A sensible schoolmistress...

Awakened by the notorious rake!

In this The Wild Warriners story, schoolmistress Felicity Blunt feels old beyond her years—and desperately dull. Meeting confirmed rake Jacob Warriner brings her gloriously to life, yet no matter his allure, she must remain immune to his obvious charms and unashamed flirtation. But is Jacob merely a mischievous scoundrel, or is there much more to this Warriner than meets the eye?

The Wild Warriners miniseries

Book 1—A Warriner to Protect Her

Book 2—A Warriner to Rescue Her

Book 3—A Warriner to Tempt Her

Book 4—A Warriner to Seduce Her

“The first of The Wild Warriners series will have readers asking for more of these four brothers [...] The book’s delightful characters experience tenderness as well as sexual tension—and danger. The story strikes just the right chord with readers.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Warriner to Protect Her

“The sweetness of the story, combined with strong and sensitive characters, captures readers attention as they quickly turn the pages, cheering the lovers on to their HEA.”

—RT Book Reviews on A Warriner to Rescue Her

“A tale of self-forgiveness and love’s healing power. A Warriner to Tempt Her is tender and loving, powerful and poignant.” —RT Book Reviews on A Warriner to Tempt Her

When VIRGINIA HEATH was a little girl it took her ages to fall asleep, so she made up stories in her head to help pass the time while she was staring at the ceiling. As she got older the stories became more complicated—sometimes taking weeks to get to their happy ending. One day she decided to embrace her insomnia and start writing them down. Virginia lives in Essex, with her wonderful husband and two teenagers. It still takes her for ever to fall asleep…

Also by Virginia Heath

That Despicable Rogue

Her Enemy at the Altar

The Discerning Gentleman’s Guide

Miss Bradshaw’s Bought Betrothal

His Mistletoe Wager

The Wild Warriners miniseries

A Warriner to Protect Her

A Warriner to Rescue Her

A Warriner to Tempt Her

A Warriner to Seduce Her

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

A Warriner to Seduce Her

Virginia Heath

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07368-4

A WARRINER TO SEDUCE HER

© 2018 Susan Merritt

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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For Dave.

Welcome to our crazy family!

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

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

Epilogue

Extract

About the Publisher

Prologue

Markham Manor—February 1803

‘Why don’t we go and walk in the orchard, Mama?’ He tugged her hand, hoping she would cease staring at the river. While her distant mood and melancholy were nothing new, and nor was the route their daily walk had taken, the water was high and angry after the week of rain and the sight of it bothered him.

‘When I was a young girl, Jake, we used to promenade along the River Thames at Putney. Sometimes my father would row us out onto the water, but more often than not we used to sit on the banks with a picnic. He used to love escaping the crowds of London and while away the hours on that pretty stretch of the river.’ At least she was talking, albeit about the past again, which was a marked improvement on the painful silence he had endured for the last two hours.

But then it was always the same after his parents had been fighting, which they did with the same regularity as the sun rose in the mornings and set at night. His elder brothers Jack and Jamie always claimed it was best to leave them both be afterwards, and although he knew they were probably right, Jake’s bedchamber was next to his mother’s and the familiar sounds of his parents’ explosive, poisonous relationship taunted him and haunted him in equal measure. Her angry shouts and spiteful words, his father’s drunken slurring, the short and terrifying bouts of violence which they both participated in and then the odd silence, broken only by whispers, intimate laughter and the inevitable rhythmic creaking of the bed frame. When his father left her soon after, as he always did to find more brandy or whisky or whatever cheap grog he had managed to procure instead, there would be more cruel words followed by his mother’s noisy tears. It was so very hard to sleep with all that wailing going on and his poor childish heart wished he could make her happy, even though Jake knew that was impossible, too. His mother’s happiness remained in the past, well before she had met his father and stupidly married him.

If he had been Joe, he could have read to her. Mama liked that—sometimes—but although only one year separated him from his closest sibling, Jake had struggled to learn his letters and his mother became impatient when he stumbled over the words. Jamie earned her smiles by painting her beautiful pictures, although he did that less and less because he said she was selfish and self-indulgent and he had no time for either. His eldest brother saved her from the worst of their father’s daytime violence, by absorbing the blows in her stead, and took on the main brunt of the parenting because neither she nor his father could be bothered. The only thing Jake excelled at was making her laugh or by being the ears which listened to her incessant ramblings about her old life, back when she had been happy and he could only do that by keeping her company.

‘Tell me about London, Mama.’

As he’d hoped, the usually dead light flickered in her eyes. ‘It’s a grand place, Jake. So vibrant and exciting. Every night there is a different ball or party to attend and my dear papa made sure I had enough gowns for all of them. They were always in the first stare of fashion and the gossip columns frequently commented upon them. The dancing was my favourite. I was renowned for my grace as much as for my beauty...’ She sighed and closed her eyes, picturing it all. ‘It’s the most wonderful feeling, Jake, swaying in time to the music and being adored by the lucky gentleman I had deigned to dance with...’

Jamie often said she was vain, too, preferring to spend hours having her hair dressed for dinner than spending any time with the sons she conveniently forgot existed. Jake secretly agreed, but felt guilty for agreeing, because she was always so sad he reasoned it had to be good that looking pretty pleased her.

‘That’s where I met your father. Without waiting for the proper introductions, he pencilled his name on my dance card. He was a wonderful dancer and so handsome.’ Two of the few positive things anyone could say about him.

Her eyes fluttered open and she noticed Jake for the first time in an hour. Her hand came up and cupped his cheek. A rare and precious moment of parental affection in a home devoid of any. ‘You’re the most like him, you know. You have his smile and his way with words.’ As his father’s words were always slurred or nonsensical from inebriation that comparison didn’t particularly please him, but Jake didn’t move or speak because at least she saw him. ‘He was a charmer, too, just like you are... I dare say you’ll grow up to be identical as well. His bad blood runs the strongest through you.’ Her hand slipped back to her side and her expression soured. Because he reminded her so much of his father she looked away in disgust. That cold, dead stare out to nothingness reserved wholly for him for disappointing her so. How he hated that look.

‘Go fetch him, Jake.’

‘Not now Mama. It’s still early.’ Two in the afternoon was practically dawn by his father’s standards. ‘Let him sleep it off a bit longer. Tell me more about your picnics in Putney.’

‘No, Jacob! Fetch him now.’

He never understood how it was possible for her to simultaneously loathe and love his horrid father at the same time. How could those opposing emotions exist together? He loved his brothers, sometimes they irritated him, but Jake never hated them. Joe reckoned this was because the love between men and women was entirely different from brotherly love. If that was true, then he wanted no part in that destructive other kind of love. Jake hated arguments. And bad moods. He preferred fun and laughter to tears and tantrums.

‘Let’s walk in the orchard instead.’ Away from the dangerous, angry water which she seemed intent on staring at.

‘I don’t want to. I want my husband. Bring him to me! Tell him I will throw myself in the river if he doesn’t come!’

And there it was, the usual threat. Mama was always threatening to end her life in whichever violent way was closest to hand to get her own way. Yesterday, she had threatened to stab her heart with her embroidery scissors, last week she was going to fling herself under a carriage. She never once tried, but his father still came running, after Jake had borne the brunt of his drunken temper at being awoken when his head still pounded. He would haul his dissolute carcass from his pit, dash to his woman and the pair of them would go at it again like vicious cats with their claws bared until they disappeared into her bedchamber.

With the threat of the customary angry punch from his hateful father and the petulant, dramatic whining he would hear from his mother if he refused, Jake nodded. Resisting was futile. This was the way of things. His parents hated each other and were addicted to each other at the same time. The emotions so powerful they blotted out and excluded everyone and everything from the personal hell they preferred to share together.

With heavy feet he trudged back towards the house and tried to fill his head with happy thoughts instead. Purposefully light and cheerful things which he would one day enjoy, but which did not exist in his miserable childhood. Parties, balls, dancing ladies in beautiful gowns, rowing boats and sunny picnics...

Instead of fetching his father he sat down to daydream, waiting long enough to ensure she believed his lie that dear Papa couldn’t be woken. Another habit which earned him censure from both his parents. Sometimes that worked and she would march back to the house in a temper to give him what for. Other times, she scowled at Jake and called him useless like his father, then ordered him straight back, but at least he had delayed the inevitable.

It was always inevitable.

With a sigh he stood and headed back to where he’d left her. As soon as he emerged from around the trees she turned and smiled, then promptly launched herself off the bank into the swirling water.

At first he stood frozen to the spot, but then realised the gravity of the situation. She had carried out her threat and he’d failed to fetch his father. His father might well be a roaring drunk, but he was a strong one and could save her. Now all she had was Jake, the smallest and most useless Warriner.

He sprinted towards the river bank calling to her, dropping to his belly at the edge and stretching out his arm. ‘Mama! Grab my hand!’ But she was too far away from his childish arms to reach, clinging to overhanging branches of the bare weeping willow as the river foamed and rolled around her, coughing violently as water splattered into her lungs.

He ran to the tree, screaming for help. ‘Jack! Jamie! Come quick!’

His elder brothers were in the field somewhere, working because most of the labourers had left long ago. He had no idea where Joe was, but willed him here, too. Joe was cleverer than Jake and his quick brain would find the solution, although anyone else would be better than just him. In desperation, he clung to the sturdy trunk and leaned out as far as he dared, knowing that if he tumbled in then the raging river would take him and they would both be dead.

‘You need to grab my hand, Mama!’ Hot tears were streaming down his face. Tears of guilt and terror, of shame at not being good enough and too selfish to sacrifice himself. ‘Please!’

Her heavy winter coat and long skirts were weighing her down like an anchor. Jake could see that as well as he could see the fear in his mother’s eyes just before her head plunged beneath the water. It bobbed up, but barely. Only her face was visible as she gulped for air, but her eyes locked with his and beneath her fear he saw the disappointment that he had failed her just as his father had so many times. In that moment, he realised she had never meant to die.

