Bought for Ten Thousand Pounds!

Ex-soldier Frederick Challenger may own a share of London’s most secret gentlemen’s club, but he has long since stopped sampling its delights...until a beautiful woman auctions her innocence.

Georgiana Knight’s plan had been to lure in a villain, but instead she’s trapped the devil himself. And now, to protect her reputation, she must marry him! But if Frederick has hopes of taming this temptress, he’ll have to think again...

Hidden amongst the masked revellers of an underground Regency gentlemen’s club, where decadence, daring and debauchery abound, the four owners of Vitium et Virtus are about to meet their match!

Welcome to...

The Society of Wicked Gentlemen

Read

A Convenient Bride for the Soldier

by Christine Merrill

September 2017

An Innocent Maid for the Duke

by Ann Lethbridge

October 2017

And look for stories

from Diane Gaston and Sophia James

coming soon!

Author Note

One of the most frequent questions I get asked is, ‘Where do you get your ideas?’

The truth is, I don’t always know. Stories tend to come out of the swamp that is my mind. Sometimes they are sparked by a single idea—or by a desire to write a totally different, happier ending for something I’ve seen in real life.

In the case of series like this one they are a group effort, in which editors and authors have fun working together on a general roadmap for the story. But there is still plenty to go crazy on with the details, and in making the characters and their love story totally our own.

In the case of Georgiana Knight, I must admit that some of her obsessions came straight from my own past. I was a child of the Sixties—but not the exciting part of the decade. With a lack of money, and only three TV channels, I spent a lot of time making my own fun. That included visiting the mynah bird at the local shoe store, and lying on my belly in the driveway feeding sugar to ants.

And, in case you’re wondering, I have not experienced any of her other, wilder adventures. Not yet, anyway…

Happy reading!

A Convenient Bride for the Soldier

Christine Merrill

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CHRISTINE MERRILL lives on a farm in Wisconsin, USA, with her husband, two sons, and too many pets—all of whom would like her to get off of the computer so they can check their e-mail. She has worked by turns in theatre costuming and as a librarian. Writing historical romance combines her love of good stories and fancy dress with her ability to stare out of the window and make stuff up.

Books by Christine Merrill

Mills & Boon Historical Romance

The de Bryun Sisters

The Truth About Lady Felkirk

A Ring from a Marquess

Ladies in Disgrace

Lady Folbroke’s Delicious Deception

Lady Drusilla’s Road to Ruin

Lady Priscilla’s Shameful Secret

The Society of Wicked Gentlemen

A Convenient Bride for the Soldier

Stand-Alone Novels

A Wicked Liaison

Miss Winthorpe’s Elopement

Dangerous Lord, Innocent Governess

Two Wrongs Make a Marriage

Unlaced at Christmas

‘The Christmas Duchess’

The Secrets of Wiscombe Chase

The Wedding Game

Mills & Boon Historical Undone! eBooks

Seducing a Stranger

Virgin Unwrapped

To Undo a Lady

Visit the Author Profile page

at millsandboon.co.uk for more titles.

To the boys in the basement.

Not Stephen King’s boys.

Mine. Here’s to getting the band back together.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

The Society of Wicked Gentlemen

Author Note

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Extract

Copyright

Chapter One

The dancers stopped and the musicians set down their instruments. Georgiana Knight had never been so glad to hear a song end.

‘You dance like an angel.’ Her partner, Sir Nash Bowles, showed no sign of releasing the hand he was holding, instead attempting to tuck it into the crook of his arm so he could escort her from the dance floor.

Had she heard the compliment, her stepmother would have been quick to point out that George was as far from angelic as it was possible for a girl to be. In Marietta’s opinion, George was lacking in both good sense and manners. In the years after her mother’s death, her father had allowed her to run wild in the country like a hoyden. The resulting damage to her character was most likely irreparable.

Which was just fine with George. She was happy, just as she was. She certainly did not want to be anyone’s angel. It made her think of dancing on a pinpoint, instead of the razor’s edge of courtesy on which she was balanced when dealing with Sir Nash. He was Marietta’s cousin. Any rudeness on her part would be reported back to her stepmother, which would result in another tiresome lecture on deportment during the carriage ride home.

She yanked her hand free of his grasp with such suddenness that she almost left him holding an empty glove. Sir Nash was sure to tattle about it and there would be another row.

Perhaps it was not too late to mitigate the damage. George gave him the sweetest smile she could manage, but made no effort to take his arm. ‘Thank you, sir. You are an excellent dancer as well.’ It was one of the many virtues, along with wealth and family connection, that Marietta would throw in her face when George refused his inevitable offer.

Sir Nash reached for her hand again, as though he had more right to touch her than she had to refuse. ‘Another dance, perhaps? I hear the orchestra leader tuning up for a waltz.’

She had to fight the shudder that rose at the prospect. He had managed to stand far too close to her in the most ordinary of line dances. Lord knew what he might attempt if given an excuse to hold her in his arms. ‘I would not want to stand up, only to stop before the dance was over.’ She reached for her fan and snapped it open, creating a fragile barrier between them. Then she closed it and touched it to her left ear, using the language of signals that ladies had created to avoid embarrassing scenes.

I want you to leave me alone.

Then she finished with words that they should both know were nothing more than a polite lie to save him embarrassment. ‘The last set left me quite fatigued. I think it best to sit for a while.’

‘I will find us chairs,’ he said, ignoring her hint, her tone, and everything else she had done in the last weeks to dissuade him from pursuing her. There was a faint sibilance when he spoke that always reminded her of the hiss of a snake. Though his body was far too stocky too support the serpentine analogy, his movements, whether dancing or walking, were smooth and silent. Even when she was not with him, she feared that he might appear suddenly to offer an inappropriate word or an unwelcome touch.

Now she laid the fan against her left cheek.

No!

‘It is not necessary to escort me,’ she said to reinforce the signal, snapping the fan open and giving it a furious flutter. ‘I must attend to necessities.’ It would have been so much easier had he been the sort of fellow who trod on hems. Short of ripping her gown herself she had no excuse to give other than a call of nature, to hide in the lady’s retiring room. Let him think what he wished about her reasons for going there, as long as she did not have to say aloud that she was trying to escape from him.

He gave a nod of defeat and let her go. But she knew, by the creeping feeling of the hairs at the back of her neck, that he watched each retreating step to make sure of her destination.

Once safely behind the door, she dropped into the nearest chair, ignoring the bustle of the ladies around her. Why was it that the most unappealing men were always the most persistent? The fact that Sir Nash was from her stepmother’s family made it all the more awkward. Marietta was continually singing the man’s praises in hopes of a match that, if George had any say in it, would never occur.

She shuddered again. As much as she did not like Marietta, she must make some effort to maintain peace for Father’s sake. But that did not mean she had to dance more than a courtesy set with Sir Nash.

‘Georgiana!’ Her stepmother’s voice cut through her introspection like a shard of glass.

‘Yes, Marietta,’ she said with a sigh.

‘Sir Nash says you are unwell.’

‘And you came to see if it was true,’ George finished for her.

‘I do not want you malingering in the retiring room when you should be enjoying yourself.’

‘I am enjoying myself,’ George replied, unable to contain the truth. ‘I find it much more enjoyable to be here, alone, than dancing with your cousin.’

‘Horrible, wilful girl.’ Her stepmother was looking at her with the usual, thinly disguised loathing. The woman liked her no better at nineteen than she had seven years ago, when she had married Father. George had long ago given up trying to gain an approval that would never come.

Now she resisted the urge to pull a face and behave like the spoiled child Marietta proclaimed her to be. ‘I am trying to be polite. If I have no interest in his suit, it would be cruel of me to give him false hope.’

‘If you think rejecting him without reason is a virtue, you are sorely mistaken,’ Marietta snapped.

‘I have reason enough,’ she said, glancing around. Their argument was drawing enough attention without her elaborating on the sordid details of her time with Sir Nash.

‘If I thought that your desire to hang on your father’s coat-tails was a reason to avoid marriage, then I would agree with you.’

‘Were it true, it would be no different than marrying me off to your cousin, so you can get me out of your house,’ George said sharply. ‘I am more than willing to go. But not if I must marry Nash Bowles.’ Now her face contorted in the grimace she had been trying to contain. But she could not help it. At the mention of the man’s name, all that was in her recoiled in revulsion.

‘Georgiana!’

It was the beginning of what was likely to be a colourful harangue about her deficient character, made all the more humiliating by the dozen or so women and maids who were pretending that they were not listening to every word. She would not stand for it. She would go and sit in the carriage if she had to. Perhaps, if she begged, the driver would take her back to the country where she belonged, for she’d had not a moment’s peace since the day they’d arrived in London. George shot up and out of her chair, pushing past Marietta and through the door, slamming it behind her.

She had not thought it possible for the evening to get worse. But on the other side, she all but ran into the only person she wanted to see less than Sir Nash.

Mr Frederick Challenger was lounging against the wall just opposite the door. What reason did he have to lurk outside the ladies’ room? Or was he possessed of some evil instinct that drew him to be where she was, so he might prevent her from regaining even a little of her pride?

Now he behaved as he did whenever he saw her. He did not bother with the sort of polite acknowledgement she would have got even from a rotter like Sir Nash. Instead, he glanced in her direction with a half-smile and then looked through her, as if she didn’t exist.

