INDISCREET. Copyright © 1998 by Kasey Michaels. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

“Tell you? Tell you what,chérie ?” Desiree asked idly as she took a freshly pressed night rail from a drawer. She straightened, one hand to the small of her aching back, for she had fallen asleep in a chair, waiting for her charge to come to bed. “Ah,” she said after a moment, nodding her head. “He has kissed you,oui ? The so sober duke has unbent his starchy self, and he has kissed you. And don’t bother to lie,ma petite . I am Desiree, and I know. I have a sense about these things. The tear stains on your cheeks, the confusion, that glow from within that shines from your eyes. I have seen yourmaman looking thus, too many times to count.”

Sophie remained in the middle of the bed, sitting cross-legged atop the satin coverlet, still fully dressed, her skirts billowing around her. She’d been sitting thus for a full ten minutes, composing herself, watching Desiree sleep, listening to the woman snore. Now she grabbed her bent knees, rocking back and forth, refusing to give in to impulse and run to the nearest mirror, to see if she really looked different, if Bramwell’s kiss, his touch, had actually changed her outside as he had melted her insides.

“He kissed me, yes,” Sophie answered, knowing a fib told in the face of her dearest friend would be as effective as employing a feather to topple a mountain. “Once. Just the once. And he—he touched me. Nothing more than that. But it was . . . it wasn’t at all like I’d thought. It was beautiful, Desiree, outstripping anything I’d ever imagined, even as I wanted to hate what he was doing. It was sweet, yet mysterious, exciting. It was—”

“It was a mistake,” Desiree ended for her firmly as she came to sit down on the edge of the bed, the night rail becoming wrinkled as she clutched it tightly with both hands. “Hismistake,chérie , and one he doubtless does not plan to repeat. Until the next time, and the next, and the next. Until he is drunk with desire for you, mad with wanting you. Then,chérie , he will ask you to become his mistress, his true love, the one true love of his life. He will make promises he has no intention of keeping. He will ask you to love him, to trust him, and to stand back, watching, as he weds that stick of a Waverley and sires his heirs on her. And then, after you have given him your heart, your love, your youth? Ah, then,chérie , he will leave.”

Sophie had heard all of this before, all through her childhood years, had it all explained to her by Desiree each time she had sat in her bed in Wimbledon, listening to hermaman sobbing in the beautiful gold-and-white satin chamber down the hallway. Hermaman would weep as if her heart were breaking, because it was. Her silly, trusting heart. Broken again and again, trampled on by men who had promised so much, taken so much, and then gone away.

Even Uncle Cesse would have disappeared, Desiree had warned Sophie, for she had caught out her good friend Constance with red-rimmed eyes only a week before Sophie’smaman had run off to meet with her beloved Cesse, to die with her beloved Cesse. Constance had not said that the duke was throwing her over. In fact, she had flatly denied it, said she was crying because she was happy, because she had a wonderful secret she couldn’t yet share, even with her very dearest friend. As if Desiree had believed that pack of nonsense! No, Constance had been on the verge, the very brink, of having her heart broken yet again.

And so Desiree had informed Sophie.

But this was different. Sophie was sure of it. She was not hermaman , and Bramwell wasn’t his father, or one of the uncles. He wasn’t Caesar, turning away from his wife and to the charms of a doomed Cleopatra. He wasn’t Napoleon, giving Josephine hercongé . He wasn’t Henry VIII, willy-nilly lopping off heads to leave him free to bed yet another woman he lusted after. He wasn’t any of the hundreds, thousands of men who made vows, made promises to wives, to young maids, to lovers—never meaning to keep either the vows or the women. He wasn’t!

“You’re wrong, Desiree,” Sophie said earnestly. “Bramwell isn’t likeMaman ’s gentlemen. He told me he and Miss Waverley will probably never marry.”

“He said that? Oh,chérie , now I should kill him,” Desiree ground out from between clenched teeth. “I should sneak into his chamber this very night, and I should kill him. You believed this drivel, thiscanard ? They all live between their legs, even dukes! Sophie?Think , my dear, befuddled darling. Think! When did the duke kiss you? Before he told you he and Miss Waverley would probably not marry? Or after?”

“It was, it wasafter .” Sophie pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, considering the scene, replaying all the words and actions in her head. She took what she knew, combined it with everything Desiree had taught her, and felt an icy coldness invade her every blood cell.

“What a fool I am!” she exclaimed, taking hold of Desiree’s outstretched hands. “He made me feel sorry for him, gave me reason to believe thatI was the cause of everything—and yet not an unhappy cause. He warned me not to think, and I didn’t! I let him kiss me, confuse me, make a fool of me, make me want to believe—ah, Desiree. Thank God I had the good sense to finally run away, yes?”

Desiree squeezed her hands. “And why,chérie ? Why did you run away?”

Sophie looked down at her hands, seeing that her knuckles were white as they held tight to Desiree’s fingers. “I don’t know,” she said quietly, honestly. “I didn’t want to, not really. I—I suppose I was frightened? Yes, I was frightened. Frightened that I wanted so much for him to kiss me again, touch me more and more. Make love to me, I suppose. So I threw the teapot at him.” She shook her head. “Perhaps a few other things as well? I can’t remember. And—and I kicked him.”

She peered up at Desiree. “I was horrid, Desiree, as horrid as I’ve ever been in my entire life. And he said he liked me that way. That he might evenlove me that way. It was all so confusing, but wonderful in some crazy, inexplicable way.”

“Oh, this is a smooth one, my love,” Desiree told her, gathering her close. “And yet, not without possibilities, if you were yourmaman , willing to risk her heart again and again. But you are not,chérie . Remember that. You arenot yourmaman . I raised you for more than diamonds, and trinkets, and fleeting moments of happiness bound to be crushed under the weight of tears. I pray, yes, that there is such a thing as true, lasting love, even though I have never myself seen such a thing. I pray that you will be one of the lucky ones who finds it. You deserve a real, lasting love. But I raised you to use your head,chérie . Losing your heart to a man betrothed to another is not using your head. It is entirely another part of your anatomy that comes into play at such times. And the timing, it must be impeccable,oui ?”

“The timing?” Sophie didn’t understand, and said as much.

Desiree kissed her on both cheeks. “I’ve said too much for so late in the evening. Leave that to me,chérie . Have I ever turned your steps in the wrong direction? Just leave everything to Desiree, and keep smiling, keep dazzling, continue to be your most lovable self. Pretend, when you see His Grace, that this evening never happened,oui ? I want, just this once, to be proven wrong,chérie . Just this one time before I die. Nothing is impossible,oui ?”

“Desiree? Are you saying that it might be possible? That there is such a thing as true love outside of poetry? Are you saying that what I’m feeling for Bramwell could be love—and that he could be falling in love with me?”

“I’m saying,ma petite , that, for now, you should keep your eyes open and your legs closed. I cannot be any more plain than that, can I?”

Sophie blushed as she hid her face against Desiree’s ample bosom. She’d read her mother’s very frank, descriptive journals without really understanding much of them, but while still learning much more than an innocent young girl probably should know. She’d listened to Desiree’s explanations of lust, of desire, of this mysterious attraction between men and women that had caused endless trouble and heartache since the beginnings of time.

Empires had toppled, armies had been launched, murder had been done, good names ruined, lives destroyed—all for this thing women called love and men knew as desire. Lust. But, whatever its name, this most basic of communication between the sexes was dangerous. History had proven it. Hermaman had suffered its consequences. And Sophie had grown up wanting no part of it.

She heard Desiree telling her to climb down from the bed before her gown was ruined, and she complied. She allowed herself to be stripped of her garments, her hose, her evening slippers. She lifted her arms and let the night rail fall over her curiously aware body. She dutifully splashed water on her face and watched herself in the small mirror above the washstand as she scrubbed at her teeth, spat into the basin. She ascended the small steps to her bed once more and accepted Desiree’s kisses on her cheeks as the woman tucked the covers around her, clucking like a hen over her one chick.

And then, at last, she was alone. Alone with her thoughts, her memories, her questions.

With only her bedside candle and the soft glow from a small, banked fire to light the room, she lay with her eyes open, staring up at the canopy above her head. She relived those strange, enlightening, frighteningly wonderful moments in the drawing room. She touched her fingertips to her mouth, feeling her lips grow rigid, begin to tremble.

She slid her hands under the coverlet and skimmed them over her body, fleetingly touching the breasts Bramwell had touched, brought to life. She ran her hands lightly down over her belly, stopping just before she arrived at the place that had become warm and fluid the first moment Bramwell had looked deeply into her eyes and told her not to think.

So, this was desire? Desiree had hinted at all of it, while saying next to nothing Sophie had understood at the time she’d listened to her lessons. Now she understood why she hadn’t been able to understand.

Because the words were not the feelings. Understanding the method was not the same as experiencing the desire firsthand. Learning how to entice, to interest, to dazzle, had absolutely nothing to do with protecting her heart from becoming enticed, interested, and dazzled in return.

So, yes, this was desire. And the longings, Sophie knew now, were far more powerful than the years of warnings.

This was what had toppled all those governments, taken the heads from so many queens, led to all those intrigues, been the downfall of so many, including her ownmaman .

It was powerful stuff.

But it wasn’t love. Not according to Desiree.

It wasn’t forever. Not according to the uncles.

And it didn’t come without its costs. Lust, desire, love—no matter what name it was given, it was never given freely. There was always a price to pay. Always the fear of an ending.

Sophie knew she had to remember that. She had to remember that Bramwell was betrothed, no matter what he hinted to the contrary, no matter that he had kissed her, held her, said that he might love her. Desire her or not, the Bramwell Seaton she believed she knew would never willingly open himself up to the gossip, the ridicule that would most certainly come if he were to actually marry the Widow Winstead’s daughter, the daughter of the woman his father had set up as his mistress.

If he were tomarry her? Was she mad? Did it take no more than a few fleeting moments of passion to stand all of her common sense on its head?

Oh, and how her head did ache. How her heart ached as well.

It had all seemed so simple at the beginning. She would come to London. She would have a most delightful Season. She would meet interesting people and make friends with the world. She would marry for convenience, as most everyone did, have the children she longed for, and begin a life of laughter, of gaiety, of enjoyment. There would be a lovely house in the country, a mansion in London. Parties. The theater. Dancing. If she felt desire, which she doubted she ever would, she would indulge that feeling, keeping her heart safe as she did so. Never to be hurt. Never to cry.

And there was nothing wrong with any of that. Men did it. They did it all the time, probably since the verybeginning of time. But, then, men didn’t love, did they? They didn’t gaze into a woman’s eyes, pledge undying love and devotion, and really mean it. Not according to history, or the uncles, or hermaman ’s journals or, most especially, Desiree.

Tonight Bramwell had contradicted everything Sophie believed, everything she’d been taught. Why? Because he loved her? Or because he needed her to believe in love so that he could take what he wanted? Could she believe what he said, after so many years of believing the opposite? Could she trust him? Could she trust herself?

She had to keep remembering, keep reminding herself. Only fools believed in love. Fools, and poets, and young, silly, romantic females.

And yet, and yet . . . even Desiree, that most practical of women, had just tonight hinted that she still longed to believe in the promise, the miracle, of real love.

And so do I, Sophie thought sadly, turning her head into the pillow and willing herself to sleep as the bedside candle sputtered and died.Oh, so do I .

“Tell him I’ve died,” Bramwell said without raising his eyes from the empty glass he was studying. “It was a putrid fever. Terrible, but mercifully swift. Tell him the services were extremely moving, but that he missed the funeral.”

“Pity. I would have enjoyed speaking the eulogy,” Baron Lorimar drawled, sliding his long frame into the leather chair across from the desk. “Odd. I just passed Wally in the foyer, and he was sober as I’ve ever seen him, while you look to be doing your best to drown yourself in wine before noon. He seemed happy; you look sadder than your cousin Samuel. Wally’s going off for an afternoon with the most delicious morsel in all of London; you’re sitting here, alone. I don’t suppose you’d care to explain any of that?”

“I had a single glass of wine, Lorrie. One. Only an idiot bent on self-destruction would drink water in this city.”

“Don’t interrupt, please,” Lorimar said, smiling. “I think I’m unraveling a conundrum. And the answer to this puzzle is—Miss Sophie Winstead. Am I correct?”

Bramwell glared at his friend, briefly considering the pleasure he might take in leaping across the desk and hitting him. Hitting someone. Hitting something. “I may have made an idiot out of myself with her last night,” he said, deciding hitting someone wouldn’t do him much good. Unless he could kick himself.

“You did? Well, good for you,” Lorimar shot back, crossing his legs at the ankle as he slouched in the chair. “About time you figured you weren’t cut out for a life of starched collars and full conformity. Was this a private or a public idiocy? You score two more points if you made an idiot of yourself in public, you know.”

Bramwell felt a smile beginning to tickle at the corners of his mouth. He and Lorimar understood each other so well. There was no need for long explanations with Lorimar, for sordid confessions. The Baron knew he had kissed Sophie, or done something similarly reckless. And he knew that Bramwell was caught somewhere between hating himself for what he’d done and wanting to shout what he’d done from the highest rooftops in the city. “No, not in public, Lorrie. But I’m giving it some serious consideration. If she’ll have me.”

“If she’ll have you? Well, good for you all over again, and doubled! I’d begun to wonder if blood still flowed through your veins, you’d resisted for so long. I doubt Bobbit has yet to make a single groat on you—although you probably owe him a king’s ransom this morning. But wait a moment. This would also mean you’d havetwo young ladies in your life, Bram. I don’t think that’s allowed. Unless,” he continued, his voice taking on a sharp edge, “you’re sitting here thinking of marrying the Waverley and keeping The Winstead on the side? I certainly hope not, my friend. Because I couldn’t allow that. I really couldn’t.”

“And you think I could?” Bramwell felt his blood growing hot, fueling his temper once more. “My God, Lorrie, how far must I go to prove that I’m not my father?”

“You never were, Bram,” the Baron said evenly. “In fact, you were very much your own man all of your life—up until the moment your father executed that none-too-graceful leap from Buxley’s balcony and straight into legend. It was only then that you lost your way, Bram, trying to be what you were not. Taking up the title with both hands and a heavy, sober heart, turning your back on any hint of nonsense, bracketing yourself to a woman you would never have taken a second look at before your father’s death and your humiliation? No, you would have done none of that if you’d come into the dukedom in the usual way. Is your family’s good name worth such sacrifice? The sacrifice of your own happiness? Of Miss Waverley’s chance for happiness?”

He pushed himself to his feet. “I’d drink another glass of that wine if I were you, Bram, really I would. Maybe the whole bottle, and another one as well. Get yourself very, very drunk, then take a good look at yourself. Look at your life before the balcony scene, your life since that day—your life as it stretches in front of you now. Examine the choices that are yours and yours alone. You’ll end up with a bruiser of a headache, but I think you might also end up the wiser for the pain.”

Bramwell ran a hand through his hair as he looked up at his friend. “How long were you going to let me continue to make a bloody fool of myself, Lorrie?” he asked. “If Sophie hadn’t unexpectedly come into my life—how long would it have been before you tapped me ungently on my brick-stupid head and waked me up to what I was doing?”

“I had considered that, if my first idea didn’t show promise.” Lorimar smiled, his usually unreadable gray eyes twinkling. “You know, Bram, for an intelligent man . . .” he said, his voice drifting off into suggestive nothingness before he ended, “well, let’s just say it might be time you had a long talk with Sophie’s maid, my friend,n’est-ce pas ?”

That was the conclusion a few hours of thought and a bottle of very good wine had brought to Bramwell Seaton, Ninth Duke of Selbourne.

He had been born into one of England’s finest families, one of its premier titles, one of its largest fortunes. All of that hadn’t given him what he really wanted. He had never felt his mother’s love, known his father’s pride.

But he’d grown up, grown into a man, begun to travel his own road. He’d found friends, his own life, his own happiness.

Or so he’d thought.

All it had taken to change that life had been his father’s disgrace. The ridicule his father had brought to the family name. If Bramwell hadn’t had loving parents, he’d at least always had his heritage to cling to, to make him feel, if not loved, at least respected. Cecil Seaton had destroyed all of that. His usually more discreet mother, the late duchess, very indiscreetly succumbing to a plateful of bad fish while in the company of her latest lover, had finished what his father had started.

And Bramwell, now cursing himself for being stupid, stupid,stupid , had let his life be changed.

Because he had been happy, if still relatively young and a bit of a rascal, had he suddenly believed himself cursed with what he began to see as a Seaton family failing? Was enjoying life a sin?

Conversely, was striving these past three years to rebuild his family’s name a sin?

“Anything, if taken to excess, is a sin,” Bramwell said as he mounted the stairs to Sophie’s bedchamber. “At least I think that’s how it goes. But somewhere, by God, there has to be ahappy medium.”

He turned down the hallway, a fresh bottle and two glasses in his hands, following the sound of Desiree’s voice raised in song. The woman sounded carefree, without a worry in the world.

Well, that wouldn’t last for long!

He stopped just in the doorway of Sophie’s bedchamber and leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb, his hands crossed against his chest—the bottle dangling from one hand, the glasses from the other—his pose purposely relaxed. “Mademoiselle?A moment of your time,s’il vous plaît ?” he drawled in imitation of the day the maid had cornered him in his own dressing room.

Desiree seemed to freeze in the act of placing a tapestry pillow in the center of the freshly made-up bed. “Monseigneur?” she said, slowly turning to watch with gimlet eyes as Bramwell strolled fully into the large guest chamber, set down his burdens of bottle and glasses, and took up a seat on a pink-and-white striped chaise longue. “There is something wrong,oui ? Or, perhaps, something to celebrate?”

Bramwell knew his grin bordered on evil. “That would depend, Desiree,” he said, pulling a cheroot out of his pocket and sticking it, unlit, into the corner of his mouth. His smile widened as the maid raced to find a striking match before dumping hairpins from a small china plate, probably thinking to use it to hold the ashes. “It would depend, you see, on how truthful you are in the next, oh, five minutes?”

“Truthful,monseigneur ?” Desiree repeated, swallowing down hard as she pulled a small table close beside the chaise longue and placed the china dish on its surface. She leaned forward to light his cheroot. “In what way?”

