She needed… She turned blindly in the direction of the ballroom doors and the relative privacy of the ladies' withdrawing room beyond. She did not even take the time to skirt the perimeter of the room but hurried across it, thankful that enough dancers had gathered there to prevent her from looking too conspicuous.

She felt horribly conspicuous anyway. She remembered to smile.

As she approached the doors, she glanced back over her shoulder to see if Crispin was coming after her. She was in a ridiculous panic. Even /she/ knew it was ridiculous, but the trouble with panic was that it was beyond one's power to control.

She turned her head to face the front again, but she did so too late to stop herself from plowing into a gentleman who was standing before the doors, blocking the way.

She felt for a moment as if all the breath had been knocked from her body. And then she felt a horrible embarrassment to add to her confusion and panic. She was pressed against a very solid male body from shoulders to knees, and she was being held in place there by two hands that gripped her upper arms like a vise. "I am so sorry," she said, tipping back her head and pushing her hands against his broad chest in a vain effort to put some distance between them so that she could step around him and hurry on her way.

She found herself gazing up into very black eyes set in a harsh, narrow, angular, dark-hued face – an almost ugly face framed by hair as dark as his eyes. "Excuse me," she said when his grip on her arms did not loosen. "Why?" he asked her, his eyes roaming boldly over her face. "What is your hurry? Why not stay and dance with me? And then marry me and live happily ever after with me?" Margaret was startled out of her panic.

His breath smelled of liquor.

There had been no ball the evening after Duncan's interview with his grandfather. Not one single one. London positively teemed with lavish entertainments every day and night of the Season, but for that one infernal evening there had been nothing to choose among except a soiree that was being hosted by a lady who was a notable bluestocking and that would doubtless be attended by politicians and scholars and poets and in telligent ladies, and a concert with a program clearly designed for the musically discerning and not for anyone who happened to be shopping in a hurry at the marriage mart.

Duncan had not attended either but had been forced to waste one of his precious fifteen days. He had gone to Jackson's Boxing Salon yesterday afternoon when he might, he thought too late, have joined the afternoon promenade in Hyde Park to look over the crop of prospective brides. And today, when he /had/ thought of going there, rain had been spitting intermittently from low gray clouds, and all he met were a few hardy fellow riders – all male – and one closed carriage filled with dowagers.

He had been reminded of those dreams in which one tried to run but found it impossible to move even as fast as a crawl.

But tonight there was Lady Tindell's ball to attend, and it was a promising event. According to his mother, who planned to be there, it was always one of the grand squeezes of the Season since Lady Tindell was renowned for her lavish suppers. Everyone who was anyone would be there, including, Duncan fervently hoped, armies of young, marriageable hopefuls who were running out of time in the Season to find husbands.

It was enough to make him feel positively ill.

He had not told his mother about his grandfather's ultimatum though he might have to enlist her help if he found himself unable to come up with a bride on his own within the next few days. His mother knew everybody.

She would be sure to know which girls – and, more important, which parents – were desperate enough to take a man of such notorious reputation in such indecent haste.

He arrived late. It was perhaps not a wise thing to do when time was of the very essence, but earlier in the evening he had acquired cold feet – the almost inevitable consequence of having been forced to wait more than twenty-four hours to begin implementing his search – and had stayed at White's long after he had finished his dinner and his companions had left to go about their evening business, some of them to attend this very ball. He might have come with them and hoped to enter the ballroom almost unnoticed. Instead he had stayed to fortify himself with another glass of port – only to discover that fortification had demanded several more glasses of port than just one.

He did not have an invitation to the ball, but he did not fear being turned away – not after a few glasses of port, anyway. He was, after all, the Earl of Sheringford. And if anyone remembered the rather spectacular scandal of five years ago, as everyone surely would – well, they would undoubtedly be avid with curiosity to discover what had become of him in the intervening years and how he would behave now that he was back.

Duncan wondered suddenly if any of the Turners were in town this year, and fervently hoped not. It would not be a comfortable thing to come face to face with Randolph Turner in particular – the man he had cuckolded.

He was /not/ turned away from the ball. But of course he had arrived late enough that there was no longer any sign of a receiving line or even of a majordomo to announce him. He stepped into the ballroom, having left his hat and cloak downstairs in the care of a footman, and looked about him.

He felt very much on display and half expected that after all there would be a rush of outraged persons, led by ladies, to expel him into outer darkness. It did not happen, though undoubtedly he /was/ attracting some attention. He could hear a slightly heightened buzz of sound off to his right.

He ignored it.

It was indeed a squeeze of a ball. If everyone decided to dance, they would have to push out the walls. And if everyone decided to rush him… Well, he would be squashed as flat as a pancake.

He had arrived between sets, but couples were gathering on the floor for the next one. Good! He would be able to view the matrimonial prospects at his leisure provided that buzz of interest to his right did not develop into a swell of outrage to fill the ballroom.

He could see Con Huxtable and a few other male acquaintances some distance away, but he made no move to join them. He would become too involved in conversation if he did and perhaps allow himself to be borne off to the card room. He would be willing enough, by God. He could feel his mood turn bleaker and blacker with every passing second. This ought not to be happening.

He had /not/ planned to go wife hunting yet