﻿Praise for Kasey Michaels

“Using wit and romance with a master’s skill,

Kasey Michaels aims for the heart and

never misses.”

— Bestselling author Nora Roberts

The Butler Did It

“Witty dialogue peppers a plot full of delectable

details exposing the foibles and follies of the

age… The heroine is appealingly independent-

minded; the hero is refreshingly free of any

mean-spirited machismo; and supporting

characters have charm to spare…[a] playfully

perfect Regency-era romp.”

— Publishers Weekly

A Reckless Beauty

“With her Beckets of Romney Marsh series, Michaels has created a soap opera with wonderful characters, dark family secrets, exciting historical events and passion.” — Romantic Times BOOKreviews

The Return of the Prodigal

“Only a mistress of the genre could hook you,

and hold you in her net, eagerly anticipating

her next move.”

— Romantic Times BOOKreviews

Kasey Michaels is a New York Times bestselling author of both historical and contemporary novels. She is also the winner of a number of prestigious awards.

Lords of Notoriety
Kasey Michaels

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

The Ruthless Lord Rule

The Toplofty Lord Thorpe

The Ruthless Lord Rule

To Page –

the Consummate Miss Cuddy –

who let me be me; with deep gratitude

and affection

PROLOGUE

March 1814

PEACE!

All England is rejoicing. Napoleon, that scourge of the Continent, has at last been put in his cage. Paris has capitulated, with the trusted Marmont leading his unsuspecting men straight into the Austrian camp in surrender. Now an emperor in name only, with but a scant four-hundred-man army and living on the charity of the country he had led in triumph for nearly twenty years, Bonaparte barely escaped France with his life and is living in genteel poverty on the unpretentious island of Elba.

His Royal Highness, the Prince Regent, is delirious with joy; so overcome that he’d had to be bled of twenty-seven ounces of blood. Indeed, for nearly a month, he languished in his bed, hovering between life and death.

The rush to cross the Channel is already in full force, with even the Duke of Wellington, now British ambassador to France, characteristically ignoring the angry glances cast his way as he saunters down the streets of Paris, dines on good, plain English fare at the Café des Anglais, and accepts the grateful thanks of the repatriated French nobility.

London is in a whirl, eagerly anticipating the arrival of Czar Alexander of Russia, King Frederick William of Prussia, and, wonder of wonders, the much loved Field Marshal von Blücher. Indeed, the Grand Duchess Catherine of Oldenburg, the czar’s “platter-faced” sister, has already disembarked and is royally ensconced in Pulteney’s Hotel, busily setting up the Regent’s back with her Whig antics.

That this endears her to the residents of London is no surprise, for the Regent has been out of favor with his subjects for some time. The younger generation has no memory of the glorious Florizel that was once the Prince of Wales and cannot think of him as the genial Big Ben. They see him instead as Swellfoot, an obese, grotesque, thoroughly evil man. They glory in the little ditty penned by Charles Lamb:

By his bulk and by his size,

By his oily qualities,

This (or else my eyesight fails)

This should be the Prince of Whales.

Not that Louix XVIII, who had been cheered through the streets as he headed toward the Channel Ports and a return to his homeland, fared much better once he reached Paris. The King, whom Lord Byron has irreverently dubbed Louis the Gouty, seems to have spent his entire exile in thrall with his host country’s cooking, and is so thoroughly corpulent that the Regent, after investing the King with the Order of the Garter, and buckling the Garter around a leg even thicker than his own, remarked, “When I clasped his knee it was exactly as if I were fastening a sash around a young man’s waist.”

One German account of the King’s appearance commented on both the advanced age and accumulated fat of Napoleon’s replacement. Telling of the King’s entrance into the room, the report centered on the fact that Louis, clad in soft black satin boots and supported on either side, was so disablingly obese that he “would stumble over a straw.”

While Europe laughs at reports of Napoleon’s frugal inventories of mattresses and his drawing up of lists of his personal clothing (“my underlinen is in a lamentable state”), and ridicules his official-sounding Council of State that he has set up to investigate improvements in the iron mines and salt pits of Elba while considering the possibility of importing silkworms, the banished Emperor is reading of the high jinks being perpetrated by his vanquishers.

“They are mad!” he said of the governments that had a hand in putting Louis on the throne. “The Bourbons in France; they would not be able to hold their position for a year! Nine-tenths of the nation cannot endure them; my soldiers will never serve under them.”

But none of the leaders of the world, their minds filled with plans for pomp and ceremony and grand celebrations, hear the words of Napoleon Bonaparte, or, if they do hear them, heed them.

Only a few shake their heads at the merry-making and wonder—wonder, if this glorious peace is really to be believed. Sir Henry Ruffton, one of the War Office’s most intelligent members, wonders.

Then word reaches Sir Henry of one of Bonaparte’s final statements before leaving France. “Between ourselves,” Napoleon has told a trusted aide who had feared his Emperor would commit suicide, “a living drummer is better than a dead emperor.”

So, while London rings with cheers and hangs bunting from the façades, Sir Henry pens two messages. One missive goes to Sussex by private courier. The other is sent by packet to Calais, to his most trusted operative. Both messages are the same: “Come to me, now.”

CHAPTER ONE

May 1814

“HONESTLY, MARY, that new coachman of Sir Henry’s drives as if he’s riding to hounds.” Gratefully subsiding into a chair in the rather spartanly furnished drawing room, Rachel Gladwin removed her straw bonnet and proceeded to use it as a fan to cool her flushed cheeks. “While I applaud your guardian’s hiring of returned soldiers, I do believe he should temper his generosity with a bit of common sense. I doubt if even Wellington would have survived if all of our troop charges into battle were accomplished with the same reckless fervor our driver just demonstrated on Bond Street.”

Pushing at the dark coppery curls that had been slightly crushed by her fetching, if a bit imprudent, choice of headgear, Mary Lawrence smiled into the mirror that reflected Rachel’s frowning face. “Coming it a bit too brown, aren’t you, Aunt?” she asked, using the courtesy title that lady had insisted upon. “Considering it was you who applauded so enthusiastically when that same driver sent that ridiculous dandy scurrying up the lamppost in fear of his life?”

Rachel’s features relaxed into a small smile. “I will admit to being a bit amused by the spectacle,” she owned cheerfully enough, “but I would be shirking my duty as your resident bear-leader if I did not stress once again that putting one’s fingers in one’s mouth and whistling encouragement to servants is just not done. Wherever did you acquire such a disgusting talent, Mary?”

“In Sussex,” Mary Lawrence replied, leaving the mirror to take up residence in the chair across from Rachel’s. “You’d be surprised at the accomplishments I have mastered through the kind offices of my last keepers, may they live long and prosper. And you are not bear-leading me, no one could. You are my friend and companion while I’m forced to live in London.”

Rachel shook her head. “Still singing the same sad song, Mary? I thought Sir Henry had succeeded in convincing you that this is the best, the safest, place for you at the moment.”

“Bah! All the world is in Paris. The papers are full of ondits about the English lords and ladies who are scampering about France, aping the latest fashions and gambling away their fortunes at the Palais-Royal—among other things,” she ended, winking broadly. “I fail to see why Sir Henry refuses to let me cross the Channel. It’s so dreadfully flat here; I was better entertained in Sussex.”

Looking at the very young, very beautiful girl dressed in the height of fashion, a girl who in her few short weeks in the metropolis had already been dubbed the latest Incomparable, Rachel suppressed a chuckle and tried for a commiserating tone. “La, you poor, oppressed creature. Forced to spend your time dragging yourself from ballroom to theater party, your unwilling body pressed into wearing an endless array of flattering silks and satins, while saddled with the unpalatable chore of breaking every young male heart in London. I daresay I admire you for not dissolving on your bed in a flood of tears, so onerous is your trial.”

Mary screwed up her patrician nose and stuck out her tongue. “Wretch! You know I’m loving every delicious minute of it. It’s just that I should love it even more if I were doing it in Paris. Besides—surely he wouldn’t be so odious as to follow me there to make my life miserable.”

“Ah, we’re back to that, are we?” Rachel chuckled, shaking her head. “My nephew seems to have gotten under your skin.”

“Like an annoying splinter,” Mary admitted irritably. “How that insufferable man dogs my every step! If you’re afraid of the way our coachman drives, I am fearful that your odious nephew is going to drive me—into strong hysterics. Are you quite sure he wasn’t a soldier, perhaps suffering from some head injury that makes him behave so toward me?”

“Tristan was never a soldier, Mary,” Rachel replied, crossing her fingers in her lap. “There have been rumors about his actions during the war, but I discount them. No, my nephew is just being his usual annoying self.”

Mary looked closely at her companion. “You sound as if you don’t like him. Not that I blame you, of course, for he does not wear easily.”

Rachel smiled sadly. “Not like him? Why, Mary, I couldn’t love him more. Tris is loyal, trustworthy, unflinchingly honest and the staunchest friend a person could ever have.”

“I once had a terrier with the same attributes.” Mary sniffed derisively. “Only he was better trained. All your nephew seems to have mastered is the ability to heel! Besides, if Lord Rule is such a paragon of virtue, why do you always give such a deep sigh when you see him? Seems rather unloving to me.”

Now the older woman laughed aloud. “Because he’s such a royal pain in the rump, Mary dearest, why else?”

Mary decided to change the subject, as their discussion of the Right Honorable Baron Rule was fast beginning to give her the headache. She rose and walked over to take the card rack down from the mantel, meaning to sort out the cards of invitation for the one she needed for that evening. “We’re expected at Lady Salerton’s for her daughter’s come-out. Shall I wear my yellow tiffany?”

“Not unless you want Elsie Salerton to throw her not unimpressive bulk against the door to bar you from entering. Really, Mary, can you not let the poor girl have her evening without spoiling it by ensnaring every young buck her mother is bound to have cajoled, blackmailed or bludgeoned into appearing?”

Mary smiled, showing up the very fetching dimple in her left cheek, then batted her large, wide green eyes innocently. “Why, Aunt, whatever do you mean? I merely enjoy dancing and chatting with people my own age. Anyone would think you believe me to be a heartless flirt.” Her smile fading, she added, “Besides, once your dear nephew, Lord Rule, comes on the scene—which I am sure he will do as he seems to have an uncanny knack for knowing exactly which entertainment I have chosen for the evening—all my intrepid dancing partners will depart posthaste for the hinterlands, their tails between their legs.”

“Maybe he’s developed a tendre for you, dear,” Rachel offered without much hope of being taken seriously.

“Not surprising. Who hasn’t fallen head over ears for my beautiful ward?”

“Uncle Henry!” Mary cried, running across the room to give her guardian an enthusiastic hug. “Aunt Rachel has told me you have gotten us vouchers for Almack’s. However did you manage it?”

The gray-haired, rosy-cheeked cherub who stood smiling inanely while his adored ward embraced him was Sir Henry Ruffton, a wealthy bachelor on the shady side of forty with a reputation as a truly guileless, completely lovable soul. That he had the total admiration of his ward was obvious, and he felt the years fall away from him as he basked in her affection. “Silly puss, who could afford to ignore such a diamond of the first water as you? Not Lady Jersey, that much is certain. Besides, I do have a smattering of friends who were not adverse to pulling a few strings in the right places.”

Rachel watched the scene unfolding in front of her, a sad smile on her face. Mary could have been his daughter, could have been their daughter, if only… “Henry, I do believe you’re blushing!” she teased, rising to ring for refreshments.

Seating himself in his favorite chair, allowing Mary to curl up on the floor at his feet, her head pressed against his knees, Sir Henry acknowledged Rachel’s words unself-consciously. “I admit it, Rachel, my dear friend. I have not been so diverted in years. Having Mary join me in the city was truly an inspiration. And finding you after all this time to act as companion and chaperon, why there are times I believe myself to be the happiest of men.”

“Don’t forget that the war is over, Uncle,” Mary pointed out. “That’s another reason for you to be happy.”

“Napoleon is within spitting distance of Europe, child,” he answered, suddenly looking something less than cherubic. “I cannot help but agree with Talleyrand, who fought to have Bonaparte exiled in Corfu, or even St. Helena, where he could be more closely guarded.”

“Piffle,” Mary argued. “Fouché, I’ve heard, suggested Boney flee to America and start over. I wonder how the Americans would have taken to that notion. Besides, Talleyrand is no good authority. I have read that Napoleon once called him ‘filth in silk stockings.’”

“Talleyrand is an amoral thief, Mary, but he hasn’t survived in France this long without being a fairly good judge of men. If he says Bonaparte still presents a danger, I tend to believe him.”

“But—”

“Enough, child. You make my head buzz with all your silly prattle. I have given you my reasons and you have agreed to abide by my decision. Once some time has passed, and the governments conclude their deliberations, perhaps then I shall set you off to France with my blessing. I may even accompany you. But for now—”

“But for now I am safer in London,” Mary ended fatalistically. “But all this pretense, I vow I cannot like it. Even my name—”

“Perkins!” Rachel interrupted rather loudly, startling the butler into nearly oversetting the tray of tea and cakes. “How famished I am. If you would set the tray on this table I’m sure we shall be able to serve ourselves quite well unaided. Thank you, Perkins.”

Mary watched the butler’s departing back, a rueful smile on her lips. “I almost gave it away just then, didn’t I, Aunt? Thank you for your timely intervention.” Then, momentarily feeling mulish, she added, “Though I still think this whole deception is silly.”

Rachel and Sir Henry exchanged knowing looks over Mary’s head and pretended not to hear her last statement. Biting into a warm scone, Sir Henry questioned, “Which one of Mary’s suitors were you discussing when I entered the room? It’s getting to the point where I have to keep a list with me at all times so that I may check them off when I am forced to turn down their requests for her hand.”

Mary thrust her full lower lip forward into a pout. “Lord Tristan Rule, Uncle Henry, and he is not a suitor. He’s a nuisance!”

“Tristan?” Sir Henry repeated, puzzled. “I’ve never known him to be in the petticoat line. My congratulations, my dear, he’s a fine young man.”

Mary leaped to her feet and glared at her beloved guardian. “If you have any affection for that fine young man, you will steer him swiftly away from my direction before I skewer him with my parasol! I cannot stand the creature!”

And with that, Mary quit the room, stopping only to snatch up a few fragrant scones, leaving Rachel to explain Lord Rule’s recent behavior to Sir Henry.

TRISTAN RULE REACHED DOWN a hand to assist his opponent to his feet. “Sorry, George. It seems my tiresome temper has gotten the better of me again.”

“On the contrary,” Lord Byron replied, gingerly rubbing his aching jaw, “it was my fault entirely. I should have known better than to cast aspersions on our esteemed War Office while sparring with Ruthless Rule. Besides, I thought I had a better chin than I seem to possess. Just remember, Tris, the pen is mightier than the sword. I’ll simply have to scribble a canto or two someday about our esteemed military gentlemen.” Stepping out between the ropes held apart by his friend, Byron called out ruefully, “Tom, my good man, you’d better look to your laurels now that Ruthless Rule is stepping into the ring. I do believe he would make even you a fair competitor. Now toss me that towel and help me totter over to find a glass of wine, if you please.”

Dexter Rutherford, who had been holding a towel at the ready for his idol, Lord Tristan Rule, dashed to the side of the ring, a look of slavish adoration on his young face. “What a leveler you served him, Tris!” he exclaimed, rubbing his hero’s bare shoulders with more enthusiasm than expertise. “The great man himself, dropped by a single blow. What science, what speed, what—”

“What loss of control,” Tristan ended crossly, effectively wiping the grin from Dexter’s face. “We were only sparring, you bloodthirsty infant. George wasn’t expecting that bit of home-brewed I served up to him. Thank goodness he’s a gentleman.” Taking the towel from his shoulders, Rule rubbed it briskly across his face and neck. “It’s this deuced inaction, I feel like a coiled wire ready to spring. I can see that this peace everyone is so delirious about is going to take a bit of getting used to.”

Tom Cribb, the retired “Champion Boxer of all England,” approached the pair, a nearly full glass of wine held in front of him. “With Lord Byron’s compliments, my lord. And may I say it was an honor to watch you in there. If you ever have a mind to go a few rounds, I wouldn’t say no to you. Your right hand reminds me a bit of Ikey Pigg’s, and I considered him a very worthy opponent in his day.”