‘Grab my hand...please!’ Her chilled fingers were losing their grip on the slippery fronds, the fast current was greedily flowing around her, each new surge ebbing higher and higher as she struggled to stay afloat. Soon her fingers, then her face disappeared beneath the water and all Jake could see was the tangled whirl of her green skirts trailing like river weed among the branches of the willow.

He couldn’t tear his gaze away from the dreadful sight, even for the thumping sound of racing feet behind him, watching powerless as his two eldest brothers selflessly risked their own lives to correct his mistake. Joe arrived soon after and was stood frozen behind, his face white and terrified. Like a statue, he was so still.

In his daze, the tragedy unfolded.

Jack, his eldest brother, waist deep in the water, holding Jamie’s hand tightly on the bank as he tried to grasp her.

Jack carrying his mother’s limp and bedraggled body towards the bank.

Jamie laying her out on the ground, pumping her chest. The eerie gurgle of water trickling from her mouth with each push. Painful minutes ticking by before pressing his ear to her chest. Shaking his head.

Joe’s pleading voice. ‘We have to save her. There must be something we can do?’

His eldest brother’s arms went around his shoulder. He didn’t offer platitudes or false hope, simply his strength, and Jake leaned on him.

‘This is all my fault.’

‘No, it isn’t. You did all you could.’

Which was never enough.

His mother’s lifeless eyes as she gazed up from the mud. That final cold, dead stare out to nothingness. Disappointed for evermore.

Chapter One

Lord Fennimore’s Mayfair study, on a very wet night in February 1820

Thanks to the splendid port, the cosy heat from the fire and a distinct lack of sleep the night before Jake would soon need a pair of matchsticks to prop open his eyes. Viscount Linford was droning on about the latest numbers of confiscated barrels of brandy in every coastal county the length and breadth of the entire British Isles, or at least he had been before Jake’s mind had wandered off to greener pastures while listening to the man’s soporific voice.

As always, the Viscount measured success in numbers, seemingly oblivious to the fact it made no difference how many cargoes the blockade men had seized this month compared to last. Those dull statistics were a drop in the ocean—albeit the English Channel—compared to the massive cargoes which slipped past them daily. For a small pile of coin, most people could be relied upon to be resourceful. But smugglers weren’t most people, the piles they wanted weren’t small and their resources far outstripped those of the rag-tag disorganisation of the Board of Excise. Whoever the mysterious Boss was, his toxic network was proving near impossible to infiltrate. Crowbars wouldn’t budge the terrified sealed lips of the few crews they had arrested and for every ship they seized another twenty sailed right past.

‘All well and good, but can we trace any of those barrels back to Crispin Rowley?’ Lord Fennimore’s curt tone suggested he was as bored by the Viscount’s bean-counting as Jake was.

‘Not exactly.’

‘Not exactly? What sort of an answer is that? Either we have a traceable link to the bounder or we don’t.’

Viscount Linford began to blink at the challenge. ‘We know that a substantial amount of those barrels were destined for the capital.’

‘And?’ Fennimore was losing patience. ‘We are in the midst of the Season, when I dare say London consumes more than its fair share of brandy. Are Rowley or any of his associates transporting the goods further afield or selling the stuff in the capital?’

‘Not that we can find. He’s covered his tracks well. However, we all know he is the source.’

‘Knowing it and proving it are two very different things. The Attorney General will sign no warrant for the man’s arrest unless he has tangible evidence of Rowley’s involvement.’ Something they had failed to get in the six months since Crispin Rowley had come under the suspicion of the King’s Elite, a small but highly skilled band of covert operatives created to infiltrate and take down the powerful, organised smuggling rings which threatened Britain’s ailing economy.

Rowley was linked to a ring that they believed was funding the loyal last remnants of Napoleon’s army, which was a great cause for concern. This group was intent on stealing the former French leader from his island prison and returning him to power, using funds raised from smuggled brandy on the shores of the very enemy that had brought him down, and at the helm was one man: the faceless, untraceable and powerful man known only as the Boss. As much as ten thousand gallons a month were finding their way into the public’s glasses in the south-east, no duty paid and all profits heading directly back to the French rebels.

But this smuggling ring was not only supplying the capital. Every major city, the length and breadth of the British Isles, was benefitting from cheap spirits to such an extent the bottom had practically dropped out of the legitimate market. Most worrying was the persistent intelligence that hinted the group’s tentacles were firmly embedded among the ranks of the British aristocracy. Men with the power, connections and means to distribute the goods widely. Lord Crispin Rowley was the first and only name from that dangerous list they had.

So far they only had the tenuous word of a French double agent, who up until recently had been completely loyal to Bonaparte. His sudden change of allegiance, combined with his hasty flight from France, did not instil a great deal of confidence in his intelligence. Not when the man had urgently needed asylum and was still too terrified to come out of the hiding place Lord Fennimore had provided him, lest his former comrades hunted him down and assassinated him as they had so many other informants.

As much as none of them trusted that man’s word, there was a great deal about Lord Crispin Rowley which did not ring true and had set the intuitive Lord Fennimore’s alarm bells ringing. Three years ago Rowley had been on the brink of bankruptcy. The government contracts he had enjoyed during the war years to supply grain to the British army were cancelled after Waterloo and with no market for his corn and prices plummeting, as with many of the landed aristocracy, Rowley had suffered gravely and become disillusioned with the crown, blaming his collapse entirely on the government’s lack of perceived loyalty to those who had helped England win the war.

Crispin Rowley wasn’t the only peer of the realm who had turned on the government. Others also felt betrayed and were vocal in their criticism. While Jake had some sympathy for the way those men had been treated, he was also a realist. The world was changing rapidly and to survive the aristocracy had to learn to adapt. Land alone would not sustain a fortune any longer. Not with the mills, mines and colonies proving to be more lucrative for canny investors with ready coin to spend and cheap foreign grain pouring into England’s ports.

Rowley, like so many of his ilk, had appeared to be doomed. His fields remained fallow, his labourers laid off and his creditors lining up at his scuffed and peeling front door. Then, for no discernible reason as far as anyone could tell, his fortunes miraculously turned around eighteen months ago. The huge debts he had racked up had been paid off in impressive lump sums and the formerly penniless peer was now positively lording it up all over the capital.

And he suddenly kept some impressive company. Bankers, shipping magnates, dukes and foreign princes all now enjoyed Rowley’s extensive hospitality and, if their intelligence was to be believed—and Jake had no reason to doubt it—there appeared to be no ulterior motive to the man’s benevolence at all. He didn’t own businesses outright, preferring to dabble in stocks and shares like much of the new money. He was, to all intents and purposes, merely an investor—yet the double agent was adamant Rowley’s fortune was intrinsically linked to the free traders as their main distributor in the south-east of England.

‘So we’ve hit another dead end!’ His friend, and former Cambridge classmate, Seb Leatham slumped back in his chair like a petulant child and shook his head. ‘We keep throwing mud at the man and nothing sticks. Nothing! Surely there must be a chink in the fellow’s armour somewhere?’ He and his men had been watching Rowley’s every movement in the last few months and Seb’s legendary patience was wearing thin.

‘Not that I’ve found.’ Lord Peter Flint sighed from his place across the table. Being the heir to a barony and an enormous fortune, Flint had managed to inveigle his way into Rowley’s vast inner circle and had spent months socialising with him in the hope of being allowed into the inner sanctum. ‘I’m starting to wonder if we’re barking up the wrong tree and he is not the man we are looking for. I’ve plied his closest cronies with drink and asked them all manner of subtle probing questions and nobody knows anything other than the fact he likes to speculate.’

‘He must have secret associates. We have to keep digging. If we could get inside his house, watch the comings and goings, read his correspondence and private papers, we’ll find something.’

Flint glared at his boss. ‘I’ve searched his study. Repeatedly. There’s nothing there.’

‘Which is why we need ears inside that house. A slippery eel like Rowley is hardly going to leave damning evidence lying about in Mayfair when he’s invited guests in. If we can bribe a servant or get someone on the inside during the day to snoop around, I’ll wager that’s when we’ll find his weakness.’

‘I’ve offered huge bribes to as many minor servants as we dare. All have been refused. The others are too close to Rowley for me to risk approaching them. They will only tip him off.’ Seb Leatham always sounded angry even when he wasn’t. Unlike the suave Flint he worked best in the shadows and had a knack for blending in with the lowest of the low. ‘And we already know the place is guarded like a fortress. Right now, he’s confident enough to make mistakes. We daren’t risk shaking that confidence by breaking in.’

‘Then we’ll need to be invited, won’t we?’ Fennimore smiled enigmatically. A sure sign he had dredged up something thus far undiscovered. Whatever it was Jake didn’t care. He’d spent the last eight months infiltrating a gun-smuggling consortium running out of the East End docks and, now that the lynchpins were all sat in damp cells in Newgate awaiting trial, blissfully unaware of how their empire had crumbled, Jake was due a significant stretch of leave. Hell, he’d earned it. It had been a dangerous assignment and one he’d barely survived without a bullet between the eyes.

Tomorrow, he would head north to Markham Manor and see his brothers for the first time in almost a year. For some strange reason, he had a hankering for the north and for home in particular. Probably because he was tired. Leading a double life, a secret double life, was exhausting. In deepest, darkest, dankest Nottinghamshire he was just Jake. It would almost be as good to be that carefree young rapscallion again as it would to see his family. Three months of being himself, no hidden agendas, no danger, no responsibilities and no web of lies.

Except the one.

The rest of the Warriners had absolutely no idea the directionless rake of the family had worked for the British government since the day he left Cambridge, when Lord Fennimore had recognised he actually had some potential, albeit not potential which would ever serve a good purpose. Not strictly true. Jamie suspected. The questions he asked and the quiet assessing way he had about him suggested he was piecing together the hidden puzzle of Jake’s life. Jamie hadn’t vocalised his theory outright, because that was not his reticent elder brother’s style, but he had abruptly stopped joining in with the litany of criticisms Jake had received about his lack of purpose on his last two visits home, which in turn had led to more guilt and made returning home harder. That and the desire to keep them all safe. His job was dangerous. The risk of inadvertently dragging some of that with him on a visit home kept him up at night, when he much preferred to sleep. And, of course, it meant he prolonged his absences further and made more excuses.

