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  But as he was about to leave her house on that occasion, Lady Roper, not discouraged by his chilly manner, had asked whether he had children and, hearing that he was not married, urged him to find a wife quickly.

  "Such handsome children you will make," she had said, beaming and patting his hand with her own powdery soft fingers. "They will put a smile on your face. They will wipe away that frown. Babies make the world a better place. I always regret that I never had any of my own. Perhaps you will bring yours to visit me one day before I am too old. I should like the merry company."

  This busy young lawyer could not remember ever having his hand patted in that comforting manner. His father's cook, the most maternal figure in his life, had shown her care and concern through food— there was no illness or insult one of Mrs. Blewett's puddings couldn't cure— but there was not much softness about her. In fact, most of the time she pretended she didn't even like him and that she only fed him because she was obliged by the terms of her employment. Once, many years ago, after he'd had a fight with one of his brothers, the cook had tried to ruffle his hair as she passed the kitchen table, but he, thinking she meant to cuff him 'round the ear, had ducked out of the way quickly. It was all very awkward. To his intense relief, Mrs. Blewett never tried again.

  No other lady within his memory, which was vast and detailed, had ever looked at this young man in a motherly way, or spoken to him as if he deserved and needed kindness. They always assumed he had everything he wanted. Even he assumed it.

  After all, bull sharks took what they wanted, whenever they wanted it. And nobody petted a shark.

  Therefore, he was completely flummoxed when Lady Roper, so casually and warmly had touched his hand, patted it and then — of all the odd things to do— squeezed it gently, as if in sympathy. "There must be a young lady waiting for you somewhere."

  "For her sake," he'd replied grimly, "I hope she's not waiting."

  He preferred mature ladies who were, preferably, already attached elsewhere and would not impede too long upon his own time. Wouldn't want any woman nurturing ideas about a future with him. And babies? He'd never seen the point. There didn't appear to be a shortage in the world; more of a surfeit in London to be sure— urchins running about shoeless, begging to be fed.

  Still, the shock of Lady Roper's concern for his happiness, and the unexpected contact of her hand upon his, had left an odd, not displeasing sensation. It lingered long after he returned to his office.

  He wondered how much the lady knew of her husband's indiscretions. Certainly he did not want to be the instrument by which she found them all out.

  For a full half hour or more yesterday, he had sat at his desk, studying his hands and toying with his pens. His office was always extremely tidy, everything in its place. He kept his quill pens in an important order— the most recently used put to the furthest end of the line, set there to dry and be mended, while the pen left unused for the longest time was, by then, closest and most convenient to his hand. The ink pot was directly above it, kept filled, the lid wiped clean each time it was closed at the end of the day. Wax wafers on the left, candle on the right, along with the pen-knife for cutting nibs and a pounce pot for blotting. It was the order in which he had kept his materials for the past few years. If anybody attempted to move anything, they were barked at so severely that they never went within three feet of his desk again.

  Yesterday, after Lady Roper's astonishing gesture of kindness, he had moved his pens around without thinking, getting them out of order, restlessly arranging and rearranging, while dust beams twinkled and danced in the wedge of spring sunlight through his window.

  The lady, he had finally decided, did not deserve to be ridiculed and subjected to the humiliation of scandal. If he could help her escape that fate, he would do so. Nobody need know why he did it. There would be no risk to his merciless, uncompromising reputation. Even the lady herself had no idea of his intention to help her.

  So he had followed the Ropers that evening, hoping to have this case dissolved, to make her husband see the stupidity of his accusations. Alas, just as he felt Lord Roper weakening toward the side of prudence, their conversation was interrupted.

  He tried to ignore it as long as he could, but the wretched woman behind him was insistent as a fly buzzing around his head.

  Chapter Three

  "Pardon me, sir."

  No response.

  He stood upon the left corner of that borrowed shawl, which must have fallen from her shoulder and dragged to the floor without her notice. Standing one step below and with his back to Pip, in deep conversation with the people behind, the man who held her shawl hostage was apparently unaware of the struggle he caused.