Bramwell puffed several times on the cheroot, drawing the smoke into his lungs. “In every way,mademoiselle ,” he purred, exhaling a ribbon of fragrant blue smoke, “but I think we should perhaps begin with the Baron Marshall Lorimar’s visit to Wimbledon. That would have been some months ago,oui ?”

Desiree, a woman Bramwell already knew was not the sort to stand on ceremony in any case, immediately plopped her voluptuous frame down beside him on the chaise longue, staring at him goggle-eyed. “Mon Dieu!I am undone!”

Bramwell couldn’t help himself. He deliberately smiled around the cheroot still clamped between his teeth, deliberately wrinkled up his nose as he did so. God, but he felt alive! More alive than he had in—when? Three years? He was Bram Seaton again. Naval officer, gentleman, and a man who knew pleasure and laughter and the occasional bout of ridiculousness—and damn well enjoyed them. “Yes, you could say that, couldn’t you?”

Desiree quickly recovered her composure. “It was the baron, of course. He gave it away.” She shook her head. “I should have known better than to trust a man,oui ? They are always the downfall of desperate, trusting women. What did he tell you?”

In truth, Lorimar had told Bramwell next to nothing, but he wasn’t about to admit that to this clever woman. “He told me his side of the story, of course, men being endlessly perfidious. But I thought it only fair to allow you to tell meyour side of things before I had you tossed out on your ambitious ear.”

“And Sophie along with me? Oh, no,monseigneur , you wouldn’t do that,” Desiree said, visibly relaxing. “But,” she went on, gifting him with an eloquent Gallic shrug, “I suppose it is time for some small truths,oui ?”

“Small, middle-sized, large. Complete and total, as a matter of fact.” Bramwell pulled the cheroot from his mouth and rose to his feet, beginning to pace. “Did I mention that I’m not by nature a patient man?”

“I could make you more impatient than you have ever known. Were I younger, not so devoted to pastries. Were your interests not already involved elsewhere,” Desiree said, shrugging once more. “Ah, well, that time is past for me, and unlamented. And, since I have gotten what I want—you would not have troubled to come to me if I hadn’t—I suppose the truth is owed,oui ?” She looked at him intently. “You do love her,monseigneur . She would not have come back to this bed last night still a virgin, did you not love her.”

Bramwell crushed out the cheroot in the china dish, leaning toward Desiree as he did so. “We’re here for your confession,mademoiselle , not mine,” he reminded her coldly.

Desiree laughed in sheer delight, which was surprising to Bramwell, for he had thought he’d just leveled the woman with his most fierce scowl, his most threatening voice. “I have lived long enough to see a miracle,monseigneur . God is indeed good,oui? The Baron Lorimar, he was right. All the heart of your father,monseigneur , all the heat, the fire, the delicious nonsense. Hidden for years, but always there, always ready, waiting. But with a steadfastness never seen in the father. You are perfect for my little Sophie. Perfect!”

“And betrothed to marry another,” Bramwell put in facetiously, rising and going to the table, picking up the already uncorked bottle, pouring each of them a glass of wine.

“Bah! That is nothing,monseigneur ,” Desiree said, accepting a glass. “A merebagatelle , a nuisance soon forgotten. Trust Sophie in this,monseigneur . In her zeal to make everyone happy, the little minx is already well on the way to most comfortably settlingMademoiselle Waverley, unaware that she is also helping herself to her own happiness. Life is so interesting when one is in Society,oui ? The dance, the whirl, the excitement. My Sophie was born for all of it—to be the happy, laughing queen of all of it!”

Bramwell’s head was beginning to spin, and he knew it had little to do with no breakfast and a bellyful of wine. “I prefer to let the subject of my soon-to-be-broken engagement to Miss Waverley lie for the moment,mademoiselle . We were discussing Baron Lorimar, I believe? That is why I’m here, remember?”

Desiree took a deep drink of the wine, then nodded her head as she swallowed. “Of course, of course.Certainement . We will discuss the Baron Lorimar. He came to me in Wimbledon early last winter, entirely unexpected, and with a sad tale to tell. His good friend, he said, was in danger of losing himself to dullness. He needed to be awakened, brought to realize that life was more than playing a role he believed was his duty. He needed some fun, some excitement, somejoie de vivre . There was a daughter of Constance Winstead,oui ? The Baron had thought he was right in believing this, remembering this. And he had an idea. What had brought joy to the father . . .”

As Desiree’s voice trailed off, to be followed by a wink that was surely meant to imply what she had not bothered to explain, Bramwell found himself sitting down beside the maid once more. It was much more respectable than falling down. “Go on, please. He met Sophie, and then—what?” he said, noticing that his lips had gone numb.

“He met Sophie? Then you do not know anything, do you?” Desiree questioned him, her tone no longer happy, but disdainful, condemning. “You think that Sophie has known from the beginning, that she knows now,oui ?”

Bramwell rubbed a hand across his mouth. “I’m an idiot, aren’t I, Desiree? But I did think it, if only for a moment. This was your plan, yours and Lorrie’s. Not Sophie’s. Please, go on. Finish it.”

Desiree gave a small, delighted chuckle. “Ah, yes. A miracle. I am looking into the face of real love. For you were not angry when you thought—for just that moment that you thought it—that Sophie may have been in on our little scheme. You were crushed, brokenhearted. There is yet hope for this sad old world, if true love between a man and a woman is still possible,oui ?”

She stood up, poured both of them another glass of wine, and began pacing the same small carpet Bramwell had trod moments earlier. “Let me see. How did it grow from there? Oh, yes, I remember. I was to get Sophie to London. But how,monseigneur ? How was I to get her there? And not just in London, but smack into the middle of Society, into your orbit. Better yet, under your roof?”

Bramwell was beginning to understand. It was either the wine, or he was waking up, becoming more and more himself again. “You had the letter from my father,” he said. “Which, I do believe, means your considerable talents extend to that of forgery?”

Desiree pointed straight at him. “Now,that ,monseigneur , Sophie does know. I could not keep it from her. Not when that fool of a solicitor insisted upon spending the night, then wandering out of my chamber the next morning still tucking his shirt into his breeches.” She shrugged, winking in delight. “I am still quite good,monseigneur , and the solicitor, he was happy to do anything I asked. Signature, seals, anything! And that was that,” she said with a snap of her fingers. “You had no choice but to take Sophie in, as your father had promised, and you,monseigneur , are an honorable man,oui ?”

Bramwell rose and replenished his glass yet another time, eyeing the level in the bottle as he sat down once more. “So Lorrie did see Sophie for the first timeafter she was installed here in Portland Square. That’s obvious enough, for even Lorrie isn’t that good an actor. He was genuinely bowled over by her, which serves him right, now that I think about it. The wager, the paper listing the wager, however, was all planned out beforehand, as a part of the scheme you and Lorrie hatched between you.”

He eyed the maid curiously. “Andyou picked up that paper, not Giuseppe. The monkey only was told to give it to Sophie, so as to stir the waters more, make us more aware of each other. Am I correct?”

“You’re very, very good,monseigneur ,” Desiree told him, giggling. She was now on her third small glass of wine, and the bottle was empty. “But I had more of a plan that just those silly wagers of the baron’s. I instructed Sophie to tell you immediately that she was irresistible, and that you should not fall in love with her. She was sure I had done this so as to have you take her in dislike, make her safe from your advances if you should have thought to make her your mistress, but—”

“But you really did it so that I’d be sure to be interested,” Bramwell finished for her. Desiree, he believed, would have made an admirable general—and an even better tactician.

“Oui. I thought to hasten matters. Gentlemen are sure to come forward the moment one tells them to please, please, back away. But no one can dislike Sophie. She is totally lovable,oui ? She couldn’t know how she had immediately become attractive to you. She has learned my tricks,monseigneur , but she has not yet learned them all. And still, even last night, when she came to me with her face glowing with love for you, I continued to warn her away.”

Bramwell drained his glass. “You’re holding out for marriage,” he said flatly, realizing that he had somehow come to find himself in the unique position of possibly having to apply to his beloved’s maid for permission to marry. This entire scene was ludicrous. Laughable. And he hadn’t enjoyed an interview this much in years. “Once Sophie, that is, all unknowing of what she is doing, neatly removes the single obstacle remaining in our path.”

“Not the only obstacle,monseigneur ,” Desiree told him, suddenly serious as she crossed to the small chest beside the bed and opened the top drawer. “My only fear of bringing Sophie to London was in having her within the same orbit as the uncles. Society miss or duke’s wife, they may not want her here. Because of these,” she ended, holding up what looked to be about a half dozen slim, leather-bound journals. “I’ve been waiting for the correct time to show them to you.”

Bramwell was suddenly quite sober. “Those belonged to Constance, I’ll assume,” he said quietly, watching as Desiree held the journals between her hands, preparing to replace them in the drawer.

“Oui,” Desiree said absently, reaching into the drawer, running her hand over its interior. “They are very dear to Sophie, much as I pleaded with her to burn them, burn them all. Constance wrote down everything, you see. She had a separate journal for each of the uncles, along with much gossip of a more silly nature. And that,monseigneur , is what worries me. The gentlemen, they must all know of the journals,oui ? Constance was always fond of saying she had no secrets from the world.”

“If they do indeed know about the journals, and remember their existence, I imagine the uncles are feeling much the same way now about their own secrets,” Bramwell said, frowning. “There are what—about a half dozen of them?”

“Oui,monseigneur , six. Constance did not begin her journals until Sophie was, oh, seven or eight years of age, I suppose. One man is dead, the uncle of your friend, Sir Wallace Merritt. From the pages of her mother’s journal, Sophie learned how to make Sir Wallace happy. She saw it as providential,oui ? Another is in Scotland, and of no worry to me. There is, of course, your father. And the three uncles. Six men, six journals.”

Bramwell watched as Desiree dropped to her knees and pulled the drawer clear of the chest, frantically looking into the cavity. “But there are only five now. One is not stuck in here,” she said, her voice rising in alarm as she looked to Bramwell. “I had hoped. But, oh,monseigneur , it is not here. Which one is missing?”

Bramwell waited as Desiree opened one journal after the other, quickly scanning the first page, then throwing it onto the bed. “Lord Buxley’s,” she said at last, looking up at him, her expression one of near panic. “Of all of them, why one of the London uncles.Mon dieu ,monseigneur ! What are we to do? Lord Buxley’s journal is gone!”

Bramwell sat very still for a long time, then slowly got to his feet. “As Giuseppe can’t read—he can’t, can he?—I believe I will make a small visit to my aunt’s chambers,” he said finally. “If I find the journal there, one question will remain, a question I must ask my aunt.”

“What would that question be,monseigneur ?”

His smile was tight, and not at all amused. “Well, Desiree, I’ll tell you. As my aunt is an inveterate lover of gossip, I must first assume that Sophie told her about the existence of these journals, not realizing the temptation she had unwittingly put in the dear, light-fingered old lady’s way. I’m willing to make that leap in logic, as I believe you might have already done. Which begs the question, dear woman—did my aunt just now borrow the one, or has she been treating the journals as a sort of lending library for some time now, then going out into Society, fully armed with her newly discovered knowledge?”

“Mon Dieu!” Desiree breathed out, collapsing her rump onto the floor. “Theoncles won’t like this,oui ?”

“Exactly,” Bramwell said, already on his way out of the room.

Sophie lingered at a table of books that concerned gardening, field drainage, and the proper composition of compost, pretending an interest as she kept one eye trained on the doorway. What was taking Sir Wallace so long? Honestly, give the man one simple assignment . . .

The afternoon had gone wonderfully well, thanks to Bobbit’s discreet inquiries at a local pub frequented by house servants that had led to a list of several promising lodgings to be inspected. In fact, Sophie and Sir Wallace had quickly located very likely the most ideal bachelor quarters in all of Mayfair, the entire project taking less than two hours. A Mr. Forester, late of Hampshire and now in an extreme rush to return there after a brief, expensive sojourn to London’s raciest gaming hells, had been more than delighted to turn his furnished accommodations over to Sir Wallace, and to include his small staff as well in the bargain.

Which had left more than enough time for a visit to Hatchard’s, and a bit of matchmaking. Again thanks to Bobbit’s network of talkative house servants, Sophie already knew that Lord Charles Anston and his four daughters would be there at precisely three o’clock—just another reason his lordship would be so right for Miss Waverley, being such a punctual, dependable, responsible sort of fellow.

Sir Wallace, as per Sophie’s earlier arrangement, would leave Sophie safely browsing at Hatchard’s while he drove over to escort Miss Waverley to meet with her, another arrangement the well-prepared Sophie had already made. Once Bramwell’s betrothed was present, Sophie would bring Lord Anston and Miss Waverley together. Sir Wallace would then, keeping strictly to the script Sophie had furnished for him, remember a most pressing engagement elsewhere and beg Lord Anston to be so kind as to see to getting the ladies home.

It was a brilliant plan. Simple. Direct. But with no room for error. The timing had to be perfect.

And Sir Wallace was late. A good twenty minutes late as a matter of fact. And Lord Anston was showing signs of being ready to gather up his daughters and depart.

But, then, Sophie told herself, he hadn’t as yet seen her here, had he?

Giving her curls a toss, and pinning a bright smile to her face, she stepped out from behind the table and headed straight for the eldest Anston daughter, brushing a shoulder against her as she moved past, then quickly stopping to offer her apologies for being so clumsy.

“My goodness, what a beauty you are!” Sophie then exclaimed as the two bent to retrieve the small pile of books that had fallen from the girl’s arms, to scatter on the floor. “You have the look of Lord Anston about you, don’t you? Those lovely blue eyes, that small cleft in your chin. Oh, goodness, yes, the resemblance is remarkable! I’m Sophie, by the way. Sophie Winstead. Your papa was kind enough as to call on me the other day, in Portland Square. I’m staying there with the duke of Selbourne’s aunt, in case you are wondering if it is permissible to speak with me, and Lady Gwendolyn makes me absolutely acceptable, yes? Is your papa here, then? I just arrived, and have not seen him. He is such a doting papa, isn’t he, so proud of his beautiful daughters. Now I see why. If anything, he has not said enough about your beauty. You’ll have a Season soon, yes?”

Shock, flattery, a tumble of breathless words, a few smiles that held nothing but artless female talk—all of these combined to gain the immediate confidence of Miss Sarah Anston. Within moments she had dragged Sophie over to where her obviously bored father stood bracing up one of the many bookcases that littered Hatchard’s nearly from floor to high ceiling. At Sophie’s sunny greeting, he snapped to attention at once.

All four Anston daughters were soon gathered up and introduced, and Sophie gushed over and flattered each of them in their turn. They were lovely girls, really, and very well behaved, very eager to talk. By the time Sir Wallace finally showed himself, fairly dragging Miss Isadora Waverley along with him through the aisles, Sophie was able to introduce them all to each other, telling Miss Waverley about Sarah’s love of reading, Ruth Ann’s wish to witness the new King’s Coronation, Lucy’s adoration of her puppy, Fluff, and little Mary’s tumble from a beech tree just before their trip to London, which explained why her left arm was strapped up in a sling.

“You may not know this, girls,” she told them, lowering her voice just a trifle, as if imparting knowledge that definitely would impress them, “but Miss Waverley here is anexpert on the London Season. I cannot tell you how much she has helped me, a silly country miss with more hair than wit, how many pitfalls she has saved me from in only the short time I have been in Mayfair. Lord Anston?” she then asked, looking at him directly. “Don’t you agree? Miss Waverley is absolutely the mostperfect person one could ever think to have about when one is launching a Season, yes?”

Miss Waverley colored prettily to the roots of her hair—probably the first time color had ever invaded those lovely, porcelain cheeks. “Lud, Miss Winstead, you embarrass me. I did nothing. It is the same with you as it would be with these four dear young ladies. The beauty, the sweetness—all the materials are there. It is just that I can help to mold, to shape, to instruct. And it has been delightful. Truly delightful. Lud, can there be anything more satisfying than to see another lovely young girl properly launched?”

“Really, Miss Waverley?” Lord Anston asked, looking at her thoughtfully. “So many women would run, screaming, from the prospect of, say, popping off four motherless daughters over the next decade.”

“Then the more fools them, my lord,” Miss Waverley stated firmly, reaching down to tuck an errant curl behind little Mary’s ear. “That’s better, dear. Now stand up straight, so that everyone can see your wonderful posture and marvel at what a well-brought-up child you are. Lud, how I tremble as I remember my long days spent wearing a horrid back board, until I’d learned my lesson about posture.”

“You know, Miss Waverley,” Lord Anston began, still looking at her rather intently (“measuringly” might be too strong a word for a gentleman Sophie hoped to see tumbling into love in the middle of Hatchard’s). “You might not remember, as I was nearly trampled in the crowd of eager gentlemen seeking your kind attention during your first Season, but I was one of your most devoted admirers before you became betrothed to Lord Coulbeg, may he rest in peace. But I felt my status as a recent widower, lined up against the dashing earl, put me sadly out of the running, if I might be so bold as to speak freely.”

There was that blush again, Sophie noticed, realizing that pink cheeks made Isadora Waverley much more humanly beautiful than did the icy coolness with which the young woman accepted Bramwell’s equally cool kiss on her hand. She doubted that either Lord Anston or Miss Waverley would ever fall madly, deeply, passionately in love—as she was beginning to see the emotion—but they were definitely suited to each other. Definitely. And they’d be happy with each other. Content. She sighed, feeling quite content herself.

“But Ido remember you, Lord Anston,” Miss Waverley was protesting prettily even as Sophie was congratulating herself. “Very well, indeed. Lud, I believe you were called back to your estate just as we were getting to know one another. Why, I had all but fallen in love with your tales of your estate, as I do so love the countryside as you described it. Anston Manor, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, smiling and nodding. “Ruth Ann here broke out in spots, and Sarah right after her, so that I had to return there. To Anston Manor, that is.”

“Oh,Papa !” Miss Anston exclaimed in youthful high dudgeon, turning to Miss Waverley. “Papa just doesn’t understand that he shouldn’t speak of such things asspots .”

“Papas are like that,” Miss Waverley said, nodding in agreement. “Lud, I remember the time, one evening during a small dinner party, when mine was about to tell the vicar about my—well, lud, never mind what it was. Mama stopped him before I could perish of embarrassment, thankfully.”

“Mamas do that,” Ruth Ann said sadly. “Except we don’t have one anymore. Not in ever so long, since little Mary was born.”