It was just as he’d done since the first moment they’d met. If one could call a glimpse that had not ended in an introduction a meeting. It had been at Almack’s, some weeks past. Marietta had been all but dragging her by the ear towards him. ‘You must meet Mr Challenger, Georgiana. He is the second son of the Earl of Roston, a hero of Waterloo, eligible and rich!’ She had said it loud enough for all in the vicinity to hear.

At least, it had been loud enough for Mr Challenger to hear and be insulted. He had cast a blank look in their direction, then turned and walked away before they could speak to him. And so it had gone at each meeting since. Apology was impossible, since they had not been introduced. Not that she should have to be sorry for a thing that was none of her doing. In fact, if he were a gentleman, he should have pretended not to have heard words that were clearly not meant for his ears.

But it seemed that his chief talent was sticking his perfect nose where it did not belong. Wherever she went, he was there, always watching her while pretending not to notice, never speaking, but always smiling as she made one faux pas after another. Why should she be surprised that he’d caught her red-faced and angry, fresh from the latest argument?

For a moment, their eyes met, accidentally, she was sure. His were already sliding away to make her painfully aware of his disinterest. In response, she directed all the petty irritations of the night at him in a wordless cry that was part anger and part exasperation.

He awarded her with a slightly raised eyebrow, as if to say he was aware of her presence, but thoroughly glad he did not have to speak to her.

She took a deep breath to regain control and answered with what she’d hoped was a dignified sniff that would declare him rude and beneath her notice. Then she swept past him, towards the outer doors.

That was the moment she discovered her skirt had caught in the slammed door behind her. Her grand exit was marred by the sound of ripping gauze and a confetti shower of spangles on the rug at her feet. Since the retiring room was one of the many places she’d been trying to escape, there was no point in going back for a repair. Instead, she grabbed what was left of her skirt and ran for the door, followed by the faint sounds of a man’s chuckle.

* * *

‘...and then she ran through the ballroom, with her petticoat exposed, almost to the waist.’

‘It was an accident,’ George muttered for what seemed like the hundredth time. She sat in the carriage seat opposite her stepmother, elbow on the windowsill and her chin resting on her fist, gazing outside at the London traffic.

‘Peace, Marietta.’ Her father’s voice drifted from where he sat beside his wife, staring out of his own window. ‘She did not mean to do it.’ Then he sighed.

Even as he defended her he sounded faintly disappointed. He had loved her once, George was sure. But lately, when he spoke, he always sounded tired. Was it of London and the demands of Parliament? Or was he simply tired of her?

‘Georgiana has far too many such accidents,’ Marietta proclaimed. ‘Since you did not bother to teach her manners, someone must. It amazes me that she has attracted any interest at all on the marriage mart.’

‘Which brings us back to Sir Nash, just as I knew it would,’ George said, grimacing again. ‘Marry me off if you mean to, but find someone else. I will not have him.’

Her stepmother drew herself up in indignation. ‘There is nothing wrong with Sir Nash. He is an honoured member of my family.’

‘I do not doubt it. But that does not mean I have been able to manufacture a romantic attachment to him where none exists.’

‘But, unlike the rest of London, he is quite taken with you,’ Marietta said.

So now all of London hated her. If Mr Challenger was any indication, perhaps they did.

Marietta continued. ‘In fact, he has assured me that there is no other girl in England who would make him happy.’

‘And there is no man in the world who would make me less so.’ She turned to her father for support. Even if he did want her gone, he had met Sir Nash. He must understand how hopeless this plan was.

‘You have said similar things about all the other men Marietta has recommended,’ her father said with another sigh, not looking back from the window.

‘Because all the men Marietta has recommended are wrong for me.’ She blurted the words before she could stop herself, immediately frustrated by her own lack of diplomacy. But it was true. She had done no better when looking for herself. It felt as if she had danced with every man in town and not a one of them had interested her.

Marietta nudged her father with a fingertip to demand his attention and gave a knowing nod as if to say that this was proof that George was just as difficult as they both thought.

Now Father turned to her with the distant look he wore so often lately. ‘I am thoroughly tired of acting as arbiter in these domestic squabbles.’

George smiled with relief. It was the arguments that bothered him and not her, after all. How shocked Marietta would be at the set down that was about to come. While Father might have some affection for his second wife, it was nothing compared to what he had always shown to his only child.

Then, he spoke. ‘You must marry, Georgiana. You are nineteen and no longer a child. I see no reason that it cannot be to Sir Nash.’

‘But...’ She did not know how to go on. It had never occurred to her that, when the moment finally came that he was forced to decide the issue, her father would take Marietta’s side against her.

‘He dined with us just last night and seemed genuinely fond of you.’

‘He...’ She shook her head, unsure of how to explain what had been wrong with the evening. The man had said nothing untoward when they’d spoken last night, or on any other. He had been almost too polite. But then, as he had sat beside her on the sofa, he had mentioned a liking for snuff and offered her a pinch from his box.

She had found it unusual, but faintly intriguing. It must be pleasant, or people would not take it. But since she could think of no proper woman who used it, there must be something scandalous about it. In the end, she had refused, not sure that even her normally lenient father would approve.

Sir Nash had given an indifferent shrug and set the box on the table near the fire in case she changed her mind. It had been a somewhat bizarre flirtation, but not harmful. Then, she had looked at the box again.

At first glance, the scene painted on the top of the smooth stone box was just as ordinary as the evening. A young couple in a woodland glade: he entreating, and she shielding her face with her hand and refusing with a shy smile.

But then, Sir Nash had taken another pinch and set the box down again, tapping the lid and drawing her gaze to it. The picture had changed. The girl, who had been wearing a pink gown, did not seem to be wearing anything at all. The hand to her face looked less like an innocent refusal and more like a desperate, frightened denial.

The boy who had been with her was no longer a boy at all. His chest was bare and his legs were hair-covered and ended in the cloven hooves of a goat. But the place where those legs met was as human as a Greek statue. And he was doing...

Something.

George was not exactly sure what was going on. But the girl in the miniature looked both revolted and compelled. By the strange way George felt when she looked at it, she was sure that it was something she was not supposed to know about. And the snuffbox was something that no decent gentleman would show to a young lady he was courting.

When he was sure she had seen it, Sir Nash picked up the box and dropped it into his pocket again. Then he gave her a knowing smile and remarked at how pretty her hair was and how much he favoured blondes.

Blondes like the one on the snuffbox.

‘You see?’ When she came back to herself, Marietta was pointing again. ‘She cannot come up with a logical reason for this refusal.’

‘I do not like him,’ George said, more weakly than before.

Because he showed me something I do not understand and I am afraid to ask you what it means.

‘Affection sometimes grows with time.’ Her father sounded almost hopeful as he said it and cast a brief, disappointed glance to his wife before looking out the window again.

‘I will not marry him. You cannot make me.’ George almost shouted the words, trying to regain his attention.

‘On the contrary, my dear. We can and you will.’ Marietta favoured her with a cool glare. ‘Either you marry Nash, or I will go.’ Then she turned to her husband and gave him the tight, uncompromising quirk of her lips that she thought was a smile. ‘I can no longer bear things as they are. Surely you must see that. Either you bring your daughter to heel, or I will go back to the Continent where I am sure to find someone who will respect me. It will be the two of you, alone again, just as she wants.’

After seven years of strife, that sounded almost too good to be true. George turned to her father with hope in her eyes, and waited for his response.

When it came, it was not the vindication she sought, but another tired sigh. ‘You have heard your mother, Georgiana. She is quite out of patience with you. Now let us have no more nonsense about refusing offers before they have been given, especially when they come from your mother’s cousin.’

For a moment, she could not believe what she was hearing. He had been forced to choose. And without a moment’s hesitation he had chosen Marietta. ‘She is not my mother.’ The words sounded childish, but she could not help them.

The carriage was just pulling up to the front of the Knight town house and she opened the door and jumped out before it had even fully stopped. Then she ran through the front doors, up the stairs, and to her room before her heart could break any further.

Inside, her maid was dozing in a chair, awaiting her arrival. She took one look at the ruined ballgown and murmured, ‘Oh, miss’, before reaching to help her out of it. ‘Let me call for a cup of warm milk. Then we will put you to bed.’

‘Do not treat me like a child,’ George said, immediately regretting her temper. She took a deep, calming breath. ‘I am sorry, Polly. But I do not want to go to bed. I do not want to spend another night in this house. Call for the trunks. We are going away.’

The girl looked up at her with a worried smile. ‘Where are we going, miss?’

It was an excellent question and one for which she had no answer. There was not a relation near or distant who would keep her, if her father wanted her to come home. And she had never thought to put aside even a small portion of the generous allowance she’d been given against disaster. Until this moment, she’d never had an inkling that she might need to.

She sat down on the end of the bed. ‘Never mind. I cannot think of a place we might go to.’ She thought for a moment. ‘And if I become a governess, I doubt my employers would allow me a lady’s maid.’

‘A governess, miss?’ Polly gave her a knowing grin. ‘Are you thinking about running away, again?’

Again. Had she really done it so often? It had become an idle threat she made, after particularly bad arguments with her stepmother. But the idea of employment had never lingered for more than a minute or two. She’d been an indifferent student. What good would she be as a teacher?

‘I must do something,’ she said, more to herself than the maid. ‘I cannot marry Sir Nash.’