Five years of lying to the brothers he loved was driving a wedge between them because Jake was actively avoiding them. They knew him too well and saw too much. They had also all made great successes of their lives and despaired that he had not. He tried not to feel envious at it, knowing they deserved all the good things and more, but the sight of their lives blossoming was coming to make his own existence feel barren. Yet he missed them and every day he missed them more. At least now his last assignment was completed he could go home and relax, safe in the knowledge he was working on nothing else which might put them in danger, trip him up or force him to tell them another pack of lies which he doubted they truly believed.

He let his eyes wander around the stuffy study which served as the King’s Elite secret headquarters until they fixed on the dancing flames in the fireplace and listened with less than half an ear.

Or at least he thought he did.

‘Warriner!’ His head snapped around to see Lord Fennimore’s bushy grey eyebrows drawn together in a scowl. ‘Have you listened to a damn word I just said?’

‘Er...of course, sir...well, actually...no. Not really. My eyes glazed over somewhere between one thousand barrels in Sussex and Rowley’s resistance to mud. Forgive me. I’m tired and as I’m about to go on leave I didn’t think it mattered.’

‘Your leave has been cancelled. I have a job for you.’

‘But, sir...’

‘No buts, Warriner. Only you can do this one. It’s a seduction job, so right up your street.’

Leatham and Flint were grinning at him smugly, no doubt having sold his sorry carcass up the river to avoid spending hours, weeks and months charming information out of yet another empty-headed smuggler’s mistress. ‘Now hold on a minute sir, I’m due leave. Urgently due leave. You patted me on the back only last week and said so yourself. I’ve made plans.’

‘Plans change. You can have your leave as soon as you’ve exhausted this new lead.’ There was no point arguing further. Fennimore never budged when his mind was made up. Never. ‘Given the lady’s age and experience, I dare say you’ll have done the deed in less than a fortnight and you can head north to rusticate then.’

Two weeks wasn’t so bad, even if it did mean letting his family down again. Something he had done all too often in the last few years, to such an extent he could already picture his eldest brother Jack’s irritated shake of the head and hear, crystal-clear, the blistering lecture he would receive as a result.

When are you going to do something with your life? Being a rake is not a career.

Jake was so caught up in the imaginary conversation with his responsible elder sibling it took a few moments for his superior’s words to sink in.

‘What do you mean age?’

‘You really weren’t listening, were you?’ Lord Fennimore huffed and began to snatch up his papers, signalling the meeting was over. ‘Crispin Rowley has a niece. His deceased, much elder half-sister’s child. The girl has been hidden away in a convent since she was orphaned, hence we haven’t bothered with her before. However, her neglectful uncle has now decided he’s going to give the chit a Season. My sources tell me he is doing so with the express intention of marrying her off by the end of it and to someone of stature. She’s recently moved into his house in Mayfair. Her name is Miss Blunt.’

‘She’s fresh from the schoolroom?’

‘One assumes.’

‘What does that make her? Seventeen? Eighteen?’ Please God, not sixteen.

‘I suppose.’

‘You want me to seduce a child!’

‘Eighteen is not a child and you only need to actually seduce her if other methods of persuasion prove fruitless.’

‘Why can’t Flint seduce her?’

‘I need Flint to keep chipping away on the other side. He’s making headway into the bounder’s inner circle and all that would be put in jeopardy if Rowley disapproves of him courting his niece. Your reputation makes you the perfect choice. Besides, I can hardly send Leatham.’ All eyes instinctively travelled to the jagged and impressive scar down Seb Leatham’s right cheek. Even without the scar, his friend resembled a bare-knuckle fighter and was painfully monosyllabic around the opposite sex. Jake was nicely trapped and Lord Fennimore knew it.

‘The girl has spent most of her life with nuns, Warriner, isolated from the manipulative machinations of the world. In the full glow of your legendary charm, she’ll probably confide all her secrets with a few flowery words. A simple brush of the cheek will likely render her a melted puddle at your feet. It won’t take long to pry a list of her uncle’s associates from her or his day-to-day schedule. Perhaps you can even convince the chit to steal away a few stray letters and such for a couple of hours so we can analyse them. I’m sure you’ll work out how to get her to do your bidding without having to bed her. But if it comes to it, then I’ll expect you to do your duty for King and country. You’ve never complained about that before.’

‘That’s because I’ve never been sent after a child before!’

‘I dare say she’s not a child. The young ladies mature so much faster than the young bucks and it’s not unheard of for them to marry at seventeen or eighteen.’

‘But you’re not asking that I marry her, you’re asking that I ruin her!’

‘You’re a resourceful fellow, I’m sure you can find a way to get what you need from Miss Blunt without having to lift her skirts. But the point is moot regardless. This is the first time we’ve had the chance of getting close to someone who lives inside Rowley’s house. The fact she is also as green as grass and ripe for the picking makes it all the sweeter. It’s a chance too good to miss.’

Incensed, Jake merely shook his head. ‘And how, exactly, am I supposed to seduce this child? I hardly have the sort of reputation which allows me to frequent the type of sedate and proper soirées the fresh crop of debutantes do and, even if I do, the girl is bound to have a handler. A chaperon with a sharp eye for the wrong sort of suitor. Which I am. They won’t let me within ten feet of her.’

Everyone including the bean-counter grinned, which didn’t bode well. ‘If you had been listening rather than wool-gathering, then you would know Lord Rowley has engaged the services of his great-aunts to act as chaperons.’

‘The Sawyer sisters?’ Two spinsters in their sixties, both highly connected but with a penchant for hard spirits and reputations as characters. Hardly the sort of women who would be up for the task. ‘The slurring Sawyer sisters?’

‘The very same.’ Lord Fennimore looked rightly pleased with himself at Jake’s obvious disbelief. ‘I know. I can’t quite believe our luck either, but with no wife or other suitable female relatives, Rowley could hardly use his mistresses to launch the girl and my sources tell me he is determined to have her married by spring. He’s probably already got the groom in mind, hence the sudden haste to launch the girl. It makes a strange sort of sense to align the girl to the slurring sisters. Cressida and Daphne Sawyer are invited to everything.’

‘Because they are guaranteed to make spectacles of themselves and the ton likes a laugh. I can’t think of two worse chaperons for a girl as green as grass.’

Fennimore shrugged. ‘Perhaps that’s deliberate, too. If Rowley has set his sights on a particular future nephew-in-law, if all else fails his lackadaisical choice of chaperons might aid the process when the girl is inevitably compromised. I wouldn’t put it past a slippery and conniving snake like Rowley to have factored that into his equations. Being with the Sawyers will certainly get the girl noticed and that’s usually half the battle on the marriage mart. It also aids us. I doubt you’ll find it overly difficult to make a move on the chit. Even more fortuitous, the timing is perfect. The chit is being presented tomorrow. At Almack’s.’

‘I’m banned from Almack’s.’ Something which had happened quite early in his career and of which Jake was inordinately proud. Only the worst sort of scoundrel was denied admission to Almack’s and the ban had done wonders for his bad reputation.

‘Not any more, you’re not. The patronesses have had a sudden change of heart. Here are your vouchers.’ He slid them across the table. ‘To be on the safe side I got you a month’s worth.’

* * *

The sea of people at Almack’s swirled by in a pastel haze, thanks to Uncle Crispin’s ridiculous insistence she leave her spectacles in the carriage. The unfamiliar place, the surging crowds and her short-sightedness made every step precarious. Already she had tripped up the short step into the high-ceilinged ballroom and nearly flattened a footman in the process.

‘Keep your head straight and glide, Felicity!’ Great-Aunt Daphne advised in her usual theatrical tone. ‘A lady should walk like a wispy cloud, floating across the sky.’ Or at least Fliss assumed it was her usual tone seeing that she had only met her aged relatives five days ago and, in truth, they weren’t technically any relation to her at all. But they were nice old dears who meant well, even if they were a trifle eccentric, and they had been very sweet while attempting to train her in the art of being a lady.

Not that Fliss had any desire to be a lady of the ton. She was perfectly content with the manners she had already. Perhaps she could be a bit abrupt and had an acid tongue when the situation called for it, but those minor faults were actually quite perfect in her role as the schoolmistress of Sister Ursuline’s School for Wayward Girls. Some of those young ladies required a firm hand and many more needed her guidance because they were prone to make poor choices—especially regarding men. Once this silly visit was over, those girls would need the Miss Blunt they relied upon. Not some improved version who was required to walk like a ‘wispy cloud’, whatever that meant.

Although why it was considered essential for a lady to walk as if she had a book balanced on her cranium was beyond her. For the better part of two days, Daphne and Cressida had made her walk backwards and forward in Uncle Crispin’s ostentatious Egyptian-themed drawing room, with a Mrs Radcliffe novel perched precariously on her head, while they instructed her on the subtle nuances of etiquette she had never had use of before. Who knew that curtsies were graduated, for instance, saving only the deepest and most grovelling for dukes and the monarchy? There had not been much cause for curtsying in Cumbria, thank goodness. Nor for the baffling array of cutlery deemed necessary for every meal when a knife, fork and spoon had always served her perfectly well before, thank you very much. Before she had been a wispy cloud, of course.

‘And smile!’ Aunt Cressida nudged her with such force she lurched a little sideways. ‘Think of yourself as a swan, my dear. Graceful. Elegant. Effortless.’

