendship they’d shared in their youth—a liaison that would now reflect no credit upon an otherwise respectable matron—he’d chosen not to go to North Audley Street.

Warmed as he was by her persistence in seeking him out, it would still be best for her if he rebuffed any attempts to renew that connection. Not correcting her mistaken impression of his indolence, he gave her instead a lazy grin. “Refresh my memory.”

“After being buried in the country producing offspring for years, now that Maria and Sarah are old enough to acquire a bit of town bronze and with Mark reading for Oxford, Domcaster agreed to my having the Season in London he’s long promised.”

“Your many friends must be ecstatic. Why contact me?”

Lucilla shook her head. “Don’t try to cozen me. When I walked in, before you put your mask-face back on, I could tell you were as pleased to see me as I am to see you. I’ve missed you, Will!”

Before he could divine her intent, she came over and seized him in a hug. Shocked anew, he allowed himself just a moment to fiercely return the pressure of her arms before setting her gently aside. “Lucilla, you unman me.”

“Oh, do drop that irritating manner and let us speak frankly. I expect you believe that my being seen with you can do my reputation no good, but what I propose will change all that. Fortunately, there is still time for you to make a recover before you succeed in isolating yourself permanently from good society.”

He’d suspected she wanted to quietly resume their friendship, interrupted by both their coming of age and her marriage. Surprised once again, he said, “That sounds foreboding. I tremble to think what you intend.”

“I intend to put a period to your career as a sometime gambler and full-time beguiler of ladies no better than they should be! Though I might have been buried in Hertfortshire raising a family, my dear friend Lydia here in London has kept me fully informed. Domcaster said one must expect a young man to sow some wild oats, but really, my dear, you’re nearing thirty now. ’Tis past time you settled to something more useful than fleecing lambs at whist and seducing other men’s wives.”

“They were not all of them wives,” he pointed out, amused. “’Twas a fair number of widows sprinkled in.”

“A good thing for your health. I understand some not-so-amenable husbands of several of your paramours almost insisted on grass for breakfast.”

“Since I was always able to persuade the injured party to swords rather than pistols, there wasn’t much danger. You know how good I am with a blade. Honor upheld, no one hurt.”

“Heavens, Will!” Lucilla exclaimed, laughing. “Trust you to leave both the lady and her husband satisfied.”

Will reached down to pick a speck of lint off the sleeve of his best jacket. “One must have a little excitement in one’s life, Lucilla.”

“Indeed.” Lucilla shook her head. “Although I should think your bouts at Gentleman Jackson’s—yes, Lydia has kept us informed about your boxing career!—would satisfy that desire! You’ve always been such a scrapper. I never understood why Uncle Harold refused to purchase you a commission. You could have been decimating the ranks of French cuirassiers instead of setting your lance at every loose-moraled woman in London.”

A vivid memory flashed into mind…his uncle impatiently dismissing Will’s plea to buy a set of colors, replying he had no intention of wasting his blunt sending Will where he’d only get his worthless carcass skewered by some Polish lancer. Though Will should have expected that, even with a war on, Uncle Harold would not consider the army in dire enough straits to require the dubious services of his late sister’s troublesome orphan.

“Someone must care for the poor unloved ladies,” he said after a moment.

Something like pity flickered briefly on Lucilla’s face. “You would know about the unloved part! I still think it atrocious the way Aunt Millicent—”

Will put a finger to her lips before she ventured into territory he’d rather not examine. “Enough!” He smiled, letting his affection show through this time. “You were ever my champion, even when we were quite young. Though what you saw in a grubby urchin who was always spoiling for a fight, I do not know.”

“Courage. Dignity. A keen sense of fair play,” she answered softly. “Or maybe,” she added with a grin before he could act on the compulsion to defuse her praise with some witticism, “it was just that, unlike Uncle Harold’s obnoxious son, you did not believe yourself above riding and rousting about with a mere girl.”

“What a pair we were!” Will chuckled. “You, at least, overcame your wild youth. I do appreciate your loyalty, you know.”

A knock indicated the return of Barrows, who entered to serve the wine before quietly bowing himself out again.

“I wasn’t able to do anything useful for you when we were children,” Lucilla continued after sipping her wine. “But I vowed that someday, if I had the chance, I would. As the wife of an earl—who just happens to be related to two of the Almack patronesses—I have an unassailable position in society, a whole Season in which to wield my power, and I’ve decided it’s time you assumed the place to which you were born.”

Will spread his arms wide. “Behold me occupying that position! Baron Penniless of Rack-and-Ruin Manor.”

Ignoring the bitterness in his tone, she nodded. “Exactly. You are still a baron. Uncle might have shamefully neglected the property put under his guardianship, but Brookwillow still possesses a stout stone manor house situated on a fine piece of land. Both need only an infusion of cash to put them to rights. You merely need to leave off pursuing light-skirted matrons and start looking for a wealthy bride. And I intend to help you find one.”

The idea was so preposterous, Will could not help laughing. “My dear, you are a dreamer! I hardly think I would be of interest to any respectable woman—unless she’s attics-to-let. Even should I manage to charm some tender innocent, no papa worth his salt would countenance my suit.”

“Nonsense,” Lucilla returned roundly. “You speak as if you were steeped in vice! You’ve only done what most young men do—game and seduce women all too willing to be seduced—albeit with a bit more flair. Indeed, I suspect Uncle Harold is proud of your reputation, though he’d never admit it. However, as head of the family, he will support your efforts to become established in good society.”

“He told you that?” Will asked, astounded.

“Why should he not? Since to do so,” she added dryly, “costs him neither time nor blunt. With your breeding and family connections, charming an innocent shouldn’t prove much of a challenge. You’re quite a handsome devil, you know, and what girl can resist the lure of a rake’s reputation?”

He stared at her a moment. “Given my ‘rake’s reputation,’ what does your lord husband have to say about your running tame with me?”

“You know Marcus always liked you, even when you were milling down every boy who whispered behind your back at Eton. He agrees that you ought to assume the responsibilities of your rank.” Lucilla giggled. “And knowing how he detests London, you may easily understand why he was happy to agree that you stand in for him as my escort to every party, ball and rout I choose to attend.”

“He trusts me that much—in spite of my reputation?”

Lucilla’s face grew serious. “He knows you would never do me harm—and so do I. Besides, the girls and their governess are with me, so we shall appear quite the family. Now, what we need to find you is a gently bred lass from the lower ranks. Despite Uncle Harold’s support, with your…limited means, ’tis best not to aspire to the hand of a duke or earl’s daughter. Perhaps a chit whose family wishes her to acquire a title…especially if she had a nabob grandfather to leave her his wealth!”

Holding up his hands, Will shook his head. “Lucilla my dear, I appreciate your kind intentions, but spare me! I’ve no desire to become a tenant for life.”

“What would you become, then? ’Tis past time to cease drifting as you have since leaving Oxford. Would it be so bad to find a kind, sensible girl to care for, who will care about you? One whose dowry will allow you to repair the manor house, refurbish your land and begin living as befits a Lord Tavener of Brookwillow?”

She gestured around the room. “You’ll never convince me you’d be sorry to give up this. Only think! Instead of a rented room—which hasn’t even a pianoforte!—you might recline in your own music room at Brookwillow. Become a patron of the arts, sponsor musicales and theatricals. Write music as you once did. Fill the library with all the rubbishy books you used to bring home from Eton and Oxford.” She giggled again. “Much to the horror of Uncle Harold.”

Will smiled. “The only thing more awful to our uncle than a nephew who wrote music was the idea of one becoming a scholar. I once choused him out of 200 pounds by threatening to accept a position as a don at Christ Church.”

“Did they really offer you a post?” Lucilla asked, diverted. “I think you might have been a good one.”

“No, I was wise not to accept it, even if I was angry at the time with Uncle Harold for not buying me that commission.” And despairing of what his future could offer, with a crumbling estate, no money and no chance to harness his few talents to earn any. “There wouldn’t have been any married ladies of wealth there for me to pursue.”

“True. But you’re bored with that now.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Am I?”

“Yes. Lydia reports you’ve not been involved in any new scandal for months. I understand you even rebuffed Lady Marlow’s quite flagrant lures.”

“Please, I beg you will not repeat that. Only consider my reputation!”

“No doubt ’twas your reputation as a lover that led her to pursue you.” She gave him a wicked look. “Employ those talents to charm your well-dowered maiden and you will both be happy! Marriage can be much more than a dreary arrangement based on wealth and position, as I can attest with great satisfaction.”

Hoping to throw her off, he gave her a lascivious look. “You certainly have the offspring to prove it.”

“’Tis another benefit of wedlock,” she replied, not at all embarrassed. “You might have a son.”

Will shuddered. “I can’t imagine anyone more ill-suited for the role of father. With my parents dead since I was a lad, what do I know about it?”

“You certainly know what not to do. Now, once the Season begins, I’m hosting a dinner for Lydia’s niece Cecelia, after which we will proceed to Lady Ormsby’s rout. You can make your first appearance then.” She cast a discerning eye over his attire and frowned. “It will give you enough time to get to the tailor and have some new garments made.”

“I am attending this rout, am I?”

Her face softened and she reached over to take his hand. “Dear Will, forgive me! I know I am terribly managing—which, I suppose, is what comes of running a household that includes a score of servants and three active children! I just want you to be happy, living in a place and a style worthy of you. I want you to have a chance to find the family you were robbed of as a child. I can’t make up for the lack of the commission or change the standards that forbid a gentleman from pursuing a career as a musician or scholar, but I can do this. Won’t you at least try to become respectable? If we don’t find an heiress to your liking, you can always go back to living the way you are now. What can you lose?”

“Several months of pursuing willing widows?” he suggested. But Lucilla was right. He was bored with the emptiness of his life, dissatisfied, restless, yearning for some indefinable something more.

He was by no means sure that acquiring a wife would satisfy those longings, however. “I doubt I have the temperament for matrimony,” he objected. “I’ve lived on my own so long, I don’t know that I could tolerate having a woman about all the time.”

“You’ve always enjoyed my company, haven’t you?”

He grinned. “Ah, but I don’t live with you day in and day out.”

“Well, married couples needn’t live in each other’s pockets, either. Indeed, much as I adore Domcaster, with his duties on the land and in town and mine with the house and children, we often go for days seeing each other only at dinner…or at night. Among all the young ladies on the Marriage Mart, surely you can find one who would be that congenial.”