“Oh, you dear, sweet thing!” Miss Waverley exclaimed, giving the child an impulsive hug as she looked to Lord Anston. “Lud, my lord, but I can see that you need some lessons in the sensibilities of gently nurtured young girls like your sweet daughters.”

Lord, but it was simple, this making people happy. Almost laughably so. And so very satisfying. Sophie gave Sir Wallace a sly nudge in the ribs with her elbow and then took his arm as if wandering off to inspect another table of books—this one dedicated to naval tactics. “Where were you?” she asked in a whisper. “I had about given you up, you know.”

“Miss Waverley insisted I take tea with her before we came here. Never ate so fast in m’life, I swear it. Now, what the devil are we doing? Something’s havey-cavey here, I can feel it. You’re up to something, aren’t you? All this business about leaving you and Miss Waverley here and loping off like some Johnny Raw who doesn’t know gentlemen don’t ask ladies to Hatchard’s, then abandon them there. I like you, Miss Winstead, I truly, truly do. But sometimes you make me want to start carrying a flask about with me again, I swear you do.”

“Oh, you dear, sweet thing!” Sophie said in imitation of Miss Waverley as she patted his cheek, then winked at him. “As things are going even better than I had dared to hope, let’s see if this helps to give you some idea of what I’m about, all right? Here’s a hint. Do you care to wager on just how long it will be before Lord Anston comes up to us and offers to escort Miss Waverley home? I’ll give him ten minutes.”

“What? Isthat what this is about? Oh, it is, it is! I’ve seen matchmaking before, and this is just the sort of thing matchmaking people do. You’re throwing Miss Waverley at Anston’s head, aren’t you? Straight at it—wham! And you stuck me smack in the middle of it, too. Why, of all the sneaky, devious”—he looked over his shoulder at a smiling Lord Anston—“five’s more likely, I’ll wager,” he then ended confidently, shaking his head as he grinned at her. “Yes, five minutes, no more. Do you think he knows Miss Waverley is Bram’s intended?”

“Do you really think he cares?” Sophie countered, picking up a thick tome having to do with Nelson’s strategies at Trafalgar. “Or that Miss Waverley cares?”

Sir Wallace turned so sharply, throwing another look toward the place where Lord Anston and Isadora Waverley were now deep in conversation, that Sophie had to pull on his neckcloth to bring him back to attention. “Never be obvious, Sir Wallace,” she warned. “Now, as it probably isn’t in the least ladylike of me to wager anyway, I should consider it a kindness if you were to step on my hem as I move away. Aim for the lowest ruffle, just here, on my left side, if you please. I’m never without a second plan, you understand, in case the first should prove unwieldy.”

“But—but I’ll rip your gown,” he protested, clearly still not understanding what she was about. Which was quite all right. He was a man, and not accustomed to subtlety. Personally, she believed Nelson might have survived Trafalgar, had he a woman on board to assist with tactics.

“Yes, you will, won’t you. It’s already held in place by little more than a single thread, Desiree being quite good with a needle, so that you won’t have to step all that hard. And then I’ll have to go straight back to Portland Square, leaving Lord Anston either to say good-bye to a woman he is just beginning to most happily know, or offer to take her up with him when he leaves, yes? You see, I’ve decided I should totally leave her orbit for the remainder of the afternoon. Miss Sarah Anston already likes me entirely too much, and I believe I want her concentrating quite solely on Miss Waverley’s much-more-deserving charms.”

Sir Wallace took out his handkerchief and mopped at his suddenly perspiring brow. “I don’t know, Miss Winstead. Bram might not like this, even it if does seem a good idea. Never could see him and MissLud making a match of it. Lorimar, neither. Gave her that name, Lorimar did. But this is rather underhanded, ain’t it?”

“Oh, most definitely underhanded, Sir Wallace. But with all of the best intentions. For His Grace. For Miss Waverley’s happiness. Now, are you up to the game, or not?”

He gave one last, quick look over his shoulder, then sighed. “You haven’t been wrong yet, Miss Winstead, I’ll say that for you.”

“How true,” she said, smiling. “And, please, call me Sophie.”

“Sophie it is,” he agreed, then screwed up his courage, closed his eyes, and stepped down hard on her hem.

Sophie was holding up a length of ripped flounce as she stood in the foyer, thanking Bobbit for all his help in settling Sir Wallace, among his other courtesies to her, when she felt a hand close around her arm just above the elbow.

“Come with me, Miss Winstead,” Bramwell ground out behind her from between clenched teeth, unceremoniously pulling her about and all but dragging her down the hallway toward his private study.

She raised her eyebrows questioningly to Bobbit as she looked over her shoulder at the butler, but he just spread his arms and shook his head.

She allowed herself to be very nearly flung into a leather wing chair as Bramwell swung around to give the door a hard shove closed with his outstretched arm, then plop himself down on the desk, glaring at her.

Goodness, but he was being masterful, although Sophie was fairly certain he hadn’t dragged her in here in order to kiss her again, more was the pity. Because she really very much would like to have him kiss her again, tell her again how he might, just might, be in love with her. She remembered Desiree’s warning to behave herself, sighed once in regret, then succumbed to an urge to tease Bramwell anyway. “I suppose asking if you’d like me to pour you a glass of wine would be the height of folly, yes? And a kiss, I’m nearly convinced, is totally out of the question?”

“Don’t be dazzling, Sophie, if you don’t mind,” Bramwell warned tightly even as he looked at her with what she assured herself was more than a smidgen of longing. She watched, smiling, as he ran a hand through his hair, mussing it quite adorably even as he bit out, “We’ve got bigger problems at the moment.”

“Bigger than the fact that you, a betrothed man, kissed me last night? Really, Bramwell? And I had thought—” She broke off, shrugging, feeling very much in command of this situation, which was a pleasant change from their interlude the previous evening. “Then last night meant nothing to you, yes?I mean nothing to you?”

“Ah, you mean something to me, Sophie,” he responded, his expression fairly bleak, and yet curiously amused—a very confusing mix. And doubly adorable. “You mean that I haven’t had a comfortable night’s sleep since I first learned of your existence. You mean that I have drunk more wine in these last days than I have in the past six months. You mean that I’m looking at my life and learning things about it and my friends that both enlighten and infuriate me. You mean that I have found myself in the position of being both the happiest and most hopeful of men while at the same time believing I might have been better off to have drowned when my second-to-last ship went down off the coast of Spain. But that isn’t why we’re here.”

He was happy? Hopeful? Happiness and hope flared in Sophie as well. Hearing Bramwell so close to incoherent gave her confidence yet another small boost, and she settled herself more comfortably into the chair. Maybe, as she was beginning to believe, as he had told her last night, there was such a thing as true love. And maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t entirely confined to the female of the species—perhaps the odd gentleman or two were capable of the emotion. Like Bramwell Seaton. “Then you’re glad you kissed me?” she asked, unable to keep the womanly satisfaction out of her voice.

“It has always amazed me how a woman will push and push at a man when the man obviously doesn’t want to discuss something. Glad, Sophie? How could I be glad about it? I’m notglad about it, no,” he answered flatly. “It was the wrong thing to do. Definitely.”

“Oh,” Sophie said quietly, her new confidence not quite up to surviving such a deflating statement. “I see.”

“No, damn it, youdon’t see! I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to throw you onto the carpet in front of the fire and make love to you all the night long. I wanted it more than I would have believed I could ever want anything!” Bramwell all but shouted. “I still do, God help me. But I was stupid, wrongheaded. I put the cart before the horse.”

“Really?” Sophie considered this for a moment, even as she fought a sudden impulse to leap to her feet and break into song—or spread her wings and fly about the room several times. As she was exquisitely aware, as Desiree had told her, timing was everything. He’d had the kiss right, he’d just had the timing wrong. That was what he was saying, wasn’t it?

Happy tears pricked behind Sophie’s eyes as she gave up all the teachings of a lifetime, turned her back on them joyfully and walked away—and figuratively stepped forward into the arms of trust, of love. She loved Bramwell Seaton. She’d probably loved him forever, even before she’d set foot in Portland Square. And she trusted him to love her back.

Which didn’t mean she could entirely forgive him for saying she wasn’t perfect. It was true. She wasn’t. But a man in love really shouldn’t say such things, should he?

She decided another small bit of teasing was in order. “And which am I, then, Bram? The cart, or the horse? I imagine I’d be the cart, yes? Miss Waverley would be the horse. I don’t think that’s flattering to either of us, to be truthful about the thing. Perhaps, if you think hard on it, you could find another way to say what you mean?”

He put his palms on the desk on either side of him and leaned toward her as she grinned up at him, even went so far as to waggle her eyebrows at him. “You’d try the patience of a saint, Sophie. You know that, don’t you?”

How wonderful this was! To feel so free to be herself, to know that she was loved, to know that she loved. How happy she and Bramwell would be, for all of their lives. “Yes, Bram,” she agreed, feeling rather full of herself, this new power, this dizzying confidence. “I do know. Do you want to kiss me again? You might have placed too much importance on the ones we shared last night. And I might have a few reservations of my own, yes? Perhaps if you kissed me again . . .” She raised her chin another fraction, pursed her lips, and closed her eyes.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” He pushed himself away from the desk and began to pace as Sophie bit her bottom lip to hold back a giggle.

“Tell me more about love, Bram, please. I may not have listened all that well last night, what with objects flying around the room.”

That stopped him mid-pace. “What?” He pressed a hand against his forehead. “How did this happen? I bring her in here to tell her something, something crucially important, and now we’re talking aboutlove ? Last night she doesn’t want to hear a word about it—today, she’s asking for a seminar on the subject! I’m being dazzled, that’s what. I’ll probably spend the rest of my life not knowing if I’m on my head or on my heels. I should throw her out of here on her head right now, that’s what I should do.”

Sophie stood up, went to the drinks table, poured him a glass of wine. Poor dear thing, he looked so harassed. She knew how he felt. This hadn’t been an easy night and day for her, either. Coming to life-altering revelations seldom was. “I understand, Bram. You have other things on your mind. But I do want to talk about this. I think we must. So I’ll begin, yes? I’ll tell you what I think, all right? Love between a man and a woman doesn’t exist, I said. Only desire, even lust. I want to be happy, and believing oneself to be in love is the simplest, straightest route to unhappiness. I’ve said all of that, believed all of that. Definitely. But now I’m beginning to have some few second thoughts on the subject.”

“You’re beginning to have—” He threw up his hands. “Why am I repeating everything the girl says? God’s death, Sophie, you certainly do pick your times, don’t you? A man would be a bloody fool to evenmention the word love around you. I certainly learned that last night, while I was dodging teapots. After all, it was you who told me that a man only speaks of love in order to get what he wants, and then leaves. That men only believe in lust, in desire. And now you’re saying—oh, no. No! We’re not going to get into this now. Not right now.”

“But you were telling the truth last night, yes? Youdo believe in love, don’t you, Bram? You don’t want to, but you do. You want me to believe in it, too,” she said, handing him the glass, which he took. “Except that I very much think you still believe it makes fools of men. It’s even probably why you betrothed yourself to dear Isadora, and why you can’t look me in the eye today.”

“I’m very fond of Isadora!” he pronounced in a fairly impressive bellow.

“Yes, Bram,” Sophie said reasonably. “And that’s terribly sad. For you, for Isadora. Only think of what you both are missing. Much more intelligent to look for real love, even if it makes fools of us, yes?”

“As in your mother and my father, I suppose? Skyrocketing stark naked from a balcony isn’t exactly a sign of intelligence, Sophie,” he pointed out sarcastically. “Divorcing your wife to marry your paramour isn’t—”

“What did you say?”

“You didn’t know that either?” He looked away from her for a moment, muttering something under his breath, then took a deep breath and looked at her. “I found the documents in my father’s personal belongings. He had everything ready to go, just a week before he died. His solicitors had been hard at work, the wording of the petition was in place. The only reason he’d agreed to go to Buxley’s was in order to line up allies who would help him. Otherwise, and for probably every day of their marriage after I was conceived, my parents were only in the same place at the same time by unhappy accident. So, yes, Sophie, my father was on his way to very publicly divorcing his wife, obviously so that he could marry your mother. Just another Seaton scandal.”

“I—I think perhaps I should sit down now,” Sophie said quietly, marveling at the way the room had begun to spin. He took hold of her arm and helped her to a chair as she swayed where she stood. “But he was going to leave her,” she went on, speaking out loud, but really only talking to herself. “Desiree said she foundMaman crying, which proved Uncle Cesse was about to leave her, just as they all had left, all the uncles, all those times.Maman said Desiree was wrong, that she was happy, that she had a secret. He was going to marry her? He wasn’t going to leave?” She looked up at Bram, her eyes swimming with happy tears. “Oh, Bram, don’t you see? This just makes it all even more clear to me, to both of us!”

It was a simple question, but Sophie didn’t have a simple answer. What did it change—learning that Uncle Cesse had really, really loved her mother, had been willing to stand up to the scandal of seeking out what would be a difficult, hard-won divorce from his marriage of social convenience in order to wed his one true love? Well, for one thing, it definitely fell into the category of being the miracle of love Desiree had admitted even she still hoped to believe in even after her cynical lessons.

But Bramwell obviously had seen his father’s intentions as just more proof that love made fools of men, that it was better to form a comfortable yet loveless alliance between social peers than to risk his heart—or lose his mind, which was probably what he thought love demanded from a man.

She was beginning to believe she understood love. She was beginning to believe in love with as much conviction as her mother had done, and damn the consequences. She wanted love, desired love above all things, now, and forever. Bramwell’s love. Only his. In or outside of wedlock. Because that didn’t matter. It simply didn’t matter, not when she loved him so much.

But, while she had been about to throw caution to the winds, take Bramwell anyway he wanted to take her—Lord! Shewas her mother’s child—he was still caught between wanting her and his convictions of these past years, convictions built on his family’s disgrace, his father’s hey-go-mad life, that man’s scandalous death.

Last night she had weakly joked that she and Bramwell were fools. How right she had been!

To Bram, love still meant making a fool of himself, because love made fools of men. And, possibly, quite probably—definitely—of women as well. It certainly had almost made a fool of her, for she’d foolishly been about to declare her love for him, offer herself to him. Just as last night he had nearly been foolish enough to admit his love for her.

A pair of fools seemed rather fun, as her mother and Uncle Cesse had been. But to be a fool on her own? No, that didn’t sound the least bit appealing. Not to her, and obviously not to Bramwell.

She had learned so much. They both still had so much to learn.

So, how did one go about building a pair of happy fools? That was certainly something to think about, wasn’t it? Because she was not about to cry craven at the first hurdle and slink away. Not now. Not when she loved. . . .

“Sophie?” Bramwell prompted, bending down to put a finger under her chin, lift her head so that she had to meet his eyes. “Are you all right?”

She shot him her sunniest smile, the one that crinkled up her nose and made her eyes shine. “Oh, yes,” she said with considerable gusto. “I’m simply fine, Bram. For a moment I was sad, thinking of how things might have been forMaman and Uncle Cesse. But they were happy, yes?” She patted his hand, reminding him that he still held her chin, and he let go, straightening once more and looking at her searchingly.

“Now,” she said, taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, “I think you said there was some sort of problem? Something more important than our discussion of love?”

“Not more important, Sophie,” he said, still looking at her strangely. She really, really wished he wouldn’t look at her that way. Hungrily. Yet sadly. As if he longed to touch her, but knew he wasn’t free to do so. Yes, he still had so much to learn, poor darling. But that was all right. He loved her. He really did. Now that she understood that, she’d help him get through any remaining problems. Sophie would fix everything, just as she always did. And, if she was very lucky, they’d both have a lot of fun along the way.

“It’s not more important?” she prompted, wondering what he’d do if she lifted up her hand, ran her fingers through his hair. No. Better not. The fellow was hanging by a frayed thread as it was.

“No, it’s not. It’s just—different. This problem is about your mother’s journals.”

“Her—you know aboutMaman ’s journals? How?” Sophie was suddenly all attention, thoughts of love and fools and happily-ever-afters flying from her mind.

She could sense that he wasn’t going to tell her the whole truth, even before he opened his mouth. But that didn’t matter for long, not when he began speaking.

“Peggy has been commissioned to bring me anything, um,unusual she might find in Aunt Gwen’s rooms,” he said, taking up his wineglass, and his pacing, once again. “When she brought me Lord Buxley’s journal, I confronted my aunt.”

“Oh, dear,” Sophie said, her shoulders slumping. “I never should have mentioned them to her. She does possess a prodigious love of gossip, doesn’t she, Bram? It must have been much like hanging a sugar treat in front of a baby. Lord Buxley’s journal, did you say? Well, that was innocuous enough, I suppose. Unless Aunt Gwendolyn wanted to learn more about the first time his lordship cornered a fox on his own. That,” she ended quietly, “and how he liked to chaseMaman about the room while she wore nothing but a fox cape he’d given her, with him calling out ‘Yoicks! Away!’”

“I know. I’ve read the journal. But there were also several mentions of many personages in theton , many of them not exactly flattering if anyone were to go about in Society, quoting them,” Bramwell said, one side of his mouth lifting in a smile. “I’ve read four of the journals so far, as a matter of fact. I now understand where you got the idea that led to Wally’s freedom. Very inventive, your mother.”

“You’ve read—did you say four of them? I thought Peggy only brought you the one.”

“And I only intended to read the one,” he told her earnestly, and she believed him. “However, after speaking with my aunt, and learning that she had already read them all? Well, you can see the problem, can’t you?”

He had read four of them? But, obviously, not the one about Uncle Cesse. No, he wouldn’t have done that. Stubborn, stubborn man! Sophie turned toward the window but closed her eyes, able to see the pages of the journals page by damning page. “Uncle Tye’s brushes with the cent-per-cents. Uncle Dickie’s dabbling in cheating during his years at Oxford. Angus McLeish’s sympathies with the French. Horace Autley’s by-blow, set up as a footman at his father’s own country estate. And all the rest. All those little bits of gossip they’d toldMaman over the years. About Lady Jersey, Lord Byron,two prime ministers, even that business about the Prince Regent, back when he was the Prince Regent, and—”

“Yes, for all the gossip about our new and still-uncrowned king, that one retained the power to startle,” Bramwell cut in. “And now Aunt Gwen knows it. She knows it all, Sophie. And, unfortunately, she’s already nattered a time or two with some of her friends about one or two of the less, shall we say,incriminating tidbits?”

