The major must wed

Wastrel, rebel, layabout...just a few of the names Lord Becconsall has hidden his quick intellect and sharp wit behind over the years. Recently titled, ex-military and required to wed, Jack views ton ladies with a cynical eye... Until he falls upon—quite literally—Lady Harriet Inskip.

After years of being overlooked, Harriet cannot believe that Lord Becconsall is the only person to truly see her. But between his taunts and her fiery disposition, it’s soon clear that the major has finally met his match!

Brides for Bachelors

Eligible rakes walk down the aisle!

A friendship formed at Eton leads three bachelors through the trials of war, mystery and love!

A major, a marquess and a captain reunite in London to celebrate Britain’s peace with France—only to find society life has many more exciting things in store for them! They are thrown into a mystery of jewellery theft and fraud, and they all find themselves unlikely suitors to some of the ton’s most captivating ladies!

Will these eligible bachelors finally meet their matches?

The Major Meets His Match

Available now

Look for the next two stories in the trilogy

Coming soon!

Author Note

Welcome to the first of my Brides for Bachelors trilogy!

I’m really excited about this trilogy as it’s the first time I’ve written a series of stories with connected heroes on purpose! I often get heroes or heroines from one story to walk across the pages of another—just for fun. And sometimes a secondary character has taken root in my imagination and grown until I’ve had to give him or her their own story. But when I pitched the outline for The Major Meets His Match, and described its opening scene, my lovely editor pointed out that the men involved all had stories of their own to tell, and asked why I hadn’t thought about writing a linked series from the outset. The minute she suggested that it was as if a light bulb had gone on in my head. I couldn’t wait to start writing!

I do hope you enjoy this first in the mini-series as much as I enjoyed writing it, and that you will want to find out what happens to Major Jack Hesketh’s friends next.

PS If you are already one of the group of readers who enjoy spotting heroes from my other stories wandering across the pages of books that aren’t theirs, then I hope you enjoy the cameo role I’ve given the hero of my very first publication for Mills & Boon…and have a little giggle at Aunt Susan’s predictions about the kind of bride he is likely to marry.

The Major Meets His Match

Annie Burrows

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ANNIE BURROWS has been writing Regency romances for Mills & Boon since 2007. Her books have charmed readers worldwide, having been translated into nineteen different languages, and some have gone on to win the coveted Reviewers’ Choice award from CataRomance. For more information, or to contact the author, please visit annie-burrows.co.uk, or you can find her on Facebook at Facebook.com/annieburrowsuk.

Books by Annie Burrows

Mills & Boon Historical Romance

Gift-Wrapped Governesses

Governess to Christmas Bride

Regency Bachelors

Lord Havelock’s List

The Debutante’s Daring Proposal

Brides of Waterloo

A Mistress for Major Bartlett

Brides for Bachelors

The Major Meets His Match

Stand-Alone Novels

Regency Candlelit Christmas

‘The Rake’s Secret Son’

Devilish Lord, Mysterious Miss

A Countess by Christmas

Captain Corcoran’s Hoyden Bride

An Escapade and an Engagement

Never Trust a Rake

Reforming the Viscount

Portrait of a Scandal

The Captain’s Christmas Bride

In Bed with the Duke

Once Upon a Regency Christmas

‘Cinderella’s Perfect Christmas’

Mills & Boon Historical Undone! eBooks

Notorious Lord, Compromised Miss

His Wicked Christmas Wager

Visit the Author Profile page

at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

I am really grateful to Aidan for brainstorming with me when I got stuck with this one. And for reminding me what kind of heroine I first imagined in Lady Harriet.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Brides for Bachelors

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

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

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

Lady Harriet Inskip tilted back her head and breathed in deeply. She could still smell soot, but at least this early in the day it wasn’t completely blotting out the more wholesome odours of dew-damp grass and leather and horse. It didn’t matter that it was still barely light enough to see the trees and flowers, or the curve of the Serpentine. She hadn’t come here to admire the decorous landscape, after all.

She leaned forward and patted her horse’s neck.

‘Come on, Shadow, let’s have a good gallop, shall we? While there’s nobody to tell us we can’t.’

Shadow snorted and pawed at the gravel path to indicate she was just as eager for exercise as her mistress. And then, with just the slightest tap of Harriet’s heel against Shadow’s flank, they were off.

For a few glorious minutes they flew through the dappled dawn, both revelling in Shadow’s power and vitality. For those few minutes Harriet was free. Free as any wild creature that lived purely by instinct. Unhindered by the fetters with which society restricted the movements of young ladies.

But then her peaceful communion with nature was shattered by a sound that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up and Shadow to falter mid-stride. It was the neigh of another horse. From beyond a stand of chestnut trees. A neigh so high pitched in outrage, it was almost a scream.

Harriet slowed Shadow to a canter. ‘Easy, girl,’ she murmured as her mount twitched her ears and rolled her eyes. But Shadow kept fidgeting nervously. And Harriet could hardly blame her when she reared up at the precise moment a black stallion burst from the cover of the trees as though it had been shot from a cannon.

At first she thought the black horse was a riderless runaway. But as it came closer, she could see a dark shape huddled on its back and a pair of legs flailing along its flanks.

‘What an idiot,’ she muttered to herself. For the man clinging to the stallion had not put a saddle on it. Perhaps there hadn’t been time. Perhaps he was attempting to steal the magnificent, and no doubt very expensive, animal. The horse certainly looked as if it wanted nothing more than to dislodge the impertinent human who’d had the temerity to ride him without following the proper conventions first. The stallion had just galloped through the trees as if it had been an attempt to scrape the interloper from his back, to judge from the way he began to buck and kick the moment he got out into the open.

‘The idiot,’ said Harriet again, this time a bit louder, as she saw that the runaway stallion was now heading straight for the Cumberland Gate. There wasn’t much traffic on the roads at this time of day, but if that horse, and the idiot on board, got out into the streets, who knew what damage they might inflict on innocent passers-by?

‘Come on, Shadow,’ she said, tapping her mare on the flank with her riding crop. ‘We’re going to have to head off those two before they get into real trouble.’ Shadow didn’t need much prompting. She loved racing. However, rather than attempt to pull alongside the snorting, furious stallion, Harriet guided Shadow into a course that would take them across his current path. For one thing, even if they could catch up with the runaway horse, any attempt to snatch at the reins to try to bring him to a halt was bound to end in disaster. Though Harriet took pride in her own skills in the saddle, she couldn’t imagine being able to lean over far enough to grab the reins without being unseated. Not whilst mounted side-saddle as she was. In fact, only a trained acrobat would be able to accomplish such a feat with any degree of confidence.

For another thing, she knew that no horse would run directly into another, not unless it was completely maddened with terror. And the black stallion, though furious, did not look to be in that state.

Just as she’d hoped, after only a few yards, the stallion did indeed notice their approach and veered off to the left.

It was just a shame for its rider that it did so rather abruptly, because the man, who’d clung on through all the stallion’s attempts to dislodge him thus far, shot over its shoulder and landed with a sickening thump on the grass.

Harriet briefly wondered whether she ought to go to the rider’s aid. But the man was lying crumpled like a bundle of washing, so there probably wasn’t much she could do for him. She could, however, prevent the magnificent stallion from injuring itself or others, if she could only prevent it from reaching the Gate. To that end, she repeated her manoeuvre, pulling sharply to the left as though about to cut across the stallion’s path. Once again, the stallion took evasive action. What was more, since it wasn’t anywhere near as angry now that it had unseated its hapless rider, it didn’t appear to feel the need to gallop flat out. By dint of continually urging it to veer left, Harriet made the stallion go round in a large, but ever-decreasing circle, with her on the outside. By the time they’d returned to the spot where the man still lay motionless, the stallion had slowed to a brisk trot. It curvetted past him, as though doing a little victory dance, shivered as though being attacked by a swarm of flies and then came to a complete standstill, snorting out clouds of steam.

Harriet dismounted, threw her reins over the nearest shrub and slowly approached the sweating, shivering, snorting stallion, crooning the kind of nonsense words that horses the country over always responded to, when spoken in a confident yet soothing tone. The beast tossed his head in a last act of defiance before permitting her to take its trailing reins.

‘There, there,’ she said, looping them over the same shrub which served as a tether for Shadow. ‘You’re safe now.’ After tossing his head and snorting again for good measure, the stallion appeared to give her the benefit of the doubt.

Only once she was pretty sure the stallion wouldn’t attempt to bolt again did Harriet turn to the man.

He was still lying spread out face down on the grass.

Harriet’s heart lurched in a way it hadn’t when she’d gone after the runaway horse. Horses she could deal with. She spent more time in the stables than anywhere else. People, especially injured people, were another kettle of fish.

Nevertheless, she couldn’t just leave him lying there. So she squared her shoulders, looped her train over her arm and walked over to where he lay.

Utterly still.

What did one do for a man who’d been tossed from his horse? A man who might have a broken neck?

Two answers sprang to mind, spoken in two very diverse voices. The first was that of her aunt, Lady Tarbrook.

‘Go and fetch help,’ it said plaintively, raising a vinaigrette to its nose. ‘Ladies do not kneel down on wet grass and touch persons to whom they have not been introduced.’

She gave a mental snort. According to Lady Tarbrook, Harriet shouldn’t be out here at all. Since she’d come to London, Harriet had learned there were hundreds, nay, thousands of things she ought never to do. If Lady Tarbrook had her way, Harriet would do nothing but sit on a sofa doing embroidery or reading fashion magazines all day.

The second voice, coming swiftly after, sounded very much like that of her mother. ‘Observe him more closely,’ it said, merely glancing up from the latest scientific journal, ‘and find out exactly what his injuries are.’

Which was the sensible thing to do. Then she could go and fetch help, if the man needed it. And what was more, she’d be able to say something to the point about him, rather than voice vague conjectures.