“Perhaps,” Will temporized, not really putting much credit in that happy prediction. Certainly he had no illusions of tumbling into some great love match, as his cousin had. Save for Lucilla, the one relative who had inexplicably taken into her heart the fractious boy everyone else rebuffed, he knew about as much about familial affection as he did about fathering.

Indeed, the people to whom he was closest, he thought with a wry grimace, were neither of his own kin nor class. Barrows, now his valet and companion, a scruffy gutter rat he’d rescued when they were both boys. Maud and Andrew Phillips, the elderly caretakers of what was left of his crumbling estate, who’d shown him all he knew of parental affection. A pang of guilt pierced him that he’d not made the trip to Brookwillow to visit them in months.

Perhaps, if he could tell them he’d acquired the means to restore his ravaged estate and make easy their declining years, he might not be so reluctant to make the trip.

Even as he told himself it was highly improbable that Lucilla’s scheme could achieve that result, he heard himself say, “Very well, send me a card. I’ll make myself presentable and attend.”

“Wonderful!” Lucilla rose and gave him another hug. “Come for dinner next week. Domcaster is looking forward to talking with you.” As he walked her to the door she added, “I should have thought the last rich widow you dallied with would have kept a better kitchen. You look half-starved. You don’t need any money for the tailor—”

“No,” he interrupted, feeling heat flush his cheeks. Since his luck at the tables had been out of late, her comment about his ability to provide himself with food and raiment cut a bit too close for comfort. “My dear, my time with Clorinda was spent dining on delights far more arousing than any chef could devise.”

She batted his arm. “If you’re trying to put me to the blush, you’re all out. Domcaster says I have no sensibility at all. Very good! I’ll send you the invitation.”

He bowed. “As you command, my lady.”

“Stuff!” she said, making a face at him. “No, you needn’t see me to my carriage,” she added as he opened the door and made to walk her out. “My maid Berthe is waiting.” She pointed down the hall to a young woman who stood by the staircase, a liveried footman beside her. “Until next week, then. It is good to see you again, Will,” she added softly before she turned to stroll away.

“You, too, Lucilla,” he murmured, returning her wave before she disappeared down the stairs.

Slowly Will reentered his room and sat back down in his chair. Lord Tavener of Brookwillow Manor. Could he really become such a man? Restore his house, revive the land, take up his music again, build a true scholar’s library? Find someone who wished to share that life?

It seemed too good to be true…but in the last nine years, he’d not found any other way to achieve that dream. He discovered quickly enough after leaving Oxford that gaming, the only source of income open to a gentleman of no resources who wished to remain a gentleman, provided too irregular an income to facilitate the restoration of his birthright, nor after meeting his basic needs was there ever enough left to invest in some capital-generating venture. Nothing less than a substantial influx of cash—the sort that could be provided by the richly dowered bride Lucilla proposed to find him—could accomplish the task.

Already in poor condition at the time of his father’s death, Brookwillow had been too modest a property and too needful of time and serious investment to set it to rights to induce his uncle and guardian, the Earl of Pennhurst, possessed as he was of so many grander and more extensive lands, to bother with it. The last time Will had visited his estate, rain was dripping through the dining-room roof and birds nested in the upper guest chambers. The Phillipses managed to keep the servant’s quarters and kitchen habitable, but could do little with the rest.

As for the land, a few tenants still worked small plots around their cottages, but there weren’t nearly enough acres under cultivation to produce a saleable crop. Not that, after spending his youth at boarding schools, he had any idea how to go about transforming the estate into a productive agricultural property.

In short, his indifferent uncle’s provision of the bare modicum of a gentleman’s upbringing had left Will with few resources and no useable skills. His only innate talent, beyond music, scholarship and a way with cards and horses, seemed to be the ability to beguile bored women into his bed. Though at first that unexpected aptitude had amused him and kept loneliness at bay, of late, even this facility had lost its charm. And no matter how many sessions he battled every contender who dared challenge him at Gentleman Jackson’s, he could no longer box away the sense of emptiness inside.

While he was pondering the possibilities, Barrows walked back in. “So to what did we owe the honor of Lady Domcaster’s most improper visit?”

Will smiled. “It seems I am to become a respectable member of the gentry, Barrows. Leave off gambling, shun immoral women, and find a tender bud of an heiress who will embrace me willingly, love me madly and hand over her fortune so I can restore Brookwillow.”

Picking up the glass Lucilla had left, Barrows drained the last of the wine. “Do you know anything about charming a respectable maid?”

“About as much as I do about farming. But Lucilla insists I have naught to lose by attempting it. Perhaps ’twill be entertaining to attend some ton parties.”

“You’ve always derived enjoyment from your cousin’s company,” Barrows pointed out. “And I have perceived of late that you seemed disinclined to accept some of the lures cast at you. Why, Lady Marlow practically—”

“Not you, too,” Will groaned.

“If pursuing the improper sort of female has left you dissatisfied, attempting to entice the other sort might at least add a spice of variety to your life.”

“I expect we shall see. Count how many coins we’ve set aside, won’t you? It seems I must visit the tailor. I’m to make my grand entrance soon at Lady Ormsby’s rout.”

“At once, m’lord.” Raising the glass to him, Barrows walked out.

Add a spice of variety to his existence. Yes, entering the ton should do that. After a lifetime of being an outsider, the child not wanted, the student left behind at school during term breaks, he had no expectation that Lucilla’s experiment would do anything more.

CHAPTER THREE

TWO WEEKS LATER, as she helped Mrs. Bessborough stack freshly laundered sheets in the linen press, Allegra reflected wryly that the changes the housekeeper had predicted had begun sooner than—and not at all in the manner—that good woman had predicted.

Captain Lord Lynton had still not arrived, although the household continued to expect him at any moment. Apparently unconcerned with how Lynton House’s new owner might view her actions, however, the day after her husband’s funeral Sapphira summoned a small army of merchants and craftsmen to measure windows, floors, mantels and stairs. She intended, Allegra overheard her telling friends, to refurbish her late spouse’s fusty old town house from attic to cellars.

And so she had, banishing the Chippendale mahogany furniture and brocaded hangings and replacing them with draperies in the startlingly bright colors she preferred and furnishings in the new Egyptian style.

When Hobbs, begging her pardon, objected to her wreaking a similar transformation upon the library until the new master determined what he wished to have done with his private domain, she’d sacked him and hired a sharp-faced younger man. She’d gone on to demote Cook to a mere assistant and hire a French chef whose expertise, she informed Mrs. Bessborough, would better please her discriminating guests.

“I visited Mr. Hobbs during my half-day,” Mrs. Bessborough said, pulling Allegra out of her contemplation. “So sad it was to see him, stripped of his duties, and he a man still in his prime!” She shook her head. “I expect at any moment she will turn me off, as well.”

“You needn’t fear that,” Allegra assured her. “Whatever her failings, Aunt Sapphira is clever enough to understand that with Stirling still finding his way about his butler’s duties, the household would come to a complete halt without your steadying hand at the reins.”

The housekeeper sniffed. “Indeed, for who would smooth down Cook’s hackles or calm the maids after one of Monsieur Leveque’s tantrums? She oughta be grateful you’re here, too, speaking that Frenchie’s tongue sweet as a lark and soothing his devil’s temper like you do. I declare, even with the both of us, sometimes ’tis a pure miracle she gets her morning chocolate and her fancy dinners on time!”

At a jangling sound, Mrs. Bessborough glanced over at the bell case. “The front parlor—that will be the mistress. Now, where is Lizzie?”

“I’ll go.” With a half-smile, Allegra added, “Aunt Sapphira is probably looking for me anyway.”

Wondering what chore her aunt would try to foist on her now, Allegra gave the last sheet to the housekeeper and took the stairs to the parlor.

Allegra suspected Lady Lynton’s speedy sacking of Hobbs and demotion of Cook was intended both to begin restaffing the household with key employees loyal only to her and to deprive Allegra of anyone in authority who remembered her as a valued family member instead of a poor relation kept to do Sapphira’s bidding. Welcoming the struggle as a distraction from her grief, since the new butler’s arrival Allegra had been fighting a small rearguard action to stymie Sapphira’s attempts to relegate her to servant status.

The day of his arrival, most certainly upon Sapphira’s order, Stirling had stopped her in the hall and commanded her to clean the fireplaces in the guest bedrooms. With a hauteur that would have done Lady Grace proud, Allegra raked the man with a frosty glance and informed him that as Lord Lynton’s cousin, she would determine for herself which tasks, fit for a gentlewoman, she wished to perform. Shrewd enough to realize the imprudence of challenging Allegra—at least not until the new master returned and made her position clear—he’d since ignored her.

Allegra also refused to Sapphira’s face any chore the widow tried to assign her that did not fall, by Allegra’s definition, within the scope of a lady’s duties. Though her aunt had several times vowed she’d have “that ungrateful foreign brat” thrown into the street, nothing so dire had come to pass. Allegra concluded that Sapphira either did not trust her new butler to lay hands on a self-proclaimed lady—or realized she could not count on any of the footmen to assist Stirling in carrying out an order to eject her husband’s unwanted relation.

Balked at forcing Allegra into menial duties, Sapphira countered by devising a never-ending succession of the most tedious but genteel chores she could imagine. Wondering whether she would be taxed to answer letters, sort the tangle of embroidery threads in Sapphira’s sewing basket, pour tea or fetch the shawl, fan, sewing scissors or other item Sapphira inexplicably could not locate, particularly when there was an audience to watch Allegra do her bidding, Allegra knocked on the parlor door.

She entered to find Sapphira entertaining Lady Ingram and Mrs. Barton-Smythe, the two among her friends Allegra most disliked. At least, she thought with relief, it wasn’t any of Sapphira’s sycophant admirers, who, emboldened by her husband’s death, paid her calls nearly every day.

After glancing at her when she walked in, Sapphira looked away, pointedly ignoring Allegra as she returned her attention to her friends. Allegra set her teeth and waited.

“You hadn’t heard?” Lady Ingram was saying. “The divine Lord Tavener gave up Clorinda a month ago. Felicia Marlow’s been trying to fix his interest—to no avail. Now, there’s a man who could distract one from one’s grief!”

“Such presence,” Mrs. Barton-Smythe sighed. “Such eyes! Such physique!”

“Such technique,” Lady Ingram riposted, setting the women giggling.

Such a conversation to be having with a new widow, Allegra thought, her small store of patience exhausted. Compared to Rob, she doubted she’d find this Lord Tavener so “divine.”