“This isn’t good,” Sophie said, knowing she was understating the enormity of what had happened, and by a long chalk.

“Oh, but it gets better, Sophie. Much better,” Bramwell told her as she watched him, her bottom lip stuck between her teeth. “After I sent my aunt and Mrs. Farraday off to Bond Street—buying a new bonnet seems to hold a most miraculous power to cheer my aunt no end, even when she knows she’s been very naughty—I had Peggy help me search her rooms. And we came up with this, sitting right out in the open, on her dresser, so that we know it’s a new addition to hercollection. ”

She took the small object Bramwell held out in his hand, recognizing it as a snuffbox. It was a lovely piece, all gold and polished enamel, with initials engraved on the top lid. She turned it over and over in her hands, then opened it. “She’s done this before, poor dear,” she said. “And you’ve returned things like this before, with no one the wiser. I know you have because you’ve already hinted at it, and Peggy told me the rest. You can do it again, yes? The cover is initialed, like so many of them are. Do you know who it belongs to? I imagine you do. Or is there something I’m not seeing? There is, isn’t there? You wouldn’t be looking quite so stern if there weren’t.”

“Oh, I know who it belongs to, Sophie. And, yes, there is something you’re not seeing. Here, let me show you,” he said. “You already know so many secrets, one more shouldn’t make any difference.” He took the snuffbox from her nervous fingers and, pressing on a nearly invisible button on its lid, opened a secret compartment and pulled out a small scrap of paper, carefully unfolding it before reading its contents aloud. “‘16 Aug. St. P F. Troops ready, per my order. S.’”

“Well, that’s certainly clear,” Sophie said, genuinely confused. “But I suppose it means something to you, yes?”

“Let me refresh your memory, all right? The sixteenth of August of last year marks the day of Peterloo, the massacre of innocent men, women and children in Manchester, at a place called St. Peter’s Fields. It has been said, ever since, that Lord Sidmouth may have planned the whole thing, turning what was meant to be a peaceful protest assembly into an excuse to set government troops on the citizens. Sidmouth, of course, denies this. He also must have never needed to pass the note, and likewise forgot he’d left it in his snuffbox.”

“And he mightstill not remember the note, unless losing the snuffbox jostles his memory. But if he does remember? Bram, that note—if he thought Aunt Gwendolyn had taken the snuffbox, and if you were to personally return the snuffbox, pretending to have found it, and if Lord Sidmouth believed you had discovered the note . . .” She gave a small shiver. “Lord Sidmouth isn’t a nice man, if I rememberMaman ’s journals correctly.”

“Exactly. There are a great many ‘ifs’ in all of what you say, Sophie—except that business about Sidmouth’s bulldog disposition—and none of them appeal. So, as I see it, we have two problems in front of us right now. The first, my aunt’s gossiping, which may have already prompted at least one of your uncles to wishing you out of London, or underground. We’ll consider that tomorrow, as I already believe I can settle that whole business successfully. And secondly, the return of Sidmouth’s snuffbox. That, I’m afraid, we’ll have to deal with tonight.”

“Can’t we simply throw the thing away? Connecting its disappearance to Aunt Gwendolyn is possible, but farfetched, yes? We could be worrying about nothing. He’ll most probably just think he’s lost it, and that will be the end of things.”

“It would, if my aunt hadn’t been one of avery small party of ladies to take tea with Lady Sidmouth yesterday afternoon. I’ve already returned one of Lady Sidmouth’s fans to her, last Season, telling her Aunt Gwen picked it up by mistake, and a silver teaspoon this Season, explaining how it had somehow fallen into my aunt’s reticule. I don’t think she believed me either time, but she didn’t say anything, and just accepted the return of the articles.”

“Oh, Bram,” Sophie said on a groan. “The spoon fell into her reticule? Couldn’t you have done better than that? I could think of a half dozen reasons more believable than that obvious farradiddle, without even applying myself to the task.”

“And you’re proud of that, I suppose?” Bramwell asked, softening his voice with a smile. “However, if Sidmouth has realized his snuffbox has gone missing, and if he remembers that he might have a note inside its secret compartment—it doesn’t much matter what the note contains, just that one might be there—and if Lady Sidmouth puts fan and spoon together, coming up with one lovable but light-fingered Lady Gwendolyn? Well, I really don’t want to think about that, do you?”

“No. I don’t suppose I do.”

Bramwell took a deep breath. “Now,” he said, releasing that breath slowly, almost reluctantly, “as much as I didn’t want to tell you any of this, I have been able to think of one way, only one way, to return the snuffboxwithout anyone from this household crossing Sidmouth’s threshold before he discovers the thing among his belongings. Unfortunately, my plan includes Giuseppe which, doubly unfortunately, includes you, as he listens to you. I tried earlier to have him obey me, but I might as well have been speaking to the fireplace poker.”

Sophie looked up at Bramwell, saw the concern in his eyes, his seriousness—and something else. He looked eager, alive, adorably young, ready for adventure. Lovable. So wonderfully lovable. She leaned forward, her every sense quivering with excitement. “Go on, Bram. Tell me your plan. I’m listening . . .”

Bramwell sat on the edge of the bed, having dismissed Reese after that man had all but wept over his employer’s choice of late-evening attire. The journal, the journal concerning his father’s time with Constance Winstead, burned his hands as he held it, stared at it, but steadfastly refused to open it.

He’d begun to forgive his father. Had remembered the love he’d borne the man, even when it wasn’t returned. He’d begun to feel some compassion for his sire, not to mention an astonishing degree of empathy, and he didn’t want to muddy the waters of his memories now with the truth. A lie he could live with, a comforting lie based on his father’s problems and the man’s apparent inability to love his child born of a woman he’d despised. But the truth? Ah, did he really want to face the truth?

He pushed his tongue around inside his dry mouth, trying to moisten it, slowly drew in a deep breath, and opened the journal.

There was a lot he didn’t bother to read, although he did find himself chuckling over those first pages and Constance Winstead’s hilarious reminiscences of the evening she and his father had first met, and she had believed his eloquent father to be somewhat slow. For he’d barely spoken a word to her, and then only in “stammers and terse proclamations.” Hadn’t he been much the same, when first he’d discovered Sophie Winstead standing in his foyer?

For all their differences, it appeared the Seaton men had equal failings when it came to their initial encounters with the perfect Winstead beauty. And, as time had gone on—not much time, no more than a week—his father had seen Constance Winstead as more than a perfect beauty, but as someone he could love.

As Bramwell loved Sophie.

He would leave Constance and her Cesse their privacy, he’d decided as he’d quickly paged through some of the more personal pages, those recounting their blossoming love affair in all its glory, its passion—and its considerable foolishness. Constance had been a rambling sort of journalist, her sentences long, and faintly garbled. But then, since she was writing the journal for herself, he supposed it was enough that she understood what she was writing. Still, it was difficult going. In fact, after he had skimmed over nearly half of the journal, he’d been about to close it and put it away—until he’d seen his name written in Constance’s lazy, looping scrawl.

Cesse came to me tonight, so happy! Bramwell was mentioned in dispatches again, with some feat of derring-do or another. He was about to burst, Cesse was, telling me yet again how proud he is of his son, his brilliant, stubborn, wonderful son who would put himself into danger, make a hero of himself just to spite his papa. I remember how unhappy he used to be when he spoke of Bramwell. I remember the first time Cesse told me what a sad failure he had been as a father. Ah, men, they are such fragile creatures.

Bramwell blinked, finding it difficult to believe what he was reading. Then, eagerly, he turned the page.

But it is not too late, I told him then. It is never too late to go to the boy, to tell him what a sad muddle those years had been, and to beg forgiveness. To take the boy in his arms, to begin again. How easy it is to make others happy, and how rewarding for someone like me to see my dearest Cesse smile and say that, yes, yes, I can do this! I love now, I know love now, and I can do this. I can risk everything, make a fool of myself if he spurns my apology. But I will have gone to him, clasped him tightly to me, and said the words. I will have taken that step so long untaken.

But the eighth duke of Selbourne had never taken that step. He had died before Bramwell’s return to England. And the son had never known. Bram blinked several times, for his eyes stung. He turned the next page with trembling fingers, and read on.

Ah, since that day, the day my Cesse wept, and lamented, and finally forgave himself—how happy he has been, we have been. We plot Bramwell’s course, sticking pins in a map my clever Cesse has drawn, charting each battle, saving the newspapers that tell of the events of this terrible war. There is little but storms at sea to threaten Bramwell now, so that Cesse is content to wait, knowing his son is safe, will soon be home.

Indeed, at times I tire of this talking of this paragon of a Bramwell, of the recounting of letters Cesse had from his deans, telling of the boy’s brilliance at school. Of course he is brilliant! He is my beloved Cesse’s son. But still we laugh, and Cesse tugs on Sophie’s curls, teases her, and tells her he knows of a handsome young man—ah! the dreams my Cesse dreams! Only last night, he awoke laughing, saying he had dreamed we were at a masquerade ball together. He was dressed as a satyr, complete with tail, he told me, and I was an innocent young maid in white. Forever young and beautiful and innocent, and rather dangerously coy and flirtatious. I liked that. And then, being Cesse, he reached for me, smiling so wonderfully, so silly in his pretending to be evil, and we began to kiss, and kiss. He even nipped at my neck, like a stallion about to cover a mare, silly man, before he . . .

Bramwell closed the journal without reading on, wondering what Sophie had thought of such intimate details as she had read the journals. For an innocent, she’d had quite an education. Which, he thought, smiling in a bit of a satyric way himself, might not be all that terrible.

Then he opened the journal again, found the passage concerning himself again, and reread the entry.

Bramwell lifted the hood of the black-velvet cloak Sophie wore and gently pulled it over her head. “I read it, yes. Why didn’t you tell me?”

She adjusted the hood more closely over her curls. “You weren’t ready to hear whatever I would have said, I suppose,” she mumbled, trying not to look into his eyes. In truth, she’d wanted him to come to some sort of peace about his father on his own. Only then would it mean something for him to read hermaman ’s journal. And she had been right. Bramwell had always loved his father, and had finally admitted it to himself. She’d sensed that days ago, and been glad. Now, knowing his father had loved him in return completed the circle.

She kept her eyes averted, knowing that if she dared to look again and see what she’d believed she’d glimpsed in Bramwell’s eyes a moment ago, she might just have to put her arms around him and hug him. The boy and the man, at last united; whole, complete. At last at peace with the past. Not that this idea of holding him, hugging him close, didn’t have its appeal. But then she’d probably cry, and get all silly and sentimental. They had other things to do right now. Important things. Silly things. “Giuseppe!” she called out quietly but firmly. “Come here, now.”

“You don’t mind creeping out this side door, like a pair of thieves?” Bramwell asked as the small monkey lightly climbed down from the row of wooden pegs holding the servants’ cloaks, bounded across the small hallway and into Sophie’s arms. “I really should have thought of a better plan. Skulking around Mayfair in the middle of the night—it borders on the ridiculous.”

“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Sophie replied happily. “And it’s only a little more than an hour past midnight, with lots more time for being even more ridiculous before dawn if we want, yes? Do you like my gown? I had to borrow one, as I own no black, being a good little debutante. It’s one of Peggy’s, but without the apron. Desiree had to turn up the hem a full eight inches, and still it drags a bit.” She pushed back the edges of the cloak, to better show off her costume. “And, here, in the bosom, it’s tight, yes?”

Biting her bottom lip to hold back a giggle was becoming an enjoyable habit, she decided as she watched Bramwell’s reaction to seeing her breasts straining against the heavy black material. Lord, but she was becoming daring! But, oh, how much fun she was having. No wonder her mother had so often gone dancing about their house in Wimbledon, singing.

And didn’t Bramwell look handsome! She was accustomed to seeing him in black, but not in unremitting black. “And where did you get your clothing, Bram?” she asked as he unceremoniously pulled the edges of her cloak together for her. “Reese certainly wouldn’t allow anything like that in his wardrobe, and Bobbit and you aren’t really of a size, are you?”

“I was in the Royal Navy, Sophie, remember? I have no end of rough-and-ready clothing, more’s the pity,” Bramwell grumbled as he opened the door to the small side garden and cautiously poked his head outside, as if expecting a half dozen members of the Watch to be waiting to pounce on them and drag them off to the nearest guardhouse. “And, in case you’re wondering, this wool itches like the very devil at my throat, and I remember these trousers as being a good bit looser. Now, come on. It’s safe to move. Sidmouth’s town house is only a few blocks from here, so we can go on foot—if you can keep that damn monkey quiet.”

Sophie dutifully admonished Giuseppe to stop his chattering—obviously the animal did not take kindly to being stuffed beneath her cloak—and followed Bramwell into the darkness, giving him a quick, impulsive pat-pat on his rather delightfully interesting backside as she did so. She really did like the way his trousers fit him, even if he didn’t.

“Tell me more about Lord Sidmouth,” she said, as they made their way toward the mews, and the alleyways that connected Portland Square with those behind Sidmouth’s residence. She’d already transferred Giuseppe to her shoulder, as he refused to remain hidden beneath her cloak, and he was draped about her neck like a living shawl. “Is he really as dismally awful asMaman wrote in her journals?”

Bramwell took her hand to keep her from stumbling over loose cobblestones, and answered her—probably so that he could keep her from asking more questions about what he’d thought of her mother’s journals. “Viscount Sidmouth is Home Secretary, Sophie,” he told her, keeping his voice to a low whisper as a horse whinnied inside a nearby stable. “He’s immensely unpopular, a bully, and ruthless as all—well, he’s ruthless. The best one could say about him is that he’s a sincere and dedicated Tory, and believe me, Sophie, that isn’t much of a compliment.”

“So,” Sophie commented as Bramwell unexpectedly flattened her against a high wooden fence, pressing his body against hers to conceal her presence as a sleepy coachman steered his equally weary horses through the alleyway, “if he catches us out, he probably wouldn’t see the humor in any of this, yes? Still, you’re being terribly solemn about something that could turn out to be a most wonderful adventure. Would you like to kiss me?”

Their bodies were stuck together from knee to chest, Sophie tinglingly aware of every inch of their closeness. Which was why she had asked her question. She believed, the knowledge dawning on her slowly, but pleasurably, that she just might have the makings of being a one-man wanton, and she thought Bramwell might like to know that.

His head was mere inches from hers as he gave out a low curse, then caught her mouth with his own, the fierceness of his kiss nearly melting her dark, heavy hose to the soles of her tingling feet.

“Now, shut up,” he breathed into her mouth a moment later, as her heart, temporarily stopped, began to beat again, tripping along with all the rushing speed of a galloping stallion. “What the devil was I thinking? I knew I shouldn’t have brought you along.”

“Oh, you might say that, Bram. But you know you wanted to,” she all but purred, stroking his cheek. Giuseppe, obviously feeling a bit jealous (and perhaps a mite crushed), began loudly chattering nineteen to the dozen—which caused Bramwell to grab the animal by the throat, pull him close, and glare into his little monkey face. Giuseppe lifted a hand to his small red cap, tipped it jauntily, then puckered up his monkey lips as if offering Bramwell a kiss. And Sophie bent in half where she stood, still holding on to Bramwell to help keep her balance, and laughed until her sides ached.

All in all, it was an enjoyable few blocks’ walk to Lord Sidmouth’s residence. In fact, although Bramwell grumbled about juvenile overenthusiasm and addle-headed females in general, Sophie skipped for the entire length of the last block.

He should be home. In bed. Alone. He should not have cried off from Isadora’s plans to go to Lady Buxley’s soiree, and been sitting in a hot, stuffy room right now, listening to some ten-thumbed creature saw away on a violin, or fracture a perfectly good tune on a piano. He should be out on the town with Lorrie and Wally, drinking too much, talking nonsense, and perhaps turning a card or two.

He should, in short, be anywhere but here, outside Lord Sidmouth’s town house, skulking around in the dark and looking for an open, second-story window through which he intended to push a flea-bitten, yellow-toothed, light-fingered, less than aromatically appealing, faintly amorous monkey.

And yet . . . and yet . . . damn, but it was good to feel alive! And young. And adventurous. Breaking the rules, enjoying breaking the rules. And feeling not in the least bit betrothed, although very much in love. Although he had considered strangling Sophie more than once in the past twenty minutes. But she probably knew that. Sophie was a good girl, and a good sport. And he wanted this silliness over soon, so that he could kiss her senseless, and lose his own senses as well.

“I don’t see one,” Sophie whispered, treading lightly on his right foot as she leaned in front of him, to get a better look at the darkened upper stories of the town house. “Oops, I’m sorry, Bram. You know, I just now thought of something we might have wanted to consider before this. You don’t suppose Lord Sidmouth is one of those who believes the night air dangerous to one’s health, do you? Because that would be unfortunate, yes?”

“It wouldn’t help matters. Does Giuseppe know how to open windows? And, Sophie? I’d consider it a kindness if you’d tell him to climb down off my back. He keeps trying to pull my hair.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that, Bram. Giuseppe’s just looking for nits,” Sophie explained, holding out her arms to entice the small monkey into them.

“He’s doingwhat ?” Bramwell asked, much too loudly, he knew. “He’s doing what?” he repeated, whispering this time, as he rubbed at the back of his head, which suddenly itched.

“Looking for nits, silly. You know. Itty-bitty baby lice eggs. Or is that louse eggs?” She shook her head, dismissing her own question. “Monkeys do that, you know. Groom each other. It’s a sign of affection, I think. But don’t worry, Bram. I’m sure you don’t have any nits. Or louses.” She looked up at him, grinning so that her nose wrinkled adorably. “Lices?”

He looked down at her dispassionately for a few moments, then declared, “I think I’ll go out into the center of the Square now, and start jumping up and down and shouting. If I’m lucky, one of the Watch will come and take me away to someplace safe, like a gaol cell.”

“A gaol cell? Better take Giuseppe with you then, Bram,” Sophie teased. “Bound to be louses there, yes?”

Bramwell knew when he’d had enough, and he was just about there. Grabbing Sophie’s hand, he daringly pulled her around to the front of Sidmouth’s town house, hoping against hope that there would be one, just one, window open overlooking the Square. “Aha!” he exclaimed a moment later. “Success! Here,” he said, reaching into his pocket and pulling out the snuffbox. “Give Giuseppe his climbing orders, all right?”