She ran her eyes over him swiftly as she knelt beside him. None of his limbs looked obviously broken. Nor was there any blood that she could see. If she hadn’t seen him take a tumble, she might have thought he’d just decided to take a nap there, so relaxed did his body look. His face, at least the part of it that wasn’t pressed into the grass, also looked as though he were asleep, rather than unconscious. There was even a slight smile playing about his lips.

She cleared her throat, and then, when he didn’t stir, reached out one gloved hand and shook his shoulder gently.

That elicited a mumbled protest.

Encouraged, she shook him again, a bit harder. And his eyes flew open. Eyes of a startlingly deep blue. With deep lines darting from the outer corners, as though he laughed often. Or screwed his eyes up against the sun, perhaps, because, now she came to think of it, the skin of his face was noticeably tanned. Unlike most of the men to whom she was being introduced, of late. He wasn’t handsome, in the rather soft way eligible Town-dwellers seemed to be, either. His face was a bit too square and his chin rather too forceful to fit the accepted patrician mould. And yet somehow it was a very attractive face all the same.

And then he smiled at her. As though he recognised her and was pleased to see her. Genuinely pleased. Which puzzled her. As did the funny little jolt that speared her stomach, making her heart lurch.

‘I have died and gone to heaven,’ he said, wreathing her in sweet fumes which she recognised as emanating, originally, from a brandy bottle.

She recoiled. But not fast enough. Oh, lord, in spite of appearing extremely foxed, he still managed to get his arms round her and tug her down so she lay sprawled half over him. She then only had time to gasp in shock before he got one hand round the back of her head and pulled her face down to his. At which point he kissed her.

Very masterfully.

Even though Harriet had never been kissed before and was shocked that this drunkard was the first man to want to do any such thing, she suspected he must have a lot of experience. Because instead of feeling disgusted, the sensations shooting through her entire body were rather intriguing. Which she was certain ought not to be the case.

‘Open your mouth, sweetheart,’ the man said, breaking the spell he’d woven round her.

Naturally, she pressed her lips firmly together and shook her head, remembering, all of a sudden, that she ought to be struggling.

Then he chuckled. And started rolling, as if to reverse their positions. Which changed everything. Allowing curiosity to hold her in place while an attractive man obliged her to taste his lips was one thing. Letting him pin her to the ground and render her powerless was quite another.

So she did what she should have done in the first place. She wriggled her right arm as free as she could and struck at him with her riding crop. Because he was holding her so close to him, it glanced harmlessly off the thick thatch of light brown curls protecting the back of his head. But she had at least succeeded in surprising him.

‘Let go of me, you beast,’ she said, interjecting as much affront in her voice as she could. And began to struggle.

To her chagrin, though he looked rather surprised by her demand, he let go of her at once. Even so, it was no easy matter to wriggle off him, hampered as she was by the train of her riding habit, which had become tangled round her legs.

‘Ooohh...’ he sighed. ‘That feels good.’ He half closed his eyes and sort of undulated under her. Indicating that all her frantic efforts to get up were only having a very basic effect on his body.

‘You...you beast,’ she said, swiping at him with her crop again.

He winced and rubbed at his arm where she’d managed to get in a decent hit before overbalancing and landing flat on his chest again.

‘I don’t enjoy those sorts of games,’ he protested. ‘I’d much rather we just kissed a bit more and then—’

She shoved her hands hard against his chest, using his rock-solid body as leverage so she could get to her hands and knees.

‘Then nothing,’ she said, shuffling back a bit before her trailing riding habit became so tangled she had to roll half over and sit on it. ‘You clearly aren’t injured after your fall from your horse, though you deserve,’ she said, kicking and plucking at her skirts until she got her legs free, ‘to have your neck broken.’

‘I say, that’s rather harsh,’ he objected, propping himself up on one elbow and watching her struggles sleepily.

‘No, it isn’t. You are drunk. And you were trying to ride the kind of horse that would be a handful for any man, sober. What were you thinking? You could have injured him!’

‘No, I couldn’t. I can ride any horse, drunk or sober—’

‘Well, clearly you can’t, or he wouldn’t have bolted and you wouldn’t be lying here—’

‘Lucifer wouldn’t have thrown me if you hadn’t dashed across in front of us and startled him.’

‘No, he would have carried you on to a public highway and ridden down some hapless milkmaid instead. And you would definitely have broken your neck if he’d thrown you on the cobbles.’

‘I might have known,’ he said with a plaintive sigh, ‘that you were too good to be true. You might look like an angel and kiss like a siren, and have a fine pair of legs, but you have the disposition of a harpy.’

She gasped. Not at the insult, so much, but at the fact that he was gazing admiringly at her legs while saying it. Making her aware that far too much of them was on show.

‘Well, you’re an oaf. A drunken oaf at that!’ She finally managed to untangle her legs and get to her feet just as three more men came staggering into view.

‘Good God, just look at that,’ said the first of the trio to reach them, a slender, well-dressed man with cold grey eyes and a cruel mouth. ‘Even lying flat on his back in the middle of nowhere, Ulysses can find entertainment to round off the evening.’

Since the man with the cruel mouth was looking at her as though she was about to become his entertainment, Harriet’s blood ran cold.

‘I have no intention of being anyone’s entertainment,’ she protested, inching towards Shadow, though how on earth she was to mount up and escape, she had no idea. ‘I only came over here to see if I could help.’

‘You can certainly help settle the b-bet,’ said the second young man to arrive, flicking his long, rather greasy fringe out of his eyes. ‘Did he reach the C-Cumberland Gate b-before Lucifer unseated him?’

‘It was a wager?’ She rounded on the one they’d referred to as Ulysses, the one who was still half-reclining, propped up on one arm, watching them all with a crooked grin on his face. ‘You risked injuring that magnificent beast for the sake of a wager?’

‘The only risk was to his own fool neck,’ said the man with the cold eyes. ‘Lucifer can take care of himself,’ he said, going across to the stallion and patting his neck proudly. From the way the stallion lowered his head and butted his chest, it was clear he was Lucifer’s master.

Harriet stooped to gather her train over one arm, her heart hammering. At no point had she felt afraid of the man they called Ulysses, even when he’d been trying to roll her over on to her back. There was something about his square, good-natured face that put her at ease. Or perhaps it had been that twinkle in his eyes.

But the way the one with the cruel mouth was looking at her was a different matter. There was something...dark about him. Predatory. Even if he was fond of his horse and the horse clearly adored him in return, that didn’t make him a decent man.

He then confirmed all her suspicions about his nature by turning to her with a mocking smile on his face. ‘It is hardly fair of you to reward Ulysses with a kiss,’ he said, taking a purposeful step closer, ‘when it is I who won the wager.’

She lashed out with her riding crop and would have caught him across his face had he not flinched out of her way with a dexterity that both amazed and alarmed her. Even in a state of inebriation, this man could still pose a very real threat to a lone female.

Keeping her eyes on him, she inched sideways to where she’d tethered Shadow. And collided with what felt like a brick wall.

‘Oof!’ said the wall, which turned out to be the third of Ulysses’s companions, a veritable giant of a man.

‘You got off lightly,’ remarked Mr Cold-Eyes to the giant, who was rubbing his mid-section ruefully. ‘She made a deliberate attempt to injure me.’

‘That’s prob’ly ’cos you’re fright’ning her,’ slurred the giant. ‘Clearly not a lightskirt.’

‘Then what is she doing in the park, at this hour, kissing stray men she finds lying about the place?’ Cold-Eyes gave her a look of such derision it sent a flicker of shame coiling through her insides.

‘She couldn’t resist me,’ said Ulysses, grinning at her.

‘She d-don’t seem to like you, th-though, Zeus,’ said the one with the greasy, floppy fringe.

‘Archie, you wound me,’ said Zeus, as she got her fingers, finally, on Shadow’s reins. Though how on earth she was to mount up, she couldn’t think. There was no mounting block. No groom to help her reach the stirrup.

Just as she’d resigned herself to walking home leading her mount, she felt a pair of hands fasten round her waist. On a reflex, she lashed out at her would-be assailant, catching him on the crown of his head.

‘Ouch,’ said the drunken giant of a man, as he launched her up and on to Shadow’s saddle. ‘There was no call for that.’ He backed away, rubbing his head with a puzzled air.

No, there hadn’t been any call for it. But how could she have guessed the giant had only been intending to help her?

‘Then I beg your pardon,’ she said through gritted teeth as she fumbled her foot into the stirrup.

‘As for the rest of you,’ she said as she got her knee over the pommel and adjusted her skirts, ‘you ought...all of you...to be ashamed of yourselves.’

She did her best to toss her head as though she held them all in disdain. As though her heart wasn’t hammering like a wild, frightened bird within the bars of her rib cage. To ride off with dignity, rather than hammering her heels into Shadow’s flank, and urging her mare to head for home at a full gallop.

She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

Chapter Two

Harriet urged Shadow into a gallop, as soon as she was out of their sight. They’d thought she was a lightskirt. That was why Ulysses had kissed her, and the one with the cold eyes—Zeus—had looked at her as though she was nothing.

That was why the giant had lifted her on to the horse without asking her permission, too. Even though he’d meant well, he hadn’t treated her with the respect due to a lady.

Because she’d stepped outside the bounds set for the behaviour of ladies.

Damn her aunt for being right! She dashed a tear away from her cheek. A tear humiliation had wrung from her. She wasn’t afraid. Just angry. So angry. At the men, for treating her so...casually. For manhandling her, and mocking her and insinuating she was...

Oh, how she wished she’d struck them all with her crop. Men who went about the park, getting drunk and frightening decent females...

Although they hadn’t thought she was decent, had they? They’d thought she was out there drumming up custom.

She shuddered.

And no wonder. She’d melted into Ulysses’s kiss like butter on to toasted bread. And then been so flustered she’d forgotten to conceal her legs when untangling them from her skirts, giving him a view of them right up to her knees, like as not.

Oh, but she wished she could hit something now. Though she was more to blame than anyone and she couldn’t hit herself. Because it turned out that sometimes, just sometimes, Aunt Susan might just be right. Ladies couldn’t go about on their own, in London. Because if they did, drunken idiots assumed they were fair game.

