His voice rose, furious. “I asked you a question.”

“He called you Baine.”

Jasper spun to face his father, Earl Harlow, tall and strong and unbending even now. Even in this moment. Even as his legacy crumbled around him, and he faced his life’s disappointment.

Now heir.

Jasper fought for breath, then for words.

His father found them first.

“It should have been you.”

Chapter One

Avenues for investigation have become severely limited, as has time.

In the name of proper enquiry, I have made adjustments to my research.

Secret Serious adjustments.

The Scientific Journal of Lady Philippa Marbury

March 21, 1831; fifteen days prior to her wedding

Seven years later

The lady was mad.

He would have realized it five minutes earlier if he hadn’t been half-asleep, shocked as hell to find a young, blond, bespectacled female seated at his desk, reading his ledger.

He might have realized it three minutes earlier if she hadn’t announced, all certainty, that he’d miscalculated column F, ensuring that his understanding of her madness was preempted by shock at her pluck and admiration for her mathematical skill. Or perhaps the reverse.

And he most definitely would have realized that the woman was utterly insane sixty seconds earlier if he hadn’t been rather desperately attempting to clothe himself. For long moments, his shirt had appeared to lose a rather critical opening, which was a distraction indeed.

Now, however, he was quite awake, had closed the (correctly accounted) ledger, and was fully (if not appropriately) clothed. The universe had righted itself, and rational thought had returned, right around the time she’d explained what it was she wanted.

And there, in the silence that followed her announcement, Cross had understood the truth.

There was no doubt about it: Lady Philippa Marbury, daughter to the Marquess of Needham and Dolby, sister-in-law to the Marquess of Bourne and lady of excellent ton, was barking mad.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, impressed with his ability to remain civil in the face of her utter insanity. “I am certain I did not hear you correctly.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did,” the lady said simply, as though commenting on the weather, big blue eyes unsettling and owl-like behind thick spectacles. “I might have given you a shock, but your hearing is quite sound, I should think.”

She advanced on him, navigating a path between a half dozen towering stacks of books and a bust of Medusa he’d been meaning to move. The hem of her pale blue skirts brushed against one long serpent’s body, and the sound of the fabric rustling against bronze sent a thread of awareness through him.

Wrong.

He was not aware of her. He would not be aware of her.

It was too dark in this damned room. He moved to light a lamp a good distance away, near the door. When he looked up from the task, it was to find that she had altered her course.

She came closer, crowding him back toward the heavy mahogany, throwing him off-kilter. For a moment, he considered opening the door just to see if she might charge through, leaving him in the office, alone and free from her. From what she represented. Able to close the portal firmly behind her, pretend this encounter had never happened, and restart his day.

He knocked into a large abacus, and the rattle of ebony yanked him from his thoughts.

He stopped moving.

She kept coming.

He was one of the most powerful men in Britain, part-owner of London’s most notorious gaming hell, easily ten inches taller than she, and rather fearsome when he wanted to be.

She was neither the kind of woman he was conditioned to notice nor the kind of woman who expected to receive his notice. And she was certainly not the kind of woman who rattled his control.

Pull yourself together, man.

“Stop.”

She stopped, the word hanging harsh and defensive between them. He did not like it. Did not like what the strangled sound said about the way this strange creature had instantly affected him.

But she didn’t see any of that, thank God. Instead, she tilted her head the way a puppy might, curious and eager, and he resisted the temptation to take a good long look at her.

She was not for looking at.

Certainly not for looking at by him.

“Shall I repeat myself?” she asked when he said nothing else.

He did not reply. Repetition was unnecessary. Lady Philippa Marbury’s request was fairly burned into his memory.

Nevertheless, she lifted one hand, pushed her spectacles back on her nose, and took a deep breath. “I require ruination.” The words were as simple and unwavering now as they had been the first time she’d spoken them, devoid of nervousness.

Ruination. He watched the way her lips curved around the syllables, caressing consonants, lingering on vowels, turning the experience of hearing the word into something startlingly akin to its meaning.

It had become quite warm in his office.

“You’re mad.”

She paused, clearly taken aback by the statement. Good. It was time someone other than he was surprised by the events of the day. Finally, she shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

“You ought to seriously consider the possibility,” he said, edging past her, increasing the space between them—a difficult endeavor in the cluttered office, “as there is no additional rational explanation for why you would be unchaperoned in London’s most notorious gaming hell, asking to be ruined.”

“It’s not as though a chaperone would have been rational,” she pointed out. “Indeed, a chaperone would have made this whole scenario impossible.”