“Ikey Pigg!” Dexter cried scoffingly. “Molyneaux, more like, and it took you thirty rounds or more to best him too. Ikey Pigg?” Dexter shook his head. “Damned insult if you ask me.”

“Nobody did, sprig,” came a voice from behind the young man. “I’d say my good-byes now, if I were you, before Tom here takes it into his head to squash you like a bug.”

Dexter whirled to greet his cousin. “Julian! Did you see him? It was nothing next to marvelous, I tell you. One moment Lord Byron was standing there, his fives at the ready, and the next he was rump down on the mat, with Lord Rule standing above him, breathing fire.”

“Sorry we missed it,” Julian Rutherford, Earl of Thorpe, mourned falsely as he joined the group. “Yet somehow I feel that we shall all be able to relive the moment ad nauseam over dinner this evening if Dex here has anything to say in the matter.” Julian turned to address Lord Rule as Tom Cribb drifted away to talk to some of his other patrons. “You haven’t forgotten Lucy’s invitation, have you? I’ll have the devil to pay if I tell her I’ve seen you here without reminding you that your presence is required at table.”

“Not to mention what Jennie will do to me,” Kit Wilde, Earl of Bourne, put in as he too joined the small group, barely concealing a smile as he thought of his wife. “Your cousins are both rare handfuls in their separate ways, Tris, as you must know.”

“Will your aunt Rachel and her charge also be present?” Tris asked, slipping his arms into the shirt Dexter was holding up for him.

“Mary Lawrence?” Julian asked rhetorically, winking slyly at Kit, who was hiding a grin behind his hand. “So it’s true, what Lucy and Jennie say? I warn you, they’ve as much as made a match of it between you.”

Tris looked blank, as indeed he was at a loss to understand what Lord Thorpe was talking about. “Make a match of it? With Mary Lawrence? What in blazes put a fool notion like that into their maggoty heads?”

“Not just them, Tris,” Dexter supplied with all the innocence his ignorance of the world provided him. “Saw it in the betting book at Boodle’s. At least three wagers on when the announcement will make the Morning Chronicle.”

Tris snorted. “The Morning Chronicle—as if anyone would believe anything James Perry has to say in that paper of his. Why, I read one of his ‘stories’ just the other day that told of Prinny being applauded as he passed through the streets. As if being hissed at and having your coach pelted with cabbages can be called acclamation. Give me the Times, thank you. At least John Walter could be trusted to keep the war news straight.” Then, belatedly getting down off his high ropes, he gave a bit of thought to just what Dexter had said. “Betting on me at Boodle’s, are they? Who, damn it? Give me names, boy, and I’ll call the bastards out, damned if I won’t!”

“That’s it, Tris, keep a cool head, just like you’re known to do,” Lord Bourne jibed, placing an arm around the other man’s shoulders. “Besides, you have no one to blame but yourself, the way you act whenever the chit enters a room. Can’t remember being so dashed silly about Jennie, even when she was leading me around like a puppy longing for a pat on the head.”

Rule retied his cravat with more intensity than flair, his dark eyes flashing in a way that made Dexter decidedly nervous. “I only stand up with the girl for a single dance in an evening. I don’t see where that should serve to set the world to hearing wedding bells.”

Now it was time for Kit to wink at Julian. “I see your point, Tris. How like society to jump headlong to the wrong conclusion. Just because you show up everywhere Miss Lawrence happens to be as regularly as the sun rises every morning and claim her for a dance before retiring to a pillar and staring a hole in her back for the remainder of the evening. Imagine Lucy and Jennie, for instance, being so rash as to put any credence in the silly coincidence that you always quit the room just as soon as Miss Lawrence retires, or the fact that more than one young buck has reportedly withdrawn from the lists of those seeking the lady’s favors due to the belief that you would call them out if they so much as looked in her direction.” Lord Bourne shook his head sadly. “How sorely our motives are misinterpreted. What, precisely, then are your motives, Tris, if you aren’t smitten?”

Rule answered with some questions of his own. “Who exactly is Mary Lawrence? Where does she come from? Who are her parents? What is she doing in London? Why is she living with Sir Henry Ruffton? My Aunt Rachel may be the girl’s chaperon but she’s as close as an oyster whenever I try to get a few answers out of her. I know about her botched engagement with Sir Henry all those years ago, but could loyalty to an old beau cloud her judgment to the point where she’d allow herself to be involved in…never mind, George is getting ready to leave. I really must offer my apologies to him one more time. Excuse me, gentlemen, I’ll see you later this evening.”

Before either Julian or Kit could gainsay him, Tris was off, his long strides taking him swiftly across the room, the ever-present Dexter scampering to keep up with him.

“What the devil was all that in aid of?” Julian asked his cousin-in-law, who was looking no more enlightened than he. “Rachel told me he was a strange one, alluding to some secret association with the war effort, but I do believe the years of pressure have served to unhinge his mind. Did you ever hear such ridiculousness? Anyone would think he believes Sir Henry to be harboring a lady of ill repute, or a spy, or something. No, can’t be a spy. After all the war’s over, isn’t it?”

Kit was still watching Lord Rule, taking in his naturally belligerent stance and remembering how well the fellow had looked stripped to the waist. No soft London dandy was Tristan Rule. He had the look of a fighting man, even a Peninsula man, unless Kit missed his guess. Yet, for all the rumors about the man, no one could actually say Rule had ever been within a hundred miles of a battle. Strange, moody fellow. But a man of strong convictions for all that. And now he has a bee in his bonnet about Mary Lawrence. Kit turned to look at Julian, a thoughtful twist on his lips. “The war over, you say, Julian? For some of us, maybe. But not for him, it would appear.” He took one last look at the man they called Ruthless Rule as the tall, black-clad figure strode toward the door. “I tell you, Julian, I’d give my matched bays for a glimpse inside Tristan Rule’s head.”

CHAPTER TWO

LUCY GLADWIN RUTHERFORD, Countess of Thorpe, had great hopes for this dinner party, hopes she was foolish enough to share with her beloved husband, Julian, who quickly tried to dash them.

Stopping in the midst of tying his cravat, Lord Thorpe looked in his wife’s direction as she stood fiddling with the contents of his dressing table. “Miss Lawrence and your cousin Tris?” He would have shaken his head if the knot he was tying was not just then at a very critical stage. “You’re fair and far out this time, my love. Kit and I broached the subject this afternoon at Cribb’s Parlor with the man in question, and I’d say Tris’s interest is anything but loverlike.”

A twinkle entered Lucy’s eyes. “Ah, then you noticed his partiality for her too. My cousin is definitely interested in Miss Lawrence. You just misread the signs. Tris is nearly always stupid when it comes to women—he probably said something totally negative, if I know him.”

Giving his handiwork a last satisfied look in the mirror, Julian turned to plant a kiss on his wife’s forehead—while deftly removing his favorite pearl studs from her investigating hands. “I wouldn’t say the man was stupid. Actually, thinking back on the conversation, I believe Tris is more than casually interested in the girl. But no, it is most assuredly not with an eye to setting up his nursery.”

Lucy interpreted her husband’s words in exactly the wrong way. Her small face taking on a look of horror, she gasped. “Surely you don’t think he intends to set her up as his light-o-love? I won’t believe it!”

“Such a fertile mind you have, Lucy. I fear I must begin rationing your consumption of Minerva Press novels,” Julian threatened kindly, and then his features sobered. “To be serious for a moment, love, I do believe your cousin has taken some wild idea into his head about your Mary Lawrence, something to do with her ancestry. Is Tris by chance a bigoted sort?”

“Never!” Lucy protested, flopping into a nearby chair with total disregard for the gown it had taken her maid two hours to press. “I can’t understand any of this, Julian. Surely you must be mistaken.”

“Kit too?” he nudged, selecting a plain gold signet ring for his finger. “But don’t go into a decline, dearest. Surely you and Jennie can find another young couple to work your matchmaking wiles on before the Season is over. What about Dexter?”

“That nodcock?” Lucy exclaimed, momentarily diverted. “He may be your cousin, but he’s still the silliest thing on two legs. The way he has attached himself to Tris, why a person could wonder just how much of his feeling is hero worship and how much is—”

“Lucy! You fill me with dismay! You’re not supposed to know about such things, much less talk about them.”

She smiled up at him impishly. “Not even with my beloved husband, Julian? Don’t be so stuffy.”

Julian reached down and pulled his wife to her feet and up against his chest. “I am never stuffy, madam, and I have had that reassurance from your own lips.” He looked down into her upturned face and gave a bemused smile, glad he had not yet called his valet to help him into his formfitting evening coat. “Ah, yes, my dearest, those lovely, enticing lips.”

Lucy was forced to don another gown, as her maid, once she caught sight of her mistress some half hour later, had dissolved into tears and retired to her cot, in no condition to wield a hot iron.

THEY WERE ALL ENSCONCED around the gleaming mahogany table; the Earl of Bourne and his Jennie, Rachel Gladwin alongside young Dexter Rutherford—there to make up the numbers when Sir Henry pleaded another commit-ment—Lord and Lady Thorpe at the head and foot of the table, and Tristan Rule and Mary Lawrence smack beside each other on one side, just as Lucy had cunningly engineered the thing earlier.

Jennie was still wearing a benevolent smile, as she hadn’t as yet had either the benefit of her husband’s opinion on her matchmaking scheme or been able to speak alone with Lucy, who was not looking quite so chipper. Indeed Lucy was looking almost solemn, and had been ever since Miss Lawrence, beautifully attired in pale green silk, had greeted the sight of Tristan Rule with an unenthusiastic “Oh, you’re here.”

For her part, Rachel, who had recently taken to plotting her first attempt at a novel of her own, had decided to view the barely veiled hostility her charge directed at her nephew as ink for her scribbling pen. How interesting it would be, she thought as she helped herself to a portion of stewed carp, to have a heroine who insists on ignoring her attraction for the hero. Perhaps, she mused idly, I shall have my heroine outrage her mercenary guardian by refusing to stand up with the hero at her come-out ball. Would Maria Edgeworth approve? Was it too farfetched? Rachel shrugged her shoulders and took another bite of carp.

If Mary had been privy to her companion’s thoughts, she might have added her bit to the story, a little plot twist that had the heroine surreptitiously slipping a bit of poison into the hero’s fricassee of tripe and then running off to the Continent to become the reigning toast of Paris. But then Mary’s mind was at the moment too overcrowded with thoughts of the man sitting so intrudingly close to her right side to have much heart for solving anyone’s problems but her own.

Look at him, she instructed herself as she ignored her filled plate. He even cuts his meat with a cool, meticulous care that makes my flesh crawl. And those hands—those hard, tanned hands with their long, straight fingers. Everything about him screams leashed power. Ruthless. How apt. Energy seems to flow from him like a never-ending stream. Rachel may think that he’s interested in me. My suitors may think he’s trying to cut them out for my hand. But I know better. I can feel the animosity that charges the air whenever he looks at me. Why does he dislike me so? Why is he making it his business to unnerve me with his unwanted, discomforting presence? And why, dear God, why must he be so maddeningly intriguing, so damnably handsome?

While Mary sat staring at her plate, precisely as if the fish that lay there had just winked in her direction, Tristan Rule was building himself into a temper—not a new experience, granted, but he could not in his memory recall another instance when a female of the species had been able to crawl so deeply under his skin. Maybe it was that bloody black velvet ribbon she had tied tightly around her neck, just like the ladies of a generation ago had worn red ribbons in sympathy with the French nobility that had lost their heads on Madame Guillotine.

Fashion, his saner self told him. Nothing of the kind, his suspicious self contradicted. That ribbon is just one more nail in her coffin, one more revealing slip that another, less discerning man, might overlook. She was mocking those dead Frenchmen, no more, no less. But it would take more than a bit of ribbon and an inconclusive inquiry into Miss Lawrence’s background to convince Sir Henry that he had been made the victim of a Bonapartist sympathizer. It was time he made a move, time he took a more positive step than merely to observe her as she pulled the wool over society’s eyes with her portrayal of a young miss in her first Season. He was determined to unmask her for what she was. Why in the fiend’s name, he snarled inwardly, did she have to be so beautiful?

“I had not known that you would be here this evening, sir.”

Tristan’s fork halted halfway to his mouth as Mary’s softly spoken words startled him. As she had made such a point of ignoring him while they waited for dinner to be announced, he had resigned himself to having his ear bent all through the meal by Dexter, who sat across from him but wasn’t about to let any silly dictate of good manners keep him from talking nineteen to the dozen across the table if he so chose. “You didn’t?” was all he responded, eyeing her smiling face closely as he sought to understand her seeming friendliness.

“No,” she answered, her voice still quite low. “I saw you striding through the drizzle the other day in the park and had figured you to have developed lung fever at the very least by now.”

Tristan decided to take her words literally. “What would make you think a bit of spring drizzle could lay me up by the heels?”

Mary shrugged delicately, almost Gallically, in Tristan’s biased opinion. “Oh, I don’t know. I guess that it’s just that you are of an age that I would have expected you to have served in the war if you weren’t afflicted with a weak chest or some other such hidden weakness. Lord Bourne served on the Peninsula, you know, and Lord Thorpe was very involved with the war effort in Parliament. But you—why, if rumors are to be believed, you spent the last several years traipsing about the Continent like some sort of sightseer. In places far removed from the fighting, that is.”

Tristan laid his fork carefully on the edge of his plate. Turning his head slowly in her direction once more, he smiled dangerously, his straight white teeth clenched. “If you were a man, I would call you out for that, you know,” he said in his low, husky voice, a voice that went well with his chiseled features, dark eyes, and darker hair.

Another woman would have fainted. Lord, any sane woman wouldn’t have taunted him so in the first place! But Mary Lawrence was made of sterner, if somewhat more foolhardy, stuff. She kept her chin high and didn’t so much as blink. “Name your seconds, sir,” she dared recklessly, ignoring her rapidly beating heart. “Although you neatly circumvented serving in the war, I have no doubt you’ve stomach enough to shoot a woman.”

Now Tristan’s smile was downright evil. “Too messy by half, madam. I prefer to impale my opponents on my sword. Now, madam, if you’re still game…?”

There was no pretending she didn’t catch the double entendre hidden in his words, and no way she could slap his face at Lucy’s table without creating a scene that would have Rachel wringing a peal over her head for a sennight. Her gaze locked with his for a few moments more, brazening it out before her eyes shifted nervously back to the fish on her plate.

She waited until Lord Rule had resumed his meal before speaking again. Just as he had deposited a medium-size bite of succulent fish in his mouth she shared a bit of unusual knowledge with the rest of the company. “Did you know that many tradesmen inflate their meat—and most especially their fish by having gin drinkers blow into the bodies? Indeed, and much of the seafood and meat that reaches our tables looking so thick and juicy has been made that way by having the poor animals heated or beaten while still alive in order to swell the meat. Isn’t that interesting?”

The meal ended shortly after that, as the rest of the diners had somehow lost their appetites (indeed, Dexter, who had fled abruptly from the table, lost even more than that), which, while the thought of ruining Lucy’s dinner party sat heavily on her mind, did at least serve one of the ends Mary had intended—getting herself shed of Tristan Rule’s embarrassing presence before he drove her into strong hysterics.

Rachel had said he was a hot-tempered sort, prone to short, violent explosions of wrath. Putting all her eggs in one basket at the dinner table in hopes of having the man lose his composure, and therefore some of the esteem in which it seemed the rest of the company held him, had been the second reason for her outburst, but Rule had failed to perform according to his reputation, so that the affair had concluded with Mary being the one who now sat in the corner of the Ruffton carriage in disgrace.

“Really, Mary, that was very poor-spirited of you,” Rachel Gladwin was saying, for at least the third time in as many minutes. It took a lot to discompose Rachel—considering she had served as Lucy’s companion during that trying time when the girl was so obviously pursuing an obviously fleeing Lord Thorpe—but Mary’s inelegant observations at the dinner party had done it.

“I know, Aunt,” Mary agreed sadly. “I promise to apologize to Lucy and Julian again when we reach the ball. I’ll even send round a written apology tomorrow. But I was sorely tried, I tell you. If you have any idea what that odious nephew of yours had the nerve to intimate to me—”

Rachel could see Mary’s blush even in the dim light cast by the flambeaux hung outside the carriage. “I’m listening,” she nudged, remembering the smug look Tristan had been wearing as he and Dexter took their leave.