Pasting a smile on her face, she dipped a graceful curtsey. “Aunt Sapphira, how might I assist you?”

Her expression disapproving, Mrs. Barton-Smythe said, “Anyway, I understand Tavener’s finally looking to marry. That should set off some fluttering in the dovecotes of London!”

“Indeed!” Sapphira replied. Finally deigning to acknowledge Allegra, she turned and waved an imperious hand at her, like a sovereign giving permission for an underling to approach. “I find the parlor chilly, Allegra. Fetch my shawl. And do put an apron over that gown while you help Stirling polish the silver, for if you spoil the dress, I shan’t buy you another!” Turning to her friends, she said with a shake of her head, “So thoughtless—but what can one expect of a chit of her background?”

Curling her nails into her palms to stifle the first response that sprang to her lips, Allegra laughed lightly. “Poor Aunt Sapphira, grief is making you forgetful! Polishing silver is a footman’s task, as you know quite well. Although,” she added in a thoughtful tone, “forgetfulness is said to be a sign of an aging mind. By the way, dear aunt, should you not take a seat out of the sunlight? ’Tis so injurious to the mature complexion.”

Sapphira had opened her lips, probably to give Allegra a set-down, but at that last remark, alarm flared in her eyes. Clamping her mouth shut, she jumped up from the sofa and hurried over to the mirror.

Just then the front door knocker sounded. “Answer that before you get my shawl,” Sapphira ordered as she peered into the glass, searching her reflection.

Suppressing a chuckle, Allegra exited the room and walked down to the entry hall. Bypassing with a rueful shrug the footman who stood ready to perform that task, she threw open the door.

Allegra’s breath caught and her hand clutched the doorknob as her gaze locked on the tall officer in scarlet regimentals. “Rob!” she gasped.

A thin scar made a white arch over the left eyebrow of a face bronzed by a life in the saddle. Standing on the threshold was not the lighthearted Oxford student she remembered, but someone older, rather stern-looking, every inch the seasoned commander who had led men in battle.

Still, with his hair the color of ripe wheat and his deep blue eyes set off by the brilliant red of his uniform, Rob Lynton was even handsomer than the university student of six years ago. She exhaled in a rush as something fluttered in her chest.

He was staring at her, as well. “Is that—Allegra? Heavens, how grown up you look! But what are you doing answering the door?”

“Oh, R-Rob!” she stuttered, his dear face suddenly reminding her so vividly of his father’s that grief razored through her, bringing tears to her eyes.

Seeing them, his expression softened. Stepping past her to close the door, he murmured, “Ah, Allegra, ’tis a heartache indeed,” and drew her into his arms.

Savoring the feeling of his closeness, she clung to him, fighting the urge to weep. A sharp “harrumph” made her straighten. She turned to see Stirling watching them, disapproval on his face.

Eying her askance, he inclined his head to Rob and said icily, “How may I help you, soldier?”

With one hand resting on her shoulder, Rob looked him up and down. “It’s ‘captain’ to you, sirrah. And who are you? Where is Hobbs?”

“Rob, this is Stirling, your, ah, new butler,” Allegra interposed.

Stirling’s face registered shock, followed by an almost comical dismay. “Lord Lynton, f-forgive me!” he stammered, bowing low. “Please allow me to express my own and the staff’s great pleasure at your safe return!”

Frowning, Rob glanced around the entry at the crocodile-legged table and brightly striped hangings. “Is this home?”

“Perhaps I should take you in to meet Sapphira,” Allegra suggested.

Rob grimaced. “Ah, yes, my lovely new mama. No point postponing that pleasure, I suppose. My batman will be arriving shortly,” he said to Stirling. “Assist him in stowing my kit.” Turning his back on the butler, he grasped Allegra’s arm. “Shall we go?”

Stirling bowed deeply as they passed. “At once, my lord, Miss Allegra!”

“You’ve become quite a beauty, little cousin,” Rob said as he walked her up to the parlor. “But what were you doing in the hallway, answering the door in that old gown? Why aren’t you wearing proper mourning?”

Flushing with pleasure at his first remark, Allegra hesitated before responding to the second. As satisfying as it might be to pour into his ears all her anger and resentment toward Sapphira—and as promising as Rob’s initial comment about his stepmother had been—bitter experience had taught her caution.

It would be wiser to keep her own counsel until Rob observed for himself the changes that had been wrought in his absence. If he were no longer the fair-minded individual she’d known…if Sapphira managed to win him over in spite of the alterations she’d made, he would neither take kindly nor give much credence to any negative opinions Allegra voiced now about his stepmother.

And if Sapphira did win him over, Allegra would offer Rob the report about his father’s last days that she’d promised herself to deliver and leave Lynton House as soon as she could arrange it.

Leave Lynton House and Rob…her childhood hero and the one remaining link to her idyllic past. The thought cut too deeply, so she thrust it away and focused on the query to which she could safely reply. “I was not…very well circumstanced when I arrived,” she said, shame scouring her at his disapproval, “and haven’t yet the funds to purchase mourning gowns.”

“Then my father’s wife should have ordered some for you,” Rob said flatly.

“We’ll talk more about it later,” Allegra replied as they arrived at the parlor. Knocking once, she pushed the door open and escorted him in.

“Aunt Sapphira, ladies,” she said as he bowed. “May I present Captain Lord Lynton.”

The babble of conversation faded into shocked silence. Lady Ingram and Mrs. Barton-Smythe hurriedly stood and dropped curtseys, while Sapphira froze, staring at Rob’s unsmiling face. Then she rose as well, one hand at her throat—and fainted.

As an opening tactic, Allegra thought as she watched Rob rush to catch his stepmother before she crumpled to the floor, Sapphira’s swoon was masterful. In one action, she both emphasized her role as his father’s fragile, grief-ravaged widow and bought herself time to assess her stepson’s reaction.

Her sardonic amusement deepening, Allegra observed how, while fluttering and moaning as he lifted her onto the couch, Sapphira managed to rub her impressive bosom against Rob’s coat, insuring he could not fail to notice her feminine charms, either.

Though Rob caught Sapphira and set her gently back onto the couch, his expression remained guarded—as if he mistrusted her performance as much as Allegra did. Nor did he display any of the panic or agitation with which men often reacted to feminine tears and trauma. Some of the tension in Allegra’s gut eased.

Coolly Rob turned to Sapphira’s callers. “Begging your pardon, ladies, I must ask you to excuse us. I’m sure my stepmother will send you a note when she is feeling more the thing.” He swept them a bow, leaving them with no choice but to murmur expressions of solicitude and take their leave.

After directing the footman who showed them out to summon Lady Lynton’s maid, he went to the sideboard and poured a glass of wine. When Sapphira opened her eyes and gazed dazedly around her, he presented it.

“Please sip this, ma’am, while we wait for your maid to assist you. I regret the distress my sudden entrance evidently caused and beg leave to wait upon you later when you’ve recovered.”

Taking the glass from Rob—and making sure her fingers brushed his, Allegra noted—Sapphira took a tiny sip and gazed up at him. “Lord Lynton—our own dear Rob! Pray excuse my weakness, but when I saw you standing there, looking so much like my poor Robert, I was…quite overcome.”

Rob removed his fingers. “Indeed. I expect you will grow accustomed to the likeness, since I intend to sell out and remain in England.”

“Oh, Rob, that’s great news!” Allegra said, speaking for the first time since the little drama unfolded.

Ignoring her, Sapphira gave him a weak smile. “Then I will have you to advise me? What a relief! Managing a household is such a burden for a woman alone, especially as I am still so much cast down…” She allowed one crystalline tear to bead on her long lashes.

At that moment, Hill, Sapphira’s dresser, appeared along with Lizzie. Allegra noted that after Hill assured Rob she and Lizzie could manage taking her ladyship up to her chamber, he made no further attempt to assist her. He simply watched as the women supported Sapphira out of the room, a thoughtful expression on his face.

When the trio had gone, he turned back to Allegra. “I notice you didn’t offer your help.”

“I expect Aunt Sapphira would sooner accept the hand of an urchin off the street than take mine,” she replied.

“You don’t get on?”

After briefly considering a more detailed response, Allegra said only “No.”

Rob studied her, his gaze progressing from her simply arranged hair to her gloveless hands to her worn gown. His eyes returning to her face, he said, “I have an appointment with the solicitors soon, but when I return, I should like to talk further.”

“I’d like that, too. You…” She paused, her eyes filling with tears. “You must wish to know about Uncle Robert’s last days. He often spoke of you, and I promised to convey his blessings.”

“I didn’t know how ill he was until…” His own eyes sheening with moisture, Rob broke off and swallowed hard. “In his last letter, he said only that he’d been ailing with some trifling thing that would soon pass. When I heard nothing further, I should have realized that something was amiss—but there was always one more duty to perform, and the weeks slipped by.”

Shocked, Allegra looked up at him. “You didn’t know how desperately ill he was?”

“If I had, I would have come home at once! But after that one letter, Papa didn’t write again. And his fine new wife sent me…nothing. I didn’t even know you were here. I’m glad he had some family with him at…at the end.”

“Oh, Rob,” she whispered, tears starting again as his face contorted. While he looked away, fighting for control, she took his hand. He gripped hers hard for a moment before turning back to her.

“Thank you for being here, Allegra. I want to know everything, but later, when I have more time. Now I must go up and change for the appointment. Walk up with me, won’t you?”

Letting go of her hand, he motioned her to precede him. In silence they entered the hall and walked up the stairs. Distracted by a renewal of her grief, it wasn’t until Rob stopped at the door to the blue bedchamber that she remembered.

Flushing, she motioned toward his room farther down the hall. “I’ll leave you to finish your preparations. Please do send for me when you get back, and good luck at the solicitors.” After squeezing his hand, she made to walk past him back toward the service stairs.

He caught her shoulder. “Come now, Bessie can manage without you for a few hours. Why don’t you rest while I’m gone?” With a smile, he opened the door to the blue bedchamber and gave her a teasing push.

Caught off-guard by that action, she stumbled. By the time she’d righted herself, her flush deepening as she tried to think of something to say, his sharp gaze had scanned the obviously unoccupied chamber.

“You’re not staying here?”

She summoned a smile. “I have…other accommodations now.”

His lips tightened into a thin line. “I see. Yes, we shall certainly talk later.”

“Of course. I hope your meeting goes well.” Turning again, she walked away, acutely aware that instead of continuing on to his room, he remained in the hallway. She felt the force of his gaze upon her until she disappeared behind the door to the service stairs.