  Only when she tapped his shoulder with her closed fan did he slowly look back, scowling.

  "Pardon me," she repeated.

  "Why? What have you done?"

  Pleasanter, less aggravated faces could be found before feeding time at the zoological gardens in Regent's Park, she mused. He reminded her at once of Master Grumbles, an Irish wolfhound her father once owned. That gentle giant of a dog had followed her everywhere with a misleadingly depressed expression, as if the onerous responsibility of looking after her was almost more than it could bear, despite the fact that they always had a great deal of fun together and nobody had ever told the dog it must be her companion.

  "Sir, your foot." Pointing the end of her fan downward, she gestured to the item that kept her prisoner. "If you don't mind."

  "My foot?" he snapped impatiently, his mind clearly on other matters he deemed more important. Perhaps he was thinking of a bone he'd buried and trying to remember where. "What? What about it?"

  "It's on my shawl."

  His irritable gaze finally shifted to the marble steps as he swiveled partially around. "For pity's sake! Why the devil do women need all these blessed... attachments?" he growled at the lace shawl, holding it up to peruse the large, dirty hole he'd rendered there. "Something this flimsy has no practical service whatsoever and merely gets in the way."

  As she too assessed the damage, her heart sank. Merrythought had only lent her the shawl because it was the general consensus, as they exited the carriage, that Pip's gown showed a grievous amount of shoulder and bosom— something nobody had noticed before they left the house because she was late coming down, dragging her feet. Pip seldom studied herself in a mirror, so little interested in what she wore that she was most likely reading a book, writing a letter, or playing solitaire while being hoisted, laced and primped into her clothes by her aunt's dutiful, but not terribly sensible maid.

  The wolfhound growled onward under his breath, "Too many frills and furbelows dangling off you. As if all the hoops and petticoats aren't enough to keep us at bay. I believe the soldiers at Agincourt wore less armor."

  Before he got any more dirt upon her sister's shawl, she snatched it from his over-sized paw and draped it over her arm. "I quite agree. I'd be more content in my drawers alone, but I suspect this society would be outraged by the sight. Believe me, I've considered it more than once, even if it was only to liven up the proceedings."

  About to dismiss her by turning away again, instead he pivoted fully around, his gaze sharpened, those cool, gun-metal grey eyes inspecting her thoroughly. She stood before him, pinned to the spot, feeling as if invisible, commanding fingers gripped her face and held it to the light. "What's wrong with you?" he demanded.

  Where does one start, she thought wryly. But, of course, she must keep up appearances, for her sisters' sake. "I cannot imagine what you mean," she replied with all necessary hauteur. "There's nothing wrong with me. At least I'm in marginally appropriate dress for a ball." He, on the other hand, was not. Surrounded by gentlemen in crisply groomed evening attire, he stood out in his top boots, riding breeches and tweed coat.

  His thick hair was damp and tousled enough to suggest a very recent ride through the rain, in great haste and hatless. The state of his boots and breeches— for he wore no spatte
rdashes— also revealed the muddiness of the streets through which he had traveled. Apparently he cared little for the impression he made in the grand entrance hall of Lord Courtenay's town house and had as much concern for his appearance as Pip had for her own. The mud specks across his face— which she first mistook for freckles— told her that he, unlike most gentlemen on the staircase, had not consulted any of the mirrored panels on the wall. The skewed sideways knot of his neck cloth, smudged with the same grimy prints as the fingers of his gloves, hinted at the frequent tugging of an angry, frustrated hand. Everything about him suggested disdain for convention and so much impatient haste that it seemed as if he moved at speed, even while he stood still before her. And she must be moving with him, for her heart raced and all the other people on the staircase became mere blurs of color.

