This Venetia was not going to turn down an opportunity to dance with him, no matter how churlishly his inquiry was worded.

“The pleasure would be mine,” she said.


The moment Christian saw her, the rest of the ballroom disappeared. It could have been set on fire, with beams collapsing and guests fleeing, and the only thing he’d notice would be the reflection of firelight in her eyes.

His stepmother had to nudge him before he remembered to ask her to dance.

Mrs. Easterbrook smiled at him, a smile as lovely as sunrise, as dangerous as a bullet.

More than at any point since his return, he yearned for the baroness. The world might think him mad, but to himself he never needed to justify his love for her. Everything was founded on substance. There was nothing shallow or shameful in what he felt about her.

There was everything shallow and shameful in the reactions Mrs. Easterbrook bullied from him.

The musicians struck up the first strains of “Vienna Sweets.” He held out his arm, and she placed her hand on his elbow, her motion as beautiful as her person—a creature born to be heedlessly adored.

It wasn’t until they were walking side by side toward the center of the ballroom—when he wasn’t directly looking at her—that an odd sensation stole over him. Surely they’d never touched before, yet her fingers upon his sleeve carried a disquieting familiarity.

After the introspective opening, the waltz suddenly turned bright and cheerful. It was time to dance.

The shape of her hand in his, the feel of her back beneath his palm, the pressure of her body as he swept her into a series of turns—the sensation of familiarity only doubled, when he should be surprised that she was not as exaggeratedly voluptuous as he’d always imagined, but more lithe and willowy, reminiscent of—

No, he must not draw any similarities between them. The last thing he wanted was for his mind to start pasting Mrs. Easterbrook’s features onto the baroness’s still-blank face.

Then she would never live up to his expectations.

This stray, too brutally honest thought infuriated him. It did not matter to him what his beloved looked like. All the better if she looked nothing like Mrs. Easterbrook.

“Did I see Your Grace at the Natural History Museum the day before yesterday?” murmured Mrs. Easterbrook.

Some despised part of him was thrilled that she’d remember him. “You did.”

It occurred to him that he’d accepted her unexpected appearance the other day as a given, as part of the trials and tribulations he must overcome before he could be reunited with the baroness. But why had she been inside the Natural History Museum at all? And wasn’t it more than a little odd that the previous time he’d seen her, five years ago, it had been just outside the museum?

The etiquette of the waltz called for him to keep his gaze over her shoulder, but he was glad for the excuse to look at her. The déjà vu sensation of the contours of her body was becoming too strong for comfort, and his mind, never his own to control when she was around, insinuated that he’d know exactly where and how to touch to make her melt with desire.

Their eyes met. But her beauty, instead of derailing his current, highly untenable train of thoughts, only reawakened a primitive possessiveness: He wanted to lock her in his manor and allow no one to gaze upon her but himself.

She smiled again. “You enjoyed your visit, I hope.”

He looked away. “I liked it well enough. And was your visit ever able to recover from the hideousness of the giant reptiles?”

“I’m afraid it never did. I don’t know why I subject myself to such unpleasantness.”

“Why did you, then?”

“The whims of a woman, what can I say?”

Why did he want this insipid creature? Why did he want this dance to go on and on, when he ought to be thinking of someone else?

Not too much longer now before their appointed meeting. And this time, he would not let her go again.

“How do you find London after a long absence, sir?” she murmured.

“Troublesome.”

“Ah, on that we agree.”

The timbre of her voice—where had he heard her speak before?

“I will call on you tomorrow afternoon, Mrs. Easterbrook,” he said. “And if it is agreeable to you, we will take a ride together in the park. That should be sufficient to quash the rumors.”

“And will you stop calling on me after that?”

“Naturally.”

“A shame,” she said. “Are Your Grace’s affections engaged—elsewhere?”

Was it his imagination or had she paused deliberately before saying “elsewhere”? The word in English was nothing like its equivalent in German but somehow still managed to sound uncanny.

He looked again at her. She stared straight over his shoulder. She was slightly easier to take without the effect of her direct gaze, but still she was unbearably beautiful. The gods would have wept.

“That is none of your concern, madam.”

“No, of course not, but one does hear rumors. Very prudent of you to stop calling on me once we have detracted Lady Avery. Your lady would not be too pleased were you constantly seen with me. I have, shall we say, a certain effect on men.”

He hated her smugness. “My lady has nothing to worry about.”

She flicked him a glance that would have made Achilles put down his shield and forsake all the glories of Troy. “If you say so, sir.”


They danced the rest of the waltz without speaking.

Venetia was relieved that she didn’t need to go on saying things that made Mrs. Easterbrook sound the exact opposite of Baroness von Seidlitz-Hardenberg. But she missed hearing his voice, even if he now spoke an icy English instead of an affectionate German.

This was her beloved, back in her arms—a terrible miracle, but a miracle nonetheless. She found it difficult to restrain herself, to not let her left hand trace the contour of his shoulder, her right thumb caress the center of his gloved hand, or her head lean forward and rest upon him.

She wanted the dance to never end.

But all too soon, the waltz drew to a close. The dancers all around them pulled apart. The duke, too, made to separate from her. But Venetia, immersed in memories of their closeness—did not let go.

She realized her mistake after only a second. But a second was a very long time for such a faux pas. She might as well have unbuttoned her bodice; it would not have shocked him more.

And shocked he was. He regarded her with the extreme severity one reserved for those who’d trespassed against not only morality, but good taste. As if she were a common streetwalker who had marched into the ball uninvited and accosted him.

The silence, as he escorted her off the dance floor, was excruciating.


He is not here,” said Hastings. “The wife’s mother is ill. He has dutifully gone to Worcestershire to attend her.”

Helena did not need to ask who “he” was. At first she’d been too anxious about the reception that awaited Venetia. But now that the duke had come and gone after a surprising and surprisingly effective maneuver, she’d allowed herself to scan the crowd for a sign of Andrew. His mother’s family was very well connected and he could be counted on to have invitations to the more sought-after functions.

“Do you think I should be paying my addresses to Mrs. Martin, my dear Miss Fitzhugh?” he whispered. “Martin doesn’t look the sort to have enough stamina to service two women. And goodness knows you could probably exhaust Casanova himself.”

Again this insinuation that she must be a sufferer of nymphomania. Behind her fan, she put her lips very close to his ear. “You’ve no idea, my Lord Hastings, the heated yearnings that singe me at night, when I cannot have a man. My skin burns to be touched, my lips kissed, and my entire body passionately fondled.”

Hastings was mute, for once. He stared at her with something halfway between amusement and arousal.

She snapped shut her fan and rapped his fingers as hard as she could, watching with great satisfaction as he choked back a yelp of pain.

“By anyone but you,” she said, and turned on her heels.


For the ride in the park, Christian trotted out his grandest landau—so he could sit as far away from Mrs. Easterbrook as possible.

Which was not quite far enough to avoid the tangible pull of her beauty.

Unlike the baroness, she did not twirl her parasol, but held it perfectly steady. Her entire person was as still as Pygmalion’s sculpture, cool, heartless, and nevertheless lovely enough to derange a man.

Her rose-colored afternoon dress cast a subtle blush upon her cheeks. Her eyes, in the shade cast by her cream lace parasol, were aquamarine, the exact color of the warm Mediterranean that had so enchanted the secret voluptuary in him. Her lips, soft, full, perfectly delineated, promised to taste of rose petals and willingness.

It was only when she spoke that he realized he’d already begun to mentally undress her, ripping off the silk-covered buttons of her bodice like so many currants from the stem.

“You are immersed in thought, sir. Anticipating your dinner with your lady, perhaps?”

His attention snapped to abruptly. How would she know anything of his dinner? And, an instant later, great, terrible guilt: On the eve of his much hoped-for reunion with the baroness, his mind was eagerly committing an act of infidelity.

He wanted to blame it on Mrs. Easterbrook’s conduct, the way she’d held on to him at the end of their waltz: She might as well have given him the key to her house along with a wink and a blown kiss. Her intentions had smoldered in his blood ever since.