THE IMPERATIVE of revisiting for Rob the last few weeks of his father’s life brought Allegra’s muted grief back to sharp, aching focus. Not feeling up to a battle of wills with Sapphira, she climbed the stairs and slipped inside her little attic room.

A few hours later, after reviewing her time with her late uncle and choosing the details she would recount to Rob, she reread the note she’d just received from Mr. Waters at the employment agency, summarizing their interview earlier in the week.

Her qualifications looked excellent, he wrote, and given the gentility of her carriage, voice and demeanor, he felt certain he would have no trouble obtaining a post for her as soon as he received her letters of reference.

Sighing, Allegra cudgeled her brain trying to determine whom she might approach to obtain such letters. Giving up the effort for the moment, as she had often these last few months when she struggled with some problem, from her reticule she drew out her most prized possession—her father’s last letter, written when he knew he was dying.

The vellum was smooth and worn from use. Just holding it gave her comfort, nor had she any need to unfold it to recall the words written within.

“My precious daughter,” Papa had begun in a struggling hand, “I now accept that this feeble frame has refused my will’s demand to recover. But before I go, I must tell you that while music was my life, you and your mother have been my heart, my soul, my spirit and my joy. Though I rejoice that soon, she and I will be together for all eternity, my heart breaks at leaving you alone. You must not be afraid, carita. Always remember you possess your mother’s grace and the Antinori fierceness.”

The writing growing steadily more illegible, he concluded, “With your courage, intelligence and spirit, all will be well in the end. Adios! Your adoring Papa.”

At this moment as never before, Allegra felt truly alone in the world. A rush of panic and despair escaped her attempt to supress it. Would everything ever be well again?

A knock sounded at the door, interrupting her thoughts, and Lizzie popped in. “The Captain be wanting to see you in the library.” Belatedly adding a curtsey, Lizzie continued, “At your convenience, he said.” She sighed. “Oh, Miss Allegra, ain’t he just the handsomest man you ever saw? And as gentlemanly as handsome!”

Calling Rob’s face to mind steadied Allegra. With her old friend returned, she wasn’t completely alone. “Handsome and gentlemanly indeed,” she agreed. Resolute and gallant as a knight of yore, she added to herself, picturing him again in his regimentals. If only her childhood hero might ride to her rescue.

A sudden flare of hope made her straighten. Even as a boy, Rob had followed his father’s lead in supporting her and her family. He’d chastised his friends when they teased her and once knocked down another boy who called her a “dark-faced foreigner.” Might he offer some more attractive alternatives for her future?

She mustn’t depend on anyone but herself now, she reminded. But though she told herself she should count only on delivering Uncle Robert’s messages to Rob before going her own way, Allegra could not forestall a swell of excitement.

Not sure whether he would include Sapphira in their discussion, Allegra was relieved when she entered the library to find only Rob within. But seeing him seated behind the desk where she had so often found Uncle Robert, she had to take a deep breath.

“Allegra, come in!” he called. “Some wine?”

After pouring them each a glass, Rob ushered her to the sofa and took a seat beside her. “First, accept both my condolences and my apologies. You must have thought me an unfeeling beast! I didn’t learn until I talked with Bessie this afternoon that you lost your parents last fall. Please believe that I would have written at once, had I known. I can only be glad that after that awful event, you had the good sense to come here to Papa.”

Determined to banish the threatening tears, she took a sip of her wine and composed herself. “It was…a dreadful time. I think we helped each other, Uncle Robert and I.”

“You certainly helped him! Bessie told me he was already ill when you arrived. That you put aside your own grief and devoted all your time to entertaining and tending him…and at the last, to keeping vigil. Chores his new wife did not feel up to performing, I understand.”

Allegra shrugged. “He was almost as much a father to me as my own. It was a pleasure to spend time with him.” Amazing herself, she felt compelled to add, “Sapphira is rather young, and has neither the sensibility nor the skill to be of much assistance in a sickroom. I believe she has been all her life much cosseted and indulged.”

Rob grimaced. “So I gathered upon entering my front hallway. I thought at first I’d stumbled into the wrong house! I stopped to see Hobbs this afternoon and learned I have him to thank for sparing this room from invasion by crocodiles and lacquered paint. I’ve reinstated him, by the way.”

“I’m so glad! But—what about Stirling?”

“Sapphira can provide him with references—assuming she is up to that task. You are also young, but you seem to have managed the duties of the sickroom quite well.”

She smiled. “Oh, but consider my unconventional upbringing! From plucking chickens to make a healing broth to brewing tisanes to soothe the throat of an ailing soprano, there are few nursing chores I’ve not done. But enough of me. Let me tell you about Uncle Robert.”

For the next half hour, Allegra sketched for Rob all the events of the last few months of his father’s life, touching on his humor, his faith, his courage and the great love he bore his son. “Toward the last, he dictated several letters for you. As he requested, I left them there, in the desk drawer.”

Rob nodded. “I found them after returning from the solicitor’s office. But what of you, Allegra? What do you intend to do now?”

She faced him squarely. “You needn’t worry that I mean to be a charge upon you. I’ve inquired about a post as a governess.”

“My fiery little cousin a governess?” He grinned and shook his head. “The girl who dressed down a duke in the park for having the temerity to ride by too closely to her mount? Who would have come to blows with that numbclutch Eton mate of mine for calling her a silly, lisping foreigner, had I not intervened? Heaven help the unlucky family that hired you!”

Allegra felt her face heat. “I admit, I was a trifle…boisterous as a child. But I’ve long since mastered my temper.”

“Have you?” he drawled, his amused tone suggesting he didn’t believe it for an instant. “I hope you’re not set on the notion of becoming a governess, for after consulting Papa’s solicitors, I have other plans.”

Did he mean to assist her after all? Trying to restrain her soaring hopes, she replied, “Other plans?”

“Though you may not know it, for Papa lived simply and such worldly considerations were obviously never of any importance to your parents, the Lyntons are quite wealthy. Which doubtless explains my father’s appeal to a chit of Sapphira’s age,” he added acidly. “Despite bestowing a sumptuous jointure upon his widow, Papa left a sizeable estate. It was his wish that you have the means to reclaim the place in society that should have been yours as Lady Grace’s daughter.”

For a moment Allegra stared at Rob, uncomprehending. “You mean…he left me a bequest?” she said at last.

“A bequest? Ah, well, yes, I suppose you could call it that. You shall have a handsome sum to serve as your dowry, along with the funds to purchase gowns and all the other necessary fripperies so that you may attend the afternoon calls, rout parties, balls and such that will lead to becoming betrothed to a worthy young man who will cherish and protect you for the rest of your life.”

“And then I live happily ever after?” Allegra gave a bitter laugh. “The idea of entering that world is just as much a fairy tale. Even girls Mama came out with, ones she considered good friends, gave her the cut direct after she married Papa. Aside from Uncle Robert, not even her own family recognized her. What makes you think they would accept her daughter?” What makes you think I want them to? she added silently.

“Ah, but you are wrong. Lady Grace’s papa would have welcomed her home at any time, but she refused to take up her ‘proper’ position among her own class if it meant being separated from your father. True, the highest sticklers may not receive you and Almacks might be beyond your touch, but a sizeable part of the polite world will be quite willing to accept the ward of Lord Lynton and granddaughter of Viscount Conwyn.”

She held her hands out at her sides. “Accept this ‘dark-skinned foreigner’?” she asked skeptically, Sapphira’s oft-repeated disparagement of her ebony hair and olive skin echoing in her head.

Smiling slightly, Rob studied her, the intensity of his gaze sending a little shock through her. “Not all men like a blond-and-pink princess,” he said softly after a moment. “Some prefer a more…earthy, exotic lady.”

The appreciation in his eyes deepened to something hotter. Allegra felt her cheeks flush, her mind suddenly buffeted by so many contradictory ideas and emotions she could not frame a reply.

One practical observation in that flurry of thoughts steadied her. “But what of a sponsor? You must know Sapphira would never…” Her voice trailed off and she grimaced as she imagined the probable response, were Rob to have the temerity to ask his stepmother to introduce her.

“Oh no, Sapphira isn’t…temperamentally suited for the role. Besides, she must be in deep mourning for at least six more months, while by the time the Season begins, you need only don black gloves. I shall invite Cousin Letitia Randall to stay with us. She knew your mother well. That is, if you will agree to a presentation?”

Her immediate response was to decline, but she bit it back. Rob was being kind and extremely generous. Though she had decidedly mixed feelings about entering society, with the arrogance of one born to that privileged world, he would never understand why she would not leap for joy at this chance to claim a place within it. And despite his assurances, he must know that he would need both determination and perseverance to overcome what she suspected would be a rocky reception by the ton if she accepted his offer.

Unless…

She recalled the look of heated appreciation in Rob’s eyes. Suddenly her mind was overwhelmed by a resurgence of the wild hope she’d never quite managed to extinguish. Only one thing would make Rob’s generous offer truly a dream come true.

Dressed in lovely clothes, hair upswept and her mother’s pearls about her neck, might she capture the heart of this “parfait, gentil” knight for her own?

If she could, if she could bring Rob to realize that the wild girl of whom he’d always been fond was now an accomplished, desirable woman, one with whom he wanted to share his life, it would be a more marvelous resolution to her dilemma than she dared believe possible.

Instead of going alone into the world, she’d be able to remain here with Rob, Bessie and Hobbs, the only people still on earth who knew and appreciated her—and not as a servant, but as a daughter of the house. Marrying some ton gentleman so as to reclaim her mother’s place in society held little appeal, but if that ton gentleman were Rob, she would gain not just social acceptance and a secure future, she would have won her secret heart’s desire and a love to last a lifetime.

A love like her parents’.

Despite the difficulties her mother had experienced because of marrying her father, Lady Grace and her husband had been happy. Having grown up in the charmed circle of their devotion, Allegra couldn’t envision marrying someone, as Sapphira obviously had, only to secure wealth and a comfortable position in society. Nor did she think she could tolerate marrying a man who deigned to give her his name and heirs but not his loyalty or affection.

If she married, it must be to a man she desired, respected and loved without reserve. A man who pledged his love and fidelity in return. Someone trustworthy, steadfast and honorable—like Rob.

Could she win his heart?

“Well?” Rob interrupted her racing thoughts.

“I…I’m not sure,” she said, her mind still entrapped in glorious speculation.