‘Nash Bowles?’ At the mention of marriage, her maid dropped any hint of formality. ‘I will send for the trunks, immediately. We will get you away from here, so he cannot find you.’

‘You know him?’ She had not spoken of him in front of Polly. She had not even wanted to think about the man.

‘All the servants know him. And the girls know to keep away from him.’ The words ended in a whisper.

‘Why?’ But she suspected she did not want to know the answer.

‘He...’ Polly shook her head and left the sentence unfinished, just as George had done earlier. ‘He is not a fit husband for a gently bred young lady. My brother says...’ She paused again. ‘Do you remember my brother Ben? He was a footman here until he outgrew all the livery.’

‘I remember Ben.’ Georgiana covered her mouth, trying to hide her smile. Ben Snyder had not just outgrown the uniform—he had far outstripped the other boys in size and weight. At six foot four, and seventeen stone, he’d towered over the rest of the staff and dashed Marietta’s hopes for servants as evenly matched as the horses on the family carriage.

‘When he left here, he went to work at a gentlemen’s club. And the things that happen there...’ Polly paused again. ‘Well, he says that they are not the least bit gentlemanly. Even so, he has had to turf Nash Bowles out on more than one occasion for behaviour that the owners would not sanction.’

‘So, he is not a gentleman?’

‘He is not even a rake,’ her maid confirmed. ‘He is worse than that.’

It was just as she’d feared. The whole house seemed set on her marrying a lecher. ‘What sorts of things does he do?’

‘Ben would not tell me.’

‘Would he tell Father?’ And would the word of a former servant be enough to save her?

‘I do not think he would do that, miss,’ Polly said. ‘If Ben tells anyone what happens in the club, he risks losing his position. It is supposed to be very secret.’

‘Perhaps, if there were a way to get Nash to admit to everything... Or, if I were to see it for myself...’

Polly’s eyes grew round and she gave a warning shake of her head.

George smiled back with the first optimism she’d felt in ages. ‘That is what I must do. If there are scandalous goings-on, there must be ladies in this club, mustn’t there?’

‘Not ladies, precisely,’ said Polly.

‘Cyprians!’ Even better. ‘Perhaps one of them will help me. And Ben will be there to protect me once I have discovered what Sir Nash wants from me. If the owners do not want things to be too scandalous, then I am sure they would rather have me escorted from the place than allow me to come to harm.’

‘But if you are caught, the scandal will be real,’ Polly reminded her.

‘At least if I am ruined, no one will expect me to marry Sir Nash,’ George said, with renewed confidence. If worse came to worst, she would take the veil and spend her remaining days in repentance. A life of celibacy and prayer was not something she wished for, but it would be free of the interference from Marietta and her detestable cousin.

‘Come, Polly. We must write to your brother. And then you must help me to look like a fallen woman.’

Chapter Two

Forty members in attendance. Five-and-twenty guests of members. Staff above stairs: fifteen. Staff below stairs: ten.

Frederick Challenger walked through the ballroom of Vitium et Virtus, oblivious to the tumult around him, his mind still focused on the headcount he had taken passing through the rooms.

He could no longer remember what private joke had inspired the name Vice and Virtue when he and his friends had formed the club back at Oxford. There had always been plenty of the former, but he could remember not a single instance of the latter. And that utter lack of morality had turned the place from a college prank into the most decadent and most popular club in London.

It was that same popularity that made organised debauchery into a chore, and Frederick into the saner head that must prevail over the anarchy. Thus far, the night had been uneventful. In the game room, Lord Pendleton had attempted to continue play with an IOU after running though the money in his purse. It had taken only a gentle reminder from Fred that such a thing would render the masks that they all wore a moot point. One could not remain anonymous while announcing one’s own identity with a signed marker. Of course, with his high voice and penchant for elaborate waistcoats, only an idiot would not know that Pendleton was there.

The real reason for cash play was much more simple. Watching a man continue to gamble until he had reduced himself to ruin spoiled the fun for everyone. And if someone blew his brains out at the table, it would make a hell of a mess. Fred had no desire to call upon Mrs Parker, the housekeeper, to arrange for the cleaning of the extremely expensive wallpaper, which was hand-painted silk that matched the Italian mural of a bacchanal on the ceiling.

In the main room, one of the club’s infamous masked balls was in full sway. At the very centre of the dancers was some damned fool, dressed as the devil. Rather than shrink from the appearance of Old Scratch, the masked dancers that thronged the dance floor raised their hands in salute.

Fred had donned a domino mask and cape for the sake of what passed as propriety. On such nights, appearing without a costume drew far more attention than red satin, horns and a tail. As he pushed past him on the way to the owners’ private quarters, Lucifer gave a menacing wave of the cat-o’-nine-tails he held, as if ready to strike.

Fred stared him down with a dark glance worthy of any of the fiends of hell and the man turned away and brought the silken cords of his flail down on the bare shoulders of the nearest dancing girl, instead.

She responded with a shudder of pleasure and turned to Fred with outstretched arms and mouth open for a kiss.

Fred obliged, but only briefly. Then he untangled himself from her grip and thrust her into the waiting embrace of a man on his left. She offered a pout as brief as his kiss had been before turning her attentions to her new partner.

‘Me, next.’ A buxom blonde dressed as a randy milkmaid reached for him, tipping her head up and offering her lips.

He hid a sigh of frustration, forced a laugh and offered another kiss before breaking away to push past towards the green baize door that hid the corridor to the office.

It did not do for an owner of the club to be so unenthusiastic when tempted with sins of the flesh. When he and his friends had founded the secret society at Oxford, they had meant to give in to every temptation and take no vice in moderation. But what had seemed daring ten years ago felt rather silly now that all of London wanted to join them in their debauchery.

His friend, Oliver Gregory, thought that Fred’s time in the army had sucked all the joy from his soul and rendered him the sort of authoritarian that they’d been rebelling against. That was hardly the case. He had his reasons to forgo the excesses here and had discovered he much preferred the military to hedonism. No matter how chaotic it had seemed, war had a brutal structure to it. Orders were given and received. Men knew their place and their reason for living and dying. On the battlefield, life had purpose. After Waterloo, Vitium et Virtus seemed the epitome of pointlessness.

The club’s third owner, Jacob Huntington, had insisted that Fred was merely jaded. That if he could find some fresh, untried iniquity it would whet his appetite for life.

What a disappointment it must be that neither women nor gaming, or any overindulgence Fred could imagine, was as satisfying as knowing that when he was there to watch over it, the club ran like a well-oiled machine. Jake saw to it that the membership was limited to only the most sought-after dilettantes. After they had joined, Oliver made sure that the entertainments were every bit as excessive as they could have hoped. The food and drink had no equal in London. The games had the highest stakes.

Once the stage had been set for debauchery, the owners’ jobs were almost ended. One did not need to order people to do that which they wanted in the first place. But Fred was the one to make sure everyone who passed the threshold stayed within the bounds of reasonable behaviour. When they left, he saw to it that they kept their mouths shut about what occurred and whom they had seen. There were no fist fights, no embarrassing scenes, and no females shrieking down the main stairs that they were being forced against their will. The women found at Vitium et Virtus, whether members or employees, were all ready and willing to sin.

If there was scandal, he dealt with it, quickly, quietly, and with as little drama as was possible. Before he had returned from Waterloo and taken over the day-to-day running of the place, they had given little thought to security. It had been naïve of them to believe that a den of libertines had no need of structure. That carelessness had reduced the initial number of owners from four to three. Friends were precious. He would not lose another.

Tonight, after his cursory examination of the revels, Fred meant to lock himself in the office with a glass of brandy and a good book. If they caught him at it, Oliver and Jake would be appalled and declare that some portion of him must have died on the battlefield to leave him so indifferent to the activities around him.

Perhaps they were right. He glanced at the laughing people surrounding him, utterly unmoved. Should a place of such unfettered pleasure be so bone-numbingly boring?

But as he passed by the last doorway before the office, the low rumble of the crowd piqued his deadened curiosity. This was the space set aside for the auctioning of favours. There, masked courtesans might throw over their usual protectors for an evening and go away with whatever gentleman had the most money to offer them. If they decided to drop their disguise and reveal their beautiful faces, it was only after the bedroom door was closed.

It was a titillating thrill for all involved. One might find oneself sampling the favourite of the most powerful men in England. Or discover that one’s own mistress, or worse yet, one’s own wife, had grown so bored she’d decided to offer herself to any man willing to indulge her vanity.

Tonight, there was something about the fevered sound of the bidding that seemed wrong. Once Fred pushed past the crowd by the door it took only a glance to see that this was no ordinary auction. In front of him, the auctioneer shouted, ‘How much, gentlemen, for a maidenhead? Turn out your pockets. Dig deep into your purses. Surely this beauty is worth more than the paltry bids I’ve heard.’

She stood on the small stage at the far end of the room as if floating on the cloud of tobacco smoke that hung over the men gathered at her feet. But the greasy light shining through the haze seemed to purify to an opalescent glow as it touched her skin.

And there was so much skin. Desire flooded him, sudden and unusual. She was beautiful and he wanted her. But another part of him wanted to rush forward and throw a coat over those bare shoulders to shield her from the roving eyes of the crowd. It was a sacrilege to look upon such untouched perfection. And she was an innocent. He was sure. Whores sometimes pretended to be virgins in these little games, hiding sponges of blood between their legs to fool their clients into believing they’d bought a deflowering. But they could not hide the look in the jaded eyes behind their masks, the knowing smile, or the lack of blush in their unrouged cheeks.