Mary gave a weak chuckle. “You may listen all you want, Aunt. His words were unrepeatable. I won’t so demean myself as to quote the scoundrel.”

Now it was Rachel’s turn to smile. “Bested you, did he, little girl? I begin to scent a romance here myself. Won’t Sir Henry be pleased?”

From the corner of the carriage came the unmistakable sound of fragile ivory fan sticks being snapped neatly in two.

MARY HAD JUST BEGUN TO RELAX when Tristan Rule and his ever-present shadow, Dexter, entered the Salerton ballroom and took up positions at the edge of the dance floor. He’s playing me like a fish on a line, Mary fumed silently as she went down the dance with her latest partner. Ever since he first sank his hook into me he’s been feeding me more and more line, making me believe I’m about to gain my freedom, and then, just when I’m feeling secure, yanking hard on the pole again.

As she whirled and dipped, flirting outrageously with the hapless young swain who had nearly tripped into a potted palm at the edge of the floor when Mary flashed him her brightest smile, she kept one eye firmly on the black-clad figure who looked as if he was about to spring on her even as he relaxed one well-defined shoulder against a marble pillar.

She never remembered what she said to her partner as he escorted her back to her aunt at the conclusion of the set, but if the youth’s bemused expression was to be believed, her vague response to his parting question just might have gained Sir Henry yet another application for her hand on the morrow. Mary frowned, for she was not really heartless and had certainly not meant to lead Lord Hawlsey on, but then, as the musicians struck up the new, daring waltz, all thoughts of Lord Hawlsey fled as her spine automatically stiffened when she felt rather than heard Lord Rule’s approach.

Bowing in front of Rachel for her permission—a curiously tunnel-sighted Rachel who seemed not to see her charge’s frantic signal in the negative—Tristan availed himself of Mary’s small hand and led her firmly onto the floor.

Lord Petersham always wore brown, Mary thought spitefully, and only succeeded in looking dashed dull. Then there was that silly man who wore nothing but green, like some sort of living plant. It stood to reason that Tristan Rule, who dressed only in funereal black, should look dull, or silly, or boringly unimaginative, or, at the very least, depressing. So why did he look none of these? Why did he look like his muscular torso had been carefully poured into his formfitting coat, his, in this instance, black satin breeches lovingly painted on? Why did his black-on-black embroidered waistcoat call such unladylike attention to his flat abdomen, his snowy cravat show to such advantage against his deeply tanned features, his equally white stockings delineate muscular calves that owed nothing to the sawdust stuffing so many men felt forced to use to supplement what nature and a sybaritic life had left lacking?

“I’m waiting, Miss Lawrence.”

The sound of Lord Rule’s low, husky voice jolted Mary from her musings and surprised her into looking directly into a pair of the deepest, darkest eyes she had ever seen. “W-waiting, my lord?” she stammered, irritated for allowing a tremor to slip into her voice. “Whatever for?”

Tristan cocked his dark head slightly to one side. “Why, for you to commence flirting with me, what else? You flirt with every man you dance with—every man save me, that is. After weeks of standing up with you only to have to propel you woodenly, and silently, round yet another endless ballroom, I have decided to take the initiative. Please, feel free to bat those outrageous eyelashes at me. I’m stronger than I look, I can take it.”

Mary nearly tripped over her own feet as she stood stock-still for a moment, in mingled shock and outrage, while Tristan kept on dancing without missing a beat. “Me? Talk to you—the Great Sphinx? Flirt with you—the Great Stone Man? Why should I so lower myself as to try to converse with you when you’ve never so much as asked me if I thought the weather was tolerably fine? Besides, I’d rather flirt with portly old Prinny than waste even a moment’s time searching my brain for anything civil I’d wish to say to you.” Believing she had succeeded in making her position crystal clear, Mary lowered her head and went back to staring a hole in his cravat.

“You can’t flirt with pudgy old Prinny, Miss Lawrence,” Tristan returned conversationally, “unless, of course, you wish to incur the wrath of the pudgy old Marchioness of Hertford, who is our Royal Highness’s current favorite. In any event, the Regent is otherwise engaged these days, with he and his brother, the Duke of York, indulging once more in their favorite pastime, drinking each other under the table. Pity, though,” he ended facetiously, “as I do believe it would be a sight not to be missed.”

Feeling the heat of his left hand through her gloved fingers while sensing the steel in the hand that held her waist so firmly, Mary fought the urge to break away from the man, knowing that he was just obstinate enough to refuse to let her go—causing a scene of no mean proportions right in the middle of the ball. “Why, my lord,” she settled for saying, “I do believe your cousins to be entirely wrong about you. They have hinted on more than one occasion that you were a secret, valuable tool of England’s war effort. Wouldn’t they be crushed to learn that in reality you are nothing more than a spiteful, gossipy old woman?”

A slight tick appeared along one side of Lord Rule’s finely chiseled square chin, but he refused to allow this infuriating chit to bait him into unleashing his legendary temper. Let her continue to believe he was harmless, it would be easier to learn what he had set himself to discover if she continued to underestimate him. “Ah, Miss Lawrence,” he returned, smiling, “you have found me out. But then, what else is there to do now that peace is here but tear up our contemporaries behind their backs? It is a prerequisite of anyone claiming to be of the British upper class.”

“Bah? You British—” Mary began, then just as quickly ended. “You British men are all alike. You make a vocation out of refusing to take anything seriously. Why, Sir Henry has even said that English lords go to war with much the same enthusiasm as they approach grouse hunting, except that they don’t tend to regard war quite so seriously.”

The waltz ended, and Tristan put a hand under Mary’s elbow and steered her toward a door to the first-floor balcony without her ever realizing their destination. “Sir Henry is absolutely correct, Miss Lawrence,” he supplied smoothly as he helped her over the raised threshold and out onto the flagstones. “I’ve heard it more than once that we English believe all foreigners to be deucedly poor shots. Yet, be that as it may, we vain, arrogant English have succeeded in winning the war.”

“Have we?” Mary countered, seating herself on a low stone bench and watching as Tristan eased himself down beside her. “My uncle mutters that the only change thus far in Paris is that the newspapers and pats of butter are now imprinted with fleur-de-lis.”

Tristan berated himself for noticing how intriguingly Mary’s clear complexion captured the moonlight and added, “But that is not the worst that is being said, Miss Lawrence. Although I cannot claim to know anything about it, I have heard that it was English money used to bribe Napoleon’s generals that won us this war, just as it has done down through history, and that, in truth, Napoleon is very much Wellington’s superior.”

“As they have not faced each other across a battlefield, I believe that last to be a moot point, my lord,” Mary replied, wondering why her answer had brought a thoughtful frown to Lord Rule’s face.

“Then you have no preference between Napoleon and the duke? Surely you must have an opinion?” Tristan pressed.

“I must?” Mary shot back, suddenly realizing that she had somehow allowed herself to be isolated with a man she thoroughly detested. “Why? Surely a woman is not expected to have a head for war or politics. All that concerns me is that we are now free to visit Paris and investigate all the latest fashions.”

“And yet you are still here in London,” he pointed out, much to her chagrin. “I find it hard to believe you were not off to the Continent the minute Napoleon’s abdication was declared.”

This subject was close enough to Mary’s heart to cloud her earlier suspicions. “And I would have been, if not for Sir Henry’s summons,” she blurted before getting a belated hold on her tongue. Why was she feeling like a butterfly pinned down to a table for examination? Why did this seemingly innocent conversation seem so contrived, so full of probing questions? Why was she sitting here in the moonlight with a man she thoroughly abhorred in the first place? Rising to her feet with more haste than grace, she told Tristan that she had been absent too long from the ballroom and must return.

Tristan rose with her, once more taking firm possession of her elbow. “We wouldn’t want the tongues to wag, now would we, Miss Lawrence?” he agreed, just as if she had voiced the notion that the two of them were becoming thought of as a couple. “Besides, I do believe I heard another waltz beginning. I should be pleased to partner you.”

That stopped Mary in her tracks. Wheeling to face him, she gritted, “Are you mad? Two waltzes? Add that to our disappearance from the room and the whole world will have us betrothed.”

Tristan, who had decided to intensify his campaign with Mary by sticking as close as a barnacle to her side until he made up his mind about her once and for all, only smiled—causing Mary’s hand to itch to slap his handsome face. “Yes, they would, wouldn’t they? Ah well, I daresay Sir Henry won’t mind—he’s always seemed to like me a bit. Do you wish a long engagement?”

CHAPTER THREE

LISTENING TO TRISTAN’S WORDS, then whirling about to look into his disgustingly handsome, smiling face, caused Mary to spend the last coin of her self-control. “Marry you!” she shrieked, causing more than one interested head to turn in her direction. “Why, I’d rather be the sole woman on an island inhabited by shipwrecked sailors!”

Rule barely stifled an appreciative smile, which only served to incense Mary all the more, and bowed deeply from his waist. “And here I thought we were getting along so well,” he said, making a poor attempt at looking crushed by her words. “I stand corrected, madam.”

“Only until I knock you down, sirrah!” Mary retorted, trying to disengage her elbow, which he had maddeningly taken in his grasp. “Which I promise you I shall do shortly, if you do not release me.”

Any lingering trace of humor left Lord Rule’s face as he, by the simple means of closing his strong fingers around Mary’s tender elbow, steered her over to a secluded corner of the balcony and lowered his head to within scant inches of hers. “What kind of woman are you?” he demanded harshly, giving her abused arm a shake. “I try to be civil to you, even flatter you by indulging in a bit of mild flirtation such as you females demand of us men, and you repay me time after time with cutting words, insults, and now threats of violence.”

“Flirt with me! You call your outrageous suggestion flirting? And what do you mean by lumping me in with a bunch of chits with more hair than wit who giggle and simper as some ridiculous fop or other compares their crossed eyes to brightly shining stars?” Mary was so angry now that she either could not or would not take notice of his lordship’s set jaw and narrowed eyes. Raising her chin just a bit more, she sniffed dismissingly. “If you are going to ape your betters, I suggest you choose your models with more care.”

She was going to drive him straight out of his mind! His short-lived idea of insinuating himself into her good graces (all the better to keep a close watch on her) died an undignified death as his quick temper overrode his seldom-exercised discretion. Tristan stepped further back into the shadows, pulling Mary along with him willy-nilly, and took the back of her neck in his firm grip. “I am done playing games with you, Miss Lawrence. You tell me I am no gentleman, yet I have only your word for it that you are a lady.”

Mary’s heart began to pound as she belatedly realized that her sharp tongue had gotten her into yet another tight spot. “Apply to my uncle if you wish a tracing of my family tree.” She brazened it out, her green eyes spitting fire in the darkness. “I am not about to justify my existence to you.”

“I have talked with Sir Henry,” Tristan informed her to her dismay, “and all he says is that you are the daughter of an old friend. You have the man so besotted he’ll say anything to protect you, but I am not so hoodwinked by your beauty that I can overlook the fact that you have somehow established yourself in the house of one of the most important men in the war effort.”

Even in the midst of her fright Mary took a small bit of satisfaction in the notion that Lord Rule thought her beautiful, but that admission did not serve to overshadow the fact that he was accusing her of—what was he accusing her of? “You think I’m Sir Henry’s mistress?” she squeaked at last, feeling something akin to relief.

Tristan’s fingers tightened on the soft, slim neck. “Mistress?” he repeated, brought up short. “No, Rachel wouldn’t stand still for being a party to that, not even for an old friend…would she?” he questioned softly, as if debating with himself.

Mary reached up and tried to remove his hand, finger by tensed finger. “Look, my lord, either throttle me or let me go. Make up your mind.” In the space of a moment she had decided that Tristan Rule was not ruthless—he was ridiculous! But if he was suffering from overexposure to battle or some such thing, he should take himself off to some spa for the waters, not run amok in London searching out nonexistent intrigues. Besides, she reminded herself as she attempted to lift his thumb from the pulse point at the base of her throat, it wasn’t as if there was no intrigue about her presence in Sir Henry’s household—even though her true identity was not all that earthshaking. The last thing her uncle would wish for was this man meddling in their affairs.

Lord Rule shook his head a time or two, bringing himself back to the matter at hand. And that matter was, to be obvious about the thing, that the matter at hand was his hand—for somehow it had found its way around Miss Lawrence’s slender throat. God! The woman had the power to drive him distracted. And the thought that she could be Sir Henry’s mistress did something evil to his insides that he was powerless to deny. Looking down into her angry face, Tristan cudgeled his brain for a way out of this latest coil into which the dratted chit had succeeded in goading him.

“Well, sir,” Mary prompted, puzzled by the slightly dazed expression in Lord Rule’s dark eyes. “Which is it to be—a quick snuffing or sweet freedom?”

What would Julian do in a situation like this? Or Kit? Tristan cursed under his breath as he realized neither of those esteemed gentlemen would have allowed themselves to be drawn into such a tangled mess in the first place. But then neither of those men had ever stood within a heartbeat of the beautiful, willful, mysterious Miss Mary Lawrence. Any man could be excused for losing his head in such circumstances, he assured himself, regaining a small bit of his consequence while fueling his flagging temper with yet another shovelful of Mary Lawrence’s supposed sins against him.

The firm clasp turned abruptly into a rough sort of caress as Tristan Rule smiled evilly, and Mary found herself wishing he were still scowling. “Wh-what are you going to do?” she asked, already knowing the answer.

“What do you think I’m going to do?” Tristan returned in a soft growl. If he was already in trouble—and he knew he most assuredly would be the moment Sir Henry heard of this night’s work—he’d already decided he may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. His dark features nearly blotting out the moonlight as they descended on her, Tristan ended huskily, “I’m going to throttle you, what else?”

“No!” Mary protested swiftly, but not nearly quickly enough to keep her denial from being smothered by Lord Rule’s punishing mouth. Nor did her hands move rapidly enough to prevent his arms from capturing her slim body in his rock-hard embrace.

Mary had been kissed before, she was sure she had, but all of those kisses paled beneath the reality of Tristan’s mouth as it curved, and slanted, and moved possessively upon hers. As his strong arms forced the very air from her lungs, he captured her breath in his mouth and breathed his own life back into her. It was so personal, so intimate an action, that she felt herself to have been actually violated. When the tip of his tongue slid along the edge of her teeth as his mouth opened more fully over hers, then brazenly penetrated, Mary instinctively fought back.

“Ouch! You hellion!” Tristan spat, jumping back to reach a finger inside his mouth to inspect his wounded tongue.

Her hands balled into fists at her sides, her firm chin out-thrust in indignation, Mary warned coldly: “Touch me again, you miserable creature—even come within a mile of me—and I’ll have you horsewhipped!”

Watching appreciatively as Mary’s indignant figure stomped back into the ballroom, his hand held to the cheek she had slapped with some force in order to punctuate her parting warning, Tristan mused aloud, “She’d probably do it too. And at the moment, by God, it almost seems worth it.”

RACHEL HAD OBSERVED Mary’s departure with Rule, and had counted the minutes until her charge had returned alone to the ballroom, looking more than a little the worse for wear. But before Rachel could cross the floor to find out just what her infuriating nephew had done this time, Mary was claimed for a dance by some violet satin-clad exquisite and disappeared into the crowd of revelers.

That left Tristan, and Rachel was determined not to let the fellow get away without an explanation of what had transpired on the balcony. She found him lounging against the doorjamb, boring a hole in Mary’s unsuspecting back like some hot-headed halfling. She looked from Tristan to Mary and then back again, hardly believing what her eyes were telling her. It couldn’t be. It was utterly impossible. The Ruthless Lord Rule pricked by Cupid’s dart? Tristan was just shy of his thirtieth birthday, and in all that time he had never once shown any signs of being the romantic sort. True, she owned to herself, he had been hopping about the Continent and God only knew where else these past seven years or more, but considering the multitude of rumors about his involvement with the military, it seemed impossible for him to have carried on any serious romantic interlude without all of London finding out about it one way or another.