Why hadn’t Aunt Susan explained that some of the rules were for her own good, though? If she’d only warned Harriet that men could behave that badly, when they were intoxicated, then...

Honesty compelled her to admit that she knew how idiotic men became when they drank too much. Didn’t she see it every week back home in Donnywich? By the end of market day, men came rolling out of the tavern, wits so addled with drink they had to rely on their horses to find their way home.

And men were men, whether they lived in the country and wore smocks, or in Town and dressed in the height of fashion. So she should have known. Because the rules were made by men, for the convenience of men. So, rather than expect men to behave properly, at all times, women just had to stay out of their way, or go around with guards, just in case they felt like being beastly.

She slowed Shadow to a walk as she left the park via the Stanhope Gate, her heart sinking. She’d so enjoyed escaping to the park at first light. It had been the only thing making her stay in London bearable of late. But now, because men rolled home from their clubs in drunken packs and...and pounced on any female foolish enough to cross their path, she would never be able to do so again. She’d have to take a groom. Which would mean waiting until one was awake and willing to take her without first checking with Aunt Susan that she had permission.

And Aunt Susan wouldn’t give it, like as not.

Oh, it was all so...vexing!

London was turning out to be such a disappointment that she was even starting to see the advantages of the kind of life she’d lived at home. At least nobody there had ever so much as raised an eyebrow if she’d gone out riding on her own. Not even when she’d worn some of her brothers’ cast-offs, for comfort. Even the times she’d stayed out all day, nobody had ever appeared to notice. Mama was always too engrossed in some scientific tome or other to bother about what her only daughter was getting up to. And Papa had never once criticised her, no matter how bitterly Aunt Susan might complain she was turning into a hoyden.

Nobody who lived for miles around Stone Court would ever have dreamed of molesting her, either, since everyone knew she was Lord and Lady Balderstone’s youngest child.

She sighed as Shadow picked her way daintily along Curzon Street. She’d been in the habit of feeling aggrieved when nobody commented on her absence, or even appeared to care if she missed meals. But the alternative, of having her aunt watching her like a hawk, practically every waking moment, was beginning to feel like being laced into someone else’s corset, then shut in a room with no windows.

She reached the end of Curzon Street and crossed Charles Street, her heart sinking still further. The nearer she got to Tarbrook House, the more it felt as though she was putting her head under a velvet cushion and inviting her aunt and uncle to smother her with it.

If only she’d known what a London Season would be like, she would have thanked Aunt Susan politely for offering her the chance to make her debut alongside her younger cousin, Kitty, and made some excuse to stay away. She could easily have said that Papa relied on her to keep the household running smoothly, what with Mama being mostly too preoccupied to bother with anything so mundane as paying servants or ordering meals. Aunt Susan would have understood and accepted the excuse that somebody had to approve the menus and go over the household accounts on a regular basis. For it was one of the things that had always caused dissension between the sisters, whenever Aunt Susan had come on a visit. Mama had resented the notion that she ought to entertain visitors, saying that it interfered with her studies. Aunt Susan would retort that she ought to venture out of her workshop at least once a day, to enquire how her guests were faring, even if she didn’t really care. The sniping would escalate until, in the end, everyone was very relieved when the family duty visit came to an end.

Except for Harriet. For it was only when Aunt Susan was paying one of her annual visits, en route to her own country estate after yet another glittering London Season, that she felt as if anyone saw her. Really saw her. And had the temerity to raise concerns about the way her own mother and father neglected her.

But, oh, what Harriet wouldn’t give for a little of that sort of neglect right now. For, from the moment she’d arrived, Aunt Susan hadn’t ceased complaining about her behaviour, her posture, her hair, her clothes, and even the expression on her face from time to time. Even shopping for clothes, which Harriet had been looking forward to with such high hopes, had not lived up to her expectations. She didn’t know why it was, but though she bought exactly the same sorts of things as Kitty, she never looked as good in them. To be honest, she suspected she looked a perfect fright in one or two of the fussier dresses, to judge from the way men eyed her up and down with looks verging from disbelief to amusement. She couldn’t understand why Aunt Susan had let her out in public in one of them, when she’d gone home and looked at herself, with critical eyes, in the mirror. At herself, rather than the delicacy of the lace, or the sparkle of the spangled trimmings.

Worse, on the few occasions she’d attended balls so far, Aunt Susan had not granted any of the men who’d asked her to dance the permission to do so. The first few refusals had stemmed from Aunt Susan’s conviction that Harriet had not fully mastered the complexities of the steps. And after that, she simply found fault with the men who were then doing the asking. But what did it matter if her dance partners were not good ton? Surely it would be more fun to skip round the room with somebody, even if he was a desperate fortune-hunter, rather than sit wilting on the sidelines? Every blessed night.

Yes, she sighed, catching her first glimpse of Tarbrook House, the longer she stayed in Town, the more appealing Stone Court was beginning to look. At least at home she’d started to carve out a niche for herself. After being of no consequence for so many years, she’d found a great deal of consolation in taking over the duties her mother habitually neglected.

But in Town she was truly a fish out of water, she reflected glumly as Shadow trotted through the arch leading to the mews at the back of Tarbrook House. Instead of dancing every night at glittering balls, with a succession of handsome men, one of whom was going to fall madly in love with her and whisk her away to his estate where he’d treat her like a queen, she was actually turning out to be a social failure.

The only time she felt like herself recently had been on these secret forays into the park, before anyone else was awake. And now, because of those...beasts, she wasn’t even going to be able to have that any longer.

She dismounted, and led Shadow to her stall, where a groom darted forward with a scowl on his face.

‘I know,’ she said. ‘I should not have gone out riding on my own. But you need not report this to Lady Tarbrook. For I shall not be doing so again, you may be certain.’

The groom ran his eyes over her. His gaze paused once or twice. Over the grass stains on her riding habit, for example. At which his mouth twisted in derision.

He thought she’d taken a tumble and had now lost her nerve, the fool. She gripped her crop tightly as she warred with the urge to defend her skill as a horsewoman. But if she admitted she’d dismounted through choice, he’d wonder where the grass stains had come from. And since she was not in the habit of telling lies, she’d probably blush and stammer, and look so guilty that he’d go straight to Aunt Susan and tell her that her hoyden of a niece had been up to no good.

And Aunt Susan would extract the truth out of her in no time flat.

And she would die rather than have to confess she’d let a man kiss her. A strange man. A strange drunken man.

And worse, that she’d liked it. Because, for a few brief moments, he’d made her feel attractive. Interesting. When for most of her life—until she’d taken to giving the servants directions, that was—nobody had thought her of any value at all. She’d just been an afterthought. A girl, what was worse. A girl that nobody knew quite what to do with.

So she lifted her chin and simply stalked away, her reputation as a horsewoman ruined in the eyes of the head groom.

* * *

Jack Hesketh sat up slowly, his head spinning, and watched the virago galloping away.

‘Do you know,’ he mused, ‘I think we may have just insulted a lady.’

Zeus snorted. ‘If she were a lady, she would not have been out here unattended at this hour, flirting with a pack of drunken bucks.’

Jack shook his head. He couldn’t believe Zeus—who’d pursued women with such fervour and conquered so many of them while he, and Archie, and Atlas had still been too pimply and awkward to do anything but stand back in awe—had become the kind of man who could now speak of such a lovely one with so much contempt.

If he were to meet Zeus now, for the first time, he didn’t think he’d want to be his friend.

In fact, after the way he’d behaved tonight, he’d steer well clear of such a man. Zeus had always been a bit full of himself, which was only to be expected when he was of such high rank and swimming in lard to boot. But there had been a basic sort of decency about him, too. He’d had a sense of humour, anyway.

But now...it was as if a sort of malaise had infected him, rendering him incapable of seeing any good in anyone or anything.

And Archie—well, he’d turned into a sort of...tame hound, trotting along behind Zeus like a spaniel at his master’s heels.

While Atlas...oh, dear God, Atlas. He winced as he turned his head rather too quickly, to peer into the gloom at the wreck of the man who’d been his boyhood idol.

Though, hadn’t they all been his heroes, one way or another? Which was, perhaps, where he’d gone wrong. In keeping his schoolboy reverence for them firm in his heart during all his years of active service, like a talisman, he’d sort of pickled their images, like flies set in amber. That would certainly explain why it had come as such a shock to see how much they’d all changed.

Especially Atlas. Imprisonment at the hands of the French, and illness, had reduced him to an emaciated ruin of his former self. In fact, he looked such a wreck that Jack had been a bit surprised he’d managed to lift the virago on to her horse at all. Though at least it proved he was still the same man, inside, where it mattered. They hadn’t given him the nickname of Atlas only because of his immense size and strength compared to the rest of them, but because of his habit of always trying to take everyone else’s burdens on his own shoulders. Rescuing that girl from Zeus was exactly the kind of thing he’d always been doing. Atlas had always hated seeing anyone weak or vulnerable being tormented.

Which was what they’d been doing to that poor girl, Jack thought, his stomach turning over in shame. The four of them, making sport of her. No—make that three. Atlas had been the only one of them to behave like a perfect gentleman even though he was as drunk as the rest of them.

Or was he? He’d barely touched any of the drink Zeus had so lavishly supplied, at what was supposed to be a celebration of not only the Peace, but also his return to England. Of the fact that for the first time in years, all four of them had the liberty to meet up. As though the poor fellow felt he couldn’t trust himself to hold it down. Nobody had said anything, though. They’d all been too shocked at the sight of him to do more than squirm a bit as they drank his health. Health? Hah! The best that anyone could say of the gaunt and yellow-skinned Atlas was that he was alive.

‘I tell you what, though,’ he said aloud. ‘You are still my hero, Atlas’

Atlas started, looking taken aback.

‘No, really. After all this time, you are still the best of us. Always was.’

‘You paid too much attention to the letters I wrote when I first went to sea,’ he said, looking uncomfortable. ‘I made it sound far more exciting than it was. Didn’t want you all to...pity me, for having to leave. Didn’t want to admit that I was seasick, and homesick and utterly wretched.’