There was no point enquiring as to where the cloud had gone, because Aunt Daphne and Aunt Cressida rarely remembered what they had said five minutes before. However, she was sorely tempted to point out there was nothing effortless in gliding like a swan in a strange place sans spectacles, but Fliss smiled tightly and tried her best, holding her head so still it made her jaw ache. She was here for her mother. Uncle Crispin had apparently made her a solemn promise upon her deathbed to give his half-sister’s daughter a Season and, while she was fundamentally too old to be launched into society, the guilt had made her agree to the offer—the guilt, Sister Ursuline’s insistence Fliss needed to go and have an adventure, and the desire to do something for the mother she struggled to remember fully yet had missed keenly throughout her life. For her tragic real mother, and her incorrigible surrogate mother, she would attempt to be a cloud or a swan or whatever other nonsense her new great-great-aunts came out with in the next few weeks and she would do it with all the enthusiasm she couldn’t be bothered to feel.

The new corset she had been trussed up in like a ham about to be boiled didn’t help. While it did serve to keep her from slouching, because bending at the waist was now quite impossible, it also constricted every organ from her lungs to her bladder. It had also pushed her bosoms up in a most inappropriate manner so they threatened to spill out of the neckline of her new, form-fitting white-silk gown. Of course, she had protested the unsuitable dress and the corset, but her aunts insisted such fashions were all ladies wore in the ton and de rigueur at Almack’s. And from the amount of foggy cleavages she could just about see all around her, presented like soft loaves on a baker’s tray, her new great-great-aunts appeared to be right. The knowledge did not make Fliss feel any better about exposing her own bakery goods to the eyes of the world.

And Fliss had definitely been thrust into the window of the bakery, despite repeatedly insisting to both the aged women and her stand-offish Uncle Crispin that she had no desire to find a husband while in town. Never had and probably never would. After years of being on her own, and after watching her mother’s disappointing marriage to her unreliable father, she could see no reason why she would want to relinquish her freedom to just anyone. If, by some miracle, she ever did find a man who wasn’t controlling or unreliable, then perhaps she would reconsider. But if she did, it would be of her own choosing somewhere very far in the future. And finally, and this was completely unnegotiable, he had to absolutely adore her. She wouldn’t settle for anything less. She had agreed to a Season, not to any matchmaking, therefore introducing her to all and sundry was pointless. Solid, dependable and trustworthy men would hardly waste their time in this crush. They would be far too sensible and nothing like the fops, dandies and pompous aristocratic versions here, so why her new aunts insisted on parading in a constant loop around the room was beyond her. Not only was she unlikely to remember the fifty different names of gentlemen thrown at her so far, without her spectacles, every one of the fifty faces resembled blurred pink blobs. Aside from the varying colours of hair or clothing, none of the many men she had met had any discerning features which she could recognise them by, should she need to.

Mind you, parading around the ballroom was better than standing near the refreshment table. Her aunts had a worrying penchant for the lemonade—which they mixed liberally with the brandy they hid in hip flasks in their reticules, while they regaled her with outrageous stories from their pasts—and had pressed so many glasses into Fliss’s hand her head was beginning to spin. Thanks to the rigid corset, that wasn’t the only side-effect.

‘I think I need to visit the retiring room.’

Both old ladies sighed. ‘How very tiresome. Ever since the great ball at Osterley we have trained ourselves to take no notice of such things. Isn’t that right, Sister?’

Cressida nodded sagely. ‘Indeed. And a very prudent decision it has turned out to be.’

They often talked in riddles, too, sharing knowing looks and wicked grins about experiences from their pasts which they frequently assumed she knew about. ‘That is all well and good, but the retiring room?’

Daphne flapped her hand to the left. ‘It’s over there.’

‘Aren’t you coming with me?’ Because Fliss didn’t trust herself to get there unattended. Not when she wasn’t entirely certain where ‘over there’ was. With her glasses she had a poor sense of direction. Without them she would be hopeless. ‘I’m afraid I might get lost.’ An understatement. It was almost guaranteed.

‘As long as you have a tongue in your head, Felicity, you will never be lost. Remember that, dear.’ Daphne was also prone to issue random guiding words of wisdom at odd times. ‘Head towards the alcove and you shall find it in the furthest corner.’ The hand flapped ineffectually again. ‘We shall wait for you by the refreshment table, won’t we, Cressida?’

Of course they would. Because that was where the lemonade lived.

‘Yes, indeed. Now that you mention it, I am a bit parched, Daphne.’

To Fliss’s complete disgust, the older women immediately left her on their quest for yet more refreshment. She stood impotently and watched their ridiculously tall and elaborate feathered headdresses disappear into the sea of people and allowed her irritation to bubble.

How perfectly splendid. She’d been abandoned by the only two people she knew in the room. Yet another thing to sour her already dour mood. She was stuck miles from home at a ball she didn’t want to be at, wearing a dress she feared she was spilling out of, trussed in a corset she couldn’t breathe in and, to make the occasion all the more perturbing, she couldn’t see more than two feet past her nose. As soon as she got back to Uncle Crispin’s soulless Mayfair house, she had every intention of penning a sternly worded letter to Sister Ursuline telling her the next time she had the urge to suggest Fliss have a little adventure, she could mind her own business.

Typically, within a few minutes of squeezing past the silk-clad throng she was hopelessly lost and it didn’t feel polite to ask such personal directions of complete strangers. Aunt Daphne had said the ladies’ retiring room was in a corner and Almack’s was reassuringly rectangular. If she kept resolutely to the edge, she would doubtless find the dratted room eventually, even if that involved going around a few times. Retracing her steps to the refreshment table might be more problematic, but at least left to her own devices she was spared a few minutes of pointless parading, smiling and gliding like a wispy, blind swan. A slow smile bloomed on her face at the prospect. Suddenly, being lost held a great deal of appeal.

Chapter Two

In a secluded alcove in St James’s

Jake was still sulking when he arrived at Almack’s. Seducing an innocent, wide-eyed chit didn’t sit right with him. And, if he was being entirely honest with himself, neither did flirting with one. While he was supremely confident in his ability to do both with exceptional finesse, he made it a point of principle never to dally with nice young ladies. Bawdy young ladies, experienced older ladies and anyone who ran the gamut between was fair game, but impressionable virgins had always been off limits.

For all the many notches on his bedpost, he had not been a single woman’s first lover, nor had he ever wooed a woman who didn’t know how the game of illicit courtship was played. He might well be a scandalous good-for-nothing scoundrel, but even scoundrels had standards. A line in the sand which they did not cross. Yet now he was being asked to cross it for King and country—another standard he held sacrosanct. Despite a whole day to ponder the moral dilemma he still wasn’t entirely sure he was prepared to make an exception.

Lord Fennimore had no such reservations, but then Lord Fennimore was not the one who was going to be whispering sweet nothings into her inexperienced ear or trying to trick her tender heart into trusting a man who shouldn’t be trusted. But if his gut instinct was correct, then her uncle deserved all that was coming to him. Aside from the French double agent, every single person who had brought them closer towards the dangerous smuggling ring had wound up dead. All in very believable circumstances, of course—a carriage accident, a nasty fall, drowning in the docks while roaring drunk—but all cases a little too convenient and too close to their investigation to be dismissed. It positively reeked of foul play and Rowley was at the heart of it. And they did have to stop him, the sooner the better, but Jake sincerely hoped not like this. The whole situation left a very bad taste in his mouth.

Careful to stay in the shadows in the alcove, he scanned the room for the latest crop of debutantes. Fortunately, they were easy to spot. They were all obscenely young, eager and clad in the palest silk gowns. They were also all wearing permanently awestruck expressions. With no clue as to what Miss Blunt looked like, he instead searched for the Sawyer sisters, a task which didn’t take long. The two ladies were glued to the refreshment table, clearly enjoying their matching glasses of lemonade too much for the contents of their glasses to be purely lemon.

Lady Daphne was sporting what resembled a whole peacock’s tail on her head, while Lady Cressida’s coiffure sprouted ostrich plumes dyed pink to match her garish dress. The weight of both headdresses, and perhaps the hard spirits the two women had a legendary fondness for, was making the feathers list. Or perhaps it was the ladies who listed. From this distance, Jake couldn’t be sure. He watched them closely for a full ten minutes before he could say for certain they had already misplaced their charge. With nothing else to do, he propped himself against a pillar and settled in for a long wait. With any luck, the chit would have already been waylaid by a handsome fellow who’d have already swept her off her juvenile feet, thus providing Jake with a ready excuse to throw in Fennimore’s face when Jake failed in his unsavoury mission. Surely they could get to Rowley another way? He could work his way through the man’s changing parade of mistresses, seduce a willing and lusty maid—hell, if it came to it, Jake was even prepared to whisper sweet nothings into the ears of Rowley’s housekeeper as long as the woman was not a complete hag. Anyone, in fact, but an innocent child.

It was the perfume which distracted him first. The heady scent reminded Jake of fat summer roses, fresh air and sunshine. Nothing like the stuffy smell of Almack’s. His nostrils twitched as they sought the source until his eyes located her.

Now this was more the kind of woman he would choose to seduce. Too bad she was not his assignment. He’d even go as far as admitting the tantalising vision that had just turned the corner would be pure pleasure, for once, rather than business. Thick honey hair, sultry almond eyes and the lushest pair of lips he’d seen in a long time. And the sensuous way she moved drew his eyes and imprisoned them. Her own had a faraway look in them as she hugged the wall, trailing the tips of her gloved fingers along the plaster as if she had all the time in the world and was in no hurry to go anywhere. He liked that about her.

Here in Almack’s the ladies always had a higher purpose. To be seen. To be noticed. To make a good impression. To find a husband. This woman preferred the shadows and had no interest in the nonsense going on outside the alcove. Just like him.

She still hadn’t noticed him, despite the fact he stood barely ten feet away, so Jake watched her gaze out towards the dancers and sigh. There was a distinctly dreamy look about her, as if she wished she was somewhere else, something he also empathised with. If he hadn’t been working, he might have walked over and suggested they go elsewhere together. But alas, he was on a mission and needed to see it through as swiftly as possible no matter how distasteful he found it. Something which would not happen if he gave in to the overwhelming temptation to talk to her. Jake watched her scan the room again, this time with very narrowed eyes which made him wonder exactly what it was she suddenly disapproved of until she clearly saw something—or someone—she didn’t want to. She darted behind a pillar and straight into a potted palm.

