“They’d have to catch me first,” Talent muttered as Ian slid the stake into his boot. “Just watch your back, all right?”

It unsettled Ian that someone still cared enough to warn him away from danger. It was that small thing that had Ian giving his staff leave to treat him with undue familiarity; they were all he had. Ian moved to step away from Talent and his concern, but not before giving the man a hard look. “Watch after her.”

Ian had stalked Daisy for much of the day, following her to such innocuous haunts as Florin and her milliner’s. Not that she’d noticed; he’d learned his lesson and stayed far downwind this time. Ian had caught her looking over her shoulder more than once. A smile tugged at his lips. Anxious for his company perhaps?

He came home to change only when his groom, Seamus, had arrived to take over the watch. Seamus was a strong, capable lycan. But Ian preferred Talent’s subtlety for the job.

“Do not let her out of your sight for anything. She can protest all she likes, but the lass is coming home with me tonight.” He would see this thing done with Lena and then he was collecting the stubborn Mrs. Craigmore.

“She’ll never even see me,” Talent promised.

Ian believed it. Talent’s skills were such that he could be practically under one’s nose and the poor sot wouldn’t be the wiser.

“So you’re set on bringing the girl here?” With a precise flick, Talent laid out Ian’s top hat and gloves. He knew better than to try to put them on him. Ian took to being dressed only so far. “Never seen you ask a girl to stay, I’ll give you that. Usually it’s a contest to see whether the door hits their sweet backsides before they get clear of it on their way out.”

“Lady,” Ian corrected with a twinge of irritation as he donned his gloves. The smooth leather scraped raw over his twitching skin. Damn, he was thinking about her again. Was she taking her tea? Changing into her dressing gown? He cleared his throat. “One cannot call a woman such as she a girl.” Not with that figure. “And she’s not coming here to stay. This is solely a matter of protection.”

Talent muttered something best left ignored as he followed Ian out of the dressing room and into his bedchamber.

“Now,” Ian said, “what of the were?” He needed to be well-informed when he faced Lena.

“Word on the streets is of no good. Not one lycan that anyone knows of has turned.” Talent shrugged as he poured Ian a glass of port. “Could be a country lycan gone bad, but with the Ranulfs controlling the borders, I cannot see that happening.”

Ian took the proffered glass and drained it in one gulp. “Aye, the Ranulfs would know if a werewolf came into London. Hell, the sorry bastard would be taken out before he made it to Hampstead.”

Certain as the sun rising in the east, a wolf clan always protected its territory. And London was the territory of the Ranulfs. No beast dwelled within the city proper without the Ranulfs knowing about it. Which made Ian’s teeth grind. Being an ousted member of Clan Ranulf, he was well acquainted with their vigilance in regards to territory. Damn it, and now his hands were tied. On a silent curse, he turned away, handing Talent his empty glass.

As if reading his thoughts, Talent’s expression turned shrewd. “You’re going to ask Lena to approach The Ranulf about it, aren’t you?”

The Ranulf. Ian almost laughed. Even after all these years, he’d be damned if he called Conall The Ranulf. The very notion turned his wame. “Something of the sort.” He drew a hand through his hair and then put on his hat. “It isn’t as if I can approach them.”

He knew he sounded bitter. It had been Ian’s decision to leave the clan. He didn’t regret it, and yet the very notion of still being exiled twisted his guts. He hadn’t realized how very lonely it would feel. Allowed to live on the fringes due to his royal blood, but unable to return to his clan. But he had willingly thrown his birthright away with both hands, and it had been for the best.

Chapter Eight

Daisy counted herself an overzealous fool once more as her coach rolled up before her quarry. The only information she had to go on were past conversations in which Miranda talked about her days in the streets, days in which their father had forced her to steal for him. Dirty blighter. Had Daisy known of his machinations, she would have put a stop to it, even if it had meant taking a parasol to her father’s rather thick skull.

Her driver jumped down and murmured a few words to the man lounging against a lamppost. The man nodded, money discreetly changed hands, and Daisy’s stomach rolled in sudden anxiety. Outside her window, an enormous crow circled once, then twice, cawing as if in agitation, and her pulse sped up. She was not generally superstitious but the overgrown bird’s presence simply cried out “ill omen.”