“Certainly,” Sophie said. “Giuseppe,” she went on, looking intently into the monkey’s face, so that he tilted his head and returned her gaze. “I want you to take this. That’s a good boy. Now, put it under your hat. Wonderful! What a good little Giuseppe you are. Now, what I want you to do next is climb up that drainpipe over there—straight up that drainpipe, yes, and then climb inside the house through that window. See the window, Giuseppe? Good! Then I want you toput the snuffbox on a table and come straight back to me.”

The monkey made a very monkeyish face and scratched his head.

“Oh, dear,” Sophie said worriedly. “I think we have a problem. He doesn’t understand. Giuseppetakes , he doesn’tgive . How can I make him understand? Bram—quick! What’s the opposite offetch ?”

“Newgate Prison,” Bramwell drawled dryly, shaking his head. It wasn’t, but that’s where they’d all soon be, if Giuseppe didn’t perform as hoped. The Square was quiet, totally deserted, everyone who could be out and about already gone—Lord Sidmouth, he knew, among them—and those who’d remained at home already in bed. Still, time was slipping away from them, and he couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t soon be spied out by someone returning home early or sneaking away from a dull party being hosted in one of the houses here in the Square.

“Very funny, Bram,” Sophie said, then snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it!” She knelt beside Giuseppe, who was now sitting quite at his ease on the flagway, picking at his toes, and said, “Take the snuffbox into the house, Giuseppe—and bring Sophie something pretty. Something pretty for Sophie, Giuseppe, yes? Now—go!”

“Oh, good,” Bramwell commented, seeing a fortnight or more of nights spent looking for open windows in Sidmouth’s town house as Giuseppe scampered off, climbing the drainpipe as if it were a great iron tree. “But I do have one small question for you, Sophie. What do we do when he comes tripping back down here clutching Sidmouth’s plans to overthrow the new king?”

“Bram! He plans to overthrow the new king? You said he wasn’t a nice man, but he really plans to—” Sophie asked, wide-eyed, then slapped at Bramwell’s arm. “Don’tdo that!” she commanded. “I thought you were serious.”

Bramwell began to laugh, quietly, but his laughter faded away to nothing as a coach pulled into the Square, passing by the flambeaux outside one of the other houses, casting light on Viscount Sidmouth’s coat of arms as it was painted on the door of the coach.

With a quick look to the open window, knowing Giuseppe was still inside the town house, he then grabbed Sophie by the upper arms and pushed her into the wrought-iron fenced stairwell leading to a belowground doorway in front of the Home Secretary’s town house. She went quickly and quietly enough, bless her, and didn’t even protest when he laid her flat on her back against the damp cobblestones in the small space at the bottom of the stairs. He lay down on top of her, hoping to shield her with his body.

“Not a word, Sophie,” he whispered into her ear as the coach drew closer, the jingle of harness and the rattle of wheels against the cobblestones growing louder, then coming to a halt not twenty feet from where the two housebreakers lay quietly, barely breathing.

She did, however, pull on both his ears, bringing his face down to within a hairbreadth of her own as she whispered fiercely, “Giuseppe’s still in there!”

“I know,” he whispered back, pulling himself slightly away from her once more, hoping to hear better what he couldn’t see taking place on the street level.

Still hanging on to his ears, she pulled him right back, her eyes wide-open, her expression intense, as if she longed to scream at him, but knew she couldn’t. “He might even be in Sidmouth’s bedchamber.”

“Then I suppose we should hope Lady Sidmouth either is inside that coach, or she prefers to sleep alone,” he shot back at her, trying to move away again, because he was sure he was all but smothering her. “Although, knowing Sidmouth, she might view Giuseppe as an improvement.”

There was another sharp pull on his earlobes—she seemed to be unable to release them—and his head was brought back down to within an inch of hers once more.“What?” he demanded, beginning to tire of having his ears tugged.

“Thatwasn’t funny,” she gritted out from between clenched teeth. “You might think it was, but it wasn’t. I just thought you should know that. And I think my left hip is broken. I hesitate to mention it, and I’m not complaining, really. But it might hamper our chances of flight, should we be discovered down here.”

Bramwell slid a hand between them, automatically running his hand over her hip as he would an injured man under his command aboard ship, searching for broken bones. What he found was the small pistol he’d tucked into his pocket—just in case, he’d told himself at the time. The pistol was jammed between them, pushing into Sophie’s leg.

“Sorry,” he said, removing the pistol, then rubbing at her sore hipbone before drawing back his hand as he finally realized what he’d been doing. And how good it felt. How goodshe felt.

“Sophie?” he asked as he felt her body begin to shake beneath his. “I didn’t mean to be so—well, so personal. I’m sorry.”

“You—you’relying on top of me, Bram,” she whispered. “What could possibly bemore personal?” Then she buried her head against his chest, trying to snuffle the sound of her giggles. God bless the woman—she was one in a million. Perhaps one in a hundred million!

All the time they’d been lying there, and it really had only been little more than a minute, doors had been opening above them, light had spilled onto the flagway, servants had been rushing to the assistance of their master and mistress, horses had been neighing—and Lord Sidmouth had been talking. The man was a prodigious talker, Bramwell knew, but he wished the fellow would take himself, and his conversation, inside. Or maybe he didn’t. Because there was still no sign of Giuseppe.

“Damnedest dull squeeze I’ve ever seen,” Sidmouth was saying—shouting, actually—as he stood on the flagway not five feet away from the wrought-iron-enclosed stairwell. “What was Buxley’s wife thinking? As if a party isn’t a success if you aren’t jammed in together so closely you learn more about the fellow standing behind you than anyone of any decency cares to know. Halton’s either hung like a stallion, or he stuffs himself. Last time you’ll get me to one of those sad crushes you favor, woman, you remember that!”

“Yes, dear,” Lady Sidmouth replied much more quietly, but still close enough for Bramwell to hear the disgust in her voice. “Why don’t you go directly upstairs, dear, and I’ll have Ryland here bring you some warmed brandy?”

“You do that, if you can get the damned lazy lout to move above a crawl,” Sidmouth said, and Bramwell, who was now struggling under much the same urge not to giggle as Sophie had been a moment earlier, listened as the sounds of His Lordship’s footsteps—followed by those of at least two hovering footmen—disappeared into the bowels of the town house.

“Ryland?” Lady Sidmouth said, her voice growing louder as she climbed the portico, heading for the foyer.

“I wonder. Have you ever considered murdering Lord Sidmouth in his sleep?”

“Any number of times, milady.”

“You’re a good man, Ryland,” her ladyship declared on a sigh, her voice slowly fading as the door closed on the Square. “A good man.”

Luckily for Bramwell and Sophie, who couldn’t possibly have been faulted for being unable to contain their mirth, the coach loudly moved away then, heading for the mews.

“You can get off me now,” Sophie said after a moment, at the same time her arms were snaking around Bramwell’s back, pulling him closer.

“Yes, I know,” he answered, adjusting his body slightly, moving it more comfortably against hers. “And I’ll do just that,” he went on, pressing his mouth against the side of her throat, her cheek, her chin. “Anytime now, I’ll do just that.”

Sophie ran one hand up and over his shoulder, sliding her fingers into his hair. “Mamanand Uncle Cesse once—well, you know—behind the Horse Guards.”

“I’m not my father,” Bramwell said, kissing her lips lightly, once, twice, a third time. “Not that I condemn him.”

“I’m not my mother,” Sophie answered rather breathlessly, cupping his cheeks between her hands. “But I am curious.”

“Reading isn’t knowing, Sophie,” he told her.

“Talking isn’t showing, Bram,” she replied.

Bram felt his blood running hot, even as his common sense told him Sophie had no idea as to what came next. Oh, she mightthink she did, but she didn’t. Not really. And he’d be damned if he’d show her here, stuck in this damp stairwell. “This is crazy.”

“I know,” she admitted, sighing. “And poor Giuseppe is still inside the house.”

Giuseppe! How on earth had he forgotten the monkey? Bramwell looked down at Sophie, realized his right hand had somehow come to be cupping her slim waist, and knew the answer to that question. He pulled her to her feet, then motioned for her to remain where she was until he climbed the stairs far enough to be able to peer through the wrought-iron railings, to make sure the Square was empty once more.

He’d gotten to the third step from the top, Sophie close behind him, when a door opened across the Square, cutting a wedge of yellow light onto the flagway. He squinted into the distance. “Isadora?” he breathed incredulously as his fiancée appeared. Wasn’t she supposed to have been at Lady Buxley’s? What was she doing here? He watched as his betrothed’s almost invisible maid stepped down the flagway toward a waiting coach that had somehow come into the Square without his noticing it. Isadora, however, lingered on the top step leading into the town house, talking to someone as that someone held both her hands in his.

“Lord Anston,” Sophie whispered, and Bram looked down to see Sophie standing with her hands clutching two of the wrought-iron bars, the hood of her cloak thrown back to reveal her distinctive curls, her face stuck up against them. “I didn’t know he lived here,” she said, turning her head to smile up at Bramwell.

“Then it’s the only thing you didn’t know,” he answered with new insight as he remembered Desiree’s declaration that Sophie would take care of the “merebagatelle ” of his betrothal—not because she was a scheming minx out to benefit herself, but simply because she wanted Isadora to be happy.

He looked at Sophie for another long moment as she grinned most happily herself, obviously more than a little pleased with what she was seeing. Then he turned his gaze back to Isadora once more. She looked positively beautiful, animated, even from this distance. As she listened to something Lord Anston was saying, a young girl with curling blond hair joined them on the portico and Isadora laughed—actually appeared to be laughing out loud and quite genuinely—then reached down and kissed the girl’s cheek.

He honestly couldn’t remember ever seeing Isadora so happy.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, smiling—and then hit his forehead against the metal railing as a fuzzy ball of fur unexpectedly landed on his back with a fair degree of force.

“Giuseppe, you’re back!” Sophie squealed, grabbing the monkey and hugging it to her. “Oh, Giuseppe, I was so worried about you!”

“Yes,” Bramwell drawled, rubbing at his sore forehead. “We were both near to tears with fear for him, the rat-faced little monster. In fact, I would most probably have gone into a sad decline had he not shown up this very moment. Does he still have the snuffbox?”

“Giuseppe,” Sophie prompted. “What’s in your hat?”

Bramwell held his breath as the monkey took off his little red cap, reached inside it, and pulled out, “apearl necklace ? Oh, my God, it is. It’s a bloody pearl necklace!”

“The snuffbox is already safely returned. But I’d be willing to take charge of that necklace for you, Your Grace.”

Bramwell’s head made jarring contact with the wrought-iron railing a second time at the sound of the voice coming out of the darkness. How hadn’t he noticed that the door to the town house had opened once more, spilling revealing, condemning light onto the flagway, and onto both him and Sophie? Well, he knew how. He’d been too distracted, watching his fiancée giggling with Lord Anston, that’s how. And thinking he’d never seen anything quite so charming, so edifying, sofreeing .

“You’d be Ryland, wouldn’t you?” Sophie asked as she climbed all the way to the stop of the stairs, then leaned down to rub sympathetically at Bram’s abused forehead as he remained rooted to the third step from the flagway. “Bobbit told me about you. You’re cousins, yes? Why, you know, even in this half-light I believe I can see the family resemblance. Something about the very fine shape of your chins.”

I’ll kill her, Bramwell thought as the full import of what had happened, what was happening, was brought home to him. There had been no need for either of them to have been skulking about all evening, playing at housebreakers. A thoroughly dazzled Bobbit was firmly in Sophie’s irresistible thrall, Sophie held the butler equally firmly in her affection—and Bobbit knew Ryland. Was bloody related to the Sidmouth butler! It would have been a simple matter for Bobbit to hand the snuffbox to Ryland, and for Ryland to replace it.

But it wouldn’t have been half the fun.

He deposited the double strand of pearls in the butler’s outstretched hand, following it with a gold coin he pulled from his pocket. “You have my thanks, Ryland,” he said as the butler bowed, accepting both.

Bramwell then grabbed Sophie’s elbow and began dragging her back toward the shadows . . . just as he heard a loud slamming sound above them . . . and just as Isadora’s coachman turned the horses around the small Square in order to exit it, and he caught a glimpse of his betrothed sitting, wide-eyed and openmouthed, seemingly gawking at the pair of them.

It was nearly three o’clock in the morning before Sophie had bathed, pulled an open-fronted ivory-silk dressing gown over her creamed and powdered nakedness, and allowed Desiree to brush her hair dry as they sat together before the fireplace.

Desiree had prepared her charge for her wedding night, and no ceremony had been performed. No promises made, no vows spoken. Nor, Sophie felt with all her heart, were any needed. She belonged to Bram, and he to her. They both knew it. The words would come later, all the sweet, loving words, the promises of forever. But she would give him her love now, because it was her choice, and her love was hers to give. She knew how.

Sophie wandered about the candlelit bedchamber, picking up the odd ornament and putting it down again, stopping to peer into a mirror and marvel yet again at the faintly dreamy expression she couldn’t seem to remove from her face.

She finally settled herself on the deep window seat that looked out over Portland Square and watched as Desiree did some last-moment fussing, poking pillows into greater fluffiness on the bed, smoothing the covers, sprinkling a scattering of rose petals on the sheets. The moon that had so considerately hidden itself behind clouds earlier in the evening now shone down brightly, turning the Square into a fairyland, the room behind her into a softly lit bower of silk and satin. The air in the room was scented from the night-soft breeze, the rose petals, the many freshly cut flowers that sat in their vases.

Sophie had gone over the events of the evening with Desiree, the two of them giggling like schoolgirls about Giuseppe’s escapades, Lord Sidmouth’s inopportune arrival, poor Bramwell’s seeming inability to keep his head clear of the wrought-iron railing, Ryland’s providential appearance to save them at the last possible moment.

It was only now, as she nervously told Desiree about Isadora Waverley’s unexpected presence on the scene that Sophie turned solemn, questioning. “It’s probably all for the best, Desiree,” she ended consideringly. “I’ve known since the very beginning that she and Bram weren’t suited to each other. But now I wonder. Did I throw her at Lord Anston’s head to help her, or to helpme ? Because she’s sure to cry off from the betrothal tomorrow.”

“Ah,chérie ,” Desiree told her as she came to stand beside her charge, pushing the mass of tangled curls away from Sophie’s face. “They would never have wed happily in any case. From the moment I first saw the duke watching you, I knew this. Just by being alive, by breathing, you doomed that mismatched pair to finding their own, deeper happiness. This is no sin,oui ? ThisMademoiselle Waverley, she would have been crushed to have the duke reject her. But now? Now he can allow her to go to her happiness, as he goes to his. You have done a good thing, Sophie. Your heart, your intentions, were pure.”

“Perhaps,” Sophie answered, feeling guilty heat rushing into her cheeks. “But I might also have been thinking of myself—just a little, yes?”

Desiree gave one of her most eloquent, Gallic shrugs. “This is life,oui ? And it ends happily, even for me. It makes the heart light, to believe in love again. I did once before, you know. In Paris.Bah! That was long ago, and this is no night for ancient stories. It is your turn now,chérie . Yourmaman , she was right. I was wrong. It is the men who were wrong. Ah, but to find the right one? She did, at last, I know that now and thankle bon Dieu for it. And now,ma petite , so have you found this right man. In the end, nothing else matters,oui ?”

Sophie sighed, pulling her knees up to her chin and hugging her legs, so that her bare feet stuck out from beneath the hem of her dressing gown. “You always know just what to say, don’t you, Desiree? But I am selfish. I want him so much, love him so much. I never thought—I never knew. It’s like magic, yes?”

Desiree dropped a kiss on her hair.Oui, ma petite , it is like magic. The only magic.”

“Never to be alone. Never to be lonely. This is why I was born, Desiree. Why I’m living. To love Bram, to have him love me.” She sighed again, and smiled, and laid her cheek against her knees. “I must have done something right in my life, Desiree, yes? To be so lucky?”

“It is he who is lucky,chérie . He had only to stop, to lift his eyes up to the skies, and the brightest star fell into his hands. The sun, the moon. Be happy,chérie , be very happy.”

He was bathed, shaved, and dressed only in fresh hose, gray-green trousers, and a flowing white shirt, sans neckcloth. He had done without the services of Reese, not only because he was able, but because the less the nervous valet knew, the better it would be for him. Clandestine affairs made the man nervous, and not, Bramwell knew, without good reason.

He traveled the darkened corridors on stockinged feet, turned the last corner that led to Sophie’s guest chamber, and laid a hand on the door latch.

And then he stopped, reflected on what he was about to do.

Technically, he was betrothed, all but married in the eyes of the English courts, if not God. Technically, what he was about to do was to enter a virginal bedchamber and lay claim to a young woman without benefit of clergy, without promises of love, without so much as a hint of permanence. Technically, he was about to make—he believed, hoped, prayed—a willing Sophie Winstead his lover.

She said she’d begun to believe in love, even after all she’d seen of her mother’s unhappiness. She’d even teased him unmercifully with her new opinions on love, hinting that she loved him, that she knew he loved her. She said she’d realized that not all men were like the uncles, who had broken her mother’s heart, who had said they believed in love but only wished to indulge their own lust. She’d cried in happiness when she’d learned that his father had really loved her mother, had planned to spend the rest of his life with her.

And he’d been right in his own assumptions. Lovedid make fools of men. What he hadn’t understood was that, with the right woman, a man could be a most willing fool, and content to be foolishly happy and well loved every day and night for as long as he lived. It had taken Sophie, silly, wise, wonderful Sophie, to teach him that.

Oh, yes. There would be tears. Perhaps even moments of anger. Ha! With Sophie’s temper, how could there not be? But, beneath it all, the love would be there. The memories of laughter, the hope that the sun would shine again, the willingness to be with that one special woman, in the good times, through the sad times—for all time.

And if that one special, perfect woman came to him with a too-talkative parrot, a larcenous monkey, and a conniving maid—well, what of it? He’d take Sophie Winstead rich, poor, sick, well, dressed in diamonds or lying on damp cobblestones, pulling on his ears.

“So, the reason you’re standing here, outside her bedchamber instead of being inside it with her, would be . . .” he asked himself out loud.