Tilting her head to one side, she inspected Tristan’s expression as he stood rock still, his whole body taut with suppressed—what? Fury? Passion? Lust? “Good heavens,” she whispered, “this novel writing has made me into a hysteric. Soon I’ll be reading Byron and swooning dead away.” Still, she thought as she looked at her nephew again, more objectively this time, Rule does have a certain look about him—the same sort of look, if I recall it correctly, that he had at the age of twelve, when his father refused to allow him on that great big stallion. And when Rachel recalled that Tristan had eventually not only mounted that stallion, but broken him to saddle, her fears for her charge began anew.

“Tristan,” she said, tugging on his sleeve to get his attention, “you look like a thundercloud. Kindly smile at me as if you didn’t wish me at the farthest corners of the earth and stop casting a pall over this entire company. I swear three totally innocent gentlemen have already departed the ballroom, believing you had them in their sights.”

Distracted, Rule ignored his aunt’s sarcasm, if indeed he had understood it. After all, he wasn’t deliberately striking a pose or any such thing. He was merely being himself—his intense, determined, passionate self. He might, in his more candid moments, admit to possessing a bit of a short fuse, but he consoled himself with the knowledge that he was never purposely mean. He leveled one long, last piercing look at the scrap of female that could just be the exception to his self-imposed rule of absolute chivalry where the weaker sex was concerned, and turned to address his aunt. “You wanted something, Aunt? A cooling glass of lemonade, perhaps?”

Rachel clenched her teeth in frustration. Tristan had always had this maddening ability to turn her up sweet just when she was about to tear a wide strip off his hide. A glass of lemonade, indeed! Better to have three fingers of whiskey if she was about to try to beat some sense into the idiot’s thick head! “No, thank you, dear,” she somehow trilled, taking his arm. “But it is dreadfully close in the ballroom. Perhaps you could bear me company for a stroll around the balcony?”

Again Tristan looked to the dance floor, where Mary was busily flirting with three gentlemen who were all vying for her hand for the next set, and then back at his aunt. “A stroll, you say? On the balcony? Couldn’t you just stand here in the doorway and take a few deep, bracing breaths?”

“Tristan Montgomery Rule!” Rachel snapped, longing to do him an injury. “Come with me willingly or I’ll pull you along by the ear like I did when you were in short pants!” And with that, she sailed off through the archway—her reluctant nephew trailing along behind—and prepared to bribe, bluster, threaten, or cajole the truth out of him. She owed it to Henry!

“’ERE NOW, ARE YER GONNA EAT wit dem dabblers on?” Ben questioned Mary, who had yet to relinquish her gloves into the servant’s waiting hands. “Yer be ‘ere fer yafflin’, ain’t yer? Montague’s done up a treat, so’s yer best be clammed.”

Mary turned to her aunt. “What did he say?” she asked, prudently giving over her gloves before the little fellow stripped them from her hands. “And what’s a Montague?”

Rachel nodded to the now deeply bowing Ben and propelled her charge up the stairs to the drawing room where Jennie and Lucy waited. “Montague is Jennie’s idea of a French chef, and you’d better be hungry or there may be the devil to pay. It’s a long story,” she conceded as Mary’s mouth opened on another question. “Suffice it to say Jennie has these little projects. For the moment, my dear, just follow my lead.” They stopped before the drawing-room door so that Ben could dash by and announce them, muttering something about earning his pantler’s keys (butler’s keys, to the uninformed, which Rachel, to her own regret, had not been ever since her chaperonage of Lucy). After allowing themselves to be trumpeted into the room like minor royalty, Rachel called the three young women quickly to order.

“I know it is my custom to retire to a corner and let you girls natter as you will, but I have requested this luncheon with a definite purpose in mind,” she began, quickly taking Jennie and Lucy’s interest away from Mary’s fetching new walking dress and onto herself.

“What ho? Do I sense some deep intrigue?” Lucy asked happily, clapping her hands.

“You always sense some deep intrigue,” Jennie commented to Lucy without rancor before turning back to her aunt. “Has someone unsuitable offered for Mary?” she asked, her thoughts, as usual, running along matrimonial lines.

“Has Uncle Henry at last agreed to send me to France?” Mary chimed in, immediately crossing her fingers for luck.

“Perhaps, no, and no, definitely not,” Rachel replied, pointing to each of the trio of young hopefuls in turn. “This meeting concerns one Tristan Rule. Something has got to be done about the boy.”

“Marry him off!” Lucy and Jennie declared in unison, while Mary’s only reply was to pucker up her nose in an expression of distaste, saying, “And a more boring subject I cannot imagine.”

Rachel sat down gingerly on the edge of the satin settee and addressed her next words directly to Mary. “You won’t believe it boring when I have told you just what maggot my nephew has taken into his head about you. I don’t remember him going off on such a wild tangent since that time he decided Lucy was really a boy in disguise and her father had put her into skirts so that he wouldn’t have to spring for an education at Eton.”

Jennie whirled on Lucy, who was laughing uproariously. “Lucy!” she exclaimed. “He never did! How old was Tristan when this happened?”

Lucy had to take refuge in her handkerchief as tears of mirth streamed from her eyes. “T-ten!” she chortled. “I was just a little past three myself. Oh dear, you would perish on the spot if I told you how Tristan was at last proved wrong. Thank goodness I have little but a hazy remembrance of his triumphant unveiling of my ‘masculine’ form in front of the vicar and his sister. I swear, Tristan couldn’t sit down for a week after my father got through with him!”

Mary found herself laughing in spite of herself, and in spite of the deep animosity she felt for Tristan Rule—especially after the events of the previous evening. The fact that she knew she couldn’t confide in either Rachel or Sir Henry without somewhat incriminating herself for her own less than ladylike behavior did not detract from the poor opinion of the man. Trying to keep her mind on the subject at hand, she put in, “I gather, Aunt, that your nephew’s latest incorrect assumption is even worse?”

There was no way to dress the thing up in fine linen, and Rachel was not about to try. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she announced baldly: “Tristan believes Mary might be a spy in the pay of Napoleon.”

Looking quite clearly puzzled, Jennie murmured, “But Napoleon is imprisoned on Elba. The war is over. Surely Kit would have told me if there was any danger. We plan to travel there next spring with Christopher and my father. And Montague was so looking forward to it too—he’s French, you know.”

Rachel shook her head. “We consider the war to be over, pet, but even Sir Henry is uneasy about the laxity of Bonaparte’s imprisonment. There has been more than one rumor about forces being at work to reinstate the man in Paris. He still carries the title of emperor, you know, even if he is in exile.”

While Rachel was explaining all this to Jennie, Lucy was observing Mary shrewdly out of the corners of her eyes. The girl was sitting as stiff and still as a ramrod, looking as if steam would commence pouring from her ears at any moment. Obviously Mary did not share Rachel’s apprehension, Jennie’s confusion, or her own hilarity—no, Miss Mary Lawrence was, in a word, incensed!

“How dare he,” Mary whispered nearly under her breath, and then more loudly. “How dare he!”

Immediately Jennie set out to placate her guest. “Now, Mary, don’t be so out-of-reason cross. Tristan has simply made an error in judgment. Surely Aunt Rachel has already set him straight.”

“It’s not for myself that I’m angry, Jennie,” Mary explained, rising to her feet to begin pacing up and down the length of the carpet. “It’s the insult to Sir Henry that I cannot and will not abide! How dare that ridiculous man cast such aspersions on the intelligence and discretion of one of the nation’s greatest patriots? For myself I care nothing, for Tristan Rule’s opinion of me is not something I would lose any sleep over, I assure you, but if Sir Henry were to catch wind of this—why, I cannot imagine the consequences.”

Rachel could. Rachel had. Which was why she was sitting here amid a group of painfully young ladies instead of pouring out her fears to the one man who she felt could settle the matter once and for all. Oh yes, she had thought of confiding in Julian or Kit, but since it was so pleasant to have her two nieces so happily married, she should hate having to start over from scratch finding replacements once that hot-headed Tristan had made them both into widows. Especially Lucy—dear Lord, getting that one bracketed had cost Rachel more than a few gray hairs!

“I have, unlike you, had a full night to ponder our problem, so I have entertained a few ideas…” Rachel slid in before Mary could snatch up her reticule and go off searching for Lord Rule in order to bash him soundly about the head and shoulders. All three pairs of young eyes immediately concentrated in her direction.

Agreeing with Mary that Sir Henry was best left ignorant of Rule’s assumption, Rachel admitted that the only concrete idea she could come up with was that Tristan Rule needed to be taught a lesson—a very strong lesson. She was now, she told them sincerely, applying to three of the most agile, devious, determined minds she knew for ways to render to her nephew the trimming he so obviously deserved.

“We could have him impressed in His Majesty’s service on a ship bound for deepest Africa,” Mary offered most evilly.

Rachel declined that option, warning, “Mary, my dear, if you would please try for a little more elegance of mind? Besides, knowing Tristan, he would incite a mutiny within three days of leaving port and return here with a full crew of faithful sailors bound to help him expose your dastardly purpose. No, much as I wish it, we shall have to deal with Tristan, not merely transport him.”

Mary just shrugged, then suggested a second option—something vaguely connected with boiling his lordship in oil.

“Oh, I do like this girl!” Lucy said, giggling. “No simpering miss, this.”

Slowly it dawned on the company that Jennie had not spoken for some time. Lucy looked over at her cousin to find the girl wiping away a tear, and promptly asked her what was amiss. “I’ve been thinking about poor Mary, and how she must feel to be supposed guilty of such a grievous crime,” Jennie supplied before daintily blowing her nose. “It is horrid, simply horrid! I wonder how Tristan would feel to be placed in such a position. Perhaps if the slipper were on the other foot for a change, it might show him how unfair his assumptions can be.”

Mary immediately stopped her pacing, an unholy grin lighting her beautiful face. Racing over to swoop the still-sniffling Jennie into her arms, she gave that girl a resounding kiss on the cheek. “Jennie, you dearest thing, you have hit upon it exactly. Lord Rule is long overdue for a lesson. For too long has he been allowed to make hare-witted assumptions about his fellow man and then set about proving how right he is, no matter what the cost to his victim. For Lucy’s injured sensibilities as a child, for his insult to Sir Henry, and for all the other people he has persecuted with his single-minded, not to mention simpleminded determination—we shall teach him a lesson!”

Lucy tipped her head to one side. “I agree about the rest of it, but I don’t know if you can truthfully say I was a victim,” she corrected impishly. “After all, I have it from my old nurse that I quite enjoyed showing off for the vicar, and repeated the practice every time an adult came into range for the next few months—until Papa finally broke me of the habit.”

“How did he do that?” Jennie was the only person interested enough to inquire.

“By the simple expedient of basting her drawers to her shift until she got the message,” Rachel supplied, smiling a bit to herself. “It was my idea, actually. Hale wrote to me in desperation.”

Ben entered the room and announced luncheon with all the pomp and ceremony Montague’s creations deserved, and Jennie quickly ushered her guests into the dining room, where Mary once again commanded everyone’s attention by unveiling the plan that had already grown to major proportions within her agile brain. If Tristan Rule had thought he could prove Mary to be a spy, she was going to be extremely helpful in convincing him of her guilt! In other words, if he wished her to act like a traitor, she would accommodate him—in spades.

“Oh, for a humdrum existence,” Rachel said to no one in particular, envying every bored on-the-shelf spinster in all England.

Lucy was all for Mary’s idea. Indeed, she even volunteered her every assistance, but she couldn’t help but ask: “Just how is this going to provide Tris with his overdue lesson in minding his own business? I mean, skulking about leaving messages and acting suspicious sounds like whacking great fun, but surely it will only work to make Tristan more sure of his convictions.”

“Not if I—with a little help from you, my dear friends—also behave, as if Tristan is the real French spy in our midst, and return his treatment of me twofold!” Mary told him confidently.

Lifting her glass in a salute to her new friend’s genius, Lucy promised jovially, “And when it is all over, and Tristan has been suitably humbled, he will fall at your feet begging for your hand in marriage!”

Mary’s smile faded as she remembered the events of the previous evening. “Then I will have him aboard that ship to Africa after all!” she vowed sincerely, not noticing Jennie’s and Lucy’s exchange of broad winks.

CHAPTER FOUR

MARY FLUNG DOWN the magazine she had been reading, unable to sustain an interest in a gushing description of the latest fashions from Paris, and hopped up to pace back and forth impatiently across the drawing-room rug, her small hands clenched into unladylike fists. Oh, she was so angry! Drat that Tristan Rule anyway!

She halted in her tracks momentarily to stare malevolently at a Sevres figurine, seeing Rule’s dark, well-made features rather than the smiling face of an innocent young country maid dressed in pink ruffles. Who does he think he is, she ranted to herself, to be judging me like the Lord on Doomsday? He’s an obtuse, despicable, intolerable, opinionated… Mary turned on her heels and set about pacing once more, unable to continue her thoughts else she’d be forced to throw something.

And it wasn’t bad enough that the man had all but convicted her of spying for the French, oh no—he had also shown her, by his actions of the previous week, that he was not about to do his accusing from the sidelines. Acting as if she had never warned him to approach her again, he had been up to his old tricks, standing up with her for the length of one infuriating dance and then retiring to a nearby pillar to glower at her like some angry ancient god for the remainder of the evening, just as if he expected her to give herself away somehow, proving his ludicrous theory to be correct.

Even worse, everyone was so all-fired afraid of the man. It was almost ridiculous to see all her former beaux defecting from the ranks one by one as they put their tails between their legs and ran from Rule’s intense stares. How was she to have any fun at all if her main amusement—harmless flirting—was to be denied her? What it had come to, she realized as she brought herself up with a start, was that she had only two options open to her—either allowing Rule to court her openly so that she could at least go out in society without feeling like a pariah, or else retiring posthaste to a nunnery!

Crash! It was no use—something had to satisfy Mary’s outrage, and the china maiden had been elected. Staring at the porcelain shards scattered about in the cold fireplace, Mary was angered even more when she realized that she had broken a valuable piece of Sir Henry’s property without the action easing her fury by so much as a jot. Oh, if only she could have Rule here in person; smashing him would be entire worlds more satisfying.

Almost as if she had conjured him up by sheer force of will, she whirled at the sound of the butler’s announcement to see Tristan Rule striding big as life into the drawing room. “You!” she exclaimed, her eyes narrowing dangerously. “What do you want?”

Tristan quickly took in Mary’s flushed cheeks and belligerent stance and impulsively decided to change his mission from that of seeing his aunt to the possibly more profitable one of trying to goad Mary Lawrence into betraying her guilt. “Bonjour, mademoiselle,” he pronounced in perfect accents, making her an elegant leg.

“It was,” Mary snapped peevishly, and then, sparked by an imp of perversity that she could no more deny than she could her need to breathe, she launched herself into a long, involved speech concerning the growing list of fêtes and receptions planned for the upcoming celebration of peace, all in faultless French. There! If the man wants signs of guilt, I’ll give him signs of guilt until he drowns himself in them!

Tristan could not hide his triumphant smile. The chit spoke French like a native of that country. Even he, trained in several languages, could find nothing to fault in her accent or usage. “Your French tutor must have been an émigré, Miss Lawrence, to have taught you so well,” he offered as bait.

Mary opened her mouth as if to speak, then lifted an anxious hand to her breast and stammered nervously. “Y-yes, yes indeed. How clever of you. That’s precisely who it was. A poor émigré. The wretched creature so needed employment at the time that I ended up having a resident tutor for several years whilst I was in Sussex.” There, she thought, hiding a grin. That should serve to convince him I’m lying through my teeth. Ah, look at him, smiling one of his devilish secretive smiles, just like the cat who got into the cream. I’m surprised he hasn’t already sent for the constable, so sure of himself is he.

“Tristan! What brings you here today? And Mary, why didn’t you have me summoned at once? You know you should not be entertaining a gentleman without a chaperon.”

“Was I?” Mary commented under her breath as she looked apologetically at her companion.

Rachel’s entrance into the room startled Rule into looking up blankly for a moment, and Rachel heaved a small sigh of relief when she realized that her nephew and Mary hadn’t come to fisticuffs before she could place herself as a buffer between their two warlike personalities. “Have you come to see Sir Henry, nephew? He is out at present, but we expect him back directly.”