He grinned. “Then say ‘yes.’ I’ll write Cousin Letitia tonight. You’ll doubtless want her assistance in purchasing that wardrobe of gowns and such. With the Season soon to start, you need to begin on that at once. Lady Ormsby’s rout is barely a month away.”

He rose to his feet. “If you’ll excuse me, I must go wait upon Sapphira and inform her of our plans.”

Allegra shook her head, sure of only one thing about Rob’s audacious scheme. “Sapphira is not going to like this.”

Rob laughed out loud. “No, I expect not,” he said as he advanced to the door. “I knew the Lord would send some ray of sunshine to brighten the bleakness of father’s passing.” Pausing on the threshold, he looked back to add, “By the way, I told Bessie to move your things back into the blue bedchamber.” He snapped her a salute. “Welcome back to the family, Allegra.”

For long moments after Rob walked out, Allegra sat motionless, hardly able to believe her entire circumstances had changed so dramatically in the space of a single day.

There was no reason not to accept this offer. If her fondest desires about Rob were not realized, if she found society not to her liking or the ton rebuffed her, she could always use Uncle Robert’s legacy to purchase the property for which she’d been pining and carve out a life for herself there.

Either way, she would have a permanent home of her own that no one could ever take from her.

No more creeping down service stairs, suspended between two worlds. Uncle Robert had loved her as she loved him. He’d appreciated and valued her enough to leave her an inheritance, thought her deserving of a place in her mother’s society. Perhaps deserving of his son’s love?

A deep gratitude sharpened the pangs of loss. How she missed that gentle, quiet, loving man! Knuckling the tears from her eyes, she vowed she would justify the confidence he’d placed in her, make Rob proud he’d welcomed her back into the family.

And just maybe, she concluded with a tremor of exhilaration and longing, she would gain Rob’s love and a secure place to belong.

CHAPTER FOUR

THREE WEEKS LATER, Will sat at Lady Domcaster’s dinner table, a smile stamped on his lips as he cut his gaze to the head of the table, trying to catch his cousin Lucilla’s eye while giving nominal attention to the young lady seated beside him.

“I declare, Lord Tavener,” Miss Benton-Wythe exclaimed in her flat, nasal voice, “when the governess opened her door and the chicken Harry had hidden flew out, flapping and squawking, she shrieked so loud we were like to die laughing!” Apparently envisioning that occasion, she went off into a fit of giggles.

Wincing, Will turned to his other side to address the honoree of the evening, Miss Cecelia Rysdale, daughter of Lucilla’s friend Lydia. “Miss Rysdale, do you recall any similar amusing events from childhood?”

Color came and went in the young lady’s cheeks as she hastily dropped her eyes to her plate, muttering an unintelligible syllable Will took to be “no.” ’Twas about the extent of the response he’d been able to eke from her during the course of this interminable dinner.

Having no idea what one talked about with young ladies, he’d first mentioned the progress of the peace accords in Vienna, then asked about the current offerings of the Philharmonic Society, then attempted to elicit opinions on the performance of Hamlet now at Covent Garden. After these conversational overtures evoked puzzled silence, a rather desperate compliment about the young ladies’ bonnets finally drew a response from Miss Benton-Wythe.

Though not even the mention of fashion managed to entice Miss Rysdale into speech, her companion more than made up for her silence. Miss Benton-Wythe launched into a detailed description of the design and construction of her headgear, and having begun, needed no encouragement whatsoever to keep on chattering.

Will calculated that over the course of this dinner, Miss Benton-Wythe had produced enough words to fill three conversations, all delivered in a penetrating voice and punctuated by high-pitched giggles that were giving him the headache. He wished he’d stuck to a monologue about diplomacy.

Finally catching Lucilla’s attention, he cast her a beseeching look. Though she returned him a stern glance, the corner of her mouth twitched as she rose, signaling it was time for the ladies to leave the table.

Will leapt to his feet. “Ladies, my pleasure,” he told the two girls as he bowed.

“La, my lord, ’twas my pleasure, too,” Miss Benton-Wythe said, giving him a frankly assessing look.

Hard-pressed to suppress his relief, Will watched Lucilla lead the women from the room. Thank heavens all the attendees at this dinner were proceeding to other engagements, sparing him the necessity of sharing brandy and cigars with the male guests, mostly fathers of Miss Rysdale and her friends and mostly unknown to him. He understood now why Domcaster, despite his obvious affection for his wife, had chosen to return to the country.

Even as Will nodded and smiled, the gentlemen started to follow the ladies out. When the last one exited, Will sat back down and took a long, fortifying pull on his wineglass. It appeared this business of finding a rich wife would be even more distasteful than he’d envisioned.

He had just finished the wine when Lucilla returned. “Bless you, cousin,” he said. “Two more minutes and I would have cast myself facedown into the syllabub.”

Though Lucilla clucked in disapproval, her eyes danced. “I’ll allow that Miss Benton-Wythe’s voice is a trifle…grating.”

“I should have enjoyed hearing more of Miss Rysdale’s. But after I delivered a very mild tribute to her appearance, she looked as if she thought I meant to ravish her upon the spot and spent the rest of the meal communing with the china.”

Lucilla sighed. “Someone must have carried tales to her about your wicked reputation. She is rather timid.”

“Perhaps I should have reassured her that I do not seduce children,” Will returned. “I must warn you, grateful as I am for your support, if this is a sample of what I can expect in the Marriage Mart, I’d rather resign myself to my rooms in Chelsea.”

Lucilla shook her head. “Not all the eligible young ladies are being fired straight from the schoolroom, as Cecelia and Miss Benton-Wythe are. You shall encounter a much larger variety shortly at Lady Ormsby’s rout. Besides, you promised to be my escort for the Season and I’m not about to let you wiggle out of that! Let me collect my cloak and we can be off.”

“Will there be a card room? Winning a few hands of pique would help restore my good humor.”

“Yes, there should be some play. And I don’t mean to be unreasonable. Once I’ve introduced you around—and you have stood up with me twice, for I must dance!—if you meet no lady who engages your interest, I will cede you to the card room.”

“In that case, I am yours to command,” Will said.

AN HOUR LATER, wearing the most beautiful gown she’d ever owned and knowing she looked her best, Allegra stood in the shadows of Lady Ormsby’s entryway. A Lynton footman had caught up with them just as they arrived with a note for Rob from his estate manager that, Rob said, apologizing to them for the delay, required an immediate response. Retreating out of the press of arriving guests, she waited with Mrs. Randall for Rob to complete his business so they might go up.

She should be giddy with anticipation at attending her very first ton party. Instead, she was tense and wary despite the promise of having Rob beside her all evening, looking, she thought, a pleasant flutter in her chest as she gazed over to him, handsomer than a prince in his elegant evening attire.

Unfortunately, in the three weeks since Rob had dramatically altered her life, it had quickly become evident that Mrs. Letitia Randall, the cousin he had invited to London to fill the roll of chaperone, was no match for the cunning—and malice—of Sapphira Lynton.

Beginning soon after the slamming of the door and the wail of weeping that had followed Rob’s proclamation of Allegra’s change of status, Lady Lynton had done all within her power to circumvent and frustrate Rob’s intention to raise Allegra to a place within the ton. With a feminine guile that was impossible for Allegra to prove and would be difficult for Rob’s masculine mind to comprehend, her intervention had been by indirection or subterfuge.

“La, I’m much too cast down to traipse all over town spending Lynton’s blunt,” Sapphira had proclaimed when the meek Mrs. Randall asked her to advise them on the acquiring of Allegra’s wardrobe. “I suppose I could pen a note to the modistes I favor, recommending styles, colors and fabrics for Allegra’s gowns. Fitting her out fashionably is going to be difficult, though, Tall Meg that she is.”

And write she had, Allegra thought, clamping her lips together as she wondered just what exactly Sapphira had penned. For had Allegra not insisted upon following her own judgment, honed by years of observing costumes in opera and the theater, the modistes would have persuaded Mrs. Randall into purchasing Allegra a wardrobe of pink and white frocks profusely trimmed in lace and ribbon that would not have become her in the least.

While Lady Lynton also proclaimed herself too ill to accompany them paying social calls, she expressed an avid interest in discovering from Mrs. Randall each morning where they planned to visit. On numerous occasions, as they alighted from a hackney at the house of one or another of the ton’s hostesses, Allegra spied Lady Lynton’s carriage just leaving.

When they entered the drawing room thereafter, Allegra was met with stilted politeness, speculative looks—or outright silence, as conversation ceased while the ladies already present turned to stare at her.

Sapphira’s heavy floral perfume hanging in the air like the scent of smoke after a candle is snuffed, it was obvious from the careful omission of any inquiry about Allegra’s parents that someone had just re-illumined all the details of Lady Grace’s scandal. At times, annoyed and frustrated by the hypocrisy, only Allegra’s desire not to embarrass poor Mrs. Randall prevented her from boldly asking if her hostess had met Lady Grace after her marriage…and had that lady ever had the privilege of hearing her father play?

Even more dispiriting, since returning her to the family, Rob had left her entirely in Mrs. Randall’s care. She’d seen him but seldom and until tonight, had had no champion to stand beside her in the glare of society’s faintly hostile scrutiny.

She wouldn’t have minded the female disdain had she felt she was making some progress in luring Rob to act upon his observation that his little cousin had become a desirable woman. Though on the few occasions they’d met at home, she’d seen the same heated appreciation in his eyes, she could hardly bewitch him if he was so seldom present to be bewitched.

Thanks again to Sapphira, she thought with irritation. Apparently not content with her initial attempt to entice Rob, the first night he’d dined at home with them, Sapphira had been at her most alluring, gazing up at Rob, soliciting his comments and opinions, leaning down to display her bosom while passing him dishes, letting her fingers rest on his during the exchange. Grimacing with a distaste that was thrilling to Allegra, Rob had pointedly pulled his hand free, then quit the dining room as soon as dessert was served. He’d not eaten a meal with them since.

Thank heavens Sapphira had such overweening confidence in her own appeal that, since Rob resisted her, she’d not be able to conceive of him admiring any other woman. For if she ever discovered Allegra’s secret hope, she’d make life even more miserable for her.

But possessing the Antinori fierceness, Allegra wasn’t about to give up yet. Somehow she would find more opportunities to be with him—and make the most of the ones she had, like tonight.

Cheered by that resolution, she gave Rob her most glittering smile when at last, his instructions to the footman complete, he returned to offer each of them an arm.