The clumsy manoeuvre made him laugh out loud. Her head whipped around in alarm at the sound.

‘Don’t worry. I shan’t tell whoever it is that you are hiding from them.’

‘I am not hiding.’ But she didn’t move from the safety of the pillar. ‘Oh, all right, I am. Have they gone?’

Jake scanned the area and nodded. ‘There’s nobody here but you and me. If it’s any consolation, I’m hiding, too.’ Hiding from the inevitable. ‘What are you hiding from?’

‘The gentlemen my chaperons appear intent on introducing me to. What are you hiding from?’

‘Responsibility and duty.’

Those lush lips instantly turned up in a smile and she was prettier for it. ‘You can’t hide from those.’

‘I can and I have for the better part of a decade. What’s wrong with the men your chaperons are foisting upon you?’

‘Nothing, I suppose, other than the fact they are being foisted upon me. I didn’t come here to meet gentlemen.’ That in itself set her apart from the sea of eager hopefuls in the ballroom.

‘Then what did you come here for?’

She sighed and looked miserable. ‘My mother. Apparently, it was her dearest wish that I visit Almack’s—among other things. Although I fail to see the appeal of the place.’

‘Such enthusiasm.’

‘I have no enthusiasm.’ The corners of those plump lips twitched again. There was the vaguest hint of the north in her accent, more northern than where he came from in Nottingham. Yorkshire, perhaps, or Lancashire? ‘That is part of the problem. I got lost half an hour ago and I find myself surprisingly content with being lost and by default reluctant to be found again just yet.’

Intriguing. Much more intriguing than the onerous task he was meant to be doing. ‘What is it about this quintessential society ritual which has forced you into hiding?’

Her nose wrinkled endearingly before she spoke. ‘I find the whole thing pointless and a little shallow, if I am honest.’ Something he had a feeling she always was. A northern trait. Brutal honesty and the inability to suffer fools or foolishness gladly.

‘I can see how the attraction soon wears thin. Especially as Almack’s has so many tiresome rules one has to obey. How many visits to this stifling establishment did it take for you to become so jaded?’

‘Oh, this is my first. I was presented to the patronesses an hour ago.’ She smiled a little shyly, but leaned a little closer than was proper, treating him to more of her delicious perfume, more alluring now that it was closer to her skin. ‘I am being launched into society tonight. Rather reluctantly as I am sure you can see.’

She looked nothing like the traditional debutante. For a start, she had at least five years on most of them and lacked the dewy-eyed innocence prevalent all around them which Jake found so distasteful. ‘This is your come-out?’ Laughter threatened at the preposterousness. She had to be well past the age of majority, but, age aside, she was too canny a woman. Too comfortable in her own skin and mind when all around her were awed and awkward girls.

‘I can see, sir, that you are as staggered by it as I am and are racking your brains for a polite way to say I am a bit too old to be coming out. Which I patently am.’

There was no point in denying it. ‘How come a matron of such advanced years is only just being launched into society?’ As he had hoped, she smiled at the sarcasm. He had no time for people who didn’t understand it. Irony and sarcasm were two of his very best friends.

‘I confess, I honestly have no idea. One minute I was happily enjoying my dotage in Keswick and then I was dragged here.’

Very north, then. The more she spoke the more he could hear it in the lilt of her voice. ‘How awful for you. Were you dragged from the bosom of Cumbria against your will?’

‘Not completely. When the invitation came, I’ll admit to being intrigued. London is an adventure, I suppose, and I was due one. And I was curious about the city I was born in, but have no memory of. I wanted to visit some of the sights I’ve only read about. The Tower of London, the British Museum, St James’s Palace...’ She sighed dramatically to amuse him. ‘But alas, my uncle expressly forbade any touring about until I was launched properly.’

Little flags raised in his mind. ‘Your uncle?’ Surely it was a coincidence?

‘Yes. My mother’s brother. I hardly know him really, but he wrote to me saying he had promised my mother he would give me a Season and, apparently, dear Uncle Crispin only remembered that solemn promise this year. Hence, I am undoubtedly the oldest debutante anyone has ever seen and feel much like an old trout, rather than a common or garden fish out of water.’

‘Hardly old.’ It was difficult to sound nonchalant when his mind was already reeling, both at his good luck at naturally meeting the woman he had been sent here to seduce and his relief at finding her a grown woman rather than a child. ‘What are you...three and twenty?’

‘Save your polite London charm, sir, it’s wasted on me. I am five and twenty and look it. And happy to be so. Although even when I was younger, I doubt I was ever quite as young as some of the girls I was presented with. They all seem so surprised and dazzled by everything. I’ve never met such a jittery crop of girls before in my life. Do they not let young ladies out here in the capital before they come out?’

There was an earthiness and healthy cynicism about her which felt familiar and made him oddly homesick. Jake had grown up around people who said what they thought without artifice. Here in London, the true meaning of a person’s words was often buried under layers of the polite façade they presented to the world. ‘Of course not. Gently bred young ladies are practically locked up and kept well out of polite society to avoid them being corrupted.’

‘Yet overprotecting them makes them all the riper for corruption.’ She frowned as she said this, and shook her head. ‘No wonder those girls all appear overwhelmed. They have lived such sheltered lives and then they are brought here. A place where its sole purpose, as far as I can ascertain, is for unattached young ladies to be tirelessly paraded around like farm stock on auction day in the hope someone will notice them, then deign to marry them. And they are grateful to be put up for the gavel. Listen to them all twittering like excited sparrows at the prospect.’

‘You sound as if you disapprove, Miss...?’ There was the slim chance there was more than one Uncle Crispin in town.

‘Blunt. Blunt by name and blunt by nature, I’m afraid.’ Thanking all his lucky stars she was the right woman, Jake was suddenly ridiculously grateful he had had his leave postponed. Of all the women to, quite literally, stumble into him he’d been blessed by Rowley’s niece. Rowley’s lovely, womanly and ripe-for-the-picking northern niece. Seducing this tart morsel wouldn’t feel like work at all. This he would do for pure pleasure. ‘I apologise if you find my frankness rude.’

‘I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Miss Blunt.’ He took her hand gently in his and kissed the back of it, confident she wouldn’t care when he failed to let go. ‘And I find your frankness refreshing. Like you I am from the north—deepest, darkest, dankest Nottinghamshire to be exact—my name is Jake Warriner and I loathe Almack’s, too.’

She leaned closer again, her pretty face tilted to one side and her palm heating his through the thin fabric of her evening gloves. Awareness. Chemistry. Mutual attraction. Jake knew the signs too well to mistake them for anything else. He had the urge to kiss her. An urge which had nothing to do with Crispin Rowley and everything to do with his bewitching niece. ‘Is it obvious I loathe it, Mr Warriner, only I have been trying exceedingly hard to appear as if I don’t?’

‘To me it is obvious, but then again, just like you I am loitering in the alcove and avoiding the sad crush. It hardly makes me a genius to have seen a kindred spirit.’

She gracefully disentangled his grip from hers. ‘When you put it like that, I suppose it doesn’t. Why do you loathe it?’

An easy question to answer with complete honesty for once. ‘This place, the stifling, petty rules and the callous way an elite few decide who is worthy to be allowed in, grates on me. I hate the power those few have over the others. If they take to you, you are guaranteed the best invitations of the Season. If they don’t, well...’ He left the implication to settle. ‘It all strikes me as grossly unfair.’

‘Those poor sparrows will be devastated by the cut. Some might never get over it.’

‘But I get the feeling you won’t be devastated?’ Jake had a talent for reading people. Each tiny nuance and expression told more truth than lips usually did and Miss Blunt did not look impressed with being here.

She sighed and shrugged again, something she did a great deal and which made his eyes want to wander down to where her neckline met flesh. Soft, perfumed, pert, female flesh. Jake resisted—but only just. ‘Is it terrible that I hope they thoroughly disapprove of me, then I will be spared the effort of coming here again? Or of receiving the best invitations of the Season. I fear my uncle has lined up a whole host of entertainments for me to attend, none of which I suspect I shall find entertaining in the slightest.’

‘Not every soirée is as dull and constrained as Almack’s.’

‘Perhaps. But being paraded around town like meat on the butcher’s board is not what I had in mind when I agreed to this visit.’

‘It’s just a visit, then?’ Clearly Miss Blunt was not aware of the fact Uncle Crispin was intent on marrying her off.

‘Yes. A month. Then I shall return to Cumbria where I belong. Perhaps two at the most, although after tonight I sincerely doubt I’ll manage two. It has been less than a week and I already find London society suffocating. I find I am fiercely wedded to my freedom, you see, while here it is stifled. At home, I can walk outdoors where and when I please, say what I think, do what I want.’ Clearly Fennimore’s intelligence was lacking, as Miss Blunt was even less of a convent miss than she was an eager debutante. ‘Here I have chaperons and all these rules I have to adhere to.’

‘Such as?’

‘Where to start? How to dress, how to walk. The correct way to curtsy to a duchess, which is I now know quite different from the way one curtsies to a countess or a queen. Who I should speak to, who I shouldn’t, how to behave when dancing.’ Another put-upon sigh. ‘I was promised I would have an adventure and so far it has been anything but. However, at least I was dragged here by my family and had no idea it would be this awful. What’s your excuse? Seeing that you loathe the place.’

‘I, too, was dragged here, in a manner of speaking.’ To do his duty, a duty he was now very much looking forward to doing. He gave in to the urge to touch her again and scandalously allowed his thumb to caress the centre of her palm where it rested among the folds of her skirt. Her eyes dropped to the spot. Stared. When her lush lips parted slightly he raised her gloved hand almost to his lips. He gazed up at her with the hooded eyes women always found appealing, knowing the deep blue soulful depths were his best feature. ‘Although now I am very pleased I was. Else I never would have met such a rare bird of paradise in this tiresome cage full of sparrows.’