‘B-but,’ said Archie, looking shocked, ‘you were a hero. Read ab-bout your exp-ploits in the Gazette.’

Atlas made a dismissive motion with his hand, as though banishing the Gazette and all that was printed in it to perdition.

‘Just did my duty. No choice, when you’re in the thick of action. You either fight like a demon, or...well, you know how it is, Jack. Same in the army, I dare say.’ He sent Jack a beseeching look, as though begging him to divert attention from him.

‘Only too well,’ he therefore said. ‘Which is why your homecoming is worth celebrating. Glad you’re alive. Glad I’m alive. Even glad Zeus is alive,’ he said, shooting his godship a wry grin. ‘Since he got us all together again, for the first time since...what year was it when you left school, Atlas?’

‘You are foxed,’ said Zeus with exasperation, before Atlas had a chance to make his response. ‘If I’d realised quite how badly foxed, I would never have let you attempt to ride Lucifer.’

‘Attempt? Pah! I did ride Lucifer.’

‘Not very far.’

‘Far enough to prove your boast about being the only man to be able to do it was patently false.’ God, how he’d wanted to knock the sneering expression from Zeus’s face when he’d made that claim. Which was why he’d declared there wasn’t a horse he couldn’t ride, drunk or sober.

Zeus shook his head this time as he stood over Jack where he lay sprawled.

But Jack didn’t care. For a few minutes, directly after he’d made the wager, all four of them had shaken off the gloom that had been hanging over them like a pall. They’d even laughed and started calling each other by the silly names they’d given each other at school as they staggered round to the stables. They’d sobered slightly when Lucifer had rolled his eyes at them and snorted indignantly when they’d approached his stall. Archie had even suggested, albeit timidly, that he was sure nobody would mind if Jack withdrew his claim.

‘Draw back from a bet? What kind of man do you think I am?’ Jack had retorted. And Zeus had grabbed the stallion’s halter and led the animal out into the streets before anyone could talk sense into either of them.

Good God. Zeus had been as intent on carrying through on the wager as Jack himself. Did that mean...?

Was there still something of the old Zeus left? Deep under all that sarcasm and sneering? He’d certainly been the one to arrange this reunion. And he’d also made sure they’d been given a chance to laugh at Jack’s antics, the way they’d done so many times at school. They’d certainly all been roaring with laughter as Lucifer had shot off, with Jack clinging to his mane. And so sweet had been that sound that Jack hadn’t cared that the beast had unseated him before he’d managed one circuit of the park.

‘I still maintain that girl was not flirting with us,’ he said defiantly. Was he imagining it, or was there an answering gleam in Zeus’s eyes? As though he was relishing having someone refusing to lie down and roll over at his bidding.

Ah.

Was that why he’d become so jaded? Because nobody challenged him any more? It would explain why he’d jumped at the wager, ridiculous though it was. Why he’d whisked Lucifer out of his stall before the sleepy groom had a chance to fling a saddle on his back.

Perhaps, even, why he’d gathered them all together in the first place.

‘She may not have been a lady, precisely,’ Jack continued. ‘But I stick to my guns about her not flirting with us. Else why would she have set about us with her riding crop?’

That had come as a shock, too, he had to admit. One moment she’d been melting into his arms, the next she was fighting him off. And she’d been kissing him so sweetly, after that initial hesitation, so shyly yet...hang on...shyly. With hesitation. As though she didn’t know quite what to do, but couldn’t help herself. As if she was catching fire, just as he’d been.

One moment she was with him, and then...it was as if she’d come to her senses. As though she realised it was a stranger with whom she was rolling about on the grass.

‘I would wager,’ he said, a smile tugging at his lips as he recalled and re-examined her every reaction, ‘that not only was she not flirting, but that she was an innocent, to boot.’

That would explain it all. That gasp of shock when he’d first started kissing her. Her inexpert, almost clumsy, yet uninhibited response. Until the very moment when she’d hauled up the drawbridge and slammed down the portcullis. The moment when she remembered she was dabbling in sin.

‘And I don’t care what you think, Zeus,’ he said with determination. ‘We owe that girl an apology. Well, I do, anyway. Shouldn’t have kissed her.’

‘She shouldn’t have put her face in the way of your lips, then,’ retorted Zeus.

‘No, no, the girl was only trying to see if I was injured.’ Which had been remarkably brave of her. Not many females would have come rushing to the aid of a stranger like that. Nor would they have been able to bring Zeus’s bad-tempered stallion under control, either.

‘Which is more than any of you have done,’ he finished pointedly.

‘You are not injured,’ said Zeus pithily. ‘You are indestructible. And I have that on the best authority.’

‘Must have been speaking to m’father.’

‘Your brother,’ Zeus corrected him.

‘Oh? Which one?’

‘I forget,’ said Zeus with a wave of his hand. ‘He did tell me he was Viscount Becconsall when he walked up to me in White’s and presumed friendship with me because of my friendship with you.’ His mouth twisted in distaste.

‘Could have been either of them, then,’ said Jack, who’d recently acquired the title himself. ‘Poor sod,’ he said, and not only because both his brothers were now dead, but because he could picture the reception such behaviour would have gained them. They hadn’t started calling him Zeus without good reason. From the very first day he’d attended school, he’d looked down on all the other boys from a very lofty height. He didn’t require an education, he’d informed anyone who would listen. He’d had perfectly good tutors at home. It was just that his father, who had suddenly developed radical tendencies, had decided the next Marquis of Rawcliffe ought to get to know how the lower orders lived.

Jack chuckled at the vision of his bumptious brother attempting to take such a liberty with Zeus. ‘I can just see it. You gave him one of your freezing stares and raised your eyebrow at him.’

‘Not only my eyebrow, but also my quizzing glass,’ said Zeus, leaning down to offer him a hand, as though deciding Jack had been cluttering up the ground for long enough. ‘It had no effect. The man kept wittering on about what a charmed life you led. How you came through the bloodiest battles unscathed. As though you had some kind of lucky charm keeping you safe, instead of being willing to acknowledge that you owed your successes on the battlefield to your skill as a strategist, as well as personal valour.’

Jack gasped as Zeus pulled him to his feet. That was the thing about him. He might be the most arrogant, conceited fellow he’d ever met, but he’d also been the first person to look beyond the way Jack clowned around to distract the bullies who’d been hounding Archie at school. The only person to take one look at him and see the intelligence he’d been at such pains to disguise.

To believe in him.

‘Didn’t come through this tussle unscathed,’ he said, rubbing his posterior to explain his involuntary gasp. Zeus gave him one of his looks. The kind that told Jack he knew he was avoiding an issue, but was magnanimous enough to permit him to do so.

‘Which brings me back to the girl. Did you notice the way she spoke? And the horse? Expensive bit of blood and bone, that dappled grey.’

‘Hmmph,’ said Zeus. ‘I grant you that she may have been gently reared, but just because she speaks well and rides an expensive horse does not mean she is an innocent now.’

‘No, truly, I would stake my life on it.’

‘Since n-none of us know who she is,’ said Archie. ‘There is n-no way for us to v-verify your conc-clusion.’

No, there wasn’t.

Which was a horrible thought. In fact, the prospect of never seeing her again gave him a queer, almost painful feeling in his chest. And not only because she’d melted into his arms as if she belonged there. It was more than that. It was...it was...well, out of all the disappointments the night had brought, those few moments kissing her, holding her, and, yes, even fighting with her, had been...a breath of fresh air. No, he shook his head. More like a...well, the way the night had been going, he’d felt as if he was sinking deeper and deeper into a dark well of disappointment. And then, all of a sudden, she’d been in the centre of the one bright spot of the whole night. And that kiss...well, it had revived him, the way the sight of a lighthouse would revive a storm-tossed mariner, he suspected.

Hope, that was what she’d brought him. Somehow.

Was it a coincidence that right after meeting her, he’d seen that Atlas was still the same man, deep down, where it mattered? That there was even hope for Zeus, too?

Hope. That was the name he’d give her, then, while he searched for her. And why not? Why not remember the one bright spot of the evening as a glimmer of hope in what was, of late, a life that contained anything but?

And another thing. Hope was always worth pursuing.

‘Right then,’ said Jack, rubbing his hands together. ‘We’ll just have to search London until we find her.’

Zeus’s eyes narrowed with interest. ‘And then?’

‘And then, we will know which one of us is right.’

‘Another wager?’ Atlas shook his head in mock reproof. Though nobody had said anything about a wager. ‘At this rate, you will beggar me.’

‘Not I,’ said Jack, his heart lifting. Because Atlas was clearly doing his best to raise morale amongst his friends. He must have seen the effect the wager over Lucifer had on Zeus, the way Jack had. ‘You and Archie will just act as witnesses,’ he therefore informed Atlas. ‘This wager, just like the one over Lucifer, is between me and Zeus.’

‘And the stakes?’ Zeus had gone all narrow-eyed and sneering again, as though he suspected Jack of trading on their long-ago connections to take advantage of him.

What the hell had happened to him, since school, to turn him into such a suspicious devil?

‘Why, the usual, naturally,’ said Jack. Which was almost as good as drawing his cork, since his head reared back in momentary surprise.

‘The...the usual?’

‘Yes. The usual between the four of us, that is.’

‘You...’ For a moment, Zeus looked as though he was about to express one of the softer emotions. But only for a moment.

‘Which reminds me,’ he drawled in that ghastly, affected way that set Jack’s teeth on edge. ‘You have already lost one wager.’

‘Are you demanding payment?’ Jack planted his fists on his hips and scowled. ‘Are you accusing me of attempting to welch on the bet?’

‘No,’ he said softly. ‘I was only going to suggest...double or quits?’

For a moment the four of them all stood in stunned silence.

And then Archie began to giggle. Atlas snorted. And soon, all four of them were laughing like the schoolboys they had once been.

Chapter Three

‘Nobody is going to ask you to dance if you don’t sit up straight and take that scowl off your face,’ said Aunt Susan, sternly.