“Are the loveliest ladies at the party ready to greet their hostess?”

“With you beside me, I’m ready for anything,” Allegra said, and put her hand firmly on his arm. Together they mounted the stairs to Lady Ormsby’s ballroom.

IN THE RECEIVING LINE upstairs, after smiling and bowing through a long round of introductions, Will led Lucilla toward the ballroom, doing his best to look as if he were interested in the proceedings. To his greetings, he’d received mostly blushing monosyllables from the younger maidens, speculative looks under veiled lashes from the older ones—and boldly inviting glances from two well-endowed widows.

“Perhaps my wicked reputation has preceded me,” Will told his cousin. “I seem to terrify the infants.”

“They will find you charming enough once they converse with you. But upon first meeting, you tend to wear a stern, rather intimidating look. Please remember that the young ladies you are greeting are not rival pugilists you are about to confront in the ring! Smile, speak only of something unexceptional and you will put them at ease.”

“I have confined myself to the unexceptional!” Will protested. “‘Miss Westerly, what a charming gown. The blue quite lights up your eyes.’ I daresay I’ve never uttered so much treacle in a single evening. Now, several of the matrons seemed much more…rewarding of my efforts.” He sighed and looked at Lucilla, a twinkle in his eyes. “Having bowed before innocence all evening, I find myself thirsting for a taste of plain, straightforward sin.”

While Lucilla batted him on the arm and called him “incorrigible,” Will scanned the room, looking for the two widows who’d given him come-hither glances. Once he’d danced with Lucilla, he might seek out their company. He deserved some amusement after enduring an entire dinner with Miss Benton-Wythe.

As Will paused at the entrance to the ballroom, his gaze drifted to a trio of guests who had just ascended from the entry below. He was about to turn away when the image before his eyes registered in his brain and he froze in midstep.

Outlined against the black-garbed older lady leading the group was a much younger woman in a diaphanous gown of pale gold. The burnished glow of the material set off the faintly olive hue of the skin perceptible above her gloves and the modest décolletage of her dress. Staring now with avid appreciation, Will noted the lovely line of shoulder and neck—and the voluptuous curve of bosom concealed beneath the gown.

Throat drying and fingers curling in his gloves, he spent another instant regretting the neckline hadn’t been cut lower, allowing bystanders a better look at that tempting lushness. All his senses humming, he forced his eyes upward.

Her face, with its high cheekbones, narrow nose and wide forehead, was the same exotic tint as her chest and shoulders. If she’d not deigned to try to mask her unfashionable coloring with rice power, very likely she’d employed no artifice to thicken the luxuriant lashes that framed those large dark eyes. Whether or not the ripe apricot hue of her full lips stemmed from nature or artifice did not affect his immediate, powerful desire to kiss them. His body tightened at the thought.

Who was she and what was she doing here? he wondered. Looking like an exotic Eastern princess, she seemed as out of place among this crop of pink-and-white-gowned debutantes as if one of the glasshouse orchids his classics professor used to grow had suddenly sprouted in a field of demure English daisies.

A jerk at his arm pulled him from his rapt contemplation of the newcomer.

“Will, what is wrong?” Lucilla asked.

“That girl in the saffron gown.” Will angled his chin toward the doorway. “Who is she?”

His cousin looked in the direction he’d indicated. “The one walking with the woman in widow’s black?” When he nodded impatiently, she continued, “Miss Allegra Antinori. Despite the foreign name, she’s from the Montesgue family—Viscount Conwyn is her grandfather. She’s the ward of a distant connection of her mother, Lord Lynton—” Lucilla indicated the blond gentleman escorting the two ladies “—whose cousin, Mrs. Randall, is her chaperone.”

“Allegra,” Will repeated, the music of her name lingering on his tongue. “And she’s unmarried?” If unwed and possessed of an entrée to this gathering, she must definitely be on the Marriage Mart. Lucilla’s idea of beguiling a well-bred maid suddenly seemed much more appealing.

Lucilla glanced at his face, no doubt perceiving the avid interest in his eyes. Thankfully she didn’t cast her glance lower, or she might have discerned rather pointed evidence of the strength of that interest.

“Yes, she’s unmarried and eligible—I suppose. Though I don’t know if the dowry left her by the late Lord Lynton would be adequate to your needs.”

Ignoring for the moment the matter of wealth, the hesitation in Lucilla’s voice prompted him to ask, “You ‘suppose’ she is eligible?”

Lucilla sighed. “’Tis a rather old scandal. Her mother, Lady Grace, Viscount Conwyn’s youngest daughter, ruined herself by running off with a foreigner. After her parents’ deaths, the girl returned to live with the Lyntons, who were the only of her mother’s relations who did not shun the connection after her mother’s misalliance. But for that one blot upon the family escutcheon, Miss Antinori’s breeding is unexceptional—though the highest sticklers would probably not agree. Still, if her fortune is sufficient, she has a chance of making an acceptable match. At least I hope so, not being one for holding the sins of the parent against the child.”

“You never did so in the past,” Will murmured, feeling another level of connection to the alluring Miss Antinori.

Just then, the girl looked up and caught him staring at her. As her dark eyes locked on his, Will’s nerves tingled and a warmth swept through him, as if he’d suddenly stepped from shadow into sunlight.

Despite the information Lucilla had just given him indicating Miss Antinori’s reception by society might be uncertain, at discovering herself to be the object of scrutiny, the girl neither blushed nor looked away. For a long moment, she held his gaze coolly. Will felt the charged force of the link between them, like the tension on the lead between a trainer and the green colt he is trying to master.

Then, lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders, she turned her face away, took Lord Lynton’s arm and walked with him into the crowd of guests.

Shaken by that wordless encounter, Will turned back to Lucilla. It seemed there was not enough air in the room, for he had to catch his breath before he could speak. “Despite a childhood spent banished from society,” he said at last, “the girl seems poised enough. Where did Lady Grace and her daughter end up?”

“Her father was a musician, I’m told, so—”

“Don’t tell me she’s the daughter of Emilio Antinori!” Will interrupted, the vague flicker of recognition in his brain suddenly flaming into focus.

“Why, yes. You’ve heard of him? Well, of course you would have,” Lucilla concluded, “as interested in music as you’ve always been. He was good, I take it?”

Will laughed, his gaze following the girl as she made her way through the room on her escort’s arm. “‘Good’ is hardly adequate to describe the work of Emilio Antinori. The man was a genius, not just the most talented violinist since Haydn, but also a composer whose works rival in depth and complexity those of Bach and Beethoven. I once had the privilege of watching him play. Amazing.”

Though he’d attended the concert more than ten years ago, Will could still hear the high, pure vibrato notes, see the flying fingers that made the intricate progression of arpeggios seem effortless while the intensity of melody held him mesmerized. If he’d had a fraction of the talent of the great Antinori, he would have turned his back on his heritage and become a professional musician.

With an ache of regret that the world had lost such a talent, Will came back to the present to find Lucilla watching him, a faint smile on her lips. “Do I get my dance now?” she asked. “Or, given that look in your eye, must there be introductions first?”

“You can present me to Miss Antinori?” he asked eagerly.

“I met her while paying afternoon calls. She seems nice enough. Her cousin and sponsor, Robert Lynton, the new Lord Lynton, was a classmate of Domcaster’s at Oxford.”

“Rob Lynton? Yes, I remember him from school. Present me then, if you please.”

Lucilla’s smile faded. “There’s one other complication you should know about. With Lynton sponsoring Miss Antinori, one would expect Lady Lynton to be her chaperone, but apparently the two do not get on. I don’t know Robert’s stepmother—she made her bow after Domcaster and I retired to the country. I’m told that after several years as society’s reigning Diamond, she married the late Lord Lynton only last year.”

Will recalled a well-curved blond beauty with blue eyes and a coquettish manner ill-suited to her status as a new bride. “I believe I have met Lady Lynton.”

“As a handsome man with a rakish reputation, I imagine you have,” Lucilla retorted with a sniff. “Though she makes quite a display of mourning, I’ve heard Sapphira Lynton has never gotten over being society’s darling, the only child doted on by her papa. The Lyntons are quite wealthy, which I suppose explains why she accepted that offer out of the scores she’s reputed to have received. Though I also understand that while her husband lay dying, ’twas Miss Antinori who nursed her relation while Lynton’s ‘distraught’ wife consoled herself with her cicisbos.”

Having already formed a dim opinion of a lady who’d been casting out lures to other men when the wedding ring had scarcely settled on her finger, Will could readily believe it. “And the happy family resides all together? Quite an accomplishment.”

Lucilla chuckled. “It must be indeed. I’ll present you if you insist, though I’d much rather your interest were piqued by a chit of more…conventional upbringing.”

“Like Miss Benton-Wythe?” he asked dryly. Before Lucilla could answer, he grinned and added, “Didn’t you say you’d not hold her mother’s lapses against Miss Antinori?”

“One always hopes the brave soul risking censure by doing the good deed will not be one’s friend or relation.”

“Given my past, I can hardly hold the prospect of scandal against her,” Will pointed out.

“Which is precisely why you need to approach only girls of unquestioned reputation!” Lucilla retorted. “Very well, I’ll present you. Although—” she gave him a rueful look “—for the reasons we’ve just mentioned, Lynton might well prefer that I not present you to his ward.”

“So the two black sheep do not further sully each other’s wool,” Will surmised.

“It would be more prudent,” Lucilla agreed.

His cousin was right. For a long moment, Will hesitated, torn between Lucilla’s sensible advice…and the remembered force of Miss Antinori’s gaze.

It was only an introduction, he reasoned. The girl might turn out to be a beautiful widget, as feather-brained as Miss Benton-Wythe or as tongue-tied as poor Miss Rysdale. Though given the cool confidence with which she had held his gaze, he didn’t think so.

Enough pondering. He would do it, Will decided. Nodding to Lucilla, he offered his arm. Together they set off toward where Miss Antinori and Lord Lynton had disappeared into the crowd.

“One final matter,” Lucilla murmured as they approached. “If after the introductions, Lynton allows you to converse with the lady, I beg you will not distress her by inquiring about her scandalous father—no matter how much you admired him as a musician. I imagine that’s one topic she wishes to strictly avoid.”

In the next instant, they reached their party and Lucilla called Lynton’s name. With his ward on his arm, he turned toward them—and Will sucked in a breath.