If he said so himself, Jake was rather pleased with the symbolism even if the words themselves were a tad triter than he would have liked. But a seduction was a seduction and there was no point in beating around the bush. The rakish smile he bestowed upon her was second nature. It suggested he had a poetic heart beneath the cynical irony she found so amusing. He had certainly amused her enough that she had happily confided in him. A total stranger. In his vast wealth of experience, the sensible ladies adored both a man who made them smile and one with romantic sensibilities who listened to them. A deadly combination which had served him well since the day he had turned sixteen. Being used to forthright and charmless northern men, she would doubtless find his easy, open manner disarming.

Her eyes locked with his.

Narrowed.

And before he could kiss her hand, she snatched it away.

‘Are you flirting with me, Mr Warriner?’

‘I would certainly like to, Miss Blunt.’ His voice was low and silky, the practised tone in a timbre he knew to be his most seductive. ‘Do you mind?’

‘I most certainly do.’ Both gloved hands came to rest imperiously on her hips, giving her more of the appearance of a schoolmistress than an intriguing temptress. ‘I have remained lost these past thirty minutes to avoid such nonsense.’

‘Ah—in the main here at Almack’s it is reliably all nonsense, but that is because the gentlemen over at the auction block are all shamelessly on the market for a wife. It is contrived and insincere. Here in the alcove—like you—I was content to hide and had no plans to flirt with anyone until fate introduced us.’ Had he not been here at Lord Fennimore’s bequest and had she not been Miss Blunt, the woman he had been sent here to seduce, he still would have wanted to flirt with her without the interference of fate. There was something about her which called to him. ‘Do you believe in fate, Miss Blunt?’

‘Good lord! Did you really just say that?’ Her brows furrowed. ‘Do I look as green as grass, Mr Warriner?’ She was positively glaring down her nose at him in bemused outrage. And if he was not mistaken it was tinged with real outrage rather than the feigned outrage he usually encountered when he turned on the charm. Her green eyes hardened; her honey brow furrowed slightly. Tiny, physical nuances that could not be faked. There was no hint of interest on her face—only disbelief. Making him feel like a fool for flirting. That made him uncomfortable because it was so...so...unheard of. He always flirted as a matter of course and had never once felt foolish in doing so. But Miss Blunt-by-Name-and-Nature seemed to see right through him to the hard kernel of insincerity buried deep in his chest which he had never noticed before. Now that he had—well, frankly, he felt queasy. At a loss for charming words for once, Jake simply stared at her and she began to giggle at his shocked expression.

‘Do such hackneyed and slapdash endearments garner you much success with the ladies, Mr Warriner?’

‘While the prose might have been slapdash, the sentiment was not.’ He could save this. He was a master in the art of seduction. A maestro. ‘But usually I am not so overawed by the beauty of my companion that my tongue becomes twisted.’ Once again the rote phrases sounded hollow and unoriginal, making Jake want to wince at his own crassness. What the devil was wrong with him? ‘In the few short minutes I have spent in your company, Miss Blunt, you have made a great impression on me and—’

‘Oh, goodness.’ She snorted and covered the offending sound with her hand. ‘I must give you credit for perseverance, but really...’ She eyed him as if expecting him to finish her sentence. He schooled his features into a look of the utmost sincerity although his toes had begun to curl uncomfortably in his boots.

‘I’m not sure I follow, Miss Blunt.’

‘Oh, Mr Warriner! You are funny. Are London ladies so daft that they do not know a philanderer when they see one? Why, I saw it the moment I first encountered you, you have the look of one. And the manner.’

‘The manner?’ Jake usually enjoyed the sparring. It was part of the game and a part he loved. However, sparring with the blunt Miss Blunt was making him uncomfortable. Especially as she had his full measure and he didn’t particularly like the label of philanderer. He was a rake. A proud one. Rakes were dashing and roguish. Philanderer sounded sordid. Cynical. Oily. Good grief! Was he oily? The urge to find a mirror and check he had not turned into a simpering toad made him self-conscious. ‘And now I suppose you are an expert on philanderers?’ Why didn’t he correct her and say rake?

‘Indeed I am. So much so I could probably write a book on the subject. The self-assurance and smug satisfaction in your own allure was as plain as the nose on my face—although while you weren’t practising your philandering on me I was prepared to overlook it.’

Blast—she could see right through him. He was confident in his allure. So confident he had made a career out of it. Obviously he had become too complacent. A new and worrying development Jake was ill prepared for. He must have slipped up somewhere. He had probably bared his hand too soon to this canny northern lass because he was too used to the relative ease of the pampered society ladies. He was tired. Desperately needed leave—and, if he was honest, he had rushed things because he was attracted to her. Very attracted to her. ‘Forgive me. In my haste, perhaps I have overstepped the bounds.’

‘There is no perhaps about it.’

‘As I said, forgive me. When I see something I want, I am inclined to listen to my heart rather than my head.’ He knew instantly he had laid the charm on too thick again, he didn’t need to witness her exasperated eye-roll or to hear her amused snort to confirm it. What on earth was the matter with him? Jake wasn’t usually this ham-fisted. He couldn’t remember the last time he had run roughshod over a seduction and she had called it correctly. Tonight he was no better than a hackneyed philanderer. Maybe there was still time to fix it? And maybe the damage was done and was probably irreparable. He stopped himself trotting out more banalities because of the inevitable humiliation which would follow. Rowley’s gorgeous niece was not the normal run-of-the-mill society miss. Judging from her incredulous scowl, he was in for another skewering for the heart and head claptrap. Miss Blunt didn’t disappoint. Those playful, inviting eyes froze again.

‘You are in danger of ruining a perfectly pleasant conversation with your contrived, insincere—and while I am being completely frank—tired, overt and practised attempts at seduction.’

That stung. Jake was the master of subtle. ‘Hardly practised, Miss Blunt.’

‘Oh, dear. I can see I have hurt your feelings and that was not my intention. I simply wanted you to be aware that I am more than accustomed with men of your ilk. You’re not the first scoundrel to try your luck and I dare say you won’t be the last. All the clues were there right from the outset. The oh-so-casual lingering hold of my hand. The heated look. The purposefully intimate and sultry whispering. And do not get me started on the crass and unspontaneous way in which you tossed my own words back at me to try to convince me of your sincerity. Kindred spirits and birds of paradise indeed. What rot. I’m sure a handsome man like yourself is used to gullible women falling for your lies, but...’

‘I don’t lie.’ Although Jake was internally wincing at the falsehood. He lied so much nowadays he had to keep a notebook of what he said and to whom to avoid tripping up. He even lied to his own family and had done for years. Nobody had called him on it before, that was all. Because usually he was damn good at it. He forced himself to smile. Forced himself to appear amused. ‘When you walked into that palm I was charmed. I’m still charmed, despite your inaccurate and mean assassination of my character. But I can see I have inadvertently insulted you with my honest enthusiasm, which I never meant to do because the truth is...’ The gloved hand appeared palm up near his face and the lush lips were grinning behind it.

‘Let me save you from further embarrassment, Mr Warriner—I wasn’t born yesterday. Save your insincere seductions for the silly girls in the ballroom. As undeniably attractive as you are, I have less interest in being seduced by a man of your ilk than I do for this cattle market. I am only sorry that all these young ladies are not as pragmatic about men as I am.’ Her fingers went to the fan hanging from a ribbon on her wrist and for a moment Jake experienced the forlorn hope she might snap it open and use it to flirt over the top of in the customary manner he understood so well. However, she wielded it like a broadsword aimed directly at his ribcage.

‘And for future reference should we collide again in the foreseeable future, if you are going to throw about bird analogies, I’m neither a feeble sparrow nor an exotic bird of paradise, Mr Warriner. If I am any bird, I am an owl. Wise. Older than the rest of these foolish girls and blessed with the ability to see danger coming from all angles. And you, sir, are a hawk, circling the sky for unsuspecting prey.’ Her arms folded across her chest and the stance did wonders for her figure—just to taunt him further.

‘You are a very charming hawk and I like you for it, but I am far too prudent to fall for your nonsense. Please, take my advice and heed it well. Never flirt with me again, Mr Warriner, else I will stop liking you and I would hate to do that. Now, if you will just point me in the direction of the refreshment table, I fear I have been lost long enough.’

Chapter Three

In a soulless bedchamber at Uncle Crispin’s Mayfair town house

Somewhere in the distance a clock chimed the hour, reminding Fliss it was now three in the morning, but she was still nowhere near ready to sleep. How could she when her mind was still whirring with images of the evening? The provincial plays she had seen paled into insignificance when compared to the splendour of the opera. Everything about it had been breathtaking, from the sumptuous and vivid costumes to the aching purity of the soprano’s beautiful voice. And watching the audience had been equally as thrilling. The Prime Minister had been there and so had the famous Duke of Wellington. Aunt Cressida had pointed out both men in their private boxes just a few feet away from Uncle Crispin’s, although even if she hadn’t, Fliss’s eyes would have soon been drawn to the spots where everyone else was staring.

All around them had been a sea of people dressed in their finery and, thanks to the opera glasses she had been given upon entering the box, Fliss was able to see every tiny detail despite her lack of spectacles. Spectacles she had been politely banned from wearing in public by her stand-offish uncle and which her new maid, Kitty, had already mislaid twice the moment Fliss dared to put them down.

During the interval, she had drunk champagne for the first time. It had been brought to their box perfectly chilled and served in crystal glasses; the delicious bubbles tickled her nose and the alcohol went straight to her head, making everything sharper and brighter than before. She allowed herself a second glass. Her aunts smartly finished the second bottle while Uncle Crispin discussed business with an older gentleman who had joined them. The Earl of Redditch was a portly man who creaked when he moved, thanks to the corset he was squashed into beneath his evening coat. A coat which bore the stain of recently spilled food on one lapel. He had a profusion of wiry grey hair which grew at right angles out of his head and sprouted out of his ears. He also smelled a little musty and had a habit of spitting slighting each time he talked. Fliss was painfully aware of both things because he had been placed next to her during the first half, but as soon as the orchestra began to warm up, signalling the interval was over, she cleverly sandwiched herself between her aunts to watch the second act.