They might if Aunt Susan hadn’t already repulsed the young men who’d shown an interest in her when she’d first come to Town, on the grounds that they were all fortune-hunters or scoundrels.

Nevertheless, Harriet obediently squared her shoulders and attempted the social smile her aunt had made her practise in the mirror every day for half an hour since she’d come to Town.

‘That’s better,’ said Aunt Susan out of the corner of her mouth which was also pulled into a similarly insincere rictus. ‘I know it must chafe that Kitty is having so much more success than you, but you must remember that you are no longer in the first flush of youth.’

Harriet only just managed to stop herself rolling her eyes. She was only twenty, for heaven’s sake. But eligible gentlemen looking for brides, her aunt had informed her, with a rueful shake of her head, wanted much younger girls. ‘It’s perfectly natural,’ she’d explained. ‘Gels usually make their debut when they are seventeen, or eighteen, unless there’s been a death in the family, or something of a similar nature. So everyone is bound to wonder why any girl who looks much older hasn’t appeared in society before. And,’ she’d added with a grimace of distaste, ‘draw their own conclusions.’

‘Please, dear,’ she was saying now, ‘do try to look as if you are enjoying yourself. Gentlemen are much more likely to ask you to dance if you appear to be good-natured.’

Harriet was beginning to suspect that actually she was not the slightest bit good-natured. She’d always thought of herself as being fairly placid before she’d come to Town. But ever since her aunt had descended on Stone Court like a fairy godmother to take her to the ball, she’d been see-sawing from one wild emotion to another. At first she’d been in a froth of excitement. But then had come the painful discovery that no amount of fine clothes could make her compare with her prettier, younger, more sociable cousin Kitty. After that, in spite of her aunt’s best efforts to bring her up to scratch in the short time they had, had come the discovery that actually, she didn’t want to conform to society’s notions of how a young lady should behave. And now she just felt as if she had a stone permanently lodged in her shoe.

‘Now, there is a young man with whom you might safely dance,’ said Lady Tarbrook, nudging Harriet in the ribs. And drawing her attention to the slender young man who’d just come into the ballroom. A man she’d been dreading coming across for the last two weeks. Ever since he’d fallen off his horse and tricked her into kissing him.

‘Though I shouldn’t like to raise your hopes too much. He hasn’t asked any eligible female to dance since he came to Town. Not that he’s actually attended many balls, to my knowledge. Well, not this sort of ball,’ Lady Tarbrook was muttering darkly. ‘Not his style. Not his style at all.’

No, his style was roistering all night with a pack of reprobates, then taking part in reckless wagers that ended up with him almost breaking his stupid neck. To say nothing of molesting people who went to help him.

And yet Aunt Susan was prepared to give her permission to dance with him. In the unlikely event he were to ask her.

It beggared belief.

‘Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained,’ said Aunt Susan, fluttering her fan wildly and smiling for all she was worth in his direction.

While Harriet did her best to shrink into the meagre upholstery of the chair upon which she was sitting. Oh, where was a potted plant, or a fire screen, or...a hole in the ground when she needed one?

Ulysses—for that was the only name she knew him by—ran his eyes round the ballroom as though searching for someone before setting off in the direction of a group of military men gathered in the doorway to the refreshment room.

‘Oh, I see,’ said Lady Tarbrook with resignation. ‘He must have wanted to speak to one of his...associates. I don’t suppose he will stay long.’ She folded her fan as though consigning him to history.

While Harriet fumed. The...the beast! He’d looked right through her, as though she wasn’t there. Without the slightest sign he recognised her.

Well, he probably didn’t. He probably kissed random women senseless every day of the week. The kiss that she’d spent so many nights recalling, in great detail, before she went to sleep, and at odd moments during the day as well, had obviously completely slipped his mind.

Because it had meant nothing to him.

Because she meant nothing to him.

Well—he meant nothing to her, either. And nor did that kiss. Just because it was her first and still had the power to make her toes curl if she dwelt on it for too long, did not mean that...that...

Oh, bother him for getting her thoughts into a tangle.

A loud burst of laughter gave her the excuse she needed to let her eyes stray to the doorway of the refreshment room and the group of men who’d opened up to admit him to their company.

She couldn’t help noticing several other women turning their heads in his direction, too. And eyeing him with great interest. Which came as no surprise, seeing the way he moved. There was a vitality about him that naturally drew the eye, for it was so very different from the languid stroll affected by the other men present tonight. And in the candlelight his hair, which had just looked a sort of dull brown in the shade of that chestnut tree, gleamed with traces of gold.

She flicked her fan open and plied it vigorously before her face. Which she turned away from the part of the room in which he was standing. She would not stare at him. She would do nothing to attract his attention, either, in case he did have a dim recollection of her. You could sometimes get even quite stupid people to remember things if you constantly reminded them of it, or so Aunt Susan had told her, when she’d despaired of ever grasping the myriad rules of etiquette that seemed to come naturally to Kitty.

But then Kitty had been drilled into good behaviour from the moment she was born.

‘I don’t know what your mother was thinking, to leave you to run wild the way she has,’ Aunt Susan had said upon discovering that Harriet had only the vaguest notion of how deeply to curtsy to people of various ranks.

‘She didn’t let me run wild, precisely,’ Harriet had countered, because there had definitely been times when Mama had applied the birch. When she’d used phrases she’d picked up in the stables at the dinner table, for instance. ‘It’s just that she doesn’t think things like teaching me to curtsy are terribly important.’ Nor having a Season, come to that. In fact, she was beginning to think her mother might have a point. How on earth could anyone pick a life partner this way? Nobody really talked to anyone. Not about anything important. Everyone in Town seemed to Harriet to behave like a swarm of giddy mayflies, flitting above the surface of a glittering pond.

‘Clearly,’ Aunt Susan had said frostily. ‘But even if she couldn’t prise herself away from her books and bottles to do it herself, she could have engaged a sensible woman to take over that side of your education. In fact,’ she’d said, shifting in her seat as though she was itching to get up and stride about the room to make her point, ‘for a woman who goes on so about how important the life of the mind is to her, you’d think she would have wanted you to have had the same education as her sons. Instead of no education at all. Why, if it hadn’t been for me sending you that Person to teach you how to read and write you could have ended up as ignorant as a savage!’

Harriet had hung her head at that reminder of how much she owed to Aunt Susan, stifling the flare of resentment she’d been experiencing at being forced to curtsy over and over again until she got it right. Because the truth was that Mama had been too interested in her books and bottles, as Aunt Susan had so scathingly referred to Mama’s laboratory, to concern herself with something as mundane as the education of her daughter. Papa had arranged for the education of his sons. But a girl’s education, he’d said, was the province of her mother.

Between Papa’s focus on his three fine sons and Mama’s absorption with her hobbies, Harriet had been forgotten entirely.

And if her own parents could forget her existence for weeks at a time, it stood to reason that Ulysses would do the same.

Although perhaps it was just as well. Far better that, than that he should come over and start talking to her as if she was an old acquaintance, or something. Which would make Aunt Susan ask questions. All sorts of awkward questions.

At which point, naturally, he sauntered over to where they were sitting and bowed punctiliously to her aunt.

‘Good evening, Lady Tarbrook,’ he said in a voice that struck like a dart to her midriff.

‘Lord Becconsall, how delightful to see you,’ simpered her aunt.

Lord Becconsall?

Well, obviously, Ulysses couldn’t be his real name, but she was still surprised he had a title.

Though perhaps she shouldn’t have been. The kind of men who were out in the park after a long night of drinking could only be men who didn’t have jobs to go to in the morning. She should have known he was titled, really, now she came to think of it.

And for all she knew, Ulysses was his real name. She had an Uncle Agamemnon, after all. And a distant cousin by marriage by the name of Priam. The craze for all things classical seemed to have affected a lot of parents with the strangest urges to name their children after ancient Greeks lately.

She snapped back to attention when she heard her aunt say, ‘And you must allow me to present my niece, Lady Harriet Inskip.’

‘Lady Harriet?’

Though he bowed, he did so with the air of a man who wasn’t sure he should be doing any such thing. How did he do that? Inject such...mockery into the mere act of bowing?

‘Oh, you have not heard of her, I dare say, because she has lived such a secluded life, in the country. This is her first visit to London.’

Harriet gritted her teeth. For this was the excuse Aunt Susan was always trotting out, whenever some society matron quizzed her over some defect or other. Or a gentleman drew down his brows when she made an observation that ran counter to some opinion he’d just expressed. ‘Oh, fresh up from the country, you know,’ her aunt would say airily. ‘Quite unspoiled and natural in her manners.’ Which invariably alerted her to the fact she must have just committed a terrible faux pas for which she’d be reprimanded later, in private. Though the worst, the very worst fault she had, apparently, was speaking her mind. Young ladies did not do such things, Aunt Susan insisted. Which shouldn’t have come as such a surprise, really. She should have known that females, and their opinions, were of less value than males. Hadn’t that fact been demonstrated to her, in no uncertain terms, all her life?

Except when it came to Mama. Papa never found fault with anything she ever said, or did. Even when he didn’t agree with it.

‘That would account for it,’ said Ulysses, with a knowing smile. And though Aunt Susan heard nothing amiss, Harriet could tell that he was remembering their last encounter. And decrying her behaviour. The way those society matrons had done. Though at least this time she knew exactly what she’d done to earn his scorn.

‘You might know one of her older brothers,’ Aunt Susan was persisting, valiantly. ‘George Inskip? Major the Honourable George Inskip? He’s a Light Dragoon.’

‘Sadly, no,’ said Ulysses, though he didn’t look the least bit sad. ‘The cavalry rarely fraternises with the infantry, you know. We are far, far, beneath their notice, as a rule.’

So he was in the army. No—had been in the army. He was not wearing uniform, whereas men who still held commissions, like the group still milling around in the doorway to the refreshment room, flaunted their scarlet jackets and gold braid at every opportunity.

So, that would account for the tanned face. And the lines fanning out from his eyes. And the energy he put into the mere act of walking across a room. And the hardness of his body. And the...

