“Tess will find out who did it,” Lucius said.

“How do you know?”

“I’m married to her.”

Mayne nodded. “I’ll go home and fetch Griselda.” Between them, Tess and Griselda would take care of Josie. If that were possible.

26

From The Earl of Hellgate’s Memoirs,

Chapter the Nineteenth

Before I had my wits about me, Dear Reader, the fair Hippolyta had—I blush to say it—tied me to the wall by means of some ingenious hooks and the scarf from her hair. You will chastise me for not breaking these fragile bonds, but I fancy that anyone of the male persuasion who happens upon these words will understand my hesitation. For I could not offend her sensibilities, and presently she began to engage in such bewitching activities…

F or the fourth time, Griselda said that she must leave. She didn’t want to. The problem was Darlington. How dare he look at her with that rapt expression, as if he found what she said—no matter how inane—madly interesting? And how dare he make a sheet look so elegant?

“Just imagine if all your lady friends could see you now!”She shuddered at the thought. “Don’t even mention it,” she implored.

A shadow crossed his eyes. “It’s not so bad, is it?”

She rolled to her side as well, and then up on one elbow, so they lay facing each other. The sheet had slipped to his waist, leaving a broad chest and broader shoulders, tousled blond hair, and those arrogant cheekbones. Every inch of his ancient lineage spoke in those cheekbones.

“You look like a sugarplum,” Darlington said. “I could eat you for breakfast, and every meal after that.”

Griselda laughed, and her hair slid across her chest. It felt wickedly decadent lying in bed with the sheet at her waist, her breasts not pinned in, or corseted, or even covered…just there. And his eyes devouring them.

“How can you stand being so beautiful? I think I’d be like Narcissus and just admire myself all day long.”

“You are quite lovely yourself,” she said, memorizing his face.

He shrugged. “The better to buy myself a wife, I suppose.”

“Do you have anyone in mind?”

“I can’t think about such a disheartening subject when I have you with me.”

“What about Miss Mary Parish?” she asked.

“The girl with spots?”

“She only has a few, and they won’t last over a year.”

He shook his head. “No.”

“You mustn’t be so attached to physical beauty.” She reached out to trace a path across the muscles of his chest. His skin felt warm and slightly roughened with hair. “Lady Cecily Severy. The daughter of a duke.”

“And since it’s her third—or is it fourth?—season, she can’t be choosy about marrying a penniless third son,” he said.

She heard the faintest ring of sarcasm in his voice and flattened her palm into a caress. “You have a great deal to offer.”

“In reality, no. I have a clever way with a phrase, but when I lose my temper I’m a veritable bastard. I have few skills, thanks to my father’s errant belief that I would go into the Church, all evidence to the contrary.”

“They must maintain some standards,” Griselda said, smiling at him.

But he didn’t smile back. “Once my father accepted that the Church would likely never have me, he began bringing home lists of debutantes. Young girls of an appropriate family, with a large dowry. Of course, they couldn’t be of the very best quality, or they would never wish to marry one such as I. It had to be a nicely calculated mix: a girl with means, but one whose parents would be sufficiently dazzled by their new son-in-law’s relation to the Duke of Bedrock that they would overlook his impoverished status, his lack of skills, and his general uselessness.”

Griselda’s hand went to her mouth. “The Wooly Breeder,” she breathed.

His eyes were bleak with self-dislike. “That poor girl ended up without a match for a whole season.”

“But she did marry happily last year,” Griselda said.

“She would not have been happy married to me, for all that her father and mine thought they had sewed it up beautifully.”

Griselda was staring at him. “You weren’t only making yourself known with clever phrases. You were getting rid of your father’s choices. I suppose that Josie was unlucky enough to attract your father’s attention.”

“A perfect choice, from his point of view. Miss Essex’s birth is impeccable. Her dowry was also known to be quite large. At the same time, she was fatherless and reputed to be rather less than perfect in form. Just the sort of young woman who might be persuaded to accept me.”

“He didn’t say that!”

“Actually, he did.”

“You should never have called Josie a sausage, even so.”

“I am telling you only so that you despise me as much as I despise myself,” he said, his voice steady. “I ruined those girls’ lives—your ward among them—merely so that my father could not promote them as appropriate brides.”

There was no point in pretense. “That was shabby of you,” Griselda said, “if understandable.” She hesitated. “But you’re not going to do it again…you are planning to marry now, aren’t you?”

“Marry a debutante?”

“Yes.”

“I shall not.”

“But I thought—”

“I changed my mind. Recently.”

Griselda’s heart was beating to the tune of all the questions she had. Why—why—why. She said nothing. It was not her business why—

“Don’t you want to ask me any questions?” He lay before her, a golden symphony of muscle and silken hair.

Absolutely not.

“Do I wish to talk about your future nuptials?” she said, feeling a smile curve on her lips that was as old as Cleopatra herself. “I do not. But I can think of some very important questions…I’ll ask you those instead, shall I?”

He was grinning at her through the hair over his eyes, so she brushed it back.

“First question,” she said, “and pay close attention, if you please. What do you like best about this part of my body?”

Darlington’s answer involved a demonstration of friction and physics…and somehow she never reached her second question.

27

From The Earl of Hellgate,

Chapter the Nineteenth

She drew off my clothing, Dear Reader, while I stood transfixed, as silent as any block of marble not yet kissed into life. How can I say this without a blush? I allowed her to have her way with me, and if it were her pleasure to call me to her side in the midst of a rondeau, I came to her. And if it were her pleasure to request that I disrobe even in the very midst of the ton—in Almack’s, Dear Reader, I faint to write the words, I…my pen falls from my despairing fingers…

G riselda wasn’t home. At first Mayne just stared at the butler who informed him that his sister was at the races. She wasn’t at the races! She’d gone home hours ago with Darlington…she’d felt faint…Darlington had—

Darlington.But just to make sure, he took his carriage around to Griselda’s little town house, for all that she hadn’t lived there for two years, since agreeing to act as chaperone to the Essex girls. It was dark and the knocker muffled.