Just before the lights dimmed, she experienced the oddest sense someone was watching her and instinctively dropped her eyes to the stalls below where they locked with the intense blue gaze of Mr Jacob Warriner. There was a wry smile on his outrageously handsome face that did peculiar things to her insides. They heated. As did her flesh, while her tummy fizzed with unwanted bubbles of excitement which were surprisingly reminiscent of those in the heady champagne. Then the lights had faded, casting him in silhouette, and the odd yet special moment was gone.

As much as she adored the second half of the opera, she was constantly aware of him. Every time she glanced down, he was gazing back at her in the darkness. Flirting with his eyes in a more tempting way than he had with his practised words two nights before. She made a half-hearted attempt at ignoring him when the performance ended, but that stare drew her like a moth to a flame. A secret smile played at the corners of his mouth when their gazes briefly met and, before she could turn away, he pressed a kiss on the tips of his fingers and then blew it towards her. Thank goodness nobody else appeared to witness it in the melee exiting the theatre, nor did anyone comment on the ferocious blush which decided to bloom on her cheeks in response to his scandalous lack of propriety in a crowded public place.

After that, and to her great chagrin, Fliss had practically floated home. The carriage ride had been silent. Her aunts were softly snoring from the after-effects of all the champagne they had consumed and Uncle Crispin made no effort at engaging her in conversation, so she had stared out of the window up at the stars, trying and failing not to notice that they twinkled like Jacob Warriner’s eyes. Now she was lying on her bed, recalling every nuance of the evening, more awake than she had ever been in the small hours of the morning.

Yet thinking about him was not constructive. Twinkling eyes aside, he was a rake through and through and Fliss was too savvy to be seduced by a handsome rogue. At Sister Ursuline’s, she had seen the consequences of seduction first-hand. Ruined reputations, scandal, broken hearts, divided families and, on more occasions than she cared to count, inconvenient pregnancies. A succession of wayward girls had spent their confinement hidden at the convent and then were forced to say heart-wrenching goodbyes to those innocent babes when the girls were dragged back into society by their parents. Sister Ursuline always found those cherubs good, loving homes, but Fliss still thought each incident a tragedy and one that could have been easily avoided if the young lady had the wherewithal to resist the scoundrel in the first place.

While she knew that not all men were so inclined, regrettably all the male role models in her life were also scoundrels. Her father had been one through and through. He might have done the decent thing and married her mother when he had got her into trouble, but from the moment he had placed that ring on her finger he had abdicated all responsibility. Like all the men Fliss had encountered since, he was inherently untrustworthy and proved time and again to be an unreliable husband and father.

Fliss had spent her formative years with her mother growing up in his crumbling house in the country, while he frittered away all the money in town. The only benefit to that situation was her mother was happy when there were a significant number of miles between her and her wastrel husband. Fliss rarely saw him and they conversed little when they did. Much like her fledgling relationship with Uncle Crispin.

Perhaps one of these days she would meet a man who didn’t fit the mould? A selfless man whom she could truly depend upon in the same way she could always depend upon Sister Ursuline, and before that her mother. A man who would always be there for her. One who put his family above his own selfish needs. A man who absolutely adored her...

And perhaps one day humans would fly. Both eventualities were as unlikely as the other. While she liked some men for their wit or their intelligence, found some interesting and wise, nothing would ever tempt her to want one all of her very own unless he measured up to the same exacting high standards of dependency Fliss set for herself. In most cases, experience had taught her the best you could hope for with a man was that he entertained you and had a back strong enough to lift heavy things. You didn’t need to marry them for either.

Her uncle wasn’t proving her theory wrong. Already, after some serious thought, Fliss had come to the regrettable conclusion she didn’t like him at all. The only thing she had been able to truly ascertain was that he was dependably domineering and emotionless. She supposed the signs had been there all along, because she hadn’t heard hide nor hair of the man in years, but it still didn’t sit right to completely dislike the only blood relative she had in the world. Or half-blood at least. She had hoped to see bits of her mother in him, when in fact he behaved more like her uninterested and feckless father.

After her mother had died, dear Papa had found having a grieving and ever-so-precocious ten-year-old daughter taxing, so had parcelled her off to Sister Ursuline’s School for Wayward Girls without so much as a backwards glance. She had never seen the man again.

However, for years her childish heart had secretly hoped one day her uncle would come to rescue her and she had assumed for the longest time he was prevented from doing so because her father was still alive. Even after the demise of her sire, she continued to kindle the tiny flame of hope with regular missives to remind him she was still alive and still hoping. Still praying that he might miraculously become someone she could depend upon.

It was only after she turned twenty-one that she stopped sending him an annual letter at Christmas, by which time she had embarked on her new life as a schoolmistress at the same school she had called home from eleven, and couldn’t muster the enthusiasm to feel anything other than mild disappointment any longer. Anything more for a virtual stranger was self-indulgent and Fliss much preferred to march onwards and upwards rather than wistfully glance behind.

When his only letter finally came out of the blue, she had been surprised and dismissive. Something about it did not ring true and as she was well past the age of majority she was under no obligation to acquiesce to the odd request. She had been on the cusp of writing him a brief thank-you, but no-thank-you note when Sister Ursuline had intervened.

A perpetual romantic soul at heart, Sister Ursuline was prone to see the good in all. Including feckless men—an odd trait for a woman who dealt with unwed and abandoned mothers, scandalously ruined young ladies and the most precocious and troublesome girls society had to offer. What if her mother had tasked her uncle with giving her a Season? And what if the poor man had been so financially embarrassed he could not do so until now? She deserved some adventure and it was only right and proper she met her only kin. While a dose of healthy scepticism was necessary in a young woman, Fliss was in danger of being an outright cynic. What was the harm of spending one month with her relative to find out which of them was right?

It had only been a little over a week and she already had his measure. Uncle Crispin was detached, clearly didn’t give two figs about his only niece and seemingly only cared about what others thought of him. His fancy and no doubt expensive box at the opera had been purchased only so that others could be impressed. He had less interest in the actual opera than he did in Fliss. A decidedly good thing, else he might have seen Jacob Warriner’s scandalously blown kiss.

Oh, for goodness sake! Stop thinking about that man! Now there was an untrustworthy, undependable libertine if ever there was one. Eminently likeable, yet as dangerous to a young lady’s virtue as it was possible to be. But it was too late. Her body was already misbehaving. The rapid heartbeat, the fluttering pulse, the overwhelming suffusion of heat...

Good lord, she was hot.

Fliss flung the covers off and threw out her arms and legs to cool them. After five minutes, during which time the unwelcome warmth did not subside, she flung her legs over the side of the mattress and padded over to her window. A bit of cold February air was exactly what she needed to banish all thoughts of the dark-haired, blue-eyed rake who had lodged himself in her mind and stalwartly refused to leave.

She cracked open the window and stood directly in the draught. The icy breeze was delightful, as were the goosebumps which instantly prickled her limbs. Anything that brought down her erratic temperature had to be a good thing. The trouble with living in a convent was there was a distinct shortage of young men. Fliss collided with them infrequently—at the assemblies or parties Sister Ursuline insisted all the girls attended to help them cope better with social situations—but not on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, it was difficult to make oneself completely immune to their charms. Familiarity breeds contempt, yet the opposite sparks interest. Her traitorous body was interested in the dashing Mr Warriner. Too interested. And that simply wouldn’t do.

Somewhere below, she heard a door creak open, closely followed by the sound of the gravel crunching as someone walked down the garden path. More curious than scared, because everything about her uncle’s house was still strange, Fliss hid her nightgown-clad body behind the heavy curtain and peeked out through the glass. There was a man walking around the edge of the lawn. It was difficult to make out much in the pitch-black darkness without her spectacles, but from his silhouette he appeared to be wearing what looked like shabby workmen’s clothes.

‘Wait—we’re not done.’ Her uncle appeared, probably from the same door, although she couldn’t be certain. From his tone, he seemed angry. ‘Next week is not good enough!’

The shabby man stopped in his tracks and slowly turned. Fliss squinted, but still could not discern his face. ‘It’s next week or not at all.’ He had a London accent. A common one. His coarse diction matched his attire. ‘I’ve other buyers, Rowley, and if you can’t wait someone else will happily take your place.’ He turned, but as Uncle Crispin came level with the Londoner, he grabbed the sleeve of his coat.

‘Tell them I’ll pay them double the usual. I need the goods now!’

‘Double. Treble. Even if you quadruple it I doubt it’ll make much difference. Dead men can’t spend. And the boss won’t like it if his cargo gets seized. He’s lost enough already this month. There are many new eyes along the water. I told you, this is not the time for haste.’

‘But you’re in haste for my money! This costs me. It costs me dearly, damn it, every time a shipment is late.’

The man pulled his arm free with such force her uncle took several steps back, his posture wary. It made no difference, as the other man closed that distance quickly, grabbed his lapels and loomed over him menacingly.

‘Don’t get all brave on me, Rowley! If you don’t like the boss’s terms, then we’ve got plenty of others who’ll happily step into your fancy shoes. If you’re not our man...’

‘I’m your man. You know I’m your man. I’m doing my best for you and the boss...just like you asked.’ His voice came out a few octaves higher than usual and pathetically desperate. ‘I didn’t mean to complain... But I’ve made promises. People are relying on me. What am I supposed to do in the meantime?’

‘You wait.’ The Londoner slowly uncurled his fingers from her uncle’s coat and made a great show of rearranging the lapels before he patted his head roughly. ‘Like a good boy.’ His gravelly voice sent involuntary chills though Fliss, her every instinct warning her he was a dangerous man. ‘Be ready.’ With that he left, disappearing into the shadows behind the shrubbery and into the night.

Her uncle watched him leave, the clenched fists at his side evidence his temper was barely controlled, then he stalked back towards the house and she heard the angry slam of the door in his wake.