“He is back,” came Sir Henry’s voice, shortly to be followed by that man’s pudgy presence in the doorway. “Come courting, have you, boy? Since I saw you not an hour ago at the War Office, it can’t be my face you were longing to see.” Sir Henry nodded his head a time or two, a broad smile on his cherubic face. “Good, good. I rather like the idea of Tristan running tame in his house, Rachel. He’s a hotheaded young puppy, but loyal as the day is long, and valuable. You couldn’t make a better choice, Mary, my dear, not if you looked for a dozen Seasons. Right, Rachel?”

Rachel closed her eyes and shook her head, not knowing whether to box Sir Henry’s ears or give him a smacking great kiss on the mouth. But one way or another—due to his foolish blustering—matters were about to come to a head, and Rachel couldn’t be happier. All this scheming and plotting among Mary and her two nieces on the one side and Tristan, aided by his fertile imagination and stubborn tenacity, on the other was sure to lead her to an early grave—and with her novel just begun. At least now either Mary or Tristan, or both of them, would be forced to own to the truth before Sir Henry went posting the banns.

Tristan, however, was not about to look what he saw as a gift horse in the molars. Instead of denying that he was indeed love-bitten, or even running from the house and matrimony in full bachelor flight, he was saying something ridiculously silly about wishing to take the charming Miss Lawrence for a ride in the promenade in order to convince her that he was sincere in his regard for her.

Clearly, Tristan had twisted everything round to his own advantage and could care less what Sir Henry supposed as long as he could proceed unimpeded in his quest to have Mary to himself in order to ascertain once and for all whether or not she was a traitor.

That left Mary, and Rachel turned to look at her appealingly, hoping that the child had reconsidered her plans now that Sir Henry could end up the innocent victim in the affair. But if sane, rational thinking in the face of impending disaster was what Rachel had hoped for, she was due for a disappointment that would keep her up nights for a long time to come.

Mary, hiding her furiously clenched fists behind her back, was just then smiling sweetly and denying nothing. Indeed, she was looking up into Tristan’s handsome features with a look so cloyingly sweet that Rachel knew she, for one, would be put off sugaring her tea for a sennight.

Tilting her head slightly to one side in a move meant to be coquettish, Mary blushed becomingly (a trick she had mastered in her cot) and simpered, “Oh, Sir Henry! Do you think I should? After the marked attentions Lord Rule has been so kind as to show me, I scarce wish the vulgar tattles to have more to prattle about.” She then hesitated, overdoing things a little bit, Rachel thought, by putting her fingers to her mouth and giggling, before admitting, “But I would like to ride up beside Lord Rule above all things!”

“I’ll have your maid bring your cloak and bonnet, Mary,” Rachel volunteered from between clenched teeth, frantic to quit the room before she did either her overacting charge or her sleuthing nephew an injury.

Within ten minutes, a beaming, benevolent Sir Henry and a resigned, realistic Rachel were standing at the front door, waving the young couple on their way.

BY THE TIME THEY ARRIVED in the park, Mary’s good humor had been much restored, thanks to the brilliant idea she’d had as she spied a rather down at the heels frizeur, hatbox in hand, crossing the street in front of them. Catching the Frenchman’s attention by the simple expediency of a maidenly screech supposedly caused by the distressing sight of a rather large, slavering dog, Mary took great pains in gifting the hairdresser with a broad wink and a furtive-looking wave of the hand before hastily pretending an unnatural interest in one fingertip of her right glove.

It is superfluous to report that this supposedly covert signal was witnessed by the ever-alert Tristan, just as any of that man’s enemies would be quick to point out to the assumed-to-be-careless Miss Lawrence.

Filing away a mental picture of the Frenchman before urging his team forward once more, Tristan determined to seek out Mary’s “contact” and question him as soon as possible, a notion that Mary—just then snickering into her gloved hand—found distinctly amusing. Soon, with any luck at all, she’d have Tristan so busy chasing ridiculous false leads all over London that he wouldn’t have a single moment left free to tease her with his unwanted attentions.

If she had any slight qualms about the course of action she had embarked upon since hearing of Tristan’s assumptions about her, his earnest reaction to her pretended message-passing effectively banished the last of her more tender feelings.

But it would not do to have this thing all onesided. As Jennie had said, it was time Tristan learned just how it felt to be pursued like some helpless deer hunted in a fenced wood. Yes, it was time she started giving him a hint or two about her own, deliberately amateurish investigation of his loyalties.

She began the moment Rule’s curricle was eased into line behind a dowager countess’s rusty black barouche, ready to take their part in the late-afternoon promenade. “You understood my French quite well, my lord,” she began innocently enough. “Perhaps you too have a French émigré as a tutor?”

This seemingly artlessly posed query brought surprising results. Not accustomed to being questioned on his personal life, Rule answered her question with one of his own. “Why do you ask?” he shot back quickly.

Mary took refuge in another girlish giggle. Goodness, the man was touchy! “Lud, my lord,” she needled him, “anyone would think you had learned your French at Boney’s knee, for all you’re so ticklish about the subject. I told you about my tutor; surely your knowledge of the language was not gained through some nefarious means, was it?”

What the deuce was the girl up to? Tristan pretended to concentrate on his horses while he cudgeled his brain for an answer. She was only playacting at being a brainless ninny; he was not so obtuse as to not see through her pretense, but he was at a loss as to why.

Besides, it was he who had questions that needed answering not she. She was the one with no traceable background, just as if she had been hatched full-grown from an egg three months earlier. It was she who had installed herself snugly in Sir Henry’s house, hoodwinking that poor, naïve man with her deadly charms; she who could be anyone from Sir Henry’s by-blow to Bonaparte’s first cousin. She was the one who had some serious explaining to do, and he was not about to allow her to turn the tables on him and try to make him England’s fiercest patriot, into a person of questionable allegiance.

Turning in his seat, the better to see her reaction to his words, Tristan smiled broadly, saying, “Why, Miss Lawrence, what an odd imagination you have. Nefarious French lessons? You didn’t strike me as one of those females who’s addicted to those novels full of dark danger and imperiled innocents adrift in a cruel world.”

Mary dug her fingernails into her palms until she could control her urge to do Lord Rule an injury. Then, returning his smile just as brilliantly, she trilled, “But Lord Rule, your own aunt is penning just such a novel. Surely you must hold her in disgust if your opinion of her chosen medium is so very low?”

“My aunt is merely filling her time until Sir Henry wakes up and realizes he cannot risk losing Rachel a second time and makes her his wife. I’ll not begrudge her this little hobby if it makes her happy,” he ended, just as if he had anything at all to say about the running of Rachel’s life.

Looking around at the greening landscape and seeing everything through a red haze of anger, Mary found herself amazed yet again at the maddening way Lord Rule had of putting everything and everybody into neat little boxes, then labeling them as he saw fit. It was as if he had inherited some of Jennie’s matchmaking tendencies—his cousin’s burning desire to settle everyone happily into perfectly fitting niches—and some of his cousin Lucy’s single-minded determination in following through on any project once undertaken, no matter what the odds, as well as more than his fair share of Lucy’s tendency to meddle in whatever she considered to be her business.

What Mary had yet to fully understand was that Tristan—being the male of the species and therefore more prone to looking upon his less desirable traits as sterling qualities—had grown into manhood with his determination hardening into firm, unwavering resolve, while his wish to settle people changed into managing interference and his natural curiosity about his fellowman twisted into suspicion and mistrust of those he could not neatly categorize. And all of this had happened because no one had ever yet had sufficient courage to tell him he was fast becoming an opinionated, arrogant, fire-breathing Don Quixote—out to right the world’s wrongs as he was so clearly, in his own mind, called upon to do.

Having been deeply involved with the defense of his country for the past seven years, his talents (or failings, depending on whom you applied to for a judgment) had been honed and refined until he felt himself able to judge and mentally file away a man within mere minutes of making his acquaintance. He did not give any credence to hearsay or rumor—and paid only a little more attention to the official documents he was frequently provided with to use as a guide—choosing instead to make up his own mind in his own way. In this manner he had decided that, seeing that Lucy trusted Julian, the man was obviously innocent of any involvement with the death of a young woman who had claimed to be his discarded mistress.

Yet, perversely, he had decided that Mary Lawrence—vouched for by his trusted superior, Sir Henry—a girl of no background who had popped up in the household of the same so-important Sir Henry, was a very dangerous woman. The unnerving way his skin tightened at the mere sight of her; the tendency the hair at the back of his head had of bristling—tingling his scalp—at the sound of her unaffected laugh; the unnatural talent she had for bewitching all who came within her charmed circle; everything about Mary Lawrence screamed out at him danger—danger.

Although he could not, if pressed, produce a single damning piece of evidence to support his theory, Rule stuck buckle and thong to his initial conclusion—either in deference to his seldom-off-target intuition or because of that inborn streak of stubbornness, not even he was able to say. All he knew was that in all his nine and twenty years of living, he had never before experienced this sense of very real personal danger that he felt every time he stood up for the waltz with Mary Lawrence.

His life had for many years depended on his ability to judge people, and Mary, even though she was living under Sir Henry’s protection, even though she looked as innocent as a newborn lamb, even though she was the most beautiful, fascinating woman he had ever met, was a prime suspect in the newly discovered plot to free Bonaparte from Elba and return him to Paris as emperor. Hadn’t he suspected her from the moment he had arrived back in London after Sir Henry’s summons only to see the girl already entrenched in Sir Henry’s own home? And now, having decided for himself that he was correct in his assumptions, he would not rest until he uncovered her entire scheme and unmasked her co-conspirators.

Tristan looked over at Mary again, pretending an interest in a showy stallion just then being edged along the path by his proud owner, and experienced yet again the unnerving tingle that her mere proximity to his person invariably provoked. Guilty as sin, he assured himself yet again, unanswering in his belief in his own intuition—and, unbeknownst to him, demonstrating yet again his total ignorance of the body’s power to recognize what the mind refuses to accept.

THE SILENCE THAT HAD descended upon the pair ever since Tristan’s casual dismissal of Rachel’s motives for penning a novel had not bothered them as long as they were each locked in their own private thoughts.

While Rule’s mind had traveled yet again down the same narrow road—the one that ended with proof of Mary’s guilt being irrefutably laid at her doorstep—Mary had taken her mind down quite another path entirely, one strewn with roadblocks set up to catch the sleuthing Lord Rule unawares and send him spinning posthaste into a water-filled ditch.

The man was more than insufferable, she had decided, with those condescending remarks about his aunt just another example of his overweening arrogance—and he was fast becoming a menace.

Oh yes, she had seen the dashing young Hussar smile and begin to approach the curricle before realizing who she was sitting up beside and beating a hasty retreat lest he run the chance of getting on Ruthless Rule’s wrong side. And she had fumed impotently when three other gentlemen, two on horseback and one out driving his purple-turbaned mama, had only waved to her furtively and then scurried away—the latter gentleman nearly toppling his mama from the squabs in his haste to be off.

Lepers have more human contact, Mary thought in disgust. What is it about this fellow that sends strong men racing for cover and makes young ladies feel faint and reach for their hartshorn? Yes, she owned reluctantly, he was handsome enough to cause any number of swoons, but so far she had not seen even one enterprising miss work up sufficient nerve to so much as flutter an eyelash in his direction.

Mary smiled to herself. I must be some sort of extraordinary being—not only am I able to sit up alongside this man without suffering a hint of the vapors, but I am totally unafraid of the man or his disgusting nickname. And that presents me with a puzzle: for either everyone else is overreacting to the man’s reputation and ridiculous affectations of black clothing and blacker stares, or I am contemplating the greatest folly imaginable by plotting intrigues against the most dangerous man in all of England.

And so it was that, just as Tristan was covertly peeping at Mary to assure himself once more of her guilt, Mary was, in her turn, covertly peeping at him, guilt written all over her beautiful oval-shaped face. Tristan’s normally severe expression hardened into a cold mask as Mary’s creamy complexion heated to a fiery red, and the two broke eye contact self-consciously to concentrate on viewing the scenery with a thoroughness that would make anyone suppose they were considering redesigning the entire park.

Now the silence became noticeably uncomfortable for both parties. Tristan watched as Mary’s gloved hands folded and unfolded nervously in her lap, and he experienced a rare feeling of compassion—which he quickly squelched. They were caught up in the heavy traffic of carriages and curricles, and would be for at least another half hour, and he was not about to let this golden opportunity escape him.

“Miss Lawrence,” he began, surprised to hear a hint of tenderness in his voice, “have I told you that I have recently been across to Paris?”

“Have you?” Mary commented, pushing down the urge to tell him he should have stayed there and spared London and herself his obnoxious presence. “I hear it is very gay. Sir Henry says we may travel there next spring, but I am hoping to convince him it is quite safe enough now to visit. After all, everyone is there.”

Continuing to direct his attention to his team, which was still at a standstill behind the rusty black barouche, Rule prodded, “You have a strong desire to set foot on French soil, Miss Lawrence?”

“I have a strong desire to set foot in a French dress shop, sir,” she replied frankly. “And to visit Versailles, and see all the places I have only been told about, and to be invited to one of the exclusive salons, and to have my hand kissed by a dashing Frenchman.” She sighed. “I desire only what every young woman in England desires, my lord. What did you find to amuse you whilst in Paris? Gambling houses? Beautiful women? Intrigue?”

He almost believed her, but her question, that seemed so innocent, set his defenses at attention once again. “I was there on orders from my government, Miss Lawrence. I found nothing to admire in a country that waged such a costly war against our people.”

“Oh, my lord, how rigid you are!” Mary exclaimed, momentarily forgetting the part she had decided to play. “Surely you cannot condemn an entire country, an entire people, for the ambitions of a few? Surely it is Bonaparte’s thirst for power and territory that must be condemned, and not the people he ruled. After all, they suffered too. Why, look at that disastrous retreat from Moscow. I understand thousands of poor soldiers perished in the snows.”

“’From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step,’” Rule quoted quietly.

“What?”

“Bonaparte made that remark just before he deserted his troops to run back to Paris and raise another army to replace the one he squandered so carelessly in Russia,” Rule told her informatively.

“How would you know that?” Mary asked, much impressed in spite of herself. “Surely you would have had to have been there to—oh my, sir, I do believe I’m beginning to place a bit more credence in the rumors I have heard about your exploits as a master spy!”

Rule’s dark eyes took on a shuttered look as he recalled his infiltration into the ranks of retreating soldiers, wearing a filthy, torn uniform, his bare feet wrapped in the bloody rags he had taken from a man who had no further need for them, and remembered again how Bonaparte, before stepping back inside his closed coach, had placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder and promised to see them all again in Paris. How he had hated that man for the way he had ridden off, leaving his army to grope along toward the border without his guidance or the inspiration of his leadership.

But Tristan had done his job, and had slipped back into the trees to where his horse was waiting to carry him to safety and the first of the many couriers who would pass on the valuable information he had gleaned during the weeks he had watched Bonaparte’s invincible grand armée degenerate into the ragged band of disease-ridden unfortunates who could conquer everything but the wrath of the Russian winter.

“I’ll say it again, my lord,” Mary pressed as she could see that Rule had retreated into what seemed to be an unpleasant memory, “you must have been a very proficient spy, just as it has been hinted, to have gleaned such personal conversation. Now that we are at peace again, couldn’t you please satisfy my curiosity by telling me exactly what it was that made you so valuable to Sir Henry?”

“I traveled,” Rule said shortly. “And I reported on what I saw. Nothing more.”

“You traveled a war-torn continent, my lord,” Mary pointed out, knowing she was pushing the point. “You must have been in constant peril. Yet your reputation is for being ruthless, if I may be so bold as to point that out to you. Surely a mere informant would not earn such a title?”

Rule smiled at her, giving her credit for having the courage to put into words what other people—even his two audacious cousins and outspoken aunt—had not dared to ask. “People tend to draw romantic conclusions when they hear bits and pieces of events as told to them by some of the men I met in my travels. I assure you, I did not leave a trail of bloody bodies in my wake. I only did what was necessary to keep our government apprised of pertinent facts needed to plan strategies and judge the results of those strategies.”

Mary shivered deliciously. “Imagine! One incident of incorrect reporting or incomplete information could have cost thousands of lives—maybe even lost the war. How modest you are, my lord, when it was you who single-handedly guided the direction of the entire war effort. No wonder my uncle speaks so highly of you. I vow I am impressed beyond measure!”