Miss Antinori seen close up was even more enchanting than Miss Antinori viewed from a distance. Her glossy dark hair, piled atop her head in an intricate arrangement threaded through with gold ribbon and pearls, just reached his chin. Her perfume, a spicy waft of lavender, enveloped him as she gazed up, those dark, extravagantly lashed eyes wary. His gaze roved across the satin plane of her cheeks down to the lush fullness of her apricot lips.

Sweat broke out on his brow and he had to remind himself to keep breathing. But then he couldn’t help himself, he simply had to sneak a quick glance downward, across the elegant curve of neck and shoulder down to that voluptuous, mouth-watering swell of bosom.

Oh, that he might repeat that journey of the eyes with his fingertips, his tongue!

While the rush of sensation in his body threatened to overwhelm him, Will tried to remind himself that Miss Antinori was a lady—an innocent, virginal maiden. He must not think of her in this way, no matter how much she reminded him of the delightfully passionate and inventive ballerina he’d once had the pleasure of loving, before a peer with a larger purse had stolen her away.

As if in a daze, he heard himself murmur a greeting to Lynton and the chaperone, who responded in turn. Not until Lucilla presented him and he saw Miss Antinori curtsey was he finally able to wrench his mind free of the sensual fantasies. Seizing the hand she offered, he bowed and touched his lips to the air above them, rich with her potent scent.

“Miss Antinori, it is my profound pleasure.”

CHAPTER FIVE

A FLURRY OF THOUGHTS whirled through Allegra’s mind as the dark-garbed gentleman bowed before her, the clasp of his hand making her fingers tingle beneath her gloves. So this was the “divine” Lord Tavener Sapphira’s friends had discussed with such relish. Was he mocking or admiring her?

Though Rob had complimented her appearance tonight, he had not examined her as thoroughly as the bold-eyed man bowing over her hand, who’d tried to stare her out of countenance a few moments ago. Not at all ashamed of her parents or her upbringing, she’d met the man’s gaze proudly…and felt a sharp, strong sensation almost like a shock, so unusual and unexpected she’d had great difficulty maintaining her composure.

As with his profession of “profound pleasure” in meeting her just now, she wasn’t sure whether he’d intended to admire or disparage. So how to respond?

Excruciating politeness would be best, she decided, trying not to be distracted by her still-tingling fingers. “I am equally pleased to meet you, Lord Tavener,” she said coolly, removing her hand from his disturbing grip. If he’d meant to mock, she’d just returned the favor.

He seemed to understand that, for as he straightened, he grinned at her. “A lady as clever as she is lovely. Now that is a double delight,” he replied.

As she let herself inspect him, another shock rippled through her. Heavens, he was arresting! Low as her opinion of Sapphira and her friends might be, she had to concede they had not underestimated Lord Tavener’s appeal.

Broad of shoulders and whipcord lean, he emanated an aura of strength and confidence that was almost menacing. Dressed all in black save for his cream patterned waistcoat and snowy cravat, he wore the elegant clothes negligently, as if his appearance was not of much importance to him.

When she shifted her eyes farther upward, she felt again that odd, sizzling sensation. Though not precisely handsome, his face with its sharp chin, molded cheekbones and high forehead brushed by a lock of dark hair gave the impression of roughness and power. Suddenly she recalled the Michelangelo sketches Papa had once shown her, studies made by the master before he began his sculpture.

Recalling also the unclothed nature of those studies, her cheeks heated as she finally met his gaze. Eyes of a striking ice blue captured hers. Dazzled, drawn to him, for a moment she had the ridiculous idea that he could see straight into her soul. A smile curved his lips, setting off a fascinating slow scintillation in those blue, blue eyes. Scarcely breathing, Allegra could not look away.

“Like what you see?” he murmured at last.

His entirely inappropriate words broke the spell, made her realize she’d been staring at him just as rudely as he had at her earlier. Though she felt the heat in her cheeks intensify, having avidly observed gallants at the theater as they wooed the actresses, Allegra didn’t need the conversation she’d overheard in Sapphira’s drawing room to recognize she had just met a rake of the first order.

“Do you like what you see, sir, when you gaze in the mirror?” she flashed back.

His smile widened. “That depends on who I see in the mirror with me. I note that, being still in black gloves, you cannot dance. I am promised to Lady Domcaster for the next set, but afterwards, might I have the honor of strolling with you?”

He was dangerously attractive, with those mesmerizing eyes and that knowing smile. In her circumstances, however, the last person she needed to encourage was an out-and-out rake. Still, he was Lady Domcaster’s cousin, and that lady, niece to one earl and wife to another, was impeccably well-connected. It wouldn’t do to offend her.

“If you wish, Lord Tavener, I should be happy to stroll with you,” she said, disturbed by an unwanted jolt of anticipation at the thought.

“That, among other things, I most devoutly wish,” he replied. “Until later, Miss Antinori.” With a bow to Mrs. Randall and Rob, he walked off, Lady Domcaster on his arm.

“Damn and blast!” Rob swore under his breath, confirming Allegra’s impression that Lord Tavener was not a gentleman he wanted her to know. “I realize you could do naught but accept, Allegra, but I wish it had been nearly any other man present who paid you his respects.”

“Dear me!” Mrs. Randall quavered. “Is Lord Tavener not good ton?”

“Until Lady Domcaster took him up this Season, he wasn’t,” Rob retorted. “Although that’s not entirely correct. There’s nothing at fault in his breeding. His father was a baron, albeit an impecunious one, and his mother a Carlisle. Her uncle, the Earl of Pennhurst, was appointed Tavener’s guardian after his parents died when he was just a lad—and did a rather poor job of it. Ignored Tavener for the most part and neglected the small estate he inherited, which is now said to be in ruins.”

“Poor boy!” Mrs. Randall said.

Rob grinned wryly. “He didn’t let himself be ignored at school, I promise you! We were at Eton and Oxford together, though being younger than he and moving with a different set, I didn’t know him well. Always spoiling for a fight, ready to take on even lads much bigger and older. Almost always won, by the way. He’s now accounted one of the foremost amateur pugilists in England.”

“It sounds as if he were angry with the world,” Allegra said. As well he might be, she thought with an empathetic pang, after losing his parents and being thrust into an indifferent world.

Rob shrugged. “Perhaps. Anyway, since Oxford he’s lived in London, keeping himself afloat with a mix of gaming and…and—” he lowered his voice as color stained his cheeks “—ah, associations with ladies of large fortune.”

“Married ladies,” Allegra surmised. “In other words, a rake.”

While Mrs. Randall gasped, Rob confirmed Allegra’s impression with a nod. “A notorious one, who has never before bothered to make an appearance at ton events. He and Lady Domcaster are close friends from youth, so with Domcaster still in the country, I suppose he must be acting as her escort. Though were she my wife, I doubt I’d permit him to do so, never mind that they are cousins.”

“Is she in danger from him?” Allegra inquired.

“Probably not,” Rob conceded. “Domcaster’s no fool. Besides, I seem to recall that he and Tavener were friends at Oxford, perhaps because he was then courting Tavener’s cousin, whom he later married. Most likely Tavener’s attempting to establish himself—at Lady Domcaster’s urging, I would guess.”

Like I am, Allegra thought.

“Good breeding or no, you’d do well to be on your guard, Allegra,” Rob warned. “If he says or does anything that gives you alarm, leave him at once.”

“Thank you, Rob. I will do so,” Allegra said.

Not that she’d needed Rob’s warning. With his intense eyes and beguiling charm, Tavener put her in mind of a peer who’d pursued a young actress friend the summer Allegra turned fifteen, when her father was playing in a theater orchestra. Knowing her strict papa would not approve her close association with a thespian, she’d had to sneak out to visit Molly, eager to learn what the vivacious, experienced girl could teach her about love and life.

Her lordship’s campaign began just after he attended their first performance in the town near his ancestral manor. Through Molly’s ploy-by-ploy description and her own observation, Allegra had eagerly followed the progress of his courtship, from the gifts, notes and ardent poetry to Molly’s eventual, enthusiastic capitulation. The physical particulars of which a prosaic Molly had explained in frank detail, Allegra recalled. Something hot and giddy churned in her belly at the memory.

Putting a hand on her stomach to quell the sensation, Allegra told herself to beware. Molly had so vividly described the feeling of physical attraction that, though she had never experienced it before, Allegra realized the reaction Lord Tavener evoked in her was desire.

’Twas disconcerting to discover one could feel lust for one man while pining for another, but she supposed she should not be surprised. Molly’s rake had demonstrated quite convincingly that true affection and desire could be entirely separate entities.

Charming as Lord Tavener might be, she could not afford to head down the path Molly had strolled so eagerly. No matter how compelling Tavener’s eyes—or how strong the shock to her fingers when he touched her hand.

Rob cleared his throat, pulling Allegra from her thoughts. A military gentleman approached, one of Rob’s friends, and was duly introduced. After conversing for a few moments, he drifted off.

A few matrons, acquaintances of Mrs. Randall, stopped to chat. Allegra grew painfully aware that for most of the long interval after Lord Tavener’s departure, though a number of gentlemen passing by gave her admiring looks, none save a few of Rob’s friends approached seeking an introduction. Rob optimistically predicted that she would find her way in society eventually, but after the last few weeks of calls that had elicited raised eyebrows and unspoken censure, Allegra wasn’t so sure.

Then, with a relief that was stronger than it should have been, she looked up to see Lord Tavener approaching. She tried—and failed—to steel herself against the flutter in her belly when he took her hand.

After bowing to Rob and Mrs. Randall, he announced, “My cousin abandoned me in the ballroom in favor of tormenting several of her disappointed former suitors. Miss Antinori, are you ready to stroll?”

“Perfectly ready, sir,” she agreed and tucked her hand on his arm. Acutely aware of a renewed tingling sensation in her fingertips, of the masculine aura that seemed to surround him, she let him lead her off.

To her relief, he made no attempt to maneuver her toward the doors opening onto the terrace, guiding her instead out of the press of guests toward the wall, where they might make a circuit of the chamber.

“Do you know you are the most stunning creature here?” he asked. “Going through the moves of the country dance, waiting until I could return for you, seemed an eternity.”

Though the trajectory he’d chosen to walk her on might be proper, his conversation certainly wasn’t. “I imagine Lady Domcaster would be devastated to hear that,” she replied a bit acerbically.

As if startled, he stopped and turned to her, his brilliant blue eyes lighting again as he smiled. “That wit again! Bravo!” Moving closer, he squeezed her hand, his voice taking on a caressing tone. “I knew the instant I saw you tonight that you would delight…all of me.”