This girl was different. The downward cast of her masked head was not some ironic parody of shyness—it was genuine discomfort at being scrutinised. Her body was devoid of blemish except for the glow of embarrassment at her nakedness and the attention it had garnered.

Not quite naked, but near enough. She had not bothered with stays, chemise or stockings under the gown she wore, which was of a muslin so fine that it might as well have been a cloud of mist. When she moved, in the slow, awkward dance of one unaccustomed to seduction, the curtain of blonde hair that shielded her body parted revealing first a curve, then a dimple, and occasionally a glimpse of rose-tipped breasts, the hollow of her navel, or the delta of blonde curls between her legs.

As if that was not enough to make a man’s breeches tight, the gold cord that tied her garments into a semblance of a classic tunic had been braided into a chain. The end of it wound around her throat and loosely bound each wrist. It incited fantasies of a captive slave at auction, unable to refuse any depravity a man could imagine for her.

Like the other frenzied bidders in the room, some dark corner of his soul was stirring. Had he ever lain with a virgin? If so, she had not been as sweet and untried as this one. The girl before him could not possibly know the fate that awaited her or the depths that a man might sink to when given the chance to indulge his most forbidden whims. One had only to look at Nash Bowles’s reaction to see what was about to occur. That disgusting toad was every bit as recognisable as Pendleton had been, and the wad of banknotes he waved was easily the largest in the room. He was all but salivating as he shouted his bids.

Of course he would be here. Nash had often expressed his taste for untried blondes, the younger the better. Frederick had told him on more than one occasion that this was a club for mutual pleasure, not a dockside brothel. Then he’d made Snyder, the porter, escort him out the door. Tonight, Snyder stood behind the girl on stage, arms crossed on his chest, doing nothing to prevent what was going on.

It was all too much. The fact that Fred encouraged high stakes at the table and turned a blind eye to Dionysian revels did not mean that he had become a procurer for deviants. If he allowed this auction to continue, that would be exactly what he was. Without another thought, he grabbed for his purse and turned out the contents.

Not enough. So he stripped the gold ring from the finger on his hand and held it in the air. ‘Ten thousand pounds!’

At this, a hush fell over the crowd and the auctioneer turned to him.

Disgusted, he tossed the ring towards the stage where it landed at the man’s feet. ‘It is easily worth that. I have more. Should you refuse it, I will back it with a cheque for twice, or thrice that amount.’

‘No fair,’ cried someone from the crowd.

‘Foul,’ cried another, to an increase of grumbling. ‘You think that since you run this club you can do what you like in it?’

Frederick grabbed the cat-o’-nine-tails from the comic-opera Satan who had followed him into the room and waved it menacingly over his head. It was little more than a toy, but combined with the ferocity of his tone, it was enough to send the men around him scurrying for the corners. ‘Do I think I can do as I like? Since I am the one to set the rules, I think I can. I will have the lot of you chucked out into the street and banned if you doubt me.’

He smiled, relishing the same surge of power he got while frightening soldiers into obedience in Portugal. ‘But that will not be all, you sad bunch of reprobates. Do you wish your fathers, your wives, and your daughters to know what a pack of disgusting, drunken lechers you are? If this room is not empty by the time I count three, I will turn the club books over to the tattle sheets. If you force my hand, all of London will see how its finest sons behave when the sun is down and the curtains are drawn.’ He laughed, bitter at the ridiculousness of it, and pointed to the door.

It was not even necessary to begin the count. All it took was a threat of exposure to send the crowd scurrying like rats. The stampede flowed around him, out the door. At the rear of the throng was the scantily clad virgin.

His arm came down to prevent her egress. ‘And where do you think you are going?’

‘You said...’

‘I said they should leave. You have no permission to do so. You came here to sell yourself to the highest bidder. Now you are mine, bought and paid for. You will not leave from this place until I am done with you.’ He grabbed the swaying tail of gold cord that dangled between her perfect breasts and led her back into the room.

* * *

She had come searching for a demon. Instead, she had found the devil himself.

Someone in the crowd had called him an owner. It would explain why Ben had vanished along with the rest of the men. Clearly, he was more afraid of losing his position than what might happen to her if she was caught here.

‘No.’ She tugged back against the tightening cord, stripping it from her wrists and throat. This was not as it was to have gone at all. Her plan had been working. Though he had worn a cape and mask, it had been obvious that Sir Nash had been the high bidder. His lisping voice was unmistakable. And then, this stranger had appeared and ruined everything.

It had been foolish of her to assume that anyone would protect her, should the plan go awry. Despite his promises, her supposed protector had not prevented a sale to someone else. Instead, Ben had given her a helpless shrug, recorded the transaction, and allowed the devil his due.

‘No?’ Beneath the half mask he wore, the club owner gave her a smile that was more of a leer. ‘What makes you think you can refuse? Surely you knew what sort of club Vitium et Virtus was when you joined us.’

‘Is that where I am?’ There had been no name on the black-lacquered entrance door. Nor had she expected there to be rules in a place that was so clearly lawless.

‘You are not a member, then.’ He folded his arms across his impressively broad chest. Though there appeared to be a masquerade in progress, he was not wearing fancy dress. But neither had he bothered with formality. He wore no coat, waistcoat or cravat. His shirt was open, displaying fine muscles and a smattering of hair.

She snapped her eyes upwards, away from the bare skin directly in front of her. She had never seen so much of a man’s body before, but she did not want this stranger to take her interest as something more than academic curiosity. ‘If I am violating your by-laws by coming here, you had best turn me out immediately, as you threatened to do with the others.’

‘When I am ready, not before.’ There was something in his tone that implied her release would be a long time coming.

The prospect was terrifying. But something else as well. Perhaps it was the musk of sin in the air that was going to her head, but the fear she should be feeling was supplanted by an emotion that was unidentifiable and vaguely pleasant. He was tugging on her belt again, pulling her farther into the room. ‘Where are you taking me?’ She struggled for a moment, before realising that the flimsy belt was the only thing separating her from the loss of her gown.

‘Into the light, where I can get a decent look at you.’ Then he laughed. ‘Not that there is much I haven’t seen, pretty one. Your dress is all but transparent.’

She’d thought it scandalous when she’d admired herself in her bedroom mirror. But if the plan had worked, she’d have been wrapped in a cloak and on her way home by now and not under the prurient scrutiny of this stranger. ‘A gentleman would not have looked.’

He laughed again, his gaze travelling over her body like a lover’s caress. ‘When did I claim that I was a gentleman? And why do you object to my wanting a closer look at what I purchased? If you had been bought by any other man in this room, you would have more to fear than admiration. Did you think your ravisher would close his eyes as he took you? Or were you expecting a magical rescue from some man who paid good money to do whatever he liked with you?’

He said it with such obvious scorn that she did not want to admit her plan had been something very close to that. Although the man standing before her had made no move to assault her, she doubted she would escape the evening with her reputation intact. Even if he turned her out without further questioning, she might be forced to find her way home without help. The thought of knocking on her own front door in the flimsy costume she was wearing made her feel even more naked than she had before. She gave a hurried tug on the neckline of her gown, trying to regain some scrap of modesty, only to feel it rip in her hands to reveal even more of her body.

‘Hell’s teeth,’ he muttered. For a moment, the air of menace he’d been projecting failed him and he seemed almost as confused as she felt by their current circumstances. He pulled the mask from his face and patted at his chest as if searching for a handkerchief in the coat he was not wearing that might wipe the nervous sweat from his brow.

‘You!’ Who else could it have been? The man had an unerring ability to appear, as if by magic, any time she did something remotely improper. But at least Frederick Challenger had been willing to snub her when he’d seen her in public. Now that they were alone, he could not seem to take his eyes of her. She ripped the mask from her own face. ‘The least you could do is look me in the eyes, Mr Challenger.’

‘Miss... Knight?’ Did the hesitation in his words mean that he was shocked by her presence here? Or had he actually forgotten her name?

‘You admit you know me, then,’ she said, triumphant. ‘How unlike your behaviour at the ball the other night, where you looked right through me as though I did not exist.’

His leer had become a sarcastic smile. ‘Does it really bother you so much when someone does not acknowledge you? Are you one of those young ladies so taken with your own allure that you cannot imagine a man capable of resisting you? Did you come here tonight just to gain my attention?’

How quickly his tune had changed, now that he knew her identity. When the masks were on, he had shown no signs of resisting her. In fact, she had been worried that the handsome stranger would insist that she follow through on the terms of the auction and that she might have no choice but to submit to some notorious rake.

The truth was both disappointing and annoying. ‘I do not give a fig, Mr Challenger, whether men are caught by my allure, nor did I come here to teach you some sort of lesson. The fact that you would suggest such a thing tells me all I need to know about you. You are obsessed with your own importance.’

‘As are you by demanding my attention,’ he countered.

‘It is a different thing entirely,’ she argued. ‘A lack of interest in another person does not normally translate into public rudeness. You make time to speak to every other lady in the room. But when I sought to be introduced, you walked away without a word.’

‘Because I do not wish to encourage your behaviour, Miss Knight.’

‘My behaviour?’

‘Every time I see you, you are doing something outside the bounds of propriety. Dancing too close to your partners...’

‘Not by choice,’ she said, thinking of Sir Nash.