Her coach door opened. His smell hit her first, ripe onions and old sweat, poorly masked by a copious amount of surprisingly fine cologne. The coach rocked as he hefted himself inside, clearly not a man accustomed to entering conveyances. Daisy shrank away from the stench until her shoulders hit the bolsters.

Shrewd eyes, shadowed by a bright orange bowler trimmed in royal purple, studied her as a toothy grin erupted over his narrow face. “Well, ’ello, ’ello.” His long length oiled in next to her. Too close. “ ’Tis me lucky day, I see. Usually don’t provide services meself. But for you, I shall hav’ to reconsider.” He rubbed his hands in clear anticipation, leering at her br**sts as he did. “Ah but yer a fine full bushel. Wot will it be? A bit o’ tip the velvet muff? Bump the goat?”

Daisy could only blink in shock. This was the infamous Billy Finger, Miranda’s former partner in crime? And here Daisy thought she was the sister with the lewd knowledge.

“Mayhaps somthin’ darker, eh? Cat ’o nines tickle your fancy? Course, I wouldn’t object were you so inclined toward working the gutter lane over the old lobcock here.” With that he grabbed his crotch like an offering.

Her voice finally broke free. “Oh, do shut up!”

Billy frowned, but then shrugged, his bony shoulders moving under a canary-yellow frock coat. “Right then. A silent meetin’ o’ flesh, as it were. I understand perfectly, me lady. Dirty puzzle, you are. Let’s get you unrigged.”

He reached for her, and she slapped his hands. “What? No! Contain yourself, you idiot. I’m not here for an assignation.”

A scowl twisted his face as he scratched the greasy hair peeking out beneath his hideous example of haberdashery. “An’ what’s a gent to expect, invitin’ him into yer coach? I’ve got no time for chin music with a mad hattress.”

“I’m here for assistance,” she said with precise deliberation.

The scowl grew. “If yer wantin’ me for your cove, you’ve got the wrong man. I’m no Nancy what will give up me round mouth for a poke!” He moved to go.

Daisy’s lips twitched, stuck between a laugh and a scream of frustration. “You are Billy Finger, are you not?”

Billy froze. Slowly he turned and looked her over with a calculating eye. “Haven’t heard that name in an age.”

Daisy forced her hand out and gave what she hoped was an amiable smile. “Call me Daisy. I’m Pan’s sister.”

His chuckle was slow, his brown eyes alight with mischief and fondness. Billy Finger, now called Burnt Bill on account of his scarred arms, a souvenir from tangling with Miranda, was known to hold great affection for her sister. By the looks of his smile, Miranda had not exaggerated. “Ah, Pan. I should have known. Is she getting along all right, then?”

“Perfectly well, and said to tell you hello.” A small lie, as Miranda had no idea what Daisy was planning, but Daisy wasn’t sorry for the way Billy beamed. “I do apologize for the confusion Mr… erm… Finger. I ought to have said at once, only your—ah, enthusiasm surprised me.”

“Enthusiasm, eh?” His thin brows waggled. “Can’t think of any man what would blame me.”

He leaned forward, setting off another wave of the scent she’d forevermore think of as “criminal male.”

“Now then, sweet sister of the lovely Pan, what mischief did you have in mind?”

Ian leaped from his coach in front of the ramshackle building that served as home for the club so charmingly named Hell. Well, that wasn’t precisely true. It was both Heaven and Hell. Heaven serving the upper floors of the house, and Hell being the domain of the lower.

Leaning drunkenly over the garbage-strewn West Street in one of London’s foulest neighborhoods, the dilapidated building gave no hint of the decadence hiding within. Indeed, a few young fellows out for a lark dithered on the curb, unsure if they’d found the right place.

Ian had no such hesitation. It wasn’t his first visit here, nor likely his last. A year ago, he’d stumbled out of these hallowed walls from a night of gambling to find Lady Miranda Archer in the act of setting the whole street afire with naught but the power of her mind. A shock, to say the least.

Tonight, however, had the singular distinction of being his first visit in which he wasn’t interested in procuring a willing partner or losing himself in drink and vice. The idea made his step light as he descended the dank stairwell to Hell.