He depressed the latch and stepped inside, his nostrils quickly picking up the scent of flowers as well as the special light, lemon scent that he’d grown to associate with Sophie. His gut tightened. As his eyes grew accustomed to the faint light of several candles, he cast his gaze toward the windows, seeing the shafts of moonlight streaming across the carpet, the empty, turned-down bed.

Desiree, it would appear, knew her job well, as well as she knew him. She’d known he’d come to Sophie tonight, in the ways only women probably would ever know such things. Because this was a scene purposely set for love.

And then he saw Sophie, all tucked up into herself in the deep window embrasure, her cheek resting on her knees as she looked at him. Smiled at him. Sweetly. And with a hint of mischief shining in her eyes. A world of welcome. An unabashed eagerness that slammed into his most willingly dazzled brain with the force of a cannonball.

I’m the luckiest man in the universe, Bramwell thought, moving across the room toward her as she gracefully uncoiled her body, stood in front of the window embrasure, the moonlight highlighting the curves of her body through the nearly transparent material of her wonder of a dressing gown.So lucky to love her, to have her love me in return.

He took her hands as she offered them to him, offered herself to him, this slight touch of skin against skin having more power to hold him than being lashed to the mast in the midst of a summer storm. She smiled again, and any fears he might have had that this was wrong, too soon, too impulsive, fled his mind in that instant, blown away on the wind of that storm that now raged inside of him.

“I don’t know who you are,” he said to her, his voice little more than a hoarse whisper. “You’re a dream, a wish, a prayer. You’re everything I didn’t know I needed, yet everything I’ll ever want. Every time I look at you I’m caught unawares, shaken out of what I believed to be my well-ordered life as I see the promise in your eyes. You’re a dozen different women, Sophie Winstead, and I can’t live without a single one of you. This is surrender, Sophie. Complete and unconditional.”

“Yours, Bram?” she asked, stepping closer. “Or mine?”

“Ours,” he said, lifting her hands along with his as he reached for the satin bow that held her gown in place just above the rise of her breasts. “Tell me, Sophie. Tell me we’re not dreaming.”

She helped him with the ribbons that seemed to have turned to knots beneath his suddenly trembling fingers, then shrugged the gown from her shoulders to stand before him, naked and glowing in the moonlight. Her tumbling curls lit with a golden glow from the streetlamp outside, her skin turned to silver as it was kissed by moonlight. “But we are dreaming, Bram, yes? A dream that will last a lifetime, beginning tonight.”

Bram’s gaze swept Sophie, from her soft, living curls to her small, bare feet. He took in the physical beauty of her, the stunning perfection he’d dreamed of, glimpsed before only briefly, guiltily, had been longing to possess ever since he’d first wondered how her kiss would feel.

“I love your body, Sophie,” he told her, skimming his fingers across her shoulders, closing his eyes as he moved them to her breasts, felt them come alive for him, tauten, respond. “I love your hair, your face, your smile. But only because they are all a part of you. I want to make love to your body because I want, need, to make love toyou . To make you mine. Now, forever. Do you understand, Sophie? Do you understand that this is the fullness of love? The desire, the love, they’re intertwined, making a beautiful whole.”

She raised her hands to the buttons of his shirt, loosing them one by one. “You talk too much,” she said, smiling up at him. “You worry too much more. I understand, Bram, I promise you. I understand. And I’m not afraid, I promise. Don’t you be afraid, either. I’m a virgin, yes, but not in my mind. I readMaman ’s journals as a child, without understanding, but now they are all clear to me. In my mind, Bram, I have made love to you so many times, and you have made sweet love to me.”

She pressed a kiss against his bared chest, nipped at his skin with her teeth. “Take me to bed now, Bram. Because the time has passed for these nebulous things called dreams, yes? Dreams we cannot touch, cannot really feel? Now it is time to live them.”

The candles had all guttered in their holders, but that didn’t matter. The moon still shone softly into the room, spilling over the rumpled covers, the two bodies lying close together on the bed, locked in each other’s arms.

“You were so brave,” Bramwell said, kissing the top of her head, burying his mouth against her soft curls.

“I was soeager ,” Sophie responded with delightful honesty. “Very possibly shameless, yes?”

His low, easy chuckle rumbled deep inside his bare chest. Had he ever felt this free, this willingly chained? Had he ever been so happy? “And all without a word of love,” he then said, suddenly sober once more.

“You spoke your love eloquently, Bram, without having to say a word.” She pushed against his chest, raising her head to look into his face. “But you could say a few now, yes?”

“God, I love you, Sophie Winstead!” he declared, taking her cheeks in his hands and pressing his forehead against hers. “I love you, I love you, I love you. I’ll tell you so every day, every hour, every minute, for the rest of our lives.”

She wrinkled up her nose, as if considering his words. “So often? That should most probably be sufficient. And I’ll tell you, too. I love you, Bramwell Seaton, Ninth Duke of Selbourne. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

“And you’ll marry me?”

Sophie smiled. “So gallant, Bram. But I think perhaps you’re forgetting Miss Waverley, yes?”

Bramwell grinned wickedly, remembering Desiree’s words. “Isadora? That problem is no more than a merebagatelle , my darling, thanks to you and your burning desire to make all of those around you happy. Although I believe you may have had some help this time. Isadora was beginning to have second thoughts about bracketing herself to a notorious, indiscreet Seaton even before she saw us tonight. I plan to go to her first thing tomorrow morning—unless we decide to stay here in bed until noon—and graciously allow her to break my heart so that she can pursue her own happiness.”

“I’m in love with such a good, kind man,” Sophie said most facetiously, playfully nipping at his earlobe with her perfect white teeth.

“Yes, I am, aren’t I?” he teased, running his hand along her rib cage, heading slowly, determinedly toward her perfect breasts even as she boldly, marvelously, drew her fingertips down his chest and his muscles began to ripple beneath her touch. “Sophie? Tonight was your first time. Are you sure you really want to be doing that? That we should be doing this again so soon?”

“Doing what? This?” she asked, sliding down his body so that her head was against his chest again and she could press kisses on his rapidly heating skin, skate the tip of her tongue over his nipple. She ran her tongue down the center of his chest, dipped it into his navel, traced a small hot, moist circle on his lower belly—then suddenly withdrew, collapsing on her back beside him on the bed. “But, if you don’t think we should . . .” she said sadly before shrieking in delight as he growled, then turned to cover her with his own body.

They had come together so quickly the first time, their first touch feeding fires already burning. He had kissed her, kissed her deeply, passionately, hungrily, and then lifted her high in his arms and carried her to the bed. The two of them had tumbled down onto the covers in a tangle of arms and legs and a combined, firm determination to rid Bram of his restrictive clothing as quickly as possible.

His hands had skimmed her, learned her quickly, as her perfection had already been indelibly branded into his brain. He had felt her tremble under his touch even as she had touched him in return, holding him to her almost feverishly, telling him with her hands, her mouth, that this was no time for long seductions. They had been seducing each other since that first day, that first mind-shattering meeting of their eyes.

Only as he had moved to enter her, easing her legs open so that he could bury himself in her, fill her, had he been at all gentle. And even then the gentleness had not lasted for a moment longer than it had taken for his mind to understand that she was ready for him. She had been wonderfully moist and gloriously hot; magnificently tight, and yet pushing herself against him, lifting herself to him, silently urging him on to what had been a shattering explosion of passion that had left them both shaking, silent, amazed.

But now, ah, but now there was time for more. Time for long, leisurely lovemaking. Time to begin teaching her more of what she’d thought she’d known, what she’d read about in her mother’s amazingly frank journals, but had never experienced. Time to savor, to enjoy, to worship this woman he loved with his body, his mind, his entire being.

He moved his mouth against hers, teaching her the many mysteries of the kiss. She was an avid pupil. “This is love,” he told her between long, drugging kisses. “This is desire so intense it shatters me, humbles me. This is all I am, all I can give to you, want from you. Your closeness, your kiss, your love.”

“This is love,” she whispered, holding him tightly, as if she would never let him go. “This is desire born of love. There’s nothing else I’ll ever want, ever need.”

He smiled against her mouth, all at once rather happily evil. Oh, how much she supposed, his darling Sophie. How little she still knew.

He wanted to kiss her, kiss her everywhere. He didn’t know where to start. At the top of her warm, living mass of curls, or at the soles of her small feet. He wanted to say what could never be said in words, not even by the most eloquent man ever born. He wanted to love her, cherish her, adore her, drive her wild with the ultimate carnal splendor that, he now knew, could only be reached in the arms of true love.

Because this was not lust. This was not a temporary indulgence of need, a selfish taking. This was giving, as he’d never before known he could want to give. He would worship her with his body, even as he loved her with his heart, his mind.

He began moving down the length of her. Leisurely—each move excruciatingly slow, intense, adoring. He savored her sweet perfection. So deceivingly slim, so small. And yet so voluptuous. The fullness of her breasts. The soft mound of her belly. The luxuriant sweep of her hips. Everything about her was soft, womanly. Lush. She was a woman born to love, born to be loved.

He could have wept, so intense was his love, his need to show that love. He would go anywhere, dare anything, just to be near her, just to hear the sound of his name on her lips. To see her smile. To watch as she teased, as she played, as she opened her heart to the world and spread her unique joy, wove her special magic. Dazzled.

She was silk. She was fire. She was his everything.

He found the heart of her sexuality. Claimed it. Worshiped her with his fingers, his tongue, his teeth, his mouth. So sweet. So sweet.

Her voice came to him through the swirling mist of his intense desire. “Bram?” she whispered softly. “Before . . . I thought that before . . . that at last I knew. Understood. Butthis . . . this is so different. I feel so . . . so—oh, Bram!”

He knew what she meant. Before . . . the first time . . . she had been pleasured. But now she was at last beginning to feel the full measure of desire. Her hips rose from the bed as he ministered to her, educated her, brought her to the brink, took her over, held her as she shattered. She flowed into him, moved against him, free and uninhibited, her trust in him so complete he was awed by it. Humbled.

And when she reached for him, her beautiful face glowing with love, with new understanding, with a desire that matched his own, he went to her willingly, eagerly, and marveled as she shyly, then boldly, demonstrated all that she had just learned.

A man’s body was quite an interesting construction of nature. Hard where hers was soft. Flat where hers was rounded. There were ropes of muscle across the shoulders, running down the arms, repeated in the long, straight legs. A soft, tickling brush of hair on the firm but yet still welcoming expanse of chest Sophie had claimed as her own personal pillow.

Bramwell’s heart beat so slowly, almost leisurely in his sleep. But she had heard it race, gallop along at a furious pace. She had pressed kisses against his pulse points, smiling against his skin as she’d known that she had a lot to do with his rapid heartbeat, his shallow breathing, the sheen of perspiration that had made his skin slick, almost feverish beneath her boldly investigating hands.

Sophie snuggled more closely against this man she loved, her body deliciously aware even as she could not ignore the slight soreness between her thighs. Even thatpetite pain was pleasurable.

She shouldn’t disturb him, although the rising sun had replaced the moon, and the house around them was coming awake. Desiree would keep the household at bay—the maid who would want to clear the grate, the footman who daily brought her hot water for her bath. . . .

Her bath? Sophie smiled. She’d like to bathe with Bramwell. Yes, that would be lovely. But not here, not in some small tub. In the countryside. A small, rippling stream, with the sun filtering down on them through a canopy of trees. Birdsong all around them. The scent of wildflowers coming to them on the breeze as, with their bodies cooled by the water, heated with desire, he could place her on the grassy bank and . . .

“Bram?” she whispered, threading her fingers into the curls on his chest.

He sighed in his sleep, pulling her more closely against him, his eyes still closed.

“Oh . . . Bram-ammm. . .” she repeated, turning slightly so that she could run her tongue over his nipple, feel it harden, come to attention. She slid her hand down over his flat stomach, then lower, to run her fingertips teasingly across the top of his thighs. She felt the ripple as his muscles tensed in response.

“You want to kill me, don’t you?” he asked, still not opening his eyes.

Sophie giggled, then levered herself upward so that she could all but fling herself on top of him, sliding her hands around his upper back as she showered his face with a dozen light kisses. “I love you, I love you, I love you!” she exclaimed happily—then blew into his ear, nipped his earlobe, slid her tongue down the side of his throat, to the pulse point that now pounded there with all the fury of a galloping stallion.

“You were right last night, Sophie. You’re shameless!” he told her, levering her over onto her back, tickling her mercilessly, until she dissolved in helpless giggles.

“I am, I am. I admit it. I’m utterly shameless,” she told him, wriggling to get away from his hands. “I’ll admit to anything, if you just stop that. Ihate being tickled!”

His hands stilled at either side of her waist, still touching her sensitive skin, as if to warn that he could begin tickling her again at any moment. “Ah,” he said, grinning down at her, his eyes burning with mischief. “So now we have it. Sophie Winstead is shameless. She’s also a flirt and a tease, yes?”

Sophie hesitated for only a moment, but it was long enough for Bramwell to flick a single finger against her skin, starting off another ripple of sensitivity. “Yes, I confess. I’m a shameless flirt and a most dreadful tease.”

“And not necessarily always honest,” he pressed on, looking entirely adorable as his hair tumbled onto his forehead. She reached up to run her fingers over the darkened stubble on his chin. Part man, part boy, completely adorable.

“I was honest enough to warn you not to believe yourself to be in love with me,” she pointed out, then frowned. “Thank heavens you had the good sense not to listen to me.”

“I couldn’t listen to you, Sophie. I was much too occupied with falling in love with you, and hating you because I couldn’t help making a fool of myself.”

“Poor darling,” Sophie said commiseratingly, stroking his beard-roughened cheek. “And do you still feel so foolish?”

His smile was positively evil. “I suppose I’ll become accustomed to the feeling, eventually,” he said, then kissed her. “And you’ll become accustomed to the notion that I’ll still love you most foolishly fifty years after I’m dead? You’ll believe that?”

Sophie’s bottom lip began to tremble. Not because she knew a beautiful woman’s tears had the power to dazzle, but because she loved this man so much that her heart ached with that love. “What a pair of fools we are, Bram,” she said, then took a deep breath, steadying herself. “No. That’s not true! The only fools are those who refuse to believe in love, yes? I feel so sorry for them, knowing they must be so unhappy. I do so hate to see anyone sad.”

Bramwell rolled his eyes comically, then twisted himself over onto his back, so that Sophie was lying on him from chest to knee. “You’re going to try to make everyone else happy, aren’t you? Everyone in the whole, sad world. Don’t bother to deny it, Sophie, because I think I can see through your inventive twists and diversions now. In this short time, you’ve made Aunt Gwen happy, Wally, Sad Samuel, Isadora, me. Who else? Come on, Sophie, tell me the truth.”

“The truth? About what?” Sophie was enjoying this game. “But, darling, I’m nearly always truthful. I’ve certainly always been truthful with you. And—and honest. Truly!”

“Really,” he said, his lips twitching as he did his best to look stern—which was probably quite a difficult feat, seeing as how she had begun to move her lower body against his, and could feel how quickly his attention was turning from thoughts of confession to those of seduction. “And I suppose you consider forging my late father’s name to some official-looking document meant to have me take you under my roof and help you to have a Season to behonest ?”

She sat up abruptly, still spanning his body, and he winced in his unexpected discomfort. “Youknow about that?” she asked, truly shocked. “Youknow , and yet you still love me?”

“Yes, I know. I knew. And I still love you. I’ve told you so, haven’t I? I love you even more because you’re not quite as perfect as I’d believed—although I’ll admit you’re as close to perfect as I could have dreamed. But, Sophie? I’d love you even more if you’d move your left leg just slightly to the left—ah, that’s better. I mean, you do want us to have children someday, don’t you?”

Sophie shifted her weight on him, feeling herself begin to blush as he raised up his hands and cupped her perfect breasts in his palms. She slapped his hands away. “Don’t distract me!” she ordered, looking down at him intently. “When did you know that Desiree had made that silly letter up out of whole cloth?”

“When were you going to tell me that she did?” he asked in return.

Her smile began slowly, grew wide. “When we were both very, very old? When you were positively ancient, and perhaps as deaf as Mrs. Farraday, and I could whisper it so that you couldn’t hear? Never? After all, I’m going to be a duchess now, and very proper and circumspect. The past, at least bits of it, should rest in the past. A woman, even a duchess, should havesome secrets, yes?”

“Then you really weren’t ever going to tell me?”

Sophie took in a long breath, let it out slowly. “To be honest, Bram? No, I wasn’t going to tell you. At first, because I was afraid, and now because it simply doesn’t matter, does it? There was no reason to make you unhappy.”

He pushed himself up on his elbows and motioned for her to move away from him. “Find a dressing gown, Sophie—one I can’t see through, please—and put it on,” he said as he sat up. “We need to talk, and I think we’d better both have clothes on while we’re about it. All right?”

She did as he asked, locating a more modest dressing gown in the cupboard, and slipped her arms into the sleeves. She ran her fingers through her hair, pushing the riot of curls out of her face, and looked at Bramwell as he stepped into his trousers, buttoned them.

“Would you like a glass of water?” she asked, starting toward the pitcher on the dressing table. “It’s warm, from last night, but—”

“Sophie—sit!” Bramwell commanded, coming around the bed, taking hold of her shoulders. He steered her backward until the backs of her knees came into contact with the chaise longue, at which point he pushed her down, then sat beside her, taking her hands in his. “Sophie, listen to me. I don’t want a drink of water. I don’t want a glass of wine, or for you to fetch me a footstool, or try to anticipate my every need. I don’t want you to light my cheroot—unless you really want to. I don’t want you to doanything you don’t truly, honestly, sincerely want to do. Not to please me. Do you understand that?”

“But,Maman always said—”

“Iknow whatMaman always said,” he interrupted. “God knows I’ve alreadyread enough of what yourmaman thought was the way to interest, please, and hold a man—that was what she was writing about, Sophie. You do know that, don’t you? How to flirt, how to tease, how to ingratiate yourself, how todazzle ?”

“Well, yes, but—”

“No interruptions right now, Sophie, please. I love you. We’ve established that, I think.”

She nodded, beginning to understand what he was trying to say, and loving him all the more for how difficult he was finding his explanation.