It had been an odd exchange. She couldn’t shake the feeling that it had been a bad one. Dangerous, even. If her relationship with her uncle had been better, she might have gone downstairs and asked what was happening, enquired if he was all right, but Fliss knew he wouldn’t deign to confide in her. At best, he ignored her. If they spoke, he was curt and dismissive, or downright aloof. When she had first met him just a few short days ago, she had thought him a cold fish and he had done nothing in the time since to alter that opinion. If he was in trouble, then it was doubtless of his own making and therefore nothing to do with her. In a few weeks she’d be gone.

Besides, there was no point in allowing her vivid imagination to run away with itself. There was probably a perfectly reasonable explanation why Uncle Crispin had met with that man.

In secret.

In the dead of night.

Perhaps this was the way things were done in town? Having little experience of the world outside her sleepy part of Cumbria, much of the ways of the capital baffled her. And she was tired. It had been a long day. Why, only five minutes ago her silly mind had been conjuring up images of kisses with an untrustworthy rake, so clearly she wasn’t thinking entirely logically. Sleep would put a different perspective on things. A problem was always best considered when the mind was at its sharpest and had one of her charges at the convent confessed to Fliss the same emotion Fliss was currently feeling, with no other proof than the peculiar disquiet she was experiencing, she knew she would scoff and be dismissive of unsubstantiated flights of fancy conjured during the witching hour. She would send the girl to bed, which was exactly what she should do herself. With an uneasy feeling, she silently closed the window and crept back under the covers, certain sleep was considerably further away now than it had been a few minutes ago.

* * *

‘Rowley has recently bought shares in another small shipping company. The Excise Men have boarded every one of their boats in the last three weeks the moment they have docked in British ports and performed thorough searches. There is no contraband. The cargoes are all legitimate and all the taxes are paid.’ Flint was pacing back and forth as he spoke, his frustration evident in every step. ‘That’s three merchant fleets he’s directly involved in, yet all apparently clean.’

‘He’s bringing the stuff in somehow. Perhaps those ships are decoys? Perhaps he deliberately bought those shares to take us off the scent?’ Lord Fennimore’s reasoned tone did little to calm Flint’s temper. ‘There is a chance he is smuggling the goods in on other boats. The old way—in the dead of night and onto quiet beaches.’

That didn’t make sense to Jake. This single band of smugglers had flooded the London market to such an extent they now dominated it. Both London and the entire south-east. ‘The volumes of brandy alone make that impossible. Even if he were using rowing boats, transporting that many barrels of illegal French spirits across the country to the capital would be problematic. They would be seen. We’ve had men watching all the roads into the town for months. He’s got to be bringing the stuff straight into London. By sea.’

‘The Excise Men assure me they have searched every nook and cranny of every ship linked to Rowley. They’ve had the cargoes apart the moment they’ve off-loaded and found nought that hasn’t been recorded on the ships’ manifest. Those vessels are clean.’

‘Too clean.’ These were the first words Leatham had said in the hour they had been sat in Lord Fennimore’s study. They all turned to look at him. He didn’t say much, but what he did was always worth waiting for. ‘In my experience, the best place to hide is in plain sight. I’ll wager he’s using those ships and bringing the goods right into London just as Jake said—right under the Excise Men’s noses. They won’t use the roads. Not when it makes sense to keep everything in the water. Quieter, darker and harder to stop.’

He had Lord Fennimore’s attention. ‘You think he’s solely using the Thames?’

‘I would.’

‘The river police patrol those waters like hawks. He’d be taking a risk.’

Leatham shrugged. ‘Maybe they offload the big ships well shy of London. Transfer the stuff onto local coasters or barges. There are thousands of smaller vessels which run those waters every day and never get challenged—just as generation after generation of Thames watermen have done in the past. If they can fool the Excise Men with legitimate loads like fish, bricks or hay, then I doubt a paltry few river police will worry them and that’s assuming it stays on the Thames. There’s also the Fleet, the Lee. Or the canals. There are hundreds of miles of canals, remember. There aren’t enough river police to watch everywhere or to check every boat and everyone knows they focus on the big ships and the docks. The ones that cross the sea rather than the local waters.’

Lord Fennimore nodded thoughtfully. ‘Smaller boats? There’d have to be a lot of them, a whole rotten network. Perfectly synchronised. But I suppose if they avoid the docks, once they are through the city they can move largely undetected and unchallenged throughout the country.’ His bushy eyebrows drew together and he nodded decisively. ‘Send some of your men to do some digging around the wharfs, Leatham, and see what you can find. Flint, see if Crispin Rowley, or any of his cronies, has any links in any canal companies or river hauliers. I’ll arrange for the Excise Men to pay close attention to the Essex and Kent stretches of the Thames Estuary. Get them to covertly follow a few of the regular wherrymen. It can’t hurt to explore the possibility further. Better safe than sorry, even if we are just shouting into the wind until we have credible intelligence on Rowley’s actual business dealings.’ At that, Fennimore’s head turned to Jake. ‘How are things going with the niece?’

‘We’ve met.’ That awkward introduction still grated.

‘Met? It’s been a week. Have you lost your touch, Warriner?’

‘Miss Blunt is not the sort of woman one rushes.’ Because she saw right through flannel. ‘I flirted with her tonight at the opera.’ Well, he’d gazed longingly at her. ‘And thanks to subtle enquiries—’ which involved flirting outrageously with several well-connected society ladies ‘—I’ve managed to piece together most of her engagements for the next few weeks. She will be attending the Renshaws’ Ball on Friday.’ Where he fully intended to sweep the pithy Miss Blunt off her canny northern feet.

‘Engage her in conversation about Rowley’s business interests. See if she’s heard any mention of canals over the dinner table.’

Jake rolled his eyes. ‘Yes, that ought to do it. Nothing says seduction like talk of barges.’ Although with hindsight, that might have been better than waffling on about birds of paradise. Anything would have been better than waffling on about those damn birds. ‘Leave Miss Blunt to me. By the time I’m finished wooing her, she’ll sing like a canary.’ Another crass bird analogy! Good lord, he was doomed.

If only he’d been able to stop thinking about the delectable Miss Blunt, then Jake would be more on his game. But there was something about her which had got under his skin and, even when it shouldn’t, his mind kept wandering back to her. It wasn’t just her beauty which appealed, although there was no denying the physical attraction he felt. Tonight, he could barely take his eyes off her. From the moment she had appeared in Rowley’s box, he had been transfixed.

She had looked stunning with all that honey-gold hair piled loosely on top of her clever head, outshining every other lady in the opera house. When the done thing was to appear bored, Miss Blunt had flown in the face of convention and been utterly charmed by the occasion. Openly smiling at the actors on the stage and swaying in time to the music. To do that when all around you were people behaving properly showed a tremendous amount of confidence. That confidence, that comfortable sense of self, made Miss Blunt very alluring indeed. The way she had closed her eyes in bliss at the taste of the champagne had done peculiar things to his nerve endings, creating all manner of unwelcome images of the vixen in the grip of pleasure. Images which resolutely refused to leave his mind now, when he was supposed to be concentrating.

Of course, it didn’t help that the copper-silk gown had shown off her magnificent figure to perfection. Cut to sit off the shoulder, the acres of creamy peach skin had tormented him each time the lights went up and haunted him in the darkness. Skin he now knew blushed more beautifully than any skin had blushed before—and from something as simple as a cheeky blown kiss when nobody was looking. A kiss he had every intention of delivering properly, in person, at the first available opportunity. And not because he’d been told to.

Flint’s fingers snapped in front of his face and Jake realised he’d missed an important part of the conversation. ‘Sorry. I was...’

‘Daydreaming about your conquest, if your expression was anything to go by.’ Flint grinned. ‘I said you might have some competition for Miss Blunt’s affections, dear boy. The word among Rowley’s crowd is he has her earmarked for Redditch.’

‘The Earl of Redditch!’ The very idea was disgusting. The man was in his sixties and smelled like feet. ‘I sincerely doubt I’ll have much competition from that quarter. Miss Blunt wouldn’t entertain an obnoxious fellow like him.’ Or at least he hoped she wouldn’t. Not that imagining her in the throes of passion with the aged Earl was any more distasteful than imagining her in the throes of passion with any other man. The mere thought made him strangely jealous and, if he was entirely honest, a tad nauseous.

‘Perhaps not—but her uncle is keen to make a match. I’ve heard he fetched her to town with the express intention of presenting her to the Earl. Redditch is recently out of mourning and has been quite vocal about his desire to marry again. His first marriage was barren, so it stands to reason he wants a wife young enough to give him heirs and he is as rich a Croesus. Despite his stinky disposition, he’s still quite a catch and one Rowley seems intent on catching. Miss Blunt does make attractive bait.’ Flint and Leatham shared a knowing, wholly masculine look which made Jake yearn to punch the pair of them for the heinous crime of having perceptive eyes.

‘Miss Blunt is a woman with her own mind and well past the age of majority. I wish her uncle all the luck in the world trying to bring her around to his way of thinking.’

Lord Fennimore frowned. ‘This is a dangerous and unforeseen complication.’

‘Hardly.’ Jake made a show of adjusting his cuffs. ‘I’m easier on both the eyes and the nose, and much more appealing than the Earl of Redditch.’

‘Not all women’s heads can be turned by a handsome face, Warriner. In case it has escaped your notice, most of the ton marries for status and wealth. As an earl he has the status—and he certainly has the wealth. The girl has nothing aside from her beauty to recommend her and now that we know she has been on the shelf gathering dust you will need to act fast. An earl on the hook usurps a rake. Especially if Miss Blunt is as clever as you say.’

The words unsettled him far more than Jake was prepared to admit. ‘She’s too clever to settle for an old letch like Redditch.’ Surely? Although she had told him she also had a pragmatic attitude towards men. A dyed-in-the-wool pragmatist might well see the benefits of marrying a rich old earl. She would outlive him, for a start, and enjoy the rest of her life as a very rich woman. Completely independent and free to do as she pleased. Maybe speed was of the essence after all.

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