‘Arguing with your mother...’

‘She is my stepmother,’ George interjected.

‘It does not signify. Wearing indecent clothing...’

‘The hem was caught in a door,’ she finished for him.

He looked down at the dress she was wearing, as if to prove his point. But his eyes lingered too long on her exposed limbs, if he wished to be the arbiter of propriety.

She reached out and slapped his arm to draw his intention back to her face. ‘This is a costume. And as for the rest? You seem intent on blowing innocent mistakes into character defects.’

‘Innocent mistakes like selling your maidenhead to strangers?’

‘Surely that is no worse than buying someone’s virtue,’ she countered. ‘Or running the sort of club where such things go on. You are hardly a shining example of morality if you are here, encouraging others to bad behaviour.’

‘And you are too childish to be allowed out of the nursery if you cannot stop obsessing over a ballroom snub,’ he countered. ‘If it is not just to vex me, then I demand to know what you are doing here, practically naked, and offering your innocence to the highest bidder.’

For a moment, she was lost for an answer. If he was truly so concerned with virtue, he might be the sort of man who would help a lady in distress. Perhaps, if she told him the true reason for coming here, he might be an ally in explaining to her father how desperate she was to avoid this marriage.

Or, since he was here and in charge of the debauchery, he might be no better than Nash. ‘Perhaps it is as it appears,’ she said, abandoning hope. ‘I am here for the excitement, just as the rest of the guests are.’

‘Then I am happy to oblige,’ he said. ‘I will ravish you, right here, if that is what you wish.’ He pushed her up against the nearest wall, as if ready to carry out his threat. But the care he took not to touch her bare skin as he did it left her sure that it was nothing more than an attempt to scare her.

‘Once you have finished, will you speak to me if we meet on the street?’ she asked with a sigh. ‘Since you already treat me as if I have done something that renders me beneath contempt, I fail to see what difference it will make.’

He stepped away from her and threw up his hands in frustration. ‘That is not the correct response at all. When a man threatens your honour, you are supposed to beg for your freedom.’

She stared up at him. ‘If you are truly a threat, I doubt begging will do me any good.’

‘If?’

‘We have been alone for some minutes,’ she said. ‘I am as yet untouched.’

‘That could change at any moment,’ he reminded her.

‘Perhaps, if you were anyone else,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘But you are the most puffed-up and proper man in England and not at all the sort of fellow who would deflower a young lady of good birth in a public place.’

‘This club is private,’ he said.

‘But it would not be an easy secret to keep. Touch me and I will tell my father what you have done to me. He would have us up the aisle and married by week’s end. If you did not like me at Almack’s, think what a trial it would be to have a lifetime of my company.’

‘Or I could simply reveal your identity and ruin you before you do so yourself,’ he said, answering threat for threat. ‘Then your father would pack you off to the country to rusticate and I would not be bothered with you for the rest of the Season.’

It was a perfect solution! She could imagine nothing better than to be sent back to their country home in disgrace and forced to live away from the censuring eyes of the ton. If her stepmother stayed in London, there would be no one to scold her for getting mud on her hem, or insist that she conform to rules she’d had no part in making to please men she had no desire to attract.

But such a happy retreat offered no guarantee that Nash would not follow her. More likely, her unwanted suitor would use her total failure in town as an excuse to redouble his efforts to win her. And if she was alone, there would be no one to protect her from his advances. ‘I would prefer you didn’t,’ she said at last.

‘If your preferences mattered to me, I would take that under consideration,’ he said. ‘But it is my job to see that this establishment runs in a well-ordered manner. I cannot simply allow virgins to wander freely about in it, harassing the patrons and risking their reputations on a lark.’

‘I was not harassing anyone,’ she said. Even if she had been, she would not be returning here to do it. The trick she had just attempted would not work twice. She would have to find another way to rid herself of Sir Nash.

‘Then what was your intention?’ he repeated, still waiting for an explanation.

‘She came to cheat me out of what I deserve.’ Sir Nash’s voice cut the conversation like a slime-covered knife. As usual, his approach was as silent as his presence was unwelcome. He had removed his mask and was looking at her as if she should be surprised by his appearance, rather than expecting to find him.

‘Bowles.’ Did Mr Challenger grow larger as he greeted the other man? Or was it simply that he had stepped closer to her in protection? In any case, he looked no happier to see Sir Nash than she did.

‘Georgiana thinks that if she barters away her honour, I will take a disgust of her and retract my suit.’ The smile he turned on her was as odious as any he had given her in the past. ‘You did not suspect that I would be in the very room with you, bidding on that which you choose to squander.’

She opened her mouth to inform him that she had not just suspected, she had been sure of it, and then closed it again. The less he knew about her plan, the better. ‘You have no idea what I meant to do,’ she said with a contrary toss of her head.

‘Perhaps not. But I know what you have accomplished,’ he said, grinning in triumph. ‘By morning, I shall see that all of London knows what you have done here. And that includes my cousin and your father.’

What all of London thought of her did not matter, nor did she care about her stepmother. But she could not bear it if her father heard of this incident. It might kill what little feeling he still had for her. ‘What would it gain you to do such a terrible thing?’

‘I will have no reason to, if you do as your family wishes and accept my offer of marriage. Once the announcement is in The Times, we will never speak of this again.’

‘That will not be possible.’ Mr Challenger had been so quiet during their interchange that his interruption caused them both to jump.

Nash turned to him. ‘The matter is between the lady and myself, Challenger. Your opinion is not required.’

‘On the contrary.’ The other man smiled confidently and placed himself squarely between her and Sir Nash. ‘You are operating under several misapprehensions. The first is Miss Knight’s reason for attending the club tonight.’

At the dramatic pause that followed this, even Georgiana leaned in, eager to hear what was to come next.

‘Enlighten us,’ Nash said with a cold glare.

‘She was not here to barter her innocence to a stranger. She sold it to me.’ Then he turned to her with a smile that would melt the reservations of the most frigid virgin and pulled her into his arms, toying with a lock of her hair. ‘I told you it was unwise for us to play such games at Vitium et Virtus. As tantalising as I find this little trick you pulled tonight, it calls too much attention to our relationship.’

‘Your relationship.’ Sir Nash sounded as if he could not decide whether to be sceptical or annoyed. But George was far too preoccupied with the feeling of being pressed firmly into the body of Frederick Challenger to care what Sir Nash thought about it.

Mr Challenger broke the lustful gaze he had been giving her to frown at Sir Nash. ‘Our betrothal is, as yet, a secret from her family. But that makes our bond no less permanent.’

‘You?’ If Sir Nash’s response was incredulous, he was no more surprised than George herself.

‘Can you think of a better explanation for Miss Knight’s presence here?’ Though Mr Challenger delivered the question with a tone of dry sarcasm, it was far more likely that he was thinking the same thing to himself.

‘Well...’ Nash looked from one to the other of them, obviously not convinced.

‘It is not as if she came here to surprise you,’ Challenger said, dismissing her actual plan as impossible. And now that it had gone horribly wrong, it did seem ridiculous. But as long as her mistake did not end up forcing her into the arms of Nash Bowles, it would be an embarrassing success.

She gave not a word to confirm or deny. Instead she sighed and leaned into Mr Challenger’s body, nestling there as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be held by a virtual stranger. And it did feel rather nice. His embrace was neither too tight nor too loose and the breath that was ruffling her hair was pleasant.

Perhaps she had needed his protection. At the sight of them together, Sir Nash seemed to swell in his indignation like some disgusting sea creature. ‘You are playing a dangerous and foolhardy game, Miss Knight, if you think to partner with this man instead of me. Do you not know the reputation of the Challengers? Surely your father does not wish you to marry into such a rakehell family. And this man is the worst of the lot. Just look at where he is.’

‘He is in the same place as you,’ Georgiana pointed out quietly. ‘I see no difference.’

‘There is one and it is significant,’ Nash shot back. ‘I am but a patron here, but Frederick Challenger is one of the owners. He is the master of the revels tonight. If you do not wish to give yourself into the hands of a despoiler of innocents, then avoid him at all costs. There can be no greater one than he.’

‘Unlike some men, I do not take what is not freely given.’ The look he gave Nash told Georgiana quite clearly that, even amongst unrepentant sinners, there were some lines that could not be crossed.

‘Georgiana.’ Nash turned to her now, holding out a hand as if he could coax her back to his side. But the benign smile that accompanied the gesture was followed by a brief, downward gaze to stare at her body.

It was then that she remembered her state of undress and the fact that the original plan had not included removing her mask. This time, she made no effort to hide her shudder at his gaze.

Without waiting for a request, Mr Challenger stepped away from her and seized a cloth from a nearby table, tossing it about her shoulders, hiding her from view. Then with a manner as dire as death, he pointed a finger at Sir Nash. ‘In the future, you will refer to the woman at my side as Miss Knight. At least until such time as she does me the honour of becoming Mrs Challenger. Then, you will not speak to her at all.’

‘That day will never come,’ Nash said, almost shaking with rage. ‘I will talk to my cousin over this. We had an understanding.’

‘You do that,’ Mr Challenger said. ‘But one thing that you will not do is remain in this club a moment more. Collect your hat and be on your way, or I will have Snyder help you to the door.’ This was followed with the sort of cold, satisfied smile that assured everyone near that this was less a request than a threat.