“All right. Trying to make me happy, make the world happy, falls into the same harebrained category. You arenot responsible for the world’s happiness. Yes, you might like to see those around you happy. That’s commendable, truly. But it’s not yourresponsibility . And if you think that telling me about the letter Desiree concocted, or that you bought a dozen bonnets when one would have done as well, or that you think my new jacket is a truly putrid shade of green or anything at all unpleasant is something to be avoided, then you’d be wrong. I want to marry you, Sophie, have you with me always and forever. Not tocushion my life, but to fill it, complete it. I won’t go away if you don’t please me every moment of every day. Your mother might have thought that, about the uncles, but it isn’t true. They left because they’d never intended to stay.”

“But you’re staying?”

“Try to get rid of me, Sophie,” he said, drawing her against his shoulder. “I promise you, you won’t succeed.”

She pushed back her head, looking up into his face. “Even if I still get angry sometimes, and shrewish, andthrow things? You still wouldn’t leave me?”

“Only if your aim improves, darling.”

“Oh. My aim is terrible when I’m angry, I know,” she said, grimacing. “I can barely hit a wall with a book. It’s a failing, yes?”

“Idiot that I am, Sophie, I find it to be a fairly adorable failing,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose.

She snuggled against his shoulder. “All right, Bram,” she said, yawning into her hand. “I think I understand now. In fact, I know I do. I will please you when I want to, and won’t when I don’t, yes? I will be honest, even when being honest couldn’t possibly make you happy, and I will not be—amnot—responsible for making the whole world happy. Now, if that’s all settled—are you hungry, darling?”

“Well, yes, thank you. As a matter of fact I am,” he answered, kissing the top of her head before she slid out of his arms and stood up, looking down at him.

He’d begun to believe he knew everything about her. But it seemed that he’d missed the flash of mischief in her eyes just now, just before she turned away from him.

“Well, then, Your Grace,” she said, skipping over to bounce herself up and onto the bed, “why don’t you just pick yourself up, take yourself over to the bell pull, and summon someone to bring your breakfast? Lord knows you must remember how.”

“Minx!” he charged, his voice full of laughter as he leapt to his feet and followed her to the bed. “Never listen to me again, Sophie—promise me,” he said, turning her onto her back as his hand found its way inside the opening of her dressing gown. “Now, come here, woman, anddazzle me.”

Upon hearing her beloved Sophie’s delighted giggles, Desiree, who had been standing guard just outside the bedchamber for the past hour, shook her head and gently shooed away a young maid heading down the hallway toward the room. “You’re too young for this,petite ,” she warned kindly, then closed her eyes and smiled.

“I don’t really imbibe this early in the day—is that the correct word, dear? Imbibe? But I will say that you look rather happy. No, more than happy. You’re positively glowing.”

Bram frowned. “Well, that’s not good, is it?” he asked, winking at Lady Gwendolyn. “I think I should be looking guilty, and quite sad.”

His aunt put down Mrs. Farraday’s yarn—the ball of soft yellow wool she had been about to stuff up her sleeve—and turned to look at her nephew. “I don’t understand. Why should you be looking guilty? I was the one who read the journals, and then told Amelia Crossley that business about that MacLeish person and Constance Winstead. But that’s all I said, I promise you that! I’ve racked my brain, and racked it again, and I’m sure that’s all I said.” She spread her hands, as if loosing a captured pigeon to the skies. “And the rest of it I’ve ordered to simplyfly out of my mind!”

“I can’t tell you how that gratifies me, Aunt,” Bramwell said, sipping from his glass. “However, if you don’t want to have to forget something else, you might want to find something to do in the morning room or elsewhere for a while. Isadora wrote in her note that she’d be here now, saving me a trip to Mount Street, and her coach just drew up out front. I think our conversation should remain private.”

Lady Gwendolyn nodded. “Yes, dear. Desiree already told me. You’re going to let her toss you over even though you really want to throw her away.” Both hands flew up to cover her mouth as her eyes grew wide and panicked. “Did I say that? I didn’t mean to say that. That is, I mean that I didn’t mean for you to know that I knew that, and that I knew that I shouldn’t say . . . well,that . Not that I knowthat . Or should. I mean. That is. Um. Oh, whatdo I mean? Bramwell, don’t just stand there, laughing at me—helpme!”

Bramwell helped his aunt to her feet, figuring that was as good a place to start as any. “It’s all right. I know just what you mean, Aunt,” he said soothingly, all the time guiding her toward the door. “But we will have to have a few more conversations on the subject of discretion, I believe.”

“Oh, my goodness, yes! I really think we should. Definitely.” The knocker went, and Lady Gwendolyn all but up jumped out of her skin as she picked up her skirts and headed for the staircase leading to the bedchambers. “I’m gone, I’m gone! Bobbit—” she called out, leaning over the railing in order to see down into the foyer, “don’t you dare move one step toward that door until I’m gone!” Then she paused on the first step, her hand on the newel post, and turned to Bramwell. “I like your smile, Nephew. It’s good to see it.”

“Thank you, Aunt Gwen,” he told her departing back, then started toward the door to the drawing room, motioning for Bobbit, standing below in the foyer, to answer the knock.

He counted to twenty, then stepped out into the hallway once more, just as Isadora was climbing the last stair to the first floor, her abigail left behind in the foyer. Obviously this was going to be a very brief visit.

“Selbourne,” Isadora said, her voice more clipped than usual. She inclined her head slightly as he bowed over her hand, his lips missing her gloved fingers by a good inch or more. “We must talk.”

“I know,” he answered, leading her toward the nearest couch, then sitting down beside her. “I had wanted to come to you, but I had other business to attend to first, I’m afraid. However, before we begin, I have to tell you that it was entirely my fault. Sophie had absolutely nothing to do with anything. It was—”

“Sophie? Selbourne, stop, you’re confusing me. What does Miss Winstead have to do with anything? And you really shouldn’t be so informal, referring to her by her Christian name.”

Isadora stripped off her gloves, a precise pull on each of her fingertips, one after the other, accomplishing the feat with admirable grace. “Lud, I don’t know when I’ve been this nervous, upset. Charles wanted to come here with me, but I refused, of course. This is my burden, I told him, and I must carry it alone. It’s the Waverley way.”

She laid her gloves in her lap and looked at Bramwell, her eyes eloquent with a message he was damned if he could read. “Selbourne, I have done you a great disservice, and I cannot, therefore, in good conscience marry you. There! I’ve said it. Lud, that was difficult!”

Bramwell’s mind was all but stumbling over itself in its rush to understand what in the devil Isadora was saying.She had donehim a great disservice? “Isadora, I’m sorry,” he said, seeing that her usually alabaster cheeks were chalk white, that her bottom lip had begun to tremble. Not that she would cry. Lord, no. Waverleys didn’t cry. “You’re obviously overset, Isadora. It’s I who owe you my deepest apologies.”

But she wouldn’t let him speak, seemed determined not to let him speak. “Lud, Selbourne!You , apologize tome ? When I felt my heart leap in my breast when I’d learned you wanted to cry off from Lady Buxley’s party last night, leave me with my evening free to make . . . to make . . . lud! To make a fool of you, Selbourne. There is no way to dress this up in clean linen. Ibetrayed you, Selbourne. Lud, I’m such a wretched, wretched woman!”

Bramwell opened his mouth to correct her, to say that it was he, not she, who should be begging forgiveness. But then it dawned on him. All at once a blinding flash of lightning lit up the entire world, and he saw, he understood. Isadora had decided how this interview would go, and he would be a cad not to allow it, even if he didn’t understand it.

“How did you betray me last night, Isadora?” he asked quietly, fishing in his pocket for his handkerchief. For he’d been wrong. Waverleys did cry. At least this one did.

Isadora wiped at her eyes, blew her nose, then went to return the handkerchief, which Bramwell smilingly refused to accept. “I—I had been having second—second thoughts. Fordays . Horrible thoughts. Unworthy of a duchess, of your duchess. I was ashamed, Selbourne. If I had loved you—if you had meant the world and all to me, I should have survived it. The gossip, the old scandal that reached out to touch me wherever I turned.”

She needed to resort to the handkerchief again, as her nose had begun to run in earnest now. It was rather wonderful, though, seeing Isadora as a real woman, and not just as the perfect wife for a duke, which was how he’d previously seen her. She leaned toward him, looking at him earnestly. “Do you love me, Selbourne? I don’t think you do.”

He leaned forward and kissed her damp cheek. “You’re right, Isadora. I don’t love you. But I’m finding that Ilike you much more than I would have believed a week ago. But you love someone, don’t you? Do you want to tell me about him? I believe you mentioned someone named Charles?”

For the following ten minutes Bramwell’s only function was to serve as a willing pair of ears while Isadora spoke of Lord Charles Anston and his daughters, Sarah, Mary, Lucy, and Ruth something-or-other. How kind Charles was, how she’d remembered him so fondly from years ago, how they’d met unexpectedly after she’d seen him come to visit Miss Winstead, and how their friendship had blossomed again almost immediately. How wonderfully polite and pretty the daughters were, how very much she was needed by them, would find her utmost happiness as their friend, their mentor, their mother.

It was all settled. She and Charles—and the girls, of course—would drive down to meet with Isadora’s father. They were leaving London that very afternoon, in less than an hour. They would then be wed in the family chapel before retiring to Lord Anston’s estate in the country until next Season, when Sarah—or was it Lucy? Bramwell was having trouble keeping the four names and various ages straight—would come to London to be presented. Everything was wonderful. Everything was settled.

Except that Isadora was still betrothed to Bramwell.

That part was still presenting just a smidgen of a problem. . . .

“Then, Isadora,” Bramwell ventured at last, wondering why he felt it necessary to ask, “you didn’t see me out and about last night?”

“See you?” she repeated, her frown warning him to silence. “I don’t know to what you are referring. See youwhere , Selbourne? I told you. I was visiting with Charles and the girls. It was very proper, but very private. I didn’t see anybody, barely another soul all evening. Everyone was at Lady Buxley’s you know. I’ve already heard it was a sad crush—extremely successful. But, now that you mention it, I did see something very strange as I was being driven away from Charles’s town house.”

It was all a game. They were playing a game Isadora had devised for some reason he’d probably have to have Sophie explain to him, and it was his turn to move a piece. “What did you see, Isadora?”

“Well, lud,” she supplied quickly, “it was the strangest thing. The coachman turned through the Square, the better to exit it, I suppose, as Charles’s town house is quite near the entrance. And, while he was driving around the Square, directly as we were passing by Lord Sidmouth’s residence—well, lud, Selbourne, you just won’t believe it, that’s all.”

Bramwell’s smile was stuck to his face; he couldn’t unstick it even if he tried. “I won’t?”

Isadora lowered her voice to a whisper. “It was Lord Sidmouth himself. Standing directly in front of one of the upstairs windows—and without a stitch of clothing on! He was standing there, and then he slammed down the window. Very angrily, I’d say, as if he wasn’t pleased to have found it open. I imagine one of his servants must have done it against his orders, or some such thing. Now, don’t you think that strange?”

“That he’d be naked, Isadora, or that he’d close his own window?” Bramwell asked, relaxing as he remembered that there had been a loud sound from somewhere above him just as he’d dragged Sophie into the shadows.

“Lud, Selbourne—that’sso funny!” Isadora exclaimed, giving him a playful rap on the wrist with her gloves as she stood, clearly relieved that their interview had gone so well, that he had been so cooperative. She reached into her reticule and handed him the Seaton family ring, a most imposing ruby. “Here, Selbourne. I was honored to wear this, but I find that I will be even more happy being Lady Anston than I could ever have been as the duchess of Selbourne. Lud—that was rather insulting, wasn’t it? I didn’t mean it that way, truly. I don’t know if I’m on my head or my heels since I found my dear Charles again. We just talked and talked—for hours! Oh, please, forgive me. Forgive me for everything. And say good-bye to Sophie for me, please. I owe her so much.”

“You do?” Bramwell asked, slipping the ring into his pocket, knowing that it would not be the one he’d give to Sophie. Sophie should have diamonds. And sapphires. And emeralds. And, perhaps, rubies. He’d have this particular one made into a necklace. Yes, that would suit her. He shook himself back to attention, believing that Isadora had just given him a clue to the reason behind her generous action. “What do you owe Sophie, Isadora?”

“My thanks, Selbourne, my deepest, most heartfelt thanks. Poor Selbourne, you don’t understand, do you? But I do, and Sophie will, and that’s enough.”

Bramwell nodded his agreement to forward Isadora’s thanks to Sophie, then snapped to attention as his now-former fiancée pulled on her gloves once more, saying briskly, “You’ll allow my father to handle the notice in the newspapers, of course, and graciously accept all blame for the termination of our engagement. Papa will be as vague as he can possibly be, but theton will all know why I’ve rejected our marriage. Or at least they’ll think they do. They’ll blame it on your father, and Miss Winstead’s mother. They’ll say I was appalled by the gossip and such. That’s unfortunate, but unavoidable. And then, as I’ll be married shortly, there will be the rumors that I had actually jilted you for another. But it can’t be helped, can it? You’re a good man, Selbourne, and I can only ask you to be brave. For your sake, for Sophie’s. I’m eternally in her debt. Be brave for her.”

“I’ll do my best to help Sophie weather the storm, Isadora.” Bramwell bowed over her hand, feeling as if he should have a medal hanging from his chest after being given such a bracing round of congratulations for having excelled in a battle he’d yet to fight. Isadora would have made a fine general. And he would wager she’d make a finer, if somewhat stern, mother. Little Ruth something-or-other and her sisters had better learn to step sprightly.

“I’ll walk you to your coach,” he said, not seeing, but still sensing that Sophie was somewhere above their heads, hanging over the second-floor railing, hearing every word.

“No need, Selbourne,” Isadora said. She surprised him down to his toes by leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek, then holding on to his shoulders, remaining close. “She’s up there, Selbourne, so don’t look,” she whispered into his ear. “I want you to know that I wish you both as much happiness as I’ve found with Charles. Lud, you’re so well suited to each other. She’ll make a fine, if rather original duchess. And I’ll be a good mother, I really will. Just please allow me to be first to the altar? Oh, and someday you must tell me what the two of you were doing at Lord Sidmouth’s. But not now. Good-bye—Bramwell.”

“Good-bye, Isadora,” he said, his admiration for the women in his world growing by leaps and bounds. “And thank you.”

“I’ve got terrible news!” Lord Upchurch exclaimed, going directly to Bramwell, who had been amusing himself by kissing Sophie’s fingertips, one after the other, as Sophie giggled and his aunt looked on in a delicious mixture of shock and pleasure at seeing her nephew so happy.

“So do I, Upchurch,” Bramwell said affably. “I know you have a mole shaped much like Lord Sheridan’s profile stuck to your—”

“Bram!” Sophie protested, jumping up to take Lord Upchurch’s arm and lead him to a nearby chair. “You just sit down now, my lord, and allow me to pour you some brandy. You look wretched.”

“Well, Iam wretched, you know. Can’t remember when I’ve been this wretched. Except perhaps for that time I was cold and wet after being caught out in a rainstorm, and backed up too close to the fire to warm m’self and—no, no! I can’t think of that now. It’s Sir Tyler, Selbourne. The journal wasn’t enough for him.”

“It wasn’t?” Sophie turned from the drinks table, the snifter of brandy in her hand. “But His Grace met with you all this afternoon, showed you the journalsMaman had kept on each of you, and then you all threw them into the fire, yes? You have His Grace’s word, my word—the past is gone, burned up and forgotten. I must say, my lord, that I’m sadly disappointed if you’re intimating that the duke of Selbourne’s word in the matter cannot be taken as gospel.”

There. She’d sounded quite duchesslike. Sophie was rather proud of herself, and Aunt Gwendolyn was smiling at her, as if she, too, was pleased. This being a duchess couldn’t be all that difficult. A “Your Grace” here, another “Your Grace” there. Sprinkle a few “the duke feels,” or “the duke says” into the conversation, and keep your chin high as you did it. Nothing could be more simple. She’d learned a lot from Isadora, more than she had realized. And she was going to do just fine. It was all a matter of dazzling others, this time with what was soon to be her most impressive title.

“But it’s notme saying it, Sophie . . . er . . . Miss Winstead,” Lord Upchurch protested. It was obvious that, even in his agitation, he had noticed her new air of superiority, of consequence. “I’m quite content with the way things worked out. Satisfied, you know. But it’s just as I said. Tye—Sir Tyler? He’s up to mischief.”

Sophie looked to Bramwell, who was eyeing Lord Upchurch carefully. “Sir Tyler,” he said. “Yes, you did say that, didn’t you? Not Lord Buxley, and not you. Just him?”

“Exactly! Oh, Your Grace, he’s impossible to calm. He wanted Buxley and me in with him, but we won’t go that route. Discussed it between ourselves, you know, and decided against it. But I thought I should warn you.”

“This is all my fault, Bramwell,” Lady Gwendolyn lamented, wringing her hands. “If I hadn’t said anything to Amelia—”

“Hush, Aunt Gwendolyn,” Sophie said soothingly, dropping to her knees beside the older woman, patting her hands. “Lord Upchurch can’t be the least interested in that right now,” she went on quietly, hoping the woman took her meaning. The journals had been burned. Buxley and Upchurch seemed satisfied. But, if they knew Lady Gwendolyn had read them? Well, they’d be all for tossing her into the fire along with the journals then, wouldn’t they?

Bramwell must have been thinking much the same thing, as he quickly said, “Thank you, Upchurch, for coming to me so quickly, being so honest. Did Sir Tyler share his plans with you, or are you only aware that he intends some sort of retribution?”

Lord Upchurch looked confused for a moment, as if he was trying to sift all the words through his brain, sort them out into smaller ones he might better understand. “Oh!” he said at last. “You want to know what Tye plans to do, don’t you?”

“No, Upchurch, I don’t, actually,” Bramwell said, something in his tone alerting Sophie to the fact that nothing Lord Upchurch had said had come as a surprise to him. “But, out of idle curiosity, I’ll ask anyway. Do you or Lord Buxley know what Sir Tyler Shipley has planned?”

The older man shook his head and sighed. “Haven’t the faintest idea. He asked us, we said no, and he went off. Madder than fire, you know. Always was a bit of a hothead.” He looked to Sophie. “But I felt I should warn you. Always liked your mama, you know. Wouldn’t want to see anything bad happen to the daughter.”