Tristan was taken aback by Mary’s unaffected enthusiasm and high praise. He was also human enough to glory a bit in her display of esteem. Perhaps he had been overreacting—seeing guilt where there were only unanswered questions—after all, this wasn’t the first time he had felt a niggle of doubt about his judgment of Mary Lawrence. She surely didn’t sound like a Bonaparte sympathizer. She sounded very much like a devout patriot.

“Well,” Mary was saying, with some heat, “I think it is absolutely criminal the way the War Office hasn’t given you a single word of commendation, or even a cash settlement or title for all you have done. I wouldn’t be in the least surprised if you weren’t thoroughly disillusioned with us all—if you decided that Bonaparte was the better man after all.”

She swiveled on the seat to look at him piercingly. “You aren’t happy, are you, my lord, now that the war is at long last over? You must miss the excitement—I vow I would. With all that you know, it would be a simple matter for you to contact just the right people to effect Bonaparte’s rescue from that pitiful island and transport him back to Paris. I’m sure the Emperor knows how to reward the people who serve him—unlike England, that bundles you off when it has no further use for you.”

“You think my allegiance can be bought, Miss Lawrence?” Tristan asked dangerously, rising to the bait.

Ah, if only Jennie could be here to see her cousin finally getting his comeuppance! “Everyone has a price, my lord, whether it be in gold or by way of appealing to something deep inside that craves to be recognized,” Mary nudged recklessly, glorying in her ability to finally get under this infuriating man’s skin.

Rule’s eyes narrowed as he stared at her. “And are you buying or selling, Miss Lawrence?”

CHAPTER FIVE

MARY KNEW SHE HAD GONE too far. In her attempt to make him look guilty, and at the same time present herself as equally capable of treason, she had become overly ambitious—and stupidly careless.

She had meant to tease, to confuse, and to set him chasing madly after his own tail, but she hadn’t planned on exposing her own neck to such an alarming degree. Lord, he looked fit to strangle her for the heartless traitor he took her to be—the scheming Bonapartist who dared suggest his loyalty could be bought.

She forced a silly giggle past her numb lips. “Whatever do you mean, my lord?” she asked, trying her utmost to look unintelligent—and only succeeding in appearing guilty as sin—“I was only funning. Far be it from me to suggest that—”

“That there are certain people who would like nothing better than to see Napoleon Bonaparte back on the throne in France, waging war against England again,” Rule ended for her neatly, and with heavy sarcasm. “I don’t find your assumptions amusing when they are applied to me, madam, and I can only question your reasons for broaching the subject at all.”

You don’t like it, do you? Mary shouted inwardly. Well, how do you think I feel each time you eye me like some butterfly on a pin? Aloud, she exclaimed, throwing up her hands in disgust, “Sacrebleu! You have caught me out, my lord. I confess! I’m a Bonapartist loyalist, sent to England to recruit volunteers to sail to Elba. Sir Henry was just an innocent pawn in my dastardly scheme; my reason for being here was to recruit you, England’s grandest spy, over to our cause. I tried my utmost, but your loyalty to your mad king has proved too strong for my frail female wiles, which, heaven knows, I have used in excess in order to bring you to your knees at my feet. Alas, I must go to my fate, beaten but unbowed. Vive la république!” Her speech concluded, Mary folded her arms and awaited further developments, secretly wondering if association with this overzealous patriot had seriously unhinged her mind.

The silence that followed Mary’s impassioned confession lasted until Rule had steered his curricle back out onto the street and relative privacy—and beyond. Once they had turned into the roadway fronting Sir Henry’s residence, Rule commented, his voice sounding quite weary, “I have been playing the spy too long, Miss Lawrence, and have begun to see danger where none exists. Please accept my deepest apologies for ever having suspected you of any crime against England. It’s obvious to me now that my aunt has told you of my conversation with her. I can understand now why you have gone out of your way to convince me of your guilt—waving so frantically at that poor hairdresser, for instance. It was meant to show just how ludicrous my assumptions were.”

“Congratulations, my lord,” Mary allowed, but not too graciously. “And here Rachel gave me the impression that you had to be hit on the head—repeatedly—with a heavy red brick before you could be convinced of anything other than your own judgments. But I own myself astonished. Do you seriously mean you no longer view me as a member of a group plotting to free Bonaparte? You actually see me as innocent?”

Rule’s spine straightened slightly. “You’re no spy, Miss Lawrence, but you’re not quite an innocent either. There’s some mystery about you, I’d swear to that, but whatever it is, it’s no business of mine—at least it won’t be once I’ve convinced myself that you present no harm to Sir Henry or Rachel, or my cousins, who have befriended you for some reason.”

“Like a dog with a bone, aren’t you?” Mary sniffed, alighting from the curricle before Tristan could make a move to help her. “If I’m not a spy, I must be something else equally distasteful. Well, you know what, Lord High and Mighty Rule, you can just take your silly suspicions and your nasty little assumptions—and stuff them in your hat!”

After emphatically nodding her head, as if to put a period to their discussion—and their relationship—Mary whirled away to ascend the steps to the house. But she turned at the top of the short flight to make one last statement—or threat: “And don’t ever suppose I will stand up with you on the dance floor, for if you approach me I shall surely go into strong hysterics and kick you firmly in the shins!”

The heavy door slammed on the sight of her departing back as Tristan sat where he was, rubbing his chin in deep thought. She was a real termagant, this Miss Mary Lawrence, or whoever she really was.

Because of her, he found himself having to rethink his conclusions for the first time in a very long time—a prospect that cheered him far more than he expected. He wasn’t exactly sure of just what the future held for the lady and himself, but one thing he knew for certain—she hadn’t seen the last of him, not by a long chalk.

After all, there was still that tingle to consider…and now this strange itch…an itch that had begun to tantalize him as he watched Mary’s trimly rounded bottom jiggling provocatively as she flounced away from him and up the steps.

IT WAS THE SEVENTH HEAVEN of the fashionable world, Almack’s in the late spring of 1814, but to Tristan Rule it was a punishment worse than being forced by his fond mama at the tender age of twelve to stand up during a country dance with his cousin Lucy and be oohed and aahed at by a host of smiling relatives. Already he could see Lady Jersey measuring him from between narrowed eyelids, wondering whether or not she could coerce, bully, or otherwise persuade him into partnering any of the limp wallflowers that seemed to consider Almack’s their own private hothouse.

But there was nothing else for it—as it was Wednesday, and if he were to seek her out this evening, Almack’s was the logical place to start. Not that he planned to single her out for anything as ridiculous as the Scottish reel now in progress, even if the celebrated violinist, Niel Gow, was the one sawing away on the strings. He winced involuntarily as Lord Worcester whirled by with Lady Harriett Butler, the two of them panting and sweating like dray horses after a long run.

The things I won’t do for my country, Tristan thought to himself as he pushed his lean body away from the pillar he had been reclining against and began another seemingly leisurely stroll around the rooms, his dark eyes searching—ever searching—for a sight of Mary Lawrence.

It was nearing the hour of eleven when at last his vigilance was rewarded and he espied his Aunt Rachel entering the vestibule, her tardy charge in tow. Mary was in looks tonight as, he reminded himself with a snicker of self-derision, she was every night, drat the infuriating chit anyhow. After disposing of her shimmering taffeta cloak, now being lovingly carried away by one of the stewards, Mary turned to face the ballroom and gave the assembled guests their first glimpse of her ivory-colored gown (that complemented her gleaming ivory shoulders and half-exposed bosom perfectly, Tristan could not help but notice). The entire bodice of the gown, along with at least ten inches of the hem and demi-train, were lavishly sprinkled with diamante dewdrops that winked and glistened with every move she made, every breath she took.

Twinkling diamonds lent an extra sparkle to her dark curls and glittered in her ears—even her dainty slippers were adorned with brilliant diamante bows. On another woman the abundance of sparkle would have appeared overdone, even slightly vulgar, but Mary carried it off beautifully. All around him Tristan heard the indrawn breaths of jealous debutantes and the hissing whispers of their disgruntled mamas, while the comments of the gentlemen within earshot only served to start a fire in Lord Rule’s blood that had little to do with his zealous interest in the welfare of his homeland.

He was drawn to Mary’s side almost without realizing he had moved, and the dozen or so hopeful swains who harbored plans of their own concerning Miss Lawrence hastily stepped off in other directions, unwilling to challenge Ruthless Rule’s claim to the Incomparable for the country dance just forming.

The sparkle of Mary’s attire dimmed beside the hard glitter now in her huge green eyes. After the way they had parted only that afternoon—and most especially after she had issued her threat to physically assault him if he ever dared approach her again—she had wondered about this meeting, even fantasized about it a bit, picturing the arrogant Lord Rule hopping about some ballroom in his elegant black dress, looking for all the world like a huge crow flapping its wings as he favored his injured shin.

But now reality, in the form of that infuriating man himself, was staring her straight in the eye, daring her to make cakes out of both of them within the most hallowed, and most prestigious, walls of Almack’s. Almack’s—the holy grail of young English womanhood, ever longed for, prayed over, dreamed about, and once attained, cherished close to her bosom forevermore. Damn his devious soul! she cried inwardly—he knows I can’t make a scene here. He knows it and is standing there smirking at me, laughing at me, because once again he has won and I have lost.

But then Mary remembered her plans for this evening, plans she had somehow been reluctant to cancel even after Rule’s admission that afternoon that he no longer considered her to be a French spy. Why not? she thought as she swallowed down hard on her ride and smiled at her worst enemy, holding out one French kid-encased hand to accept his invitation to join the other young couples on the floor.

As Tristan smiled at her knowingly, being human enough to savor the moment of his triumph—and male enough to be so foolish as to show it—Mary’s gloved fingertips bit hurtingly into his forearm, reminding him once more that this particular kitten, although she looked so outwardly soft and cuddly, was not averse to using her claws. He may have satisfied himself that she was not the person he had been told to seek—the English connection in a Continent-wide plot to free Napoleon—but she was still an unanswered question in his mind. And Tristan didn’t like unanswered questions. For all he knew, she could be twice as dangerous as the conspirator he sought, both to his friend and mentor Sir Henry and his cousins Lucy and Jennie.

Yes, he told himself as they parted momentarily due to the movements of the dance, he mustn’t allow Miss Lawrence’s obvious beauty and charm to blind him to the very real fact that now he had not one, but two problems. He held out his hand to Mary, leading her into the next movement of the dance even as he assessed her yet again, looking for clues he was not certain he would recognize even if they were pushed into his face, and wished once more for the simplicity of war, where your enemies were so much easier to spot. “You are, as usual, in fine looks this evening, Miss Lawrence,” he baited her as they rubbed shoulders lightly before moving on, “and that heightened color in your cheeks is most flattering.”

I believe I just might murder that man, Mary mused satisfyingly as she whirled out of earshot for a moment. “I do confess to feeling a bit of excitement, sir,” she owned sweetly as they faced each other yet again. “I had heard so much about Almack’s, you know, but the reality far exceeds the dream. Did you ever see so many exalted personages in one place at one time? I vow I am impressed!”

“You impress easily, Miss Lawrence,” Tristan responded, taking her elbow as the dance drew to its conclusion and guiding her to a pair of chairs at the side of the room.

Mary looked up at him, her head tilted prettily to one side. “Oh, I doubt that, my lord, else I would be in a constant swoon at being so openly pursued by the famous Lord Rule. As it is, I cannot be more unmoved by the prospect. Do you think I am unnatural, my lord?”

Tristan sat himself down beside her, looking off into the distance as he did, and sending shivers down the spine of no less than seven gentlemen who had rashly decided to ask Miss Lawrence for the next dance. “We have already established the fact that you don’t like me above half, Miss Lawrence. Do you really find it necessary to belabor the point?”

“I do, since you refuse to take the hint and go away!” Mary was pushed to exclaim before carefully busying herself playing with the silken tassel at the end of her fan. “Aunt Rachel said you always were a bit thick, but even an absolute dolt would have cut rope by now. What do you want from me, what assurance of innocence will it take, before you realize that you are wasting your time dreaming up intrigues in which I play a part?”

Turning his dark head slowly in her direction, Tristan said in a low, steely voice: “Tell me your name.”

The previously folded fan unfurled and began beating the air in front of Mary’s flushed face. “You are being absurd, sir, yet again,” she pointed out with what she hoped was amusement. “You know my name.”

“I know the name you go by, the one Sir Henry chose for you when first he established you in Sussex ten years ago, but I seriously doubt that Mary Lawrence—that simple, unassuming appellation—comes within a dozen miles of being the one that appears on some parish records somewhere.”

The fan was beginning to stir up a mighty breeze. “My, haven’t you been the busy one,” Mary remarked, all humor gone from her voice. “Hot-footed it down to Sussex, did you, to see what dirt you could dig up at my expense? And what else, pray tell, did you find?”

Tristan leaned back on the uncomfortable chair and recited informatively: “You were an apt pupil in penmanship and the use of maps, although you persisted in drawing Italy to look more like a riding boot than your governess thought permissible. You despised needlework although your sampler was more than passable in my opinion. As a horsewoman you have few equals, even if you earned the undying animosity of several of the local gentry by running your horse across the trail of the fox in a deliberate attempt to save the poor hunted creature.”

Mary smiled a bit at the remembrance of that little bit of foolishness, but then her indignation returned. “And that is all, my lord? Surely you have left out the time I poured honey down Miss Penelope Blakestone’s bodice at a picnic because she was making sheep’s eyes at young Jeremy Stone when she knew full well that I was deep in love with him myself.”

“You were thirteen at the time, so I disregarded it,” Tristan put in smoothly, making Mary wish she had a handy pitcher of honey hidden in her reticule at that very moment.

Closing the fan with a definite snap, Mary rose to her feet, causing Tristan to scramble a bit as he strove to unwind his long legs and follow suit. “You are a rude, snooping, mischief-making monster!” Mary cried, clearly unable to carry on any pretense that she cared not a snap for his ridiculous investigation of her past. “How dare you pry into my life that way! What earthly reason could you have given all those people when you went about snooping into something that was never your concern? How can I ever show my face in Sussex again after what you have done?”

“Do you want to?” Rule asked tauntingly.

Mary’s eyes narrowed dangerously as she looked up into his unrevealing face. “No, damn you, I don’t want to! But that’s beside the point. I should tell Sir Henry what you are about, that’s what I should do, and then we would see just who would be laughing, you cad.”

Tristan took her elbow in a firm grip and began guiding her over to his Aunt Rachel, who was sitting with the dowagers and looking utterly bored with the whole spectacle of Almack’s. “You’ll tell Sir Henry nothing, Miss Lawrence—you haven’t done so yet, or else I should have been called into his office for a thorough dressing down long since. It would seem he sees you as purity itself, and protects you like you were his own.”

“Well, then? If Sir Henry, who, you’ll have to agree, knows everything about me, is not concerned or fearful of allowing me in polite society, why can’t you just accept me as I am?”

“Sir Henry’s judgment may be clouded by something or someone out of the past. I am objective. Even if you are innocent of any wrongdoing, your mere existence may give someone power over Sir Henry, power that could even force that patriotic man into actions detrimental to England. The mere fact that your ‘uncle’ refuses to confide in me makes me suspect something very deep and dangerous.” Tristan drew Mary to a halt and turned her to him one more time. “Now are you willing to tell me your name. For Sir Henry’s sake?”

“Mary, Queen of Scots!” Mary Lawrence snapped before jerking her elbow loose and completing her journey over to Rachel on her own.

IT WAS VERY LATE, and the dance floor was crowded with couples eager to wedge one more dance into the evening, when Mary, still observed by Lord Rule, walked unescorted onto one of the wide balconies outside the main room.

The small raggedly dressed man who crept stealthily out of the shadows approached the girl on quiet feet and the two exchanged a few furiously whispered words before a much-folded paper changed hands, and the man, the paper now stuffed inside his shabby coat, slid back into the shadows.

Mary was just placing one slippered foot back into the main room when Tristan Rule vaulted nimbly over the balcony railing to land on the balls of his feet in the soft underbrush that edged the small garden. Hanging back discreetly out of sight, Rule watched as the small man reappeared under a dim gas lamp, then made off down the street in the direction of Piccadilly. Waiting until he could mentally reach the count of ten, Rule then started after the man, intent on following wherever he led.