‘This is not the end, Challenger. This is not the end.’ But it looked final enough to Georgiana. Sir Nash was backing towards the door as if afraid to take his eyes from the man next to her. Then, with a swish of the black cape that he wore, he was gone.

And once again, she was alone with Mr Frederick Challenger.

Chapter Three

When he was sure Sir Nash was gone, he released his hold on her and his warm expression returned to disapproval. ‘Well?’

‘Thank you for making him go away,’ she said, her nerve failing her in the face of such a large, angry man.

‘Do not thank me. I did not do it for you,’ he said. ‘I cannot abide that fellow. He cannot seem to manage a visit here without doing something so foul that I have to turn him out. If you had a jot of sense you would not have come here, to risk falling into his clutches.’

In the face of this fresh condemnation, she felt as young and foolish as her stepmother thought her to be. Then, she remembered that Mr Challenger had spent the whole of their limited acquaintance thinking such things about her, with no basis in fact. ‘My behaviour was the result of desperation,’ she said firmly, looking him in the eye. ‘My father and stepmother are all but forcing me to marry Sir Nash and I find him repellent. I thought if there was some way I could prove to them how awful he was...’

‘So you came here to find him,’ Challenger said. ‘And just what did you mean to do once you had?’

She could not reveal the whole of her plan without announcing Ben’s part in it. If he lost his position because of her foolishness, how could she forgive herself? ‘I thought to scream for help,’ she said, wondering if it would have worked. ‘When someone came to my rescue, I would demand that he be a witness against Sir Nash to my father.’

‘Or you could have drawn a crowd and not a rescuer. You could have been ravished for sport by the very man you thought to entrap, while the worst of the ton looked on and laughed.’ His voice rose, as if he thought she was some underling who had to stand for his punishment. ‘Once he had what he wanted, you’d have had to beg for the honour of the marriage you did not want to keep from being cast into the gutter with the rest of the fallen women.’

‘Then what Nash said about you was true,’ she responded, raising her volume to match his. ‘If you own such a place and would have allowed that to happen, you are as bad, or worse, than any who come here.’

His mouth snapped shut, as though he could not figure out how to respond.

‘For your information, he’d have married me no matter what had happened,’ she said, crestfallen. ‘I think he has debts. My stepmother speaks disapprovingly of his gambling even as she tries to arrange our marriage. He wants my father’s money as much as anything else he might get from me.’

‘I seriously doubt that.’ Mr Challenger gave another sweeping glance up and down her body, as though it was possible to see through the tablecloth that hid it.

After weeks of studiously ignoring her, she was unsure of what to make of his sudden interest. She did her best to disregard it despite the strange tingling she felt at the passage of his eyes. ‘Well, your interruption has prevented anything bad from happening tonight. If you will excuse me...’ She turned toward the door.

He gave a single, sharp laugh in response. ‘And now, you mean to go home as if nothing has changed.’

‘What else can I do?’ she said, trying to smooth the tablecloth into the semblance of a respectable garment.

‘Go on, then.’ He smiled, gesturing toward the door. ‘If you really think that is a good idea.’

His maddeningly smug tone raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She hated being lectured to like a foolish child. She hated it doubly so when she suspected that she deserved it. ‘All right, then. Say what you mean to. You are itching for the chance to scold me and I will not deny it to you. Why can’t I just go home? Do you still mean to ravish me?’ She had meant it as a joke, but once the words had passed her lips, they seemed to hang in the air between them on a cloud of musk.

‘You will go home, untouched,’ he said, in a reasonable tone that belied any knowledge of a change in the atmosphere. ‘But it will be quite impossible for either of us to pretend that this incident did not happen.’

‘Do you mean to tell my father?’ she asked in a small voice. The story would sound no better delivered by Mr Challenger than it would from Sir Nash.

‘I will not have to. Bowles will be there at first light to do it for me.’

Of course. He would come to press for an immediate approval of his suit. He would portray her as a wayward hoyden and himself as a rescuer from near disaster. ‘I have made it worse,’ she said, miserably.

‘Indeed,’ he said, not bothering to spare her feelings. ‘And dragged me into it as well. I will have to answer for our secret engagement and our sexual game playing in a club frequented by the more louche half of the ton.’

‘Oh, dear.’ She did not like the man, but she had never intended to include him in her personal problems. Then she remembered the conversation that had just occurred. ‘I did not ask you to lie for me.’

‘Nor did you denounce me when I did,’ he reminded her. ‘You were more than willing to hide in my shadow and allow me to take the blame for this debacle. Now you know what you must do to make it right.’

‘In truth, I do not.’ There was not a way forward that did not lead to disaster.

Mr Challenger dropped to his knee before her. ‘Miss Knight, would you do me the honour of accepting my offer of marriage?’

She had heard the phrase, ‘without a trace of irony’. This must be the opposite of it. The proposal was delivered without a trace of sincerity. And yet, he did not rise. He stared at her, grim-faced, awaiting an answer.

‘But, I do not want to marry you,’ she said, staring back at him incredulous.

‘Nor do I want to marry you.’ If possible, his expression became even more threatening. ‘But as you said before, if word of this gets out, I will be called to offer for you. I see no other way to save both of our reputations.’

‘Your reputation?’ Did men even have them? Of course they did. But she was sure that it did not mean the same thing as it did for girls.

‘If you do not marry me, I will be seen as the villain who threatened you, a seducer of innocents. Bowles, on the other hand, will be cast as your rescuer. In either case, your future is set. You will have to marry one of us to avoid ruin.’ The statement was followed by the audible grinding of teeth. ‘Please, my dear Miss Knight, allow me to be the lesser of two evils.’

The idea was insane. ‘But then, we would be married,’ she reminded him. ‘For ever,’ she added, when the first statement seemed to have no impact upon him.

‘That is the way it normally works,’ he agreed. ‘You must have understood the risk when you undertook this desperate mission. As I told you before, if you do not marry me, then you shall wed Bowles.’ He looked at her for the length of a breath, then added, ‘For ever.’

‘For ever,’ she repeated. It sounded so final. Eventually, she had known she would have to marry someone. She’d just never imagined it would be to a man who had never been willing to give her the time of day, much less a proposal. But marriage to Nash would be every bit as final and infinitely more horrifying.

Mr Challenger gave an impatient huff, as if it had never occurred to him that the woman he offered for would not accept him without question. ‘I do not like the idea any better than you do. But if we are reasonable about the business, we need have very little to do with each other, once we are married.’

‘And that is what you consider a proper match,’ she said. Even at their worst, her father and Marietta had a better union than that.

He continued, oblivious to her criticism. ‘I am a second son. It is not as if I am required to produce an heir. I did not intend to marry. I have no interest in tying myself to a single woman until death. But as long as you do not get in the way of my life, I see no reason why I should not. And it will prevent my sister-in-law from trying to match me up with someone in the future.’ Now he was smiling at this small advantage.

‘I am glad you are warming to the idea,’ she said. He had no right to be happy about a reversal of fortune that would leave her shackled to an annoying stranger.

‘We will get a special licence and be married by week’s end. After a brief period of celebration, you may retire to my country home, free of the attentions of Bowles.’

And now, he was organising her life. ‘I have not said yes,’ she reminded him.

‘It would be foolish to say no,’ he replied.

Perhaps so. But she wanted to say it, all the same.

That was not true. She wanted to shout the word directly into his smug face. She had disliked him from the first moment she’d seen him. Or the second moment, at least. When she had looked across the room at him that first time, she had thought him handsome, heroic, and sophisticated. Then, Marietta had ruined it and he’d proved he was also arrogant, snobbish, and dictatorial.

‘If you do refuse me, there is always Nash Bowles,’ he reminded her again in that mockingly reasonable voice she might be hearing every day for the rest of her life, since she could think of no other way out of this mess than the one he had presented to her.

‘Nothing would be as bad as marrying Sir Nash,’ she agreed. ‘Not even marrying you.’ She could not resist adding the final riposte and was pleased to see the flash of annoyance in his eyes.

‘You are no gift, either,’ he said, not bothering with courtesy. ‘But if you will promise to leave me alone afterward, I am willing to do the right thing and save you.’

He spoke as if she was a gnat to be waved away, or an annoying child who needed to be sent back to the nursery. ‘I am willing to accept,’ she said, holding her head high and giving him a cold look that would tell him he was twice as bothersome as she could ever be. ‘If you will swear to leave me alone as well.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Do not worry yourself, Miss Knight. I have no intention of disturbing your privacy.’ There was a significance in his tone that she did not fully understand. It was as if her request had actually hurt him in some way that all her other insults had not.

She gave him what she hoped was a worldly smile, that he might think she had intended what had just changed between them. But, in truth, she did not. It probably had something to do with the things he’d threatened her with when he’d rescued her, if one could even call that a rescue.

Did married people ravish each other? That did not sound right. She could not imagine her father and stepmother ever did. And she was quite sure she did not want to ravish Mr Challenger.

There were paintings on the walls of this very room that showed scenes similar to those on Sir Nash’s snuffbox. But they had to be exaggerations. There were far too many satyrs involved and she seriously doubted that the men of London were actually hiding cloven hooves inside their boots.

Her future husband had turned his back on her speculating and walked to a corner of the room to pull on a bell rope. He did not turn back to her as they waited for the arrival of the servant he’d summoned, leaving her nothing more than silence and a view of his rigid spine and squared shoulders. If he would only relax, just a little, she’d have admired the masculinity of his frame. But at the moment he looked less like an embodiment of strength and more like a man who had just been caned and was braced to take the next blow without flinching.