Bramwell removed the snifter from Upchurch’s nerveless fingers even as he laid an arm across the man’s shoulders and maneuvered him toward the hallway. “Assure yourself, Upchurch, that you have my most sincere appreciation for having come here tonight. But I believe I can take it from here, all right?”

Lord Upchurch looked back over his shoulder, to Lady Gwendolyn, who was waving good-bye to him, to Sophie, who smiled and gave him one of her very best shrugs. “Well, if you think so, Selbourne—Your Grace. But, I—”

“Bobbit,” Bramwell broke in. “His Lordship was just leaving. Has Baron Lorimar arrived as yet?”

“Just now, Your Grace,” the butler answered. “He and Sir Wallace await you in your study.”

Bramwell gave Lord Upchurch a last bracing pat on the back, then stepped back into the drawing room. “Sophie? If you’d join us . . .”

“What’s happening, Sophie?” Lady Gwendolyn asked, grabbing on to Sophie’s forearm, detaining her. “Something is going on, isn’t it?” She released her grip. “But, no, no. I shouldn’t ask. If I don’t ask, I won’t know. And if I don’t know, I can’t tell. It will be better that way, I believe. Much better. You just run along, dear. I’ll sit here and yell to Mrs. Farraday, ask her opinion on the weather. And then she’ll tell me all about her new heather-colored yarn. Again.”

Sophie dropped a kiss on Lady Gwendolyn’s hair, then quickly followed after Bramwell, taking his arm as he assisted her down the stairs. “You’ve done something, haven’t you, Bram? What have you done? You told me that taking the journals to the uncles this afternoon would fix everything, and it did—for two of them. But not Uncle Tye, yes? So what did you do? And why haven’t you told me about it?”

“I was a trifle busy, darling,” he answered, as they turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs and headed toward his private study. “Making love, losing a fiancée, gaining another, burning books—it made for a full afternoon. And I barely slept last night, you know. Why, I’m surprised I didn’t fall facedown in the pudding at dinner.”

“You’re a mean, mean man, Bramwell Seaton,” Sophie declared, glaring at him through slitted eyes. “You were simply protecting me. Admit it!”

“Protectingyou ?” Bramwell threw back his head and laughed out loud. “Protecting the woman who thinks it her responsibility to fix everything, to make everyone happy, to solve all the problems of the world? Hardly, darling. I was protectingmyself . Now, let’s see what Wally and Lorrie have been able to find out, all right?”

“Lorrie and—oh, never mind,” Sophie said, sighing. “Mamanalways said we women must sometimes allow our men to be masterful.”

“God bless her,” Bramwell responded, then gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before opening the door to his study. “Gentlemen!” he called out happily enough. “How went the hunt? Was I right? Please tell me I was right. I’d enjoy appearing brilliant in front of my darling, soon-to-be-wife.”

“Probably owe Bobbit a packet for that one,” Sir Wallace commented. “That, and you have to become Sad Samuel’s bosom chum for—what was it, Lorrie? A month?”

“Why, Sir Wallace,” Sophie trilled, batting her eyelashes at him. “Whatever do you mean? It almost sounds as if you’ve made some sort ofwager among yourselves, yes?”

Sir Wallace slapped his forehead so hard he winced. “I’m a dead man! Lorrie, shoot me. Make it quick. Painless.”

“Relax, Wally,” Bramwell said, escorting Sophie to a chair, then taking up his place behind the desk. “She knows. She has known from the beginning. And, now that I think about it, you might want to shoot Lorrie. Thanks to him and his schemes, you’re probably the poorer by several hundred pounds.”

“Later, Wally, later,” the baron said as Sir Wallace turned to him questioningly. “For now, I think I should answer Bram’s question. Yes, my friend. You were right. Straight down the line. And Shipley has seen the advantages in accepting your conditions with all the civility with which a man fairly foaming at the mouth is capable.”

“So it’s over then, before it could even begin. Good, as the whole notion of what he must have been planning was fairly ridiculous. You both have my thanks. Would you two care for a drink?”

“Over? What’s over? What was Sir Tyler planning to do?” Sophie had spent the last moments looking from Bramwell, to the baron, to Sir Wallace, back to Bramwell—and she didn’t understand anything she’d heard, seen. “Bram, I think I really must insist—”

“We’ll have that drink later, Bram,” Baron Lorimar said, winking at Sophie. “I think you two should have some time alone. Wally? Stand up, we’re leaving.”

“But—but we just got here, Lorrie! We haven’t even said our best wishes to Sophie here, or Bram. We really ought to do that, you know. Only polite. Condolences first, to Bram, for having been tossed over, then congratulations, for getting Sophie here to say she’ll marry him. It’s only right.”

“Wally,” Bramwell said threateningly.

“Come here, sit down. Say three words, stand up. Leave.” Sir Wallace threw up his hands and got to his feet. “All right, Bram, I’m going. Don’t have a dashed idea why, but I’m going. Good evening, Sophie. Are you sure you want to marry Bram, here? You’ll have the devil of a time understanding him, stap me if you won’t!”

Sophie jumped up to kiss both the two departing gentlemen, not sure what they had done for her, but convinced they had just made her future brighter. Then, once they were gone, she turned on the man she would share that future with, and said, “You have five minutes, Bram. Then I may simply have to strangle the truth out of you.”

“What, no offer to light my cheroot?” Bramwell replied smoothly. “You aren’t about to pour me a glass of wine, fetch me a footstool, rub my weary brow? Isn’t that the way to get what you want from a man? Well, I’m disappointed, I must say so.”

“Bramwell . . .” Sophie ground out from between clenched teeth, doing her best to look threatening, then gave it up as a bad job and ran around the desk to all but throw herself in his lap. “What did you do, darling? What brilliant, wonderful thing did you do?”

“Marvelous,” he said, kissing her cheeks, her nose, her mouth. “Brilliant, wonderful,and marvelous. You forgot that one.”

She gave an exasperated cry and began to tickle him unmercifully, until he caught her hands in his and surrendered.

“All right, all right, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you all of it,” he said, laughing. “Shipley wasn’t content with the mere burning of the journals because there was still someone who could talk, who couldn’t be bound by his word of honor.”

“Aunt Gwendolyn? He meant to hurt Aunt Gwendolyn?”

“No. Shipley’s an idiot, but not that much of an idiot. It’sIgnatius , darling. Shipley plotted to shut one of us up, definitely—but it was that damned parrot.”

Sophie leaned back against the desk, her hands clasping the edge. “Ignatius? But—but what possible damage could Ignatius do to Uncle Tye?”

To answer her, he lifted her onto the desk, so that she watched while he went to the corner of the room and pulled the shawl from the parrot’s cage. “Coachie, Ignatius,” he said. “Coachie.”

Ignatius dipped his head a time or two, fluttered his clipped wings and, in a near-perfect imitation of Sir Tyler Shipley, called out: “Demmed coachie!Squawk! Quick! My flask! Secrets to tell!Squawk! Squawk! Demmed coachie! Secrets to sell! Quick, my flask!Squawk! ”

Sophie still didn’t understand, and said so.

“Neither did I, darling,” Bramwell admitted, lifting the cage from the table. “Until I remembered that Ignatius did his little trick in Shipley’s presence. Something in his reaction jostled a memory somewhere in the back of my brain. There was nothing about Ignatius in your mother’s journals, which confused me at first, until that jostled memory became clearer. After that, it was a fairly simple matter to ask Lorrie to do some checking for me.”

He walked back to the desk and took Sophie’s hand in his as he walked fiancée and parrot toward the door. “Secrets to tell, Sophie. Secrets to sell. Demned coachie.”

Sophie concentrated on the words, but didn’t feel in the least enlightened. “No, I still don’t understand. I want to, but I’m totally at sea. Bram, would you please just tell me?”

“It had to be about nine or ten years ago, I imagine,” he said as they walked down the hallway to the foyer. “Before he gave you the parrot, and during my single Season in Town. Shipley’s coachman was beaten into a jelly, nearly killed, right here in the city, inside Shipley’s own stables. I remembered it because it caused quite a stir, with all of Mayfair checking under their beds, sure that murderers were everywhere.”

“Go on, please,” Sophie said, nodding to Bobbit before starting up the staircase.

“Think about it, Sophie. We were at war. Shipley worked in His Majesty’s government. He may have been selling secrets, he may not have been. At this late date, I don’t suppose it matters. Then again, it may have been the coachie who had secrets to sell, such as where he was driving Shipley. I think that more likely, to tell you the truth.”

“Where he drove him? To Wimbledon, you mean, don’t you—to seeMaman , yes?”

“As Shipley was and is married to a very rich, very jealous woman, yes, I do mean Wimbledon. Sir Tyler has a fairly prodigious temper, and he was always good with his fives. I think his coachman was blackmailing him, frankly, threatening him—and that Shipley took umbrage with that idea.”

“And beat his own coachman,” Sophie said, shivering. “Is the coachman dead? I mean, did he beat him to death? Because, if he did, we certainly cannot allow him—”

“The man lived, Sophie, although he chose to depart for a less violent climate somewhere in Wales. Still, Ignatius must have heard Shipley, absorbed those few words the man spoke in anger, and now he trots them out anytime someone says—” he hesitated, looking down at Ignatius. “Well, you know the word, Sophie. So dear Uncle Tye gave Ignatius to you, to hide the evidence as it were, and now you’ve brought Ignatius with you to London, where he immediately performed his most dangerous party trick. You can see how that might unnerve Shipley, make him want to turn your beloved parrot into parrot soup.”

“Into parrot—well!”

Bramwell put a finger to his lips, warning her to silence as they walked past the entrance to the drawing room, where Lady Gwendolyn and Mrs. Farraday were holding a somewhat loud conversation about the straw-bonnet-wilting properties of a thick London fog, and pulled her toward the flight of stairs that led to the bedchambers.

“Yes, darling,” he said as they climbed the flight, “Shipley wanted Ignatius dead. Strangled, plucked, and boiled, I imagine. And Lord Upchurch wasn’t the first to come to me. Lord Buxley didn’t even let me get as far as the street this afternoon after we’d had our small journal-burning ceremony, before he chased after me, warning me that Shipley wasn’t satisfied with my solution. That he wanted the bird destroyed. I had thought Shipley might wantyou strangled, darling, but it seems he believed you when you said you’d never breathe a word of anything you know.”

“That’s because I dazzled him, Bram,” Sophie said with a nose-crinkling grin. “And you said dazzling didn’t work. Ha!”

“I never said it didn’t work, darling,” he corrected as he left go of her hand and opened the door to his bedchamber, motioning for her to precede him into the room. “I just said you shouldn’t do it. I’ve had second thoughts about that since this morning, by the way. Dazzle to your heart’s content, Sophie, as long as youlove me.”

She watched as he set Ignatius’s cage on a low table, amazed at how comfortable she felt in this chamber. Not at all naughty. Just comfortable, because she belonged here. She always would. But when Bramwell came toward her, his intention clear in his smile, she held him off, saying, “But why is Uncle Tye—Sir Tyler—no longer a threat to us, er, I mean, to Ignatius?”

He put his hands on her elbows as she reached out to touch his waist. “Now you’re going to have to be brave, darling. I couldn’t have Lorrie promise something we couldn’t in all good conscience promise, now could I? Couldn’t have him say we’d train Ignatius never to say what he says ifthat word came up in conversation. So,” he said, looking at her closely, “I’m sending Ignatius to the country, to Selbourne Hall. I’ve got quite an aviary on my estate, and he’ll be comfortable there even when we aren’t in residence. In other words, darling, Ignatius has had his last Season.” He bent his knees, the better to see into her eyes, and asked, “Do you hate me? I did it for the best.”

“You’ll march him off in chains, I suppose?” Sophie tried to be stern, but Bramwell looked so apprehensive that she couldn’t let him suffer for another moment in the belief that she might hate him for sending Ignatius into a very comfortable exile. “Oh, Bram, don’t worry,” she said, smiling. “It was the only solution that was fair to everyone. Especially,” she continued, her voice dropping to a whisper, “when I consider what happens when he hears anyone say the wordspurs .”

“Spurs?” Bramwell repeated, also whispering. “What does he say?”

She motioned for him to bend his head even closer, and whispered the words into his ear.

“You’re kidding!” he exclaimed, looking toward Ignatius, who was grooming himself, oblivious to their hushed conversation. “My God, Sophie—whose voice does he use to saythat ?”

“Well,” Sophie told him as she took his hands and began backing toward the bed. “Let’s just say that the duke of Wellington probably will be quite pleased to learn that Ignatius will be permanently rusticating on your estate.”

“The duke of—Lord, Sophie, I love you!” Bramwell exclaimed, tumbling her onto the bed and following her down.

“Sophie loves you! Sophie loves you!” Ignatius called out in an excellent imitation of his mistress’s voice. “Sophie loves you!Squawk!”

“You know, I’m going to miss that bird,” Bramwell said, smiling, before Sophie took hold of his ears and pulled him down for her kiss.

She was perfect. She shimmered in pale green silk, from the knot of material that covered her full breasts, to the sweeping hem that floated down the stairs behind her. Her shoulders were bare, her arms covered in softest white kid to just above the elbows. A magnificent necklace of diamonds and emeralds was put to shame by her shining eyes.

She wore her hair severely pulled back from her face tonight, caught up in some sort of curling cluster at the top of her head, a circlet of diamonds and braided silk holding it in place. Her eyes, wide and faintly tilted, her magnificent cheekbones, her long, delicate neck—all were perfect. There had to be other words, more eloquent definitions, but none suited Sophie better than that single, simple word. Perfect.

And then she smiled at him, and she became more than perfect. She became his Sophie. His Sophie of the crinkled-up nose, playing at duchess, and asking him to join her in the enjoyment of their private joke—because, for as regal and duchesslike as she might appear now, only an hour earlier she had been a shameless wanton, all flash and fire in his arms.

Dear God, how he loved her!

“She becomes more beautiful every day, Bram,” Baron Lorimar said, coming up behind him just as Sophie arrived at the bottom of the stairs, then passing him by to offer his arm to his friend’s wife. “Your Grace,” he drawled, as Sophie slipped her arm through his, “you will send every other woman present at Lady Upchurch’s ball weeping into the night the moment you walk through the door.”

“How you do flatter me, Lorimar,” Sophie said, smiling up at him, dazzling him as Bramwell watched approvingly. “I’m sorry to be so late, but Desiree had the worst time with my hair. It became sadly tangled somehow. Has Bram offered you a glass of wine before we go?”

“Lady Gwendolyn did the honors, actually,” the baron told her as they walked into the drawing room, Bramwell trailing behind, shaking his head. “And then she and Sir Wilford took themselves off into a corner, their heads all but pressed together as they fell into some deep conversation or other. You’ve been giving her lessons, haven’t you?”

“Only a few,” Sophie admitted, winking at him. “Aunt Gwendolyn found him to be most charming when he came to pay a morning call on me when I first arrived in London, but I think he went away much more interested in her. In fact, Sir Wilford has become nearly a permanent guest in the house of late, isn’t that right, Bram?”

“The poor fellow doesn’t stand a chance, Lorrie,” Bramwell declared with all good humor, touching a hand to the slight bulge in his waistcoat and wondering how he was going to manage slipping Sir Wilford’s snuffbox back in his pocket after Peggy had found it in his aunt’s clothespress that morning. “Hello, Wally, you’re looking fit. Did you and my cousin have a good day?”

Sir Wallace leapt to his feet in order to bow over Sophie’s hand. “Better than good, Bram,” he said, lifting his glass of lemonade in a toast to the world in general. “Attract the ladies like bees to honey, those dogs of his do. No better place to be these days than riding through the park in Samuel’s carriage. I’m thinking of getting myself a couple of hounds of my own as a matter of fact, seeing what they did for Sad Samuel. Well,” he then said, looking around the room, “if we’re all ready? I want to speak to Bobbit a moment before we go. He’s promised to tell me about a most sterling new shop that specializes in custom-fitted gloves.”

“Heowns that shop, Wally,” Bramwell told him as Sophie giggled. “And you probably paid for most of it. You, Lorrie, and me. Definitely me.”

Sir Wallace looked to each of his friends in turn, colored hotly, and said, “Oh.” Then he shrugged, as if accepting of the news. “I still need new gloves, you know, so I suppose that’s all right. Isn’t it? Shall we go?”

It was nearly three in the morning before the duke and duchess returned to Portland Square, to mount the flights to their chamber, their arms linked, both of them still basking in the glow of a most successful evening.

And neither of them quite ready for bed.

“Help me with these fastenings, please, darling,” Sophie said, turning her back to her husband.

“Gladly,” he answered, coming over to her and pressing a kiss against the nape of her neck as he began working at the closings of her gown. “Hmmm, you taste good.”

She turned in his arms as the gown loosened, holding it to her breasts as she smiled up into his face. “Surely you aren’t stillhungry , darling?”

“Famished,” he admitted as she stepped away from him, allowing the gown to fall into a puddle at her feet, leaving her in only the merest of undergarments, a pair of silky stockings. “And becoming more hungry by the minute.”

She held out her arms to him. “Oh, poor darling Bram. Come here to me. Sophie will fix that. Sophie will fix everything.”

“I can’t imagine why I ever wanted you to think you shouldn’t. God, Sophie, but you look lovely, standing there in the moonlight shining through the windows.”

And that’s when Bramwell got an idea. A most wonderful, delicious idea. With more haste than care, he stripped himself out of his jacket, his shirt, his shoes. “Stay right there!” he ordered as he went over to the bed, ripping the coverlet from it. He opened the doors to the balcony that overlooked the darkened Square as Sophie watched, giggling, and spread the coverlet on the narrow landing that was enclosed by a highly decorative, secluding balustrade.

Satisfied with what he’d done, he then came back into the room, swept his wife up in his arms, and carried her toward the balcony.

“Bram?” she asked as he gently deposited her on the coverlet and knelt down, preparing to join her.

“You think I’m insane, don’t you?” he asked. “That this is insane. We could be seen from the Square, if anyone really looked. We could make utter fools of ourselves. And you want me to take you back inside.”

“No, darling,” she said, stroking the length of his thigh, so that his mind, which he already considered fairly well lost, spun off into the night, to be replaced by desire. “I just want you to lock those doors behind you. I’m convinced Reese would appreciate that, yes?”