‘Oh, I’m sure you are no such thing,’ simpered Aunt Susan. Making Harriet’s gorge rise. Why on earth was she gushing all over the very last man she wished to encourage, when so far she’d done her level best to repulse every other man who’d shown the slightest bit of interest in her?

‘And probably too far beneath Lady Harriet to presume to request the pleasure of a dance,’ he said. Placing a slight emphasis on the word beneath. Which sent her mind back to the moments he had been lying beneath her, his arms clamped round her body as he ravaged her mouth.

Which made her blush. To her absolute fury. Because Aunt Susan gave her a knowing look.

‘But of course you may dance with Lady Harriet, Lord Becconsall,’ trilled Aunt Susan, who clearly saw this as a coup. For a man notorious for not dancing with debutantes was asking her protégée to do just that. ‘She would love to dance with you, would you not, my dear?’

Ulysses cocked his head to one side and observed her mutinous face with evident amusement. Just as she’d suspected. He was planning on having a great deal of fun at her expense.

‘I do not think she wishes to dance with me at all,’ he said ruefully. ‘In fact, she looks as though she would rather lay about me with a riding crop to make me go away.’

Harriet was not normally given to temper. But right at this moment she could feel it coming to the fore. How she wished she were not in a ballroom, so that she could slap that mocking smile from his face.

‘Oh, no, not at all! She is just a little...awkward, in her manners. Being brought up so...in such a very...that is, Harriet,’ said Aunt Susan rather sharply, ‘I know you are very shy, but you really must take that scowl off your face and tell Lord Becconsall that you would love above all things to dance with him.’

Ulysses schooled his features into the approximation of a man who had endless patience with awkward young females who needed coaxing out of their modest disinclination to so much as dance with a man to whom she had only just been introduced.

While the twinkle in his eyes told her that, inside, he was laughing at her. That he was enjoying taunting her with those oblique references to their previous meeting. And, she suspected, that he was going to enjoy holding that episode over her head every time they met from this time forth.

Oh, lord, what was she to do? What would happen if Aunt Susan found out she’d been caught, in the Park, by a group of drunken bucks and kissed breathless by this particular one? When she should have been in her room, in her bed, recovering from the exertions of the ball the night before?

Disgrace, that was what. Humiliation. All sorts of unpleasantness.

If she found out.

Therefore, Aunt Susan had better not find out. Had better not suspect anything was amiss. Or she would start digging.

That prospect was enough to make her draw on all those hours she’d spent in front of the mirror, perfecting that insincere smile. And plastering it on to her face.

‘Lord Becconsall,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘I would love above all things to dance with you.’

With a triumphant grin, he held out his hand, took hers and led her on to the dance floor.

Chapter Four

‘Lady Harriet,’ he said, raising one eyebrow.

‘Lord Becconsall,’ she replied tartly.

He grinned. Because addressing him by his title had not managed to convey the same degree of censure at all. But then, as she very well knew, lords could get away with staggering around the park, drunk. Or riding horses bareback for wagers.

Whereas ladies could not.

Not that she’d been doing either, but still.

‘I suppose you expect me to feel flattered by your invitation to dance,’ she said, ‘when you are notorious for not doing so.’

‘Flattered?’ He raised one eyebrow. And then the corner of his mouth, as though he was biting back a laugh. ‘No, I didn’t expect that.’

‘Do you want me to ask what you did expect?’

‘Well, if we are about to delve into my motives for asking you, then perhaps I should warn you that you might not like mine.’

‘I’m quite sure I won’t.’

‘But would you like me to be completely honest?’

‘Yes, why not,’ she said with a defiant toss of her head. ‘It will be a...a refreshing change.’ At least, in comparison with all the other encounters she’d had in Town, where people only talked about trivialities, in what sounded, to her countrified ears, like a series of stock, accepted phrases they’d learned by rote.

‘Well then, if you must know, I felt so sorry for you that I felt compelled to swoop in to your rescue.’

‘My rescue?’ That was the very last motive she would have attributed to him.

‘Yes.’ He looked at her with a perfectly straight face. ‘You looked so miserable, sitting there all hunched up as though you were trying to shrink away from the silly clothes and hairstyle you are affecting tonight. And I recalled the impulsive way you dropped to your knees beside my prone body, to give what succour you could. And I thought that one good turn deserved another.’

Harriet sucked in a short, shocked breath. Though it was more in keeping with what she knew of him so far to fling insults at her, under cover of escorting her to the dance floor, than to swoop in to her rescue.

He would definitely never say anything so...rude to any other lady to whom he’d just been introduced. It just wasn’t done. Even she knew that.

But then, since he held her reputation in the palm of his hand, he clearly felt he could get away with saying anything he liked.

‘Well, if we are being honest with one another,’ she said, since what was sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander, ‘I have to say I agree with you.’ There, that should take the wind from his sails.

‘Surely not. Or—’ A frown flitted across his face. ‘Is your duenna compelling you to wear gowns of her choosing?’

‘I wish I could say you were correct. But this display of poor taste is entirely my own doing,’ she said.

‘You are deliberately making yourself look ridiculous?’

Far from looking shocked, or disapproving, Lord Becconsall only appeared intrigued.

But the necessity of taking her place in line, and dipping a curtsy as the first strains of music blared, prevented either of them from saying anything further. Which made her grind her teeth. Because of course she had not been deliberately trying to make herself look ridiculous. She’d just never had the chance to spend whatever she wanted on clothes, that was all. And it was only with hindsight that she’d seen that modelling her wardrobe so slavishly on Kitty’s, who had always looked so fashionable and pretty whenever she’d come to visit, had been a mistake.

But from now on, she was going to ask the modiste, and her aunt—and, yes, even Kitty—if the styles and fabrics she was choosing actually suited her.

For some time the intricacies of the dance meant that he could only take jabs at her during the few seconds during which they passed or circled each other. Jabs which she could deflect by looking blank, then twirling away as though she hadn’t heard them.

‘You are supposed to smile at your partner, just occasionally, you know,’ he informed her at one point.

‘I might do so were I dancing with someone I liked,’ she snapped back.

‘Tut, tut, Lady Harriet,’ he said dolefully. ‘You gave me to believe you wished above all things to dance with me.’

‘You know very well I had to say that,’ she hissed at him.

‘Do I?’ He looked thoughtful for a few measures. And then, with a devilish gleam in his eyes, asked her, ‘Would you mind explaining why?’

‘You know why.’

He widened his eyes in a look of puzzled innocence. ‘But...how can you have changed your opinion of me so completely? Last time we met, you flung yourself into my arms—’

‘I did no such thing,’ she hissed at him. ‘You...grabbed me—’

‘You put up no resistance, however. And you appeared to be enjoying the interlude as much as I did.’

Well, what could she say to that? Though he was wicked to remind her that she’d behaved with dreadful impropriety, he’d also admitted to enjoying kissing her. Which went a good way to soothing the sting imparted by his taunts. As well as doing something to her insides.

The same sort of something his kiss had done to them, actually.

‘No riposte?’ He sighed, looking almost disappointed. ‘I was so sure you would waste no opportunity to give me a tongue lashing.’

Since he looked at her mouth with a wistful expression as he said this, she couldn’t help licking her lips. And recalling the way his own tongue had probed at them, seeking entrance. Which made her unable to tear her eyes away from his mouth.

She cannoned into the lady to her right.

This was a disaster! Almost the first time she’d actually got on to a dance floor and he was ruining it by saying things that made her forget where she was, or which direction she was supposed to be hopping in.

‘You are determined to humiliate me, aren’t you?’ she said, next time they drew close enough for him to hear her.

‘I have no need.’ He chuckled. ‘You are doing an admirable job of it all on your own, what with the clothes and the scowls, and the growls and the missteps.’ He shook his head. ‘I cannot believe you are related to Major Inskip.’

Her head flew up. ‘You know George? But you just said you didn’t.’

He shrugged as he whirled away from her to promenade up the outside of the set. By the time she reached the head of it on the ladies’ side, she was seething with impatience.

‘Well?’

‘I only said cavalry officers don’t normally hobnob with the infantry. I didn’t say I didn’t know him. Though, to be precise, I only know him by sight.’ He eyed her with amusement before adding, ‘And what a sight he is to behold.’

She flushed angrily. George was, indeed, very often a sight to behold. For he had his uniforms made by a top tailor, out of the finest fabrics, and never looked better than when mounted on one of his extremely expensive horses. From which he did tend to look down his aristocratic nose at the rest of the world. Including her. And to her chagrin, although he’d always used to concede she was a bruising rider when they’d been much younger, the last few times he’d come home there had been a touch of disdain about his lips whenever his eyes had rested on her. Which had also, she now saw, influenced her decision to buy the most elaborate and costly gowns she could.

‘What, no pithy retort?’ Ulysses shook his head in mock reproof. ‘I am disappointed.’

‘Yes, well, that’s the thing with swooping to someone’s rescue, isn’t it? They do tend to do things you didn’t expect and make you wish you hadn’t bothered.’

He threw back his head and laughed.

‘Touché!’

She glowered at him. Far from showing the slightest sign of contrition, he was clearly thoroughly enjoying himself. At her expense.

‘Come, come, don’t look at me like that,’ he said. ‘I conceded the point. And far from being sorry I swooped, I have to admit I am glad I did so. No, truly,’ he said, just as he whirled away from her.

‘Well, I’m not,’ she said as the interminable music finally gasped its last and everyone bowed or curtsied to everyone else in their set. ‘I’m tired of being baited.’ At least, she would very soon be if he kept this up for any length of time. It was just one more vexation she was going to have to endure. On top of everything else she was struggling with, it felt like the last straw. ‘Why don’t you just get it over with? Hmm? Go on. Tell Lady Tarbrook where you found me, two weeks ago, and what we were doing. And then...’

Her mind raced over Aunt Susan’s inevitable disappointment and her tears, and the scolding and the punishment. Which might well, if Uncle Hugo had anything to do with it, involve being sent back to Stone Court.