While Lord Rule, using talents he developed during long years in His Majesty’s service, ducked into doorways and hid behind drainpipes as he followed the small man deep into the bowels of Jack Ketch’s warren, Mary Lawrence was taking her leave of Almack’s Assembly Rooms, first taking care to thank Jennie Wilde for the loan of her man Ben for the evening.

CHAPTER SIX

MARY WAS SITTING ALONE in the breakfast room the next morning, still savoring her first victory over Ruthless Rule. Jennie had sent around a note earlier, describing Ben’s elation at having eluded his pursuer after leading him a merry dance until the wee hours of the morning.

This single success had naturally led the volatile Mary into considering other relatively harmless pranks aimed at keeping Lord Rule out of sight while she tried to make the best of what was left of the Season. Already she realized one flaw in last night’s plan: she should have had Ben appear much earlier in the evening, then she could have avoided their confrontation on the dance floor altogether. Ah well, as a fledgling conspirator, she couldn’t believe she had done that poorly overall.

Now that she knew exactly why Tristan was dogging her—believing her very existence to be a danger to Sir Henry and the national security—she knew she could proceed without fear of her adopted uncle’s censure if he should ever discover what she was about. After all, if Sir Henry had wanted Tristan to know her history, he would have told him long since. Besides, she assured herself as she buttered a second muffin, it wasn’t as if she were really a danger to Sir Henry—being French was no longer considered a sin in London. Actually, she couldn’t understand Sir Henry’s insistence that she hide her heritage from the world.

The matter of the plot to rescue Napoleon from Elba, the plot Tristan had told her was his reason for suspecting her in the first place, was really none of her concern. Wiser heads than hers, notably Sir Henry’s, would certainly scotch any such attempts before they could be born. Napoleon was defeated, soundly and forever. After all, wasn’t all London gearing up for a gigantic round of celebrations even now? Surely all London couldn’t be wrong—no matter what that ridiculous Lord Rule said to the contrary.

Having eased her conscience all around, Mary was just about to rise from the table and go in search of Rachel, who had been closeted in her rooms tussling over a minor snag in the tale of her hero and heroine, just then at each other’s throats over a silly misunderstanding that was throwing up boulders in the path of True Love, when she was surprised to see Dexter Rutherford enter the room, a sheepish expression on his face.

“Dexter,” Mary greeted him, “I see the operation was a success. You have actually succeeded in separating yourself from Lord Rule. My congratulations to your physician, and may I please have his directions as I too am in need of his services.”

Dexter stopped dead in his tracks, examining his person as if looking for signs of recent surgery, before coloring brightly and chuckling weakly. “Oh, you’re funning me, aren’t you? I admit to admiring Tristan—he’s a capital fellow, you know—but it ain’t as if I’m living in his pocket.”

“That’s a relief, seeing as how the man seems to be trying to live in mine. Having you in there too just might make me list more than a little to one side, don’t you think?” Mary teased the young man before waving him into a chair. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit, or am I mistaken and it is Aunt Rachel you have come to see?”

Dexter ran a nervous finger around his suddenly too-tight cravat (a glorious creation that flattered his valet no end). “Ac-tu-ally,” he squeaked, “it was the two of you. It seems I find myself in need of some reputable females to act as companions for a young lady I’m seeing.”

Mary shook her head. “Not that I’m doubting that you have a problem, Dex, but what about Lucy or Jennie? Surely they’re reputable.”

The young man became fairly agitated, twisting in his chair as if he had just discovered a nettle in his breeches. “Those two—good God, as if I need those busybodies poking into my life, matchmaking, and twitting me unmercifully! No, I’m not that stupid that I’d lay my head on that block! I thought about getting m’friend Bertie Sandover’s sister to help, but she’s known me forever and threatened to tell Kitty everything about me—can’t have that, can I?”

“Kitty?” Mary prompted, barely suppressing a giggle at the thought of the turmoil Jennie and Lucy could cause once they scented a romance in the air. Poor Dexter, he’d have to be truly desperate to let either of those ladies in on his plans.

Now Dexter’s complexion turned a deep, fiery red. “Kitty Toland,” he gushed, lowering his head. “She’s only seventeen and the most beautiful woman in England—in the entire world! Her brother, Jerome Toland, is not averse to my suit, you understand, but he says Kitty must only see me if she is accompanied by trustworthy companions. I thought and thought, and at last I came up with you and Rachel.”

“Any port in a storm, eh, Dexter?” Mary could not help but tease, enjoying herself more than a little bit at the young man’s expense.

Dexter’s expression became pained as he realized he had really put his foot in it—again. Why was it that he had inherited none of the suave, debonair talents of his cousin Julian? “I know I’m saying this badly—it’s a habit of mine, you know—but you know what it is, it’s that I think I’m in love. Never thought it would happen—kind of damps you, actually, but there it is, and I confess I’m not really sure how to do anything anymore.”

Mary rose and walked around the table to place a commiserating arm around the young man’s shoulders. “Ah, poor Dexter. What a beast I am for teasing you when you’re so obviously in torment. Of course Rachel and I will help you however we can. Why don’t we adjourn to the morning room and you can tell me all about your Kitty Toland. Such a pretty name, Kitty.”

“Ac-tu-ally, it’s Catherine.” Dexter informed her as they walked arm in arm down the corridor to the morning room. Once there he proceeded to tell her more—definitely more than Mary decided she ac-tu-ally cared to know—about this paragon of a female who had snared his bachelor heart.

Beside her youth, Kitty was the very worst sort of female for Dexter to have come across, for she was also a Total Innocent. The young Lothario was well and truly smitten, and had been from the moment his roving eye first encountered the shy, blond beauty from Cornwall.

“She doesn’t know anything, Mary, nothing at all. It’s like setting a baby loose in a stable full of stallions to see her surrounded by all the dandies and rakes who’d like nothing more than to ruin her. She has little fortune, you understand, and for some reason that seems to make her fair game for all the randy—er—well, never mind,” he ended hurriedly.

“That’s all right, Dex, I believe I understand,” Mary said, easing his discomfiture. “Rachel, hinting broadly of my vast dowry—compliments of Sir Henry—scotched any such ideas by some of the more pressing of my admirers early in the Season. Now I am only beset by penniless fortune hunters, but then no one can have every little wrinkle smoothed out for them, can they?”

“Jerome is trying so very hard, too,” Dexter pressed on, clearly thinking in one track and not even bothering to comment on Mary’s problem. “He’s her guardian, you know, the parents having died of some disease caught from putrid drains, or something. They’re shockingly to let, which is why Jerome’s run of luck at one of the private gaming hells was so fortuitous. Instead of then gambling or wenching—sorry, Mary—it all away, he hied himself straight to Cornwall to bring Kitty to town and launch her so that she could find herself a proper husband.” He turned to look at Mary intently. “It would be a bleeding waste to give her to some bumpkin farmer, really it would. She’s a jewel—a diamond of the first water—truly she is. I can only marvel that she likes me even a little bit.”

“I must meet this paragon,” Mary mused, almost to herself.

“Oh! How happy I am that you say so,” Dexter fairly shouted, hopping to his feet. “I’ll bring her round this afternoon so that the three of you can get acquainted. You’ll love her,” he promised, already sprinting toward the hallway, “you’ll absolutely adore her!”

Mary laid her head against the back of the chair, smiling broadly. “Absolutely, you lovesick looby.” She chuckled happily before rising to seek out Rachel and tell her of their expected visitor. “After all, why should Jennie and Lucy have all the fun?”

WHILE MARY AND RACHEL were giggling like schoolgirls over the thought of a smitten Dexter waxing poetic over a beautiful child from the wilds of Cornwall, Tristan Rule was just rising from the bed he had lain in only a few, frustrating hours. What a profitless evening his had been—chasing through the slimy gutters and over the sooty rooftops of the worst section of London in pursuit of some crafty jackanapes who had had the temerity to elude him in the end.

Had Mary been passing instructions to the man—or had the man been collecting payment in exchange for his silence? Was Mary a conspirator, or the victim of blackmail? Oh, his head ached from all the questions that were rattling around inside, none of them with easy answers. If only Sir Henry were willing to take him into his confidence. Already he had wasted precious time believing Mary to be a French spy, giving the true conspirator free rein to continue with his plans.

Now that he knew she was not involved with the plan to free Napoleon, Rule felt real relief, but discovering that Mary Lawrence didn’t exist until ten years ago had opened up an entirely new, different, kettle of fish that didn’t smell that much better than the last one. There was something particularly distasteful, even dangerous, about Mary’s past, something so volatile that Sir Henry, who had never hidden anything from Tristan before, was insisting on playing all his cards very close to his chest.

If someone besides Tristan, someone with either blackmail or treason on his mind, discovered even the little bit that Tristan had unearthed on his quick journey into Sussex, there was no end to the amount of trouble Mary Lawrence’s presence in Sir Henry’s house could mean for England.

Throwing back the tangled covers, Rule leaped to his feet and stomped over to the washstand to pour a pitcher of cold water over his tousled black locks. Rising from his punishment sputtering and shivering, shaking his head like a dog coming out of an icy stream, he rang for his man and then grabbed up his robe, tying the silken sash around his waist with a vengeance. “Damn that green-eyed minx for not trusting me!” he swore to the room at large, flinging himself into a chair, his black stare serving to unnerve his valet more than a little bit as that man entered the room, a steaming cup of coffee balanced before him on a silver tray.

“Women!” Tristan sputtered, eyeing his man as if daring him to say something, anything, in that gender’s defense.

“Indeed, m’lord.” The servant gulped, already backing toward the door. “An’ sure Oi am that we’d all be the better fer it if we could but live widout ’em.”

“I can,” Tristan gritted before taking a large gulp of the too-hot coffee. “Damn it all anyway—I will!”

CHAPTER SEVEN

ON THE THIRTIETH OF MAY the first Peace of Paris was signed in that city, giving yet another excuse to the celebration-mad populace of London to don their finery and make absolute cakes of themselves by eating, dancing and imbibing to the top of their bent and beyond.

One of the more sedate parties, a modest Venetian breakfast for no more than six hundred of the host and hostess’s closest and dearest friends, was held near Richmond Park. That this breakfast did not commence until three in the afternoon, and was not expected to wind to a close much before the wee hours of the morning, meant little. The mood of the invited guests was jovial, even jubilant, the seemingly endless supply of strong drink notwithstanding.

Mary was in attendance, accompanied by Miss Kitty Toland, whom she and Rachel had agreed to chaperon, a circumstance that meant that Dexter Rutherford was also a member of their party. Indeed, as Mary had whispered to Rachel a few moments earlier in the carriage, it would have taken one of Congreve’s rockets being strapped to his hindquarters and the fuse lit to blast Dexter away from his ladylove.

But then it was nice to have a gentleman in their party, since it was he who took charge of matters such as securing a comfortable, shady spot under a tree and then chasing after servants to secure some nourishment before they all wilted from hunger. Not that Mary would have had too much trouble convincing one of her flirts to play fetch and carry for her, but it had become so fatiguing to have to explain her association with the dangerous Tristan Rule to her apprehensive swains that she was just as glad not to have to go to the bother.

She had hoped that Rule’s absence from her side for the past four days had scotched all those rumors she knew to be flying fast and furious about the ton, but she hadn’t counted on the lack of starch her beaux had evinced when faced with the prospect of being thought to be poaching on Ruthless Rule’s preserves. “It’s like I have a sign hanging from my back that says ‘Private Property—Trespassers Beware,’” Mary had complained to Rachel more times than that weary woman wished to remember, “and I don’t know who angers me most—that dratted man or the silly fools who act as if he were some sort of furious Greek god who just might start hurling lightning bolts at them or something if they dare to cross him.”

Even more infuriating, at least to Mary’s mind, was the fact that she actually had found herself looking for the pesky man, and wondering just where he was that he had left off spending his time making her life as miserable as possible. Sir Henry had mentioned something or other that hinted of Rule being out and about the King’s business, but no amount of prompting could nudge the older man into saying a thing more. “Probably out minding mice at crosswalks or some such important task,” Mary had said, sniffing inelegantly, causing her guardian no end of amusement.

Whatever the reason for his absence, Mary was left to punish herself with the knowledge that it had left a large hole in her life—one that she would have sworn she craved more than a personal invitation to Carleton House to meet the Czar’s sister, the Grand Duchess Catherine of Oldenburg. In fact, she thought, blushing yet again as she reclined in a studied pose beneath a leafy tree, she had been thinking altogether too much about Tristan Rule—about his dark good looks, his intense black eyes, the barely leashed power hidden beneath the stark black he chose to wear, his lips, cool and firm against hers for the length of a kiss stolen in the moonlight.

And that was the worst—that she couldn’t help remembering that kiss, that deliberate insult that had seemed to amuse him as much as it still haunted her. How could she be attracted to a man who thought she was capable of destroying Sir Henry—indeed, all of England, if she truly believed his ridiculous claims! What perverse imp of nature had so constructed a woman that she could thoroughly loathe a man and at the same time search her horizons constantly just for the sight of his disdainful, condemning face?

Mary shook her head dismissingly and determinedly set out to change the flow of her thoughts, choosing to observe Kitty Toland and Dexter Rutherford as they sat yards apart on the blanket a servant had spread and stared at each other with blissfully vacant eyes. Try as she could, Mary could not see the attraction, either Kitty’s for Dexter or his for her.

Not that Kitty wasn’t a pretty girl, for she was; all pink and blond and still carrying a bit of nursery plumpness, with china-blue eyes that had a tendency to stare unwaveringly at nothing in particular in a way Mary couldn’t force herself to believe reflected any great intelligence. Besides, the girl had a lamentable habit of saying, “Oh, Gemini!” before nearly every sentence she uttered, until Rachel had run posthaste to her rooms, inspiration for yet another character for her novel taking the form of a hare-witted debutante who spoke only in exclamations.

Dexter, for his part, wasn’t exactly the sort from which storybook heroes were made. He was neither bold, nor dashing, and his conversation certainly couldn’t rival anything written by the Bard, but when it came to portraying the sillier side of being struck with one of Cupid’s tiny darts, Dex bore off the palm. Soulful sighs, yearning looks and garbled speech may not have been designed to set Mary’s heart to pitter-pattering, but they seem to have turned the trick for Dexter when it came to winning the adoration of his Kitty. It was, Mary had informed Rachel the previous evening after the two of them had spent long, trying hours watching the two lovebirds coo at each other unintelligibly, as if some kind spirit had seen two halves of the same whole and quickly arranged for the two adorable nincompoops to find each other and become one great, amorous ninny, sure to populate the next generation with yet another set of incompetents in search of mates.

“Want an apple, Miss Toland?” Dex asked just then, if only to prove Mary’s point.

“Oh, Gemini, I would like one above all things,” Kitty simpered, her blushing cheeks looking like fine, ripe apples themselves. “But, oh, Gemini, how ever could I, when it is wearing that awful peel?”

Puffing out his thin chest just as if he had been asked to slay yon dragon to prove his love, Dex then fairly scrambled toward the large picnic hamper before the hovering servant could efficiently pare away the peel on a shiny apple he had already snatched up in preparation of being asked to perform just such a service, and wrestled both knife and apple from the poor young fellow. “It would be a pleasure, an honor, to remove this offensive covering so that you should not injure those fair lips and those delicate white teeth,” Dexter vowed fervently as Mary and the dumbstruck servant desperately tried to look anywhere but at the young swain as he proceeded to mutilate the innocent fruit, putting his left thumb in imminent danger of being peeled as well.

“No accounting for tastes, is there?” Rachel offered, having approached the scene while Mary was otherwise occupied and was just then sitting herself down on the chair another servant had secured for her. “I had to discard my idea of patterning a character after the girl, though. After I had her say hello, I found she had precious little additional to add to the conversation. I didn’t realize how difficult it is to find inconsequential things to say—do you think that means I’m a blue-stocking? Perhaps that’s why I’ve been left so firmly on the shelf all these years.”

“You’re bright blue through and through, Aunt,” Mary confirmed, then added, “but your mind is not what has kept you from the altar. It’s your foolish pride that keeps you and Sir Henry from making a match of things. Isn’t it time you forgave him for a young man’s indiscretion?”

Rachel looked at her charge, her confusion easy to read in her face. “Henry’s indiscretion? Whatever are you jabbering about? It wasn’t Henry who destroyed our engagement. It was my indis—” Rachel’s voice broke off suddenly as she realized what she had been about to say.