It was delicious nonsense…but it was also highly improper. Regretfully Allegra halted and removed her hand from his arm. “Lord Tavener, may I remind you that this is not the Cyprian’s Ball and I am neither a lightskirt nor a loose-moraled matron whose fancy you can capture. If you would return me to my chaperone, please?”

Having braced herself for irritation or anger, she was totally unprepared for his peal of laughter.

While she looked on, wide-eyed, he controlled his mirth. “Blast, Miss Antinori, but you are quite right. Pray accept my apologies! It’s just that, having gone about so little in good society, I have no idea how to talk to a gently bred maiden. My attempts at Lucilla’s dinner earlier were abysmal failures. You are so lovely, I was distracted clean out of renewing those efforts.”

The appealing look from those penetrating blue eyes proclaimed his absolute honesty. Allegra simply couldn’t help it—she was charmed…and curious.

“Excuse me, but I can’t believe you could fail to entertain even a young, inexperienced maiden. Especially a young and inexperienced one.”

“Oh, believe it! Either my appearance, my compliments—or the tales told about me—frightened one young lady into a silence that lasted throughout the meal. My conversational attempts with the other met with total failure until a desperate remark about fashion set her off on a monologue so full of tedious detail, I was ready to stab myself with a dessert fork just to escape the room.”

His look of comical dismay set her chuckling. Before she could reprove his exaggeration, he continued, “You laugh, but ’tis no jesting matter! I’m sure in my absence, if you were not already aware of it, Lord Lynton has acquainted you with my scandalous reputation. My cousin Lady Domcaster insists that I try to reestablish myself. However, if I am not able to successfully converse with proper ladies, I might as well abandon the attempt at once. Unless…” He drew the word out, gazing down into her eyes.

Intrigued in spite of herself, she echoed, “Unless?”

“Miss Antinori, in addition to being the loveliest girl in the room—no, forgive me, but you must allow the compliment, for it is simple truth—you have shown yourself both observant and clever. Might I impose upon you…might I beg you to instruct me?”

She stared at him. “Instruct you?”

“On how to make proper conversation that is agreeable to young ladies. I know about as much about respectable females as I do about the mysteries of the Orient. Unless I learn, and learn quickly, I haven’t a prayer of being received by the families of eligible young women.” He paused, frowning. “May I be shockingly blunt?”

“I prefer plain dealing, sir,” she replied, caught up in his tale despite her better judgment.

Once again that smile lit up his eyes. “I thought you might! Lucilla insists I should look for a wife—a rich wife with a fortune that could restore my estate, of whose dilapidated condition I’m sure Lynton already warned you.”

He gave her a wry, self-deprecating look. “Frankly, though I’m an amusing enough fellow when I choose to be, I sincerely doubt any respectable lady will want to take on so unlikely a husband. But I’ve promised Lucilla I’d make an attempt, so here I am, self-accused of being both a fortune hunter and a rake, throwing my poor body into the fray. A rake who earnestly seeks to be reformed. Will you not have pity and rescue me, Miss Antinori?”

Beneath the flippancy of his words she sensed a social isolation almost like her own. Perhaps because of that, she was tempted to accept his challenge. Except that behind the arresting intensity of his gaze lurked something deep, sensual. That same masculine allure that had led Molly to capitulate all those summers ago and warned Allegra that spending time with Tavener, despite his avowed desire to reform, would be dangerous.

“It would be more proper for Lady Domcaster to instruct you,” Allegra replied at last. “Not that I am not fully qualified,” she added quickly. “Mama instructed me in all the intricacies of ton behavior, and in matters of propriety, Papa was even stricter.”

“I’m sure they were, with so precious a prize to guard. Still, I should very much like to pursue your acquaintance. You would find me a willing pupil.”

Much as she tried to tell herself that his outrageous request was just another tool in his rake’s arsenal, she couldn’t shake a sense that, on some level, he was quite serious. Before an unwanted sympathy for his position—and her strong attraction to him—led her to capitulate, she replied, “Tutoring you would not be…wise.”

At her refusal, the hopeful look in his eyes faded. “Then I am doubly sorry. To lose your instruction, and to have begun so badly with you.”

Not knowing what to say, she did not reply. Tavener offered his arm, she took it, and in silence they resumed their circuit of the room.

After a few moments, he sighed. “Though I shall probably have to beg your pardon once again, before I return you to your chaperone, I simply must say this.”

As she tried to arm herself against whatever impertinence he meant to utter, he bent that compelling gaze upon her once more and said, “Miss Antinori, I must tell you how much I admired and respected your father. He was a true genius, and the musical world is much the poorer for his premature passing.”

For a moment, she thought she must have imagined his comments, so thoroughly had it been drummed into her head that she must on no account mention her parents. “You…knew my father?” she asked at last.

“No, but I did have the honor of hearing him play once, when I was at Oxford. Such passion! Such skill! I’m a bit hand of a violist myself, and have attempted to play some of his compositions, which are as beautiful as they are difficult. You must be so proud of him.”

“I am proud of him,” she whispered. A combustible swirl of grief, anger at having been forced to deny her parents, delight and gratitude at encountering someone who admired her father choked her into silence.

After three weeks of circumspect behavior, of confining her conversation to inquiries about the health of persons she knew little and cared less about or innocuous remarks about the weather, Tavener’s introduction of that taboo topic electrified her. Prudent or not, she decided on the spot to encourage his friendship.

Looking up into the blue eyes that once again seemed to sense the turmoil in her soul, she said, “Thank you. It is a great joy to speak of him. And Lord Tavener, though I still think Lady Domcaster’s qualifications for instructing you far exceed my own, I would be happy to help you practice your conversation.”

She was rewarded with a smile of such brilliance, she had no difficulty believing he’d made a long series of conquests. Sternly she reminded herself that, regardless of how great an admirer of her father he might be, she must not join their number.

“Excellent!” he exclaimed. “You shall not regret it, I promise. Would you like a glass of wine before we begin?”

Agreeing that would be very nice, she let him lead her off to the refreshment room.

They were nearing the exit of the ballroom when Allegra heard ahead of them a familiar tinkling laugh. She gritted her teeth as, through the passing guests, she saw Sapphira Lynton poised on the threshold.

CHAPTER SIX

FOR SEVERAL MOMENTS Lady Lynton stood in the doorway acknowledging greetings from acquaintances, framed by the pediment-topped opening like an actress by the proscenium. Though she was properly attired all in black, from the way the silken gown hugged her curves, its bodice cut low over her generous breasts, the dark color emphasizing the porcelain perfection of her skin, she managed to make mourning dress look provocative.

Not that the gown was styled or the bodice cut more seductively than those of other matrons, Allegra had to allow. The impression of allure was more in Sapphira’s air and manner—which did not, Allegra thought, setting her lips in a thin line, appear to be that of a widow suffering excesses of grief.

“Quite an entrance, don’t you think?” Lord Tavener murmured in her ear. “She should have been on the stage.”

Startled almost as much by this cynical assessment as by how closely it mirrored her own opinion, she turned to face him. Though she knew she should refute the statement, she found herself saying, “Indeed.”

Before she could think of something more appropriate, Sapphira spied her. Her gay smile fading, Lady Lynton stared without acknowledging Allegra almost to the point of insult before at last nodding. Then, taking the arm of an admirer who had rushed up, without saying a word to Allegra, she walked past her across the room.

Almost a cut direct, it was a snub such as Sapphira would probably never have dared administer had Rob been beside Allegra. A snub that telegraphed to everyone present just how little Lady Lynton thought of her late husband’s distant cousin, though Allegra was a guest in Lady Lynton’s own home.

Allegra felt her stomach churn with embarrassment. Having just had demonstrated to the world and her escort how undesirable a person she was to know, she turned to Lord Tavener, lips trembling with fury. “Perhaps you would prefer to take me back to Lynton now?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Why would I wish to do that? Because a certain former ton Diamond has execrable manners? Lady Lynton’s lack is not your fault, Miss Antinori.”

She gave him a searching glance, but could detect no mockery in him. “You are probably the only one—or should I say the only gentleman—in this room of that opinion.”

“Sadly, society seems to contain fewer and fewer men of perception.”

Unwilling to surrender her fury—not sure she could bear to endure his pity—she said stiffly, “If reestablishing your reputation is important, you have just seen that being in my company will not advance your goal. I expect it would be best that you return me to Lynton.”

“Oh, no, Miss Antinori!” he said with mock sternness. “You shall not that easily renege on your promise to instruct me. Unless…” His expression sobering in earnest, he continued, “unless you fear being seen with me may discredit you. A fear which, regretfully, may have merit.”

An almost grim expression flitted across his face before he fixed his eyes on her again, their blue depths no longer ice, but flame. “Loath as I would be to lose your company,” he said in a voice as dynamic as his eyes, “I could not allow myself to bring you harm. If you wish, I shall of course return you to your chaperone.”

He did not wish to risk discrediting her. That avowal flowed over her like a cooling breeze, carrying off her anger, while the sincerity of his concern flooded her aching heart with a healing balm. A strong sense of connectedness once again bound her gaze to his.

They were connected, she realized. Both outsiders looking in upon a world that might not deign to accept them. And though prudence whispered that each would fare better fighting separately the battle to gain access to the ton, his kindness in wanting to keep her from harm was the first she’d received from anyone of her class save Rob.

Not only was he kind—and perceptive enough to see beneath Sapphira’s blinding veneer of beauty—he had both known and appreciated her father. How could she send him away? Despite the simmer under her skin at his nearness that whispered of the danger he posed.

His gaze was still fixed on her, awaiting her answer as if there were nothing in the world more important to him. “I suppose it would be more prudent for both our purposes that we not associate with each other but…but if you are willing to run the risk, Lord Tavener, so am I.”

Once again, the brilliance of his smile caught her off-guard. “Indeed I am, Miss Antinori. Now, some wine?”

Keeping her hand tucked under his own, Tavener walked her to the refreshment room and signaled a waiter to bring them each a glass. As they sipped, he said, “So, Miss Antinori, how should I address an innocent young female?”

“You need to wed an heiress, you said?” When he nodded, she continued, “Whether or not she is handsome, such a girl will probably be surrounded by suitors. Though she may well have heard every extravagant compliment that could be devised to her appearance, you should still be prepared to praise her. But only in general terms,” she cautioned. “Celebrate her loveliness, her beauty, her perfection, perhaps even her eyes or her countenance, but nothing else…specific.”

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