Which would mean her ordeal by London society would come to an end.

Which would be a relief, in a way.

At first. But then she’d have to live, for the rest of her life, with the knowledge that she’d failed. Which she most emphatically did not wish to do.

She lifted her head to stare at Lord Becconsall who, though being thoroughly annoying, had at least made her see that she was nowhere near ready to throw in the towel.

He was shaking his head. ‘I don’t know what I have done to make you think I would behave in such a scaly fashion,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Only that I would never betray a lady’s secrets.’

‘Not if it didn’t suit your schemes, no,’ she said uncharitably.

Which made him look a bit cross.

‘It wouldn’t be in either of our interests for anyone else to hear about that kiss,’ he snapped. And then went very still. And then he turned a devilish grin in her direction.

‘I’m beginning to wonder,’ he said, leaning close and lowering his voice to a murmur, ‘if you aren’t playing a similar kind of game to mine.’

‘Game?’

‘Oh, very nicely done. That touch of baffled innocence would have fooled most men. But I met you under, shall we say, very different circumstances. Revealing circumstances.’

‘Revealing?’ Her heart was hammering. What had she revealed? Apart from rather too much of her legs. And what game was it he suspected her of playing?

‘Oh, yes. You are a rebel, aren’t you?’

Well, that much was true. She had rebelled against Mama and Papa’s wishes to come to London for this Season.

And since she’d been here, she’d been rebelling against all the strictures imposed upon her behaviour.

‘Ha! I knew it. Your guilty expression has given it away. You are merely pretending to go along with all this...’ He waved his hand to include not only the ballroom, but by extension, the whole society it represented. ‘But the fact that you felt the need to go galloping round the park at dawn, unfettered by all the restrictions society would impose on you, coupled with the dreadful way you are dressed, hints at a cunning scheme to avoid falling into the trap of matrimony.’

‘Absolutely not,’ she retorted, stung by his continuing references to her poor choice of clothing. ‘If you must know...’ she drew herself to her full height, which meant she only had to tilt her head the slightest bit to look him straight in the eyes ‘...I dressed like this because...because...’

She paused, wondering why on earth Aunt Susan had permitted her to buy so many things that didn’t suit her. When she was doing so much to make her a social success.

And it came to her in a flash.

‘This is the first time I have ever been anywhere near a fashionable dressmaker and my aunt didn’t want to ruin the pleasure of being able to feel satin against my skin, or picking out lace and ribbons and feathers by objecting to every single gaudy thing I set my heart upon.’

‘But—’

‘And I do want to get married. That is why I’ve come to London. To find somebody who will...value me and...admire me and talk to me as if what I have to say is...not a joke!’

He flinched.

‘Oh, there is no need to worry that I will ever set my sights on you,’ she said with a curl of her lip. And, as a fleeting look of relief flitted across his face, she had another flash of insight. ‘That is what you meant, isn’t it, about playing a game? You are avoiding matrimony. Like the plague.’

He started and the wary look that came across his face told her she’d hit the nail on the head.

And then, because he’d had so much fun baiting her, she couldn’t resist taking the opportunity to turn the tables on him. It wouldn’t take much. He’d practically handed her all the ammunition she needed.

‘What devilish schemes,’ he said in alarm, ‘are running through that pretty head of yours?’

Pretty? She looked up at him sharply.

And met his eyes, squarely, for the first time that night.

And felt something arc between them, something that flared through all the places that he’d set ablaze when he’d crushed her to his chest and kissed her.

‘You think I’m pretty?’

What a stupid thing to say. Of all the things she might have said, all the clever responses she could have flung at him, she’d had to focus on that.

Fortunately, it seemed to amuse him.

‘In spite of those hideous clothes, and the ridiculous feathers in your hair, yes, Lady Harriet, you know full well you are vastly pretty.’

The words, and the way he said them, felt like being stroked all the way down her spine with a velvet glove. Even though they weren’t true. She’d had no idea anyone might think she was pretty. Let alone vastly pretty.

Even so, she wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily.

‘You are not going to turn me up sweet by saying things like that,’ she said sternly. ‘One word from me, just one, about that kiss in the park and my outraged family will be dragging you to the altar so fast it will make your head spin.’

‘What? You wouldn’t!’

‘Oh, wouldn’t I?’

‘No, now look here, Lady Harriet—’

‘Oh, don’t worry. The ordeal of being shackled to you for the rest of my life does not appeal. In the slightest. I’m just reminding you that I have as much on you as you have on me.’

At that point, they reached the chair upon which Aunt Susan was sitting, beaming at them.

‘Your niece, Lady Tarbrook,’ said Lord Becconsall, letting go of her hand as though it was red hot and making his bow rather stiffly. He then gave her a look which seemed two parts frustration and one part irritation, before turning and marching away, his back ramrod stiff.

‘Harriet, I despair of you,’ said her aunt as Harriet sank to the chair at her side, her knees shaking, her palms sweating and her insides feeling as if they were performing acrobatics.

‘There you had the chance of making a conquest of one of the most elusive bachelors in Town, and what must you do but frighten the poor man off. Whatever did you say to him on the dance floor to make him run away like that?’

She considered for a moment.

‘Only that I had no wish to marry him, when he raised the subject,’ she said daringly.

‘What!’ Aunt Susan looked aghast. ‘You turned down a proposal from Lord Becconsall? Not that I can believe he really did propose. Although,’ she mused, fanning herself rapidly, ‘he really is such a very harum-scarum young man it is probably exactly the sort of thing he would do. To fall in love at first sight and propose in the middle of Astley’s Hornpipe.’

Of course he hadn’t fallen in love at first sight. Nor had he proposed. But something inside her softened towards her aunt for believing he could easily have done both.

However, ‘You cannot wish me to marry a...harum-scarum young man, can you?’

‘What can that matter when it would be such a triumph for you? Oh, I know he is only a viscount and one would, in the normal way of things, hope for a much better match for a girl of your background, but the way your training has been neglected one cannot expect a man with very nice tastes to look twice at you.’

The soft feeling chilled into the more usual wedge of inferiority and loneliness with which Harriet was familiar.

‘Not once he’s seen your performance on the dance floor,’ Aunt Susan continued. ‘My dear, what were you thinking, to collide with Lady Vosborough in that clumsy way? Unless Lord Becconsall had just that moment proposed. Yes, I suppose that would have shocked you enough to make a misstep completely understandable.’

‘Well, yes, it would,’ said Harriet, deciding that this had gone far enough. ‘But—’

‘If he proposes again, or if any gentleman proposes to you again,’ continued Aunt Susan as though she hadn’t spoken, ‘you are not to turn him down out of hand. You are to tell him you will reflect upon the matter and come to me, and I will advise you. I know all there is to know about any gentleman who might propose, you may be sure.’

Although Harriet really had no intention of marrying Lord Becconsall, even if he ever did propose, which he’d just informed her he wouldn’t, she couldn’t help indulging her curiosity.

‘What should I know about Lord Becconsall, then?’ she said in as meek a tone as she could muster. Whilst looking down at her fingers as they played with the struts of her fan.

‘Oh, so it is like that, is it?’ Aunt Susan smiled. ‘Well, in that case, we might still be able to repair the damage. I can drop a word in his ear,’ she said, patting her hand.

‘What? No! I mean, I’m sure that is very kind of you, Aunt, but—’

But Aunt Susan had got the bit between her teeth.

‘Lord Becconsall has a very handsome fortune, my dear, and a couple of really lovely estates. All kept in immaculate condition by his family for generations. I admit, since he has come into the title, he has not behaved with—that is, he has gained a reputation for being something of a...wastrel, let us say, but then what can you expect? I mean, he never expected to inherit anything, I shouldn’t think, what with having two such strapping older brothers.’

‘Oh?’ It felt strange to think he, like her, was the youngest out of a handful of brothers. ‘What happened to them?’

‘Oh, you need not worry about any sort of hereditary weakness that might carry him off the same way,’ said Aunt Susan, completely missing the point. ‘No, the eldest fell from his horse and broke his neck.’

Harriet winced.

‘And the next in line contracted...well, a most unpleasant illness which was the scourge of the district at the time. Which came as a very great shock to everyone. Particularly him, I should think. Why, he probably assumed he would spend the rest of his life in the army. Where, I must say, he did at least acquit himself with honours. Though he only came out with the rank of major,’ she mused. ‘Although that was probably as much to do with finances as anything,’ she added, brightening up. ‘As the third son, I don’t suppose he had much in the way of money to buy promotions. Oh. It has just occurred to me—yes, it probably went to his head, suddenly having so much money and the title as well. Is it any wonder he went just a little...wild? Just at first. I am sure he will settle down and do his duty to his family. Perhaps he is already starting to think along those lines. Yes,’ she said, brightening up. ‘Perhaps that is why he asked you to dance.’

Harriet swallowed, knowing it was no such thing.

But Aunt Susan was sitting there, plotting and planning ways and means of getting him to propose to her.

Because, deep down, she thought her niece only good enough to marry a...wastrel.

Worse, said wastrel had no intention of marrying her. Had indeed scuttled away with his tail between his legs at the merest threat he might have to do something so abhorrent should their kiss become common knowledge.

* * *

She was still seething by the time they called for their carriage. Which was an utterly stupid thing to do, since their own house was not two hundred yards away. They could have walked home far quicker. But, no, in London, ladies waited for the horses to be put to and the carriage to be brought round, rather than do anything as prosaic as walk home.

Oh, how she hated London tonight. Why had she listened to Aunt Susan’s tales of balls and picnics and beaux? Why had she allowed herself to get swept along on the tide of Kitty’s enthusiasm at the prospect of them making their come-out together?

Because, she answered herself as she clambered into the coach behind her two female relatives, Aunt Susan and Kitty had made her feel wanted, that was why. It would never have occurred to either of her parents that it was high time their only daughter made her social debut. And if it had, neither of them would have wanted to oversee it. Papa hated London and Mama considered it all a ridiculous waste of time and expense.