  Most young men she met struck her immediately as uninteresting, their minds sluggish and as little predisposed to anything beyond their own uncomplicated, immediate pleasure as plump cats on a sunny veranda. But this man's face was guarded and clever, his eyes lit with the restless, hungry, throbbing gleam of a hungry, bustling internal life. It drew her in; made her curious and challenged at first sight. Made her want to wipe away the remaining mud spatters for him, even at the risk of being bitten.

  He squinted hard at her. "There is something wrong with you." Moving up to join her on the same step, the man persisted, "You speak... strangely."

  "Do I?"

  "Yes, there is something the matter with you."

  "I can't think what you mean."

  And then his eyes flared, "You're a bloody American."

  She drew a quick breath, standing as tall as she could— which, in her mind, was six foot at least, and in reality was a little over five feet and two scant inches. Allegedly. She was certain the measuring stick lied. "Yes," she said proudly, "I am American."

  "Why didn't you say so then?"

  Eyebrows raised, she replied, "I beg your pardon. I didn't think that was what you meant by there being something the matter with me. Something wrong with me."

  He huffed, apparently amused in an arrogant way. "Didn't you indeed?" Shaking his head, he added, "Americans at the Courtenay's spring ball. Whatever is the world coming to? Still, I suppose it's a comic novelty for the luridly curious. Last year I heard they had acrobats and a fortune teller. Lady Courtenay once rode in on a unicorn, so they say." He flicked a finger across his nose, disposing of several dried mud flecks, as he exhaled a curt sigh. "It must be exhausting coming up with a diversion nobody has yet thought of. But Americans? I didn't realize old Courtenay had such a riotous sense of humor."

  Pip smiled brightly in a manner that would have fooled nobody who knew her. "Just you wait. In a year or two we'll be all the fashion and everyone will want one. Even you."

  "I wouldn't make a wager of it." His eyes narrowed, fingers paused in the process of fidgeting with the knot of his neck cloth again. "What are you doing here in any case?"

  Now that was an odd question, she mused. "Why does one usually attend a ball?" But when answered by his silence and another thorough perusal that could only be described as darkly suspicious and slightly indecent, she added, "I'm a spy, of course. Why else would I be here amongst you miserable people? Certainly not likely to have any fun, am I? Somehow your countrymen manage to take the pleasure out of everything with all your stifling, petty rules of etiquette. You wouldn't know a good party if it ran up and slapped you. I have already been warned that I must not, under any circumstances, laugh out loud in this society."

  "A spy?" he muttered. "I might have guessed."

  "Our government sent me to understand the workings of that." With her fan she pointed up at his mouth, almost touching it, "English Stiff Upper Lip."

  He did not flinch away from her fan, but looked at it and then at her again. "And what have you discovered?"

  "That it keeps you all in a state of pompous and frigid inflexibility, so confined by your traditions, unwelcoming to foreigners and outraged by anything different or new, that you dare not move forward."

  "I can see you have your advantages as a spy, being so... short of stature. Indeed I barely knew you were there." With airy nonchalance, hands behind his back, he added, "Until you began to make noise."

  She laughed. "Oh, I may be short, but I have ways of bringing men down to my size. I wouldn't underestimate me, if I were you, sir."

  Once again he had begun to turn away, but then stopped. "And how, precisely, do you imagine you'd bring me to my knees?"

  Every gemstone and crystal bead surrounding them flickered and dazzled like sunlight caught on the ocean tide, but he rose up out of those glistening waves— Poseidon in a wrathful mood— and cast his menacing shadow over her.

  She could almost taste the air of prerogative that rolled off his shoulders.

  Walk away, Pip, her inner voice of reason urged. Don't say anything more. Don't cause a scene. Think of your sisters.

  But the dreary expectation of another stagnant, lackluster evening ahead kept her lingering on the staircase, flirting with handsome menace and— as her father would have pointed out, if he were there— spoiling for an argument.

  Besides, she was heartily sick of being dragged out into this society, just so she could be lectured at and looked down upon, yet again. A curiosity, an exhibit, as this young man had suggested.

  Thus, the voice of caution, silenced by a firm hand across its lips, was dragged out of harm's way.

  "Be warned, sir, that I have a very efficient right hook and a rotten temper. Being American I am not afraid to use either."

  "Praemonitus praemunitus."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Latin. Forewarned is forearmed."

  She dismissed that with a flip of her fan. Ancient languages were, in her opinion, best left in ancient times. "May I remind you that we won the war?"

  "All that trouble of a revolution and here you are, back again."

  "Why are Englishmen so dreadfully smug? Anyone would think you actually have something to be smug about, but I've seen no evidence of it."

  "I believe you're the one doing all the boasting, madam, not me."

  "Even before you opened your mouth, the arrogance was all over your face."

  "Stop looking at it then. Nobody's forcing you, are they?"

  Pip realized she'd been staring into his eyes and even when she blinked to free herself, it didn't help. Instantly her gaze was drawn back again, helpless to resist the fascination.

  A teasing light, devious, even wicked, and yet at the same time almost playful, simmered and sparked in the rich layers of his regard. Looking into those magnetic eyes made her very hot and flushed, which was not like her at all.

  On the other hand, he seemed equally sunk and unable to pull himself out.

  "Mulier est hominis confusio," he muttered.

  Something like alarm quickened within her heart. If she was not very much mistaken that too was Latin. Uh oh. She eyed his unconventional attire again, and that wavy head of hair, which, although it was in some disarray, refusing to be tamed by the fingers he scraped through it, still managed to be wildly beautiful. Like the mane of a Friesian horse.

  "You wouldn't by any chance," she caught her breath, "be Bertie Boxall?"

  "Why would you want to know?" he demanded, eyes narrowed.

  "Because I'm supposed to be an amiable mute in his company."

  He drew back and for a moment she thought he might laugh. Instead he cleared his throat, shoved impatient fingers through that good hair yet again — did he do that to draw attention to one of his best features, she wondered?—and looked around briefly, before fixing her once more in his stern gaze. "An amiable mute? Wouldn't that be nice. Probably too late to begin now."

  "So you are Bertie Boxall? I mean...Lord Boxall?"

  "Little late for that formality too, isn't it?"

  Merde! Should she curtsey? No. Why should she? "Your godmother told my aunt that we could be introduced tonight," she b
lurted. "Should we wish to be."

  "You don't sound very keen."

  "Well, I wasn't. I mean...I'm not." What in damnation did she mean? She flipped open her fan and smartly hit herself on the chin with it.

  "I don't suppose I was to be warned about you skulking in wait, was I? Typical."

  "It was not my idea," she protested. "I'd rather be at home. But when one is not fundamentally lacking one has no choice, according to my aunt. And I never skulk. Skulking is the last thing I would do. It is something that suggests a person is sorry for their very existence and I have no regrets about mine. None whatsoever. Even if other folk do."

  There was an awkward pause while he looked her up and down and she fluttered her fan so hard her wrist ached.

  Finally she snapped it shut again and exclaimed, "Pray, don't think for one moment that I am looking for a man. Or that I am, in any manner, in need of one."

  "Well, I certainly don't require a woman. I have everything I need in my life. But of course, sometimes it's for the best to get it over with and halt the incessant nagging. I suppose one has to put oneself out occasionally for the good of others. So if you need a charitable favor..." He shrugged in a lackluster fashion. "If you're desperate, I'm sure we can come to some marital arrangement. Just try not to get under my feet."

  Although often irritated by the arrogance of the male species, she was seldom amused by it too. He couldn't possibly be real. This must be a practical joke of some sort.

  She studied his face for a clue, but his countenance gave nothing away now. He had suddenly assumed a mask of cool detachment to cover all the intriguing layers she'd seen there in the beginning. Like the majority of Englishmen she'd met, he seemed to have acquired that expression from a manual entitled "The Art of Boring Yourself to Sleep While Standing." Such a tome surely resided on bedside tables across the country, and there was probably an entire Chapter devoted to the avoidance of outward displays of emotion.