Perhaps the sun was too warm on her head, Mary thought as she reached to retrieve the bonnet she had discarded earlier. How could she have been so mistaken? From the few slips Sir Henry had made in her presence, she felt sure that he was the one responsible for the termination of the engagement just a week before the wedding. But now Rachel was saying Sir Henry was the injured party and she the one who had done something to cause the breach. “Forgive me for being so presumptuous, especially with a woman who is supposed to be my mentor of sorts,” Mary apologized with a singular lack of contriteness, “but I do believe the time has come for you and my so-intelligent uncle to sit down together and go over the particulars of your estrangement in a bit more detail. Somebody seems to have scrambled the facts a bit, if I’m right.”

“I don’t care for a sad rehashing of long-ago sins, Mary,” Rachel replied almost regally. “I have done my penance by donning my caps and playing the loving aunt to a series of nieces and nephews as they found their way into the world and beyond the need of my care. Why, seeing Lucy safely raised and launched was more than enough atonement for a dozen sins worse than my fleeting infatuation with Lord Hether—er—Mary! Isn’t that Tristan over there, beside the buffet table?”

Rachel’s impulsive confession was enough to keep Mary’s attention riveted to her even if Mother Nature had at that moment decided to shower the assembled guests with hail the size of oranges, but nothing could keep her attentive once Tristan’s name was mentioned. “Where?” she asked, already craning her neck in the direction Rachel had named. “Oh, drat, there he is, looking booted and spurred and ready to ride, as usual.” Realizing she was looking more than a little interested in the man, she quickly busied herself retying her bonnet strings, asking Rachel in a whisper, “Is he looking this way? Does he see me? Don’t wave to him, maybe he’ll go away. How do I look? Drat this hot sun, I vow I look as wilted as yesterday’s flowers.”

Rachel could barely hide her smile as she watched Mary lost in uncharacteristic confusion, and silently congratulated herself at settling both her current charge and her troublesome nephew with so little fuss. Oh, Lucy and Jennie would doubtless take all the credit for the match, but that didn’t bother Rachel. She only wished to have everyone neatly established so that she could leave London as soon as possible. Her plan to live quietly in the city had been foolish, she saw now, but who could have foreseen Henry coming to beg a favor of her after the way she had disgraced him all those years ago? She hadn’t written a word of her novel since going to live in Henry’s house—was only using the novel as the camouflage she would need once Mary was safely married and her past buried once and for all beneath her new husband’s name—but Henry wasn’t to know that. Just as he wasn’t to know that she still loved him with every fiber of her being—for as much good that would do her when she was scribbling away in some cottage at the back of beyond.

What Rachel knew she definitely didn’t need was to have Mary sticking her inquisitive little nose into affairs that were none of her business. If she had kept her past indiscretions a secret from Lucy and Jennie—and especially from Tristan—all these years, she was not about to allow Mary to stir up all that old heartache now! Thank heavens for Tristan, Rachel rejoiced silently, marveling as she did so that she would ever have reason to thank Tristan for anything, for he would keep Mary too busy for any dangerous snooping. So thinking, Rachel decided to give the struggling romance a bit of a nudge. “Does he see us, you ask?” she answered Mary just as that young woman was about to take another covert peek herself. “Why, yes, if that marvelous smile is any indication, I do believe he has. My goodness, do I mistake my man? I almost believe Tristan to actually have a certain spring to his step as he makes his way to us.”

“He’s probably just come from turning two hapless souls over to the high executioner for speaking French in a public place. Just the sort of thing to cheer him up, I do believe,” Mary snapped, but her words held no real sting.

“Oh, Mary, you mustn’t refine too long on Tristan’s little follies,” Rachel interposed, trying to calm the waters before this meeting between the two ended in yet another useless confrontation. “He has apologized for believing you part of that French plot—besides, Henry told me just this morning that they have captured three men who supposedly were working to raise funds for a ship to sail to Elba. Why, that may explain Tristan’s absence these last days, don’t you think?” But before Mary, whose head had come up with a jerk at Rachel’s words, could answer, the older woman gave a very uncharacteristic shriek. “Oh, Lord, Tristan! No!”

Mary looked first to her companion and then, with some shock, toward the buffet table, where she had last seen Tristan, looking so dangerously handsome. But he wasn’t there. He was running full tilt to place himself in front of the runaway curricle being dragged along behind a pair of wild-eyed stallions before it could cut a path of death and destruction through the throng of assembled guests.

TRISTAN HAD RIDDEN HARD most of the night in order to get back to London, the three conspirators he had run to ground in a hedgerow tavern near Maidstone having been handed over to the trustworthy agents Sir Henry had so fortuitously supplied.

His haste was hard to explain, even to himself, considering his oft-spoken distaste for silly affairs like this Venetian breakfast, but he knew Mary was to be in attendance and that thought served as the spur that had sent him galloping along the moonlit paths that led to the city. It was juvenile really, this burning desire to report the success of his mission to Mary in person, but he could not help but harbor the hope that the arrest he had made would put him back in Mary’s good graces—if indeed he was ever there in the first place. At least she would be made to see that he had not entirely been hunting out mare’s nests when he was investigating her background. After all, there had been a plot to free Napoleon, and the arrests proved it.

Of course, there was still that little matter of her true identity—and Rule’s fear that she presented a danger to Sir Henry if there was even a trace of scandal in her past. Tristan wasn’t about to turn a blind eye to that possibility, no matter how uncomfortable he felt about his earlier, erroneous assumption that Mary Lawrence could be in the pay of some French conspirators.

No, he remained adamant in his determination to uncover whatever secret Mary and Sir Henry were so steadfastly protecting, but he had used his hours on horseback the previous night to rethink his tactics. He would pretend he had given up the investigation and concentrate on courting Mary, winning his way into her good graces. He would do this to protect national security, he had told himself then, just as he tried to tell himself again at that moment—that electrifying moment when he had looked across the expanse of green lawn and felt his heart do a strange little leap in his chest as he caught sight of her sitting beneath the shade of an old tree, looking the picture of beauty, youth and innocence.

All his weariness had disappeared in an instant, and he had felt his usually expressionless features soften involuntarily into a wide, unaffected smile as his feet had immediately began propelling him along the straightest path to her side. He couldn’t wait to tell Mary about his exploits of the previous evening—just like a small boy proudly showing off his first racing cup to his parents.

He had taken no more than a half dozen steps, and was just raising a hand to wave to his aunt, when he sensed rather than saw that something was wrong. Swinging to his right, he espied the driverless curricle careening down the lengthy incline, two heaving, foam-flecked horses galloping ahead of it in the shafts.

The peaceful scene was shattered within an instant. Where moments ago happy groups had either been strolling arm in arm over the closely clipped lawns or reclining at their ease at the base of shade-giving trees, there was now the sharp, sickening smell of panic—the sight of fashionably clad ladies and top-o’-the-trees gentlemen scurrying like colorful ants to and fro searching for cover, the sound of high-pitched screams and baritone curses.

But Tristan saw none of this, heard none of this. Immediately his senses were concentrated on the horses and the curricle that bounced behind it in imminent danger of overturning. His muscles tautened, preparing for action, and his heart began to beat more rapidly, sending his heated blood pulsing through his veins as he quickly calculated his options, weighed his alternatives.

Darting a quick glance behind him, he saw that the fleeing guests had somehow created an area of open ground that led straight to the small, ornamental pond that lay at almost a right angle to the course the horses were taking. His dark eyes narrowing, Tristan’s agile brain rapidly mapped a possible course of action to intercept the rampaging horses before they could get past him.

He ran swiftly, surely, to the spot he had chosen, sparing only a second to glance in Mary’s direction, silently praying that she and his aunt had had the good sense to position themselves behind a tree. They had—a white-faced Rachel holding on fiercely to Mary, who seemed to be struggling to be free, while Dexter stood staunchly in front of some blond creature who was just then sobbing into his coat sleeve.

Then the thunder of galloping hooves and the loud clatter of the rapidly disintegrating curricle commanded his full attention, and Tristan spread his legs slightly for balance, flexed his knees, and extended his arms in front of him, his hands open, his fingers tensed, waiting…waiting…

He could smell the hot breath of the horse nearest him, see clearly the white of one of its rolling eyes, feel the sharp flick of its mane against his hands.

Now! his brain screamed. Now!

MARY BROKE FREE of Rachel’s clinging hands and was just about to run toward Tristan when he reached out with both his strong, tanned hands—with those long, lean fingers she had told herself fitted his reputation for ruthlessness so perfectly—and grabbed two handfuls of mane, while at the same time leaping into the air, to end up landing himself neatly astride the horse’s back.

“He’s going to try for the leads!” Mary screamed to Rachel, who had hidden her head in her hands. “Oh, Tristan, be careful!”

Mary saw Tristan’s head lying flush against the horse’s neck as he reached across the space separating the two horses and made a grab for the other’s halter. Then the curricle was past her, still traveling at a furious pace, but now being directed by Ruthless Rule, who had somehow gained control of the leads.

The horses changed direction, heading toward the pond that sat about two hundred yards away on the left. Mary ran along behind, her skirts lifted immodestly as she willingly sacrificed propriety for speed. It wasn’t over yet, she knew, although she silently agreed with Rule that running the horses into the pond was the best chance he had of stopping them before any more damage was done.

Please let him be all right, the reckless fool! She begged any deities that may have been listening, then shook her head at the ridiculousness of her thoughts. Ruthless Rule—Reckless Fool—they even rhymed! Oh, whatever possessed the man, to have him taking such unthinking chances with his life? And what sort of brainless ninny am I to have even entertained the thought of going to his rescue before his masculine tendency to act the hero got him trampled into the dust? Anyone would think I’d cared one way or the other about the man!

Not that these unpleasant thoughts slowed Mary’s pace—she continued to race full tilt toward the pond, where she had seen a large splash just scant seconds earlier. By the time she reached the banks of the water the runaway horses were standing with their heads down in the shafts, their flanks still shuddering as they seemed to be trying to understand just what had happened to them.

Where was Rule? The curricle, which had once been a glorious equipage painted in scarlet with gold trim, lay on its side, half submerged in the pond, and Mary’s fearful heart skipped a beat as she pictured Tristan pinned beneath the surface by one of the curricle’s wheels.

She was just about to plunge her own body into the water when the surface of the pond was broken by Tristan’s dark head and broad shoulders, as he rose to his feet to stand more than waist deep in the water, his attention fixed on releasing the exhausted horses from the shafts.

“Did you see that?” Dexter Rutherford fairly shouted in Mary’s ear as he came up beside her, his awestruck gaze stuck fast to the sight of his hero. “What a first-rate sight that was! Puts those devil-dares at Astley’s Circus to the blush, that’s what it does. Isn’t Tris a prime one, Miss Lawrence? Oh, I wouldn’t have missed this for the world!”

By now Mary and Dexter were only a small part of a much larger audience. From all sides came the multitude of guests and scores of servants, all chattering, applauding, and generally acting as if Tristan Rule had single-handedly saved their lives—which he may very well have done. Several young bucks were sufficiently enthused as to plunge Hessians-first into the water, bent on helping the man of the hour lead the team of horses back to shore.

Mary watched Rule closely as his long strides cut waves through the water, bringing him closer to her with every step. His black hair was pasted to his head, showing off his handsome, chiseled features almost as advantageously as his clinging wet coat and pantaloons did his fine physique. Indeed, among the cheers and shouts of congratulations Mary heard more than one feminine gasp and giggle of appreciation.

For reasons Mary did not choose to investigate, this unconscious flaunting of his physical person served to touch off a spark of anger deep inside her that temporarily banished her earlier concern for his safety.

As Tristan mounted the bank to stand not three feet away from her, she tilted her determined chin toward the afternoon sun and remarked sarcastically, “Ah, if it isn’t the knight errant. Good thing you left your suit of armor at home, sir, else you’d be rusted into a statue before you could enjoy all the hosannas of your many admirers.”

What the deuce was the matter with the girl now? Tristan asked himself in righteous confusion. Anyone would think I stopped the curricle just to upset her. And to think I rode half the night just to open myself to more of her insults!

Bowing deeply from the waist, a move that caused one dark, wet lock of hair to fall into a roguishly becoming curl on his forehead, Tristan replied coolly, “On the contrary, Miss Lawrence. If I had worn my armor, I would not be here at all, but would still be trapped beneath the surface of the pond, the curricle riding on my back.”

His dark eyes then raked her up and down as if he had weighed her up and found her sadly lacking. He took two steps before saying, “If you’ll excuse me now, please? I think I shall be returning to my castle to have a tapestry commissioned commemorating my latest heraldic deed.”

Then Mary was left quite alone, her mouth hanging open, as she watched Tristan being led away, Dexter’s arm draped protectively about his shoulders while two dozen or more hangers-on trailed along behind.

“Never mind her, Tris,” she heard Dexter say. “Women don’t understand these things like we men do. All they can think of is us getting our heads broken or something. She didn’t really mean anything by it, I’m sure of it.”

Mary couldn’t quite hear Tristan’s answer, but she certainly understood the tone. She had opened her silly mouth and put herself firmly back into Tristan Rule’s black books. Now he would never see her as anything more than Sir Henry’s ill-mannered ward—and as a possible threat to England’s security.

He’d never see her as a woman. And that made Mary sad…it made her very sad indeed.

CHAPTER EIGHT

“HE’S DOING THIS just to infuriate me, you know. Oh, don’t shake your head, Jennie, for you know I’m right.”

Jennie Wilde was hard-pressed to conceal her smile as she watched Mary flutter about the Bourne drawing room like a kite in a stiff breeze. “Inviting you to share a theater box with the Grand Duchess Catherine of Oldenburg infuriates you, Mary? And what, pray, would make you happy? Having him appear at the theater with some other young woman on his arm?”

“Yes—No! Oh, Jennie, you know what I mean. It’s like that Lorenzo Dow fellow said: ‘You will be damned if you do—And you will be damned if you don’t.’”

“I believe the man was speaking about religion, Mary, not a festive night at Covent Garden,” Jennie supplied, tongue-in-cheek. “But I cannot see how you can turn a simple invitation into something even remotely devious.”

Mary flitted about a moment or two more, then came to roost on the settee across from where her friend was reclining at her ease. “The grand duchess is rewarding Tristan’s courage in stopping that curricle last week—all the town knows it. Her theater box will be the cynosure of all eyes for the entire evening. And Tristan knows I would sooner shave my head and wear rags than miss such a spectacle.”

“I understand what you are saying so far, Mary.” Jennie nodded, picking up her knitting. “But where does the revenge come in?”

Mary rolled her eyes heavenward, unable to believe that Jennie—who was usually so awake on all suits—could be so dense. “For goodness sake, Jennie, Tristan knows if I appear as his companion for such a public display that everyone and his wife will have us as good as married!”

Jennie laid down her knitting to peer intently into Mary’s worried green eyes. “And to think, my dear, the main presentation of the evening is to be an allegorical festival entitled ‘The Grand Alliance.’ My goodness, anyone would think the authors had you and Tristan in mind, rather than England and our allies.” Shaking her head in mock dismay, she went on: “Perhaps you have been trotting too hard, Mary. Really, the ideas you get into your head amaze even me!”

Mary was not so self-involved that she could not see the humor in Jennie’s words. Wrinkling up her pert little nose, she retorted, “Oh, pooh—I guess I am going a bit overboard, aren’t I?” Then she became serious once again. “But, Jennie, I already told you how horridly I behaved to Tristan last week after he’d made his daring rescue. Surely he can’t be rewarding me for such a terrible attack on his character? Have I told you that he has come to visit Aunt Rachel and Sir Henry nearly every day without so much as inquiring about me? Now, does that sound like the man is perishing for the sight of me—or that he would be desirous of my company? No,” she answered for herself, “it does not. He knows full well how he has curtailed my social life, and he is purposely using this invitation to throw yet another damper on my fun.”

“I think I’m beginning to get the headache,” Jennie mused, lifting one hand to her temple.

“That’s what Aunt Rachel says every time I bring up the subject,” Mary responded, shaking her head. “You all think I’m reading entirely too much into this invitation, don’t you? Very well, I’ll accept it. But remember this, Jennie, I do so only under duress.”

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