She sighed, and in the darkness of the coach, reached out and took Aunt Susan’s gloved hand. It was not her fault Harriet had not, so far, found her feet in society. Her aunt had done all she could.

Nor could Harriet blame her for believing she was only fit to marry a wastrel. Not when she was so awkward, and...yes, rebellious, as Lord Becconsall had pointed out.

As the coach rumbled through the darkened streets, and Kitty prattled on about the many and various partners with whom she’d danced, Harriet wondered how she was going to break it to Aunt Susan that not even the wastrel looked on her as a potential bride.

Though time would probably take care of that. Since, after the way they’d just parted, he’d probably take good care not to come anywhere near her, ever again.

Chapter Five

Jack couldn’t face returning to Becconsall House, the town house that now belonged to him. It was too full of ghosts.

Besides, he was still too unsettled after his encounter with Hope. Who’d turned out to be...of all things, the daughter of an earl. He certainly hadn’t expected that. To think that the owner of those sparkling blue eyes, that tart tongue, and those lush lips, was not only a lady, but a lady.

He shook his head as he strolled aimlessly along the street. What had she been thinking, going out at that hour of the day without an escort? If she’d run into anyone but him, in the park, she would have ended up getting far more than just a kiss.

She was so...naive, that was the word. And she had no idea of the effect she had on men.

Although, to be frank, if he’d seen her for the first time tonight, he wouldn’t have looked at her twice. If he hadn’t seen the other side of her, in the park, he would never have suspected she possessed anything to take a man’s interest, except for her rank. The silly gown, and the even sillier hairstyle, completely distracted a man from noticing the subtle curve of her mouth, or the determined set of her chin, or the intelligence and wit lurking in the depths of her eyes. Not to mention the lush curves of her body.

Lush curves he’d held against his own body and would very much like to feel pressed closely to him again. The urge to do something about it had taken him by surprise, several times, while they’d been dancing. Even though she’d been doing nothing to attempt to interest him. On the contrary, she’d been all bristles and spikes.

Which had soon stopped him from feeling sorry for her. Nobody could possibly feel sorry for a girl with as much spirit as that, not for long.

A reminiscent smile played about his lips. He’d really enjoyed the thrust and parry of the verbal fencing match they’d fought as they’d danced round the events of their first meeting. Right up to the end, that was, he thought, his smile fading, when she’d lashed out rather too cruelly.

Not that he could blame her, he supposed. He’d been unforgivably rude. Or so she must have thought. It was just that he’d thought he’d glimpsed the same sort of...hurt and rebellion, and desire to shock that he had lurking in his own heart, in her behaviour. Had thought he’d found a kindred soul. That she was doing what he was doing. Pretending to do as he’d been told, whilst making damn sure everyone thought he was completely ineligible.

He’d thought the way she dressed was due to a rebellion against what society expected of her. The way he’d rebelled when the lawyers had told him his best course of action would be to come to Town and find a respectable bride as quickly as he could, to ensure the succession. As if there was no worth in him apart from the blood which they wanted him to pass on to the next generation.

Instead of which, she’d admitted she just had no clue about fashion. Or taste.

He groaned as he thought of the sheen of tears he’d told himself he’d imagined, at one point during the evening. She’d made a swift recovery, but there was no doubt in his mind now that he’d hurt her. Rather badly, to judge from the way she’d lashed out at him towards the end.

He couldn’t blame her. Not when his own jibes must have seemed so cruel, to her.

Which left him no choice.

He was going to have to swallow his pride and tender an apology.

* * *

And so, the next day, he presented himself at Tarbrook House at the correct hour for paying visits, armed with a posy of spring flowers.

Though the room was full of visitors, Lady Harriet was sitting on her own, on a chair by the window, from which she was looking out on to whatever it was that was at the rear of the house. The other gentlemen who’d called were all clustering round another girl, who was wearing a gown almost identical to Lady Harriet’s. Only wearing it rather better. And the aunt, Lady Tarbrook, was keeping her beady eye on her own daughter’s visitors.

Lady Harriet gave a start when he stopped by her chair, so engrossed had she been by whatever she’d been watching through the window.

He craned his neck to follow her line of sight. But all he could see was a courtyard containing an ornamental fountain which sprayed water a few inches into the air.

So, she had been lost in thought, rather than admiring the view.

‘A penny for them? Your thoughts?’

‘They are not worth that much,’ she replied tartly. ‘And anyway—’

‘You would rather walk barefoot along Piccadilly than share them with me,’ he finished for her.

Her face turned a charming shade of pink.

Which was, to his way of thinking, the perfect moment to present her with the posy.

‘Oh,’ she said looking down at them with surprise. And then up at him with a touch of suspicion. And then, being the girl she was, she asked the question no other delicately nurtured female would ask.

‘Why have you brought me these? Why have you come at all, for that matter?’

‘Well,’ he said, reaching for a nearby chair and placing it closer to hers, ‘it is the done thing, you know, for a gentleman to pay a morning call upon a lady with whom he has danced the night before.’

‘Yes, I know that,’ she snapped.

‘But you did not think that I would pay any attention to the conventions,’ he said, flicking aside his coat tails as he sat down. ‘I can see why you might think that, given the way we have...dealt with each other up to now. But the truth is...’ He shifted, suddenly finding the chair rather hard and unforgiving.

‘Oh, yes, by all means, let us always speak the truth to one another,’ she said waspishly.

‘The truth is,’ he continued, leaning in closer, ‘that I owe you an apology.’

She couldn’t have looked more surprised if he’d leaned in and kissed her. Which he could easily do, since nobody was paying them any attention. The focus of the other visitors was all on the insipid, younger, paler copy of Lady Harriet.

‘I was rude and hurtful to you last night, about your—’ His eyes flicked to her gown. Back up to her hair.

‘But truthful,’ she said. ‘And completely correct.’

‘But it wasn’t kind of me to say so—’

‘No,’ she said, holding up one hand to stop him. ‘It made me see that I needed to do something, instead of wondering why Kitty always looks so much better than me. Your criticism made me go to my aunt and ask her, outright, what I was doing wrong. And why she hadn’t stopped me before. And it was...’ She paused and rolled her lips together as though trying hard to find the right words.

‘Yes, I did wonder why your sponsor would let you go about looking so...’ He trailed off. ‘If she really cared about you, that is.’

‘Oh, she does,’ said Lady Harriet with some vehemence. ‘More than anybody else. But since she brought me to London she has had to be so strict with me about so many other things that she had not the heart, she told me, to ruin the one pleasure I had left. That is, shopping. And anyway, she said that since I have rank and fortune on my side she didn’t think it would matter if I looked just a little eccentric in my own choice of clothes, just to start with. And besides...’

‘Besides,’ he urged her, when she appeared to realise that she ought not to be rattling on in such an indiscreet fashion with a man she hardly knew. ‘Go on, you might as well tell me the besides, now that I know the rest.’

‘I don’t suppose there is any harm in it,’ she admitted. ‘Since it’s only that my aunt was so touched that I was trying to model myself on Kitty, because I have always thought her so pretty and feminine, that she could never quite bring herself to stop me.’

‘She is not that pretty,’ he said, glancing just once at Lady Harriet’s cousin.

‘I thought you promised to be truthful,’ said Lady Harriet with a frown.

‘I am being truthful.’

‘No, you are not. Because Kitty is pretty. Even Papa notices and tells her so whenever she visits. When he has never said—’

She broke off, and looked down at the posy she was clutching tightly in her lap.

‘Well, he should have done,’ he said irritably. ‘Because you are much prettier than her.’

Her head flew up, her eyes widening in what might have been shock, which was swiftly changing to annoyance.

‘No, truthfully,’ he said, laying his hands just briefly over hers. ‘She is just... Whereas you are...’

‘Yes?’ She tilted her head on one side, her eyes narrowing in challenge.

‘That is, she looks to me the kind of girl who blushes and simpers and giggles when a man asks her to dance,’ he said with derision. ‘And you should not be trying to emulate either her looks, or her behaviour.’

‘That is your opinion, is it?’

‘Yes. You are...well, when I think of the way you looked in the park, bringing Lucifer under control, and then dashing to my side to see if I was hurt...that is how I wish you could look all the time. You ought to be wearing vibrant colours, to go with your vibrant character. And you should positively never crimp your lovely hair into silly curls that dangle round your face like this.’ He reached out and flicked one ringlet.

‘You are abominable.’

‘To tell you how to make the most of yourself? When nobody else will?’

‘I have already told you, Aunt Susan and I have had a little chat and, when next we go shopping, things are going to be different.’

‘No more dresses that belong on a frippery little schoolgirl, I hope. No more of those silly frills and flounces.’

‘For two pins,’ she said, her eyes flashing fire, ‘I would deck myself from head to toe in frills, just to annoy you.’

‘If only you didn’t have too much sense,’ he reminded her.

‘Well, yes, there is that. No sense in cutting off my nose to spite my face, is there?’

‘None whatever. It is far too charming a nose. And anyway, I’m really not worth it.’

A frown flitted across her face.

‘Oh, come now. Surely your aunt has already warned you not to set your sights on me.’

A rather mulish look came to her mouth.

‘Actually, she thinks you might do very well for me. Seeing as how I’m not likely to attract a man with higher standards.’

‘I thought you said she cared for you.’

‘Oh, she does. But then...’ She shrugged, as though the action was self-explanatory.

‘And you said your own father never once told you that you are pretty,’ he growled. ‘What is wrong with them all?’

Lady Harriet shrugged again. ‘My parents were content with the three sons they already had, I suppose. They didn’t really know what to do with a daughter.’

‘That’s family for you,’ he said with feeling. ‘My own father never had a good word to say about me, either.’

A stricken look came across her face. She reached out and touched his hand, just briefly, as though understanding, completely, what it felt like to be the runt of the litter.

For a moment, they sat there in silence. For some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes from her hand, though she had withdrawn it and tucked it underneath the posy now, as though she couldn’t believe she had lost control of it so far as to reach out and touch him.

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