By the time a maid appeared, the rigidness he displayed had passed to George like an infection. If they did not find some way to manage with each other, when the time came to marry, they would look more like waxworks than human beings.

Mr Challenger turned and addressed the maid with military stiffness. ‘Rose, take Miss Knight to the dressing rooms and find her clothing appropriate for a lady. Then see to it that Snyder gets her out of the club and away before anyone knows of her presence here.’

The girl gave a quick curtsy of assent.

Mr Challenger turned back to her with a smooth half pivot. ‘I will call on your father in the morning. Once I have his assent, I will take care of the licence and the matter will be settled in no time.’ Even though they were only in the presence of a servant, he offered a deep bow. It had none of the irony that his earlier proposal had held. But there was a mechanical quality to the movement that made her think of the tin man who appeared on the hour out of their mantel clock back home. ‘Until I see you again, Miss Knight.’

‘Mr Challenger.’ She imagined herself as the tin girl that came out of the other side of the clock to meet him, offering the same perfectly controlled curtsy. But as she dipped, she lost her grip on the tablecloth she was still wearing and revealed far too much leg than was proper.

Frederick Challenger’s control slipped in response. A quick flick of the eyes downward was followed by a glance heavenward and a tight grimace of disapproval.

Before he could unbend enough to complain aloud, she gathered the cloth close about her again and hurried out of the room after the maid.

Chapter Four

‘She is late.’ Fred checked his watch for what seemed like the hundredth time and glanced towards the closed front doors of the church and the empty pews that should have contained the bride’s family. Only the presence of his two oldest friends prevented him from leaving the chancel and hunting the woman down.

‘Only by five minutes,’ Oliver Gregory’s sympathetic smile flashed in the dimness of the church, seeming even brighter against the darkness of his skin.

The five minutes before a battle felt like a lifetime, as if the mind was trying to savour what might be the last moments of life. Perhaps the same was true today, as he bid farewell to his freedom.

Whether it was five minutes or five years, it did not make Georgiana Knight’s behaviour any less annoying. ‘She has had nineteen years to prepare for her wedding day. You would think she would be early. Punctuality is vital in any operation.’

‘Perhaps in the army,’ Jacob Huntington said, as he rubbed the bridge of his nose. The ducal ring of Westmoor, which had recently fallen to him, glinted in the light shining through the stained-glass windows of the chapel. He seemed to feel the weight of it and lowered his hand to twist it on his finger as if it gave him discomfort to wear it. Then he spoke. ‘You have sisters, do you not? You must have learned by now that women play hob with timetables.’

‘That does not mean I have to like it,’ Fred said gruffly. He did not have to like any of this. Not the wedding, nor the bride, nor the sudden upending of his life. Nor did he appreciate being forced to buy breakfast for people he took pains to avoid at any other time. He glanced at his own family, gathered on the other side of the church like storm clouds on the horizon.

It was a tiring proposition at the best of times to see them all together in the same place. The Challenger family motto was incautus futuri and they seemed to take pleasure in living up to it. Careless of the future and heedless of consequences, his parents and siblings were prone to excesses, affairs, and embarrassments in public, and arguments and grudges in private. Alone and in pairs, they were bad. En masse their bad judgement magnified to astounding proportions.

Perhaps it was good that the Knights had not yet arrived, so he might deal with a few of the problems unwitnessed. His sister-in-law, Caroline, was waving at him, the lace handkerchief in her hand fluttering like the wings of a trapped bird. Without so much as a smile he turned from her, offering the sort of deliberate cut that he had once given to the woman he was about to marry. Perhaps, some day, he could explain to Georgiana the reasons for his behaviour. But it would not be at the front of a church on his wedding day. Fred meant to treat the ceremony with the respect it deserved. If war broke out amongst the Challengers, the first shot would not be fired by the groom.

But it seemed his older brother had no such qualms. Since Fred had refused to come to their pew, Francis had abandoned his wife and was pushing past his friends to speak with him. Fred readied for the handshake he was about to receive and the words of filial advice that were in no way necessary.

Instead, Francis touched his sleeve in an importunate gesture that was all too familiar. ‘Will we be starting soon? There is an auction at Tattersall’s this afternoon and I do not want to miss it.’

‘I cannot marry until the bride arrives,’ Fred replied, unsure of who annoyed him most.

‘Perhaps she has decided to cry off,’ Francis said, ever the optimist. ‘I told you to book St. George’s for the ceremony. Girls want all of London to know that they are marrying. What is the point of bothering if the ceremony is in some out-of-the-way chapel that attracts no notice?’

If, as Fred suspected, Georgiana Knight was like all the other girls in London, she was in for a lifetime of marital disappointment. He had no intention of catering to her every whim. St. George’s was too large, too loud, and too expensive. It was also so popular that even more people would notice the nuptials and remark on the suddenness of them, which was the last thing he wanted.

But according to Francis and his wife, there was no point in doing anything if the world was not gawping in amazement at it. His brother was a true dandy, with a collar so high that he could hardly turn his head and breeches so tight that the world was left wondering how he managed to bend his knees to walk. Caroline dressed in kind. The gown she had chosen today was trimmed in so much lace that it appeared she meant to outshine the bride. When she saw his disapproving glance in her direction, her smile brightened and the waving began again, proving she was as eager for his attention as ever and just as obtuse of his opinion of her.

He made another deliberate turn away and replied to his brother, ‘Georgiana’s parents were married in this church.’ Then he remembered his desire for decorum. Losing his temper with the family only made them worse. He took a breath. ‘Georgiana chose the place herself. She has no reason to spite me over it.’ It was probably too much to hope that the girl had decided the whole thing was a bad idea and decided against it. But if he meant to carry through with this marriage, he must stop hoping, even in the privacy of his own thoughts, that there was a way out of it.

‘She will be here, momentarily,’ he said, with as much confidence as he could manage.

‘Excellent,’ Francis said, finally reaching out to shake his hand. ‘And, while I have your attention...’

‘How much?’ Fred said, before his brother could finish.

‘Twenty quid,’ Francis replied. ‘Just until my luck has turned.’

It was moments like this when Fred was glad he had already received his portion of the estate. The heir to their father’s title was likely to run through everything that he had and more. ‘Ten,’ Fred replied, relieved that the Knights would not see him emptying his purse for a brother who could not manage to stay away from the gaming tables.

As Francis returned to take his seat, Fred glanced past him at the rest of the family. At the moment, his mother was trying to rouse his dozing father by proclaiming with ever-increasing volume her own opinions of the impending marriage. ‘The influence of the Bowles family cannot be a good thing on the character of a formative girl. I hope Frederick keeps her well in hand or she will disgrace us all.’ The first part of the sentence was quite probably true, but the rest was painting it too brown.

His mother had no right to question the birth and upbringing of others. Francis was a wastrel and at one time Fred had been no better. But he’d eschewed his past wildness to set a good example for their younger siblings. His brother Christian was barely out of university, and dangerously high-spirited.

He had three sisters still in the schoolroom: Mariah, Sarah, and the unfortunately named Josephine. When she’d been born, Mother could not be bothered with the fact that they had been at war. No matter how she fancied the name, his youngest sister reminded everyone of the Empress of France. Of course, neither had she been bothered to find lovers that resembled Father. After his own birth, the family resemblance varied widely from child to child. Though Father had acknowledged them all, when the lot of them were lined up side by side, it was difficult to ignore the truth.

‘We have lost him, again.’ Jake was waving a hand in front of his face, trying to regain his attention.

‘He is distracted by things that concern him more than they do the rest of us,’ Oliver said, dismissing his family problems with a shake of his head. ‘Do not worry, my friend. We are here to stand by you, just as we always have been.’

‘I think, as best men, it is our duty to protect you from the family of the bride, should they ever arrive,’ Jake added.

‘Or to help you escape them and the bride as well,’ Oliver added. ‘There is a rumour that she was seen at the club last week.’

Fred could guess where the rumour had started. Now that he had been thwarted, Bowles meant to do what damage he could.

‘That is the last place I’d have expected to find a marriageable young lady,’ Oliver prodded gently.

‘Or a gentleman inclined to marry,’ added Jake. ‘Especially if that gentleman was you. We did not think, when you chose a bride, that we would read her name in The Times along with the rest of London.’

They were right to be hurt that he had not told them before posting the announcement. There had been no secrets between the three of them, since the day they’d met at Eton. But until the girl was properly married and safe from scandal, the truth of their meeting was not his to reveal. Fred did his best to manufacture a happy, bridegroom’s smile. ‘You have both complained that I lacked spirit for the festivities at the club. Now you know the reason. My heart was engaged.’ Though he had not meant to use it on his friends, the lie came surprisingly easy to him. Now that it was started, he could not seem to return to the truth. ‘As for her presence there? She meant to surprise me.’

But such behaviour made his intended sound less than virtuous. If he had been marrying in truth, would he have allowed his fiancée to take such a risk? He liked to think he would have resisted temptation until the wedding night. Instead, he was going to resist indefinitely. ‘She was a little idiot to be there at all,’ he added, not wanting to seem too approving of the visit.

‘All the more reason to marry her,’ Jake said drily.

‘I had to offer for her, after that,’ Fred added. But that made him sound desperate. Trapped. And he had just called the supposed light of his life an idiot.

Finally, he gave up and offered something surprisingly close to the truth. ‘If I hadn’t married her, she’d have ended up marrying Nash Bowles, as her family intended.’

‘A fate worse than death,’ Oliver agreed with a theatrical shudder.

‘Or you,’ Jake seconded.

From across the church, his mother’s voice echoed yet another unneeded opinion. ‘I do not see why he chose to marry this girl. A viscount’s daughter is no catch at all when there is a duke’s sister waiting single in his immediate set.’

Jake stiffened in shock. Then he relaxed again, choosing to ignore the gossip about his beloved Eleanor. Jake’s sister was a dark and quiet beauty, and the mother of a five-year-old girl. The family declared her a widow. But though her surname had changed there had been no mention of a husband by his friend, or even a man that his sister had courted long enough to explain the presence of the child.

Fred shot a quelling glare in his mother’s direction which went unheeded, as usual. But the point was moot. Even if he’d wanted to marry Jake’s sister, he doubted his friend would have sanctioned the match. They knew far too much about each other to spoil a friendship by becoming family. And he had offered for her, just once, when he’d felt the family was in need of someone to claim the child and hush the rumours. He had been resoundingly refused and they had never spoken of it again.

No matter what the world thought of it, Eleanor gave no indication that she wished to be rescued from any kind of scandal and he had been faintly relieved not to have thrown his lot in with a woman he hardly knew.

Now he had done it anyway. Apparently, he grew no wiser with time. ‘Having a wife will not change my life so very much, I am sure,’ Fred said, trying to reassure himself. ‘Once the honeymoon is over, she will be retiring to my house in Surrey and I will be staying in London.’

His friends were staring at him as though he had gone mad in midsentence. Perhaps too much truth was not a good thing. ‘I will visit her on weekends, of course,’ he added, not wanting to sound unfeeling.

‘So you mean no alteration in lifestyle?’ It was hard to tell if Oliver was disappointed by this, or reassured. ‘I thought you claimed to have grown tired of the club since returning from Waterloo.’

‘Not tired, precisely,’ Frederick hedged. ‘We have been running the place since university. And I thought your responsibilities...’ He glanced to Jake.

His friend, whom he should now be calling Westmoor, passed a hand over his forehead as if it were so easy to wipe away the evidence of the previous night’s excess. He had been spending far too much time at Vitium et Virtus with both the ledger books and the brandy bottle. ‘I will mind my business and you mind yours.’

‘Or we shall both meddle in Fred’s life, just as we planned,’ Oliver said to distract the brooding Duke. Then he looked to Fred with a grin. ‘There is a new dancer at the club. She has ginger hair and a kiss like sweet cinnamon. If you change your mind, it is not too late for us to create a diversion...’

Were his true feelings so obvious, or was this another of Oliver’s attempts to cheer him? If the latter, it was not working. ‘You know damn well that I cannot run at this late stage without ruining both the girl and myself.’

‘Language,’ Jake chastised, his smile returning. ‘We are in a church, after all. And we know how you hate scandal.’

‘Which is why we should not have brought you this.’ Oliver reached into his pocket for a flask, passing it forward.

They were right. He loathed scandal. He should not have taken the sip of brandy that they were offering, but he needed a drink. He had not expected to have battlefield nerves over something as unimportant as his own wedding.

‘It is perfectly normal to be a bit on edge. We all are,’ Jake reminded him. ‘After all, you are the first of us to enter that undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns.’

Fred looked at him in puzzlement.

‘Marriage,’ Oliver supplied.

‘I believe Hamlet was referring to death,’ Fred said, finally able to manage a smile.

‘One of us has likely taken that journey already,’ Jake said, looking more dour than usual.

‘We do not know that,’ Oliver said quickly. ‘Nicholas is missing. That does not mean he is dead.’

‘There was a prodigious amount of blood,’ Jake reminded him.

‘But if it were a robbery, surely the thief would have taken his ring.’ Oliver produced it from his pocket, holding it out. Usually it was kept in a gilded box in the club’s private suite and Fred was surprised to see it.

‘If Nick meant to leave his old life behind, for whatever reason, it makes perfect sense that he would have abandoned an identifying piece of jewellery.’

Fred stopped himself before snapping that it was in bad taste to bring a momento mori to a wedding. But it might be nothing of the kind. As Oliver had said, they could not be sure that their friend was dead.

The alternatives were almost worse. If the blood was not his, whose had it been? Had their friend disappeared to escape a hangman’s noose? Fred would have thought that, had it been anything less than murder, Nick would have come to his three best friends for help.

‘It is all we have left of him now,’ Jake said, staring at the ring. ‘We were together at the start. We should be together now, if only in spirit. He would have wanted to be here for you, standing at your side with the rest of us.’

To be honest, some small part of Fred had hoped that, once the announcement appeared in the paper, Nicholas Bartlett might show up in the church, as suddenly and unexpectedly as he had disappeared almost six years ago. Fred had been in Portugal when he’d got the news. One night, Nick had been at the club, just as always. The next morning, the only evidence of him they’d found was a puddle of blood in the alley behind the club and Nick’s signet trampled into the mud.

At the sight of the ring, Fred thought what he’d always thought, when Nick was remembered.

If I had been here, it would not have happened. Whatever it was, I’d have stopped it.

He stared at the ring, which normally resided on the seat of Nick’s old chair. ‘I suppose, since you have brought this, it is time again?’

‘It seemed necessary,’ Jake said with difficulty. They were surprising words since, of the three of them, Jacob Huntington was the one of them most resistant to dredging up the past with what he deemed a silly ceremony. But he was probably right. If there was ever a day Fred needed all his friends, in body and spirit, it was this one.

‘Shall we begin?’ he asked.

The other two nodded, suddenly sombre.

‘In Vitium et Virtus,’ they said in unison.

Jake raised the flask he was holding. ‘To absent friends.’ He took a drink and passed it to Oliver.

‘Be he in heaven or hell—’ Oliver drank and passed the flask to Fred.

‘Or somewhere in between—’ Fred added, taking a drink.

‘Know that we wish you well,’ Jake finished, holding the ring out in his closed fist.

The pair of them reached out, covering his hand with their own. They stood for a moment in silence before parting, almost embarrassed by the display of feeling. Oliver cleared his throat and Jake slipped the signet back into his pocket.

‘Partaking of spirits in a church?’

Apparently, they had been too preoccupied with the past to notice that the bride and her family had finally arrived. Georgiana’s stepmother had caught them drinking and was staring at Fred as if he had just confirmed every horrible story she had heard about his family.

The bride, however, gave a longing look at the flask as it disappeared back into Jake’s pocket, as if wishing she could finish what was left.

He hardly blamed her. He had a good mind to request that Jake pass it back so he could share it with her. What were they doing? Even had they felt affection for each other, they had nothing in common. When he looked at her, young, untried, and fresh-faced in a primrose-yellow dress and a coronet of wildflowers, he felt a hundred years old. He was hardly that. He was not yet thirty. But he had seen too much and done too much to have anything at all in common with a green girl.

As she so often was, when he’d seen her in public, Georgiana Knight was pouting, frowning, and snapping at her stepmother, like the child she was. Lady Grinsted was frowning as well as she fluffed the sleeves of the bride’s gown and tried to adjust the flowers in her hair. Her father walked two steps behind the pair, purposely oblivious to the drama playing out under his nose.

‘Apologise to Major Challenger for our late arrival,’ Lady Grinsted said with a brittle smile and a jab of a pin in Georgiana’s blonde hair.

‘It is Mr Challenger,’ Georgiana corrected, staring at the uniform he had chosen for wedding clothes. ‘The war has been over for some time.’

‘Now is no time to argue semantics,’ her stepmother hissed. ‘Apologise to him.’

‘It is not as if he could start without me,’ Georgiana supplied, glaring at him as if daring him to say otherwise. ‘And you should be the one to apologise, Marietta. The delay was not my fault. If you would have allowed me to choose my own clothing unchallenged, we would have been here half an hour ago.’

‘A day dress that is months old—’

‘Barely worn,’ the girl interrupted. ‘And it favours me.’

‘You should have bought a new gown. And woodbine and speedwell for flowers?’ Marietta said with a sniff of disgust. ‘You look as though you picked them out of the garden.’

‘Because I did,’ the girl replied.

‘There were roses and orchids in the hothouse on the roof.’

‘Where they can stay,’ Georgiana finished. ‘Since you like them, I left them for you to enjoy, now that you are finally to be rid of me.’

Had the delay seriously been about something so trivial as the choice of flowers? She was lovely just as she was, the very picture of the bride he’d have wanted, had he wanted to marry at all. He failed to see what difference it made what she wore. He had promised to marry her and would have done so had she arrived wrapped in a grain sack.

Or in a sheer dress that barely covered her charms. Why, of all times, was he imagining how she had looked on the night he’d made the offer? The thoughts he’d been having before he’d learned her identity were not appropriate for a church.

Nor were they appropriate if he planned to leave his virgin bride untouched, as she had demanded. It should not matter, for he liked her no better than she did him. But he had never imagined that he would be denied the one clear advantage that one was supposed to gain by marrying. The whole thing was giving him a headache. Or perhaps it was the heavy scent of the Viscountess’s perfume, which was redolent of the flowers she had been forcing on her stepdaughter.

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