He stopped before a gate of ornate wrought-iron, and the stake in his boot pressed upon his calf. It was a small comfort knowing that its strong point was capable of piercing flesh as hard as plaster.

Ian tugged the bellpull dangling before Hell’s gate. A moment later, the door opened. The form of a ridiculously tall man loomed in the shadowed hall, his black eyes shining in the flickering light of the candelabrum he held.

“Evening, Edmund.” It was all Ian need say.

The black eyes didn’t blink. Well, they never did. But Edmund stepped back to let Ian in.

In contrast to the outside, the inside was pure luxury. Crimson silk-lined walls were lit by crystal gas-fueled sconces. A rug lay underfoot, thick and deep red. Given the amount of foot traffic Hell received, the rug was likely changed out repeatedly. To lay such a rug here was a direct flaunt of the enormous wealth of the club. Ian’s feet trod over it soundlessly.

Male laughter and feminine squeals filled the air, mingling with the sweet smoke of cigars and heady incense imported from India. They walked past parlors as elegant as those in Mayfair, fitted with gilded chairs sturdy enough to hold two and deep satin-covered couches that could hold three or four. And everywhere, everywhere, na**d flesh undulated.

They passed a long dining room with walls lacquered in blood red. Upon a matching dining table lay a lass, her legs spread, her sweet br**sts pointing up to the ceiling. Jaded or not, Ian was a man, and the sight was hard to ignore. She’d been covered in fruit, some pushed into interesting places. She writhed as men feasted upon her.

Edmund led him along a familiar route, down another set of stairs that descended farther into the earth. Lamplight hit the fall of Edmund’s long hair, casting it bone white against his black frockcoat. Like a lass’s hair, Ian thought, resisting the urge to rake his own hair back. He still wasn’t accustomed to wearing it longer and decided that he’d draw the line at hair that fell to his middle back. But Edmund’s kind liked to flaunt their differences.

Down below, the sex games continued, but the fiends participating here feasted on flesh in an altogether different manner. Here, fangs punctured smooth skin and blood ran freely. But as all participants were willing, Ian wouldn’t judge.

Lena was waiting for him when he entered. Diminutive and wraithlike, she sat curled up in a large black-leather wing chair by a crackling fire. Firelight caressed the curve of her paper-white cheek as she smiled, a catlike curl of red lips. As always, Ian was struck by the sight of her. The strange way she arranged her raven hair, the top parted and twisted into small rolls at the back of her head, the rest left to fall down her back. It called to mind drawings from the Far East. An image heightened by the lacquered sticks spearing her coiffure and the silver silk dressing gown that hugged her body. She was like a doll. A beautiful, deadly doll.

He heightened his senses as he came near, and the coppery scent of her enveloped him.

“Lena.” He bowed. “It has been too long.”

“Ian Ranulf.” The rich depth in her voice belied her size. “Still as handsome as the devil.” Obsidian eyes traveled over his form in a leisurely perusal. “Perhaps more so with that hair.”

He saw the interest in her and knew what it was to bed her: cold, exciting, too dangerous—hence the excitement. In the darker hours of his life, Ian had been fairly addicted to that sort of bed sport. Now, however, he gave her a benign smile. “And you, Lena, are incomparable as always.”

She laughed at that, showing a bit of sharp teeth. “Flatterer. Sit.” A white hand indicated the seat next to hers. She leaned in when he did, setting the carnelian beads in her hair sticks to clattering. “Come, let us drink, then we shall talk.”

Deftly, she poured a good measure of vodka into two cups—one silver, the other bone—and handed him the bone cup. A friendly gesture, as lycans, while tolerating silverware well enough, did not like to drink from silver cups.

She waited until he had a mouthful of cold, clean vodka to attack. “The rumors are true then.”

Ian took his time swallowing. There were rumors, and there were rumors. He no longer cared about the one but the other…“Given their very nature, I wouldn’t put much stock in rumors, Lena.”

Unfortunately, her mouth curled again. “Not those stories, darling. I could never believe that of you.” As she had had him in his prime, he could see why. He remained silent. “I have every confidence you will soon have need of my girls again.” A cold hand patted his. “It’s just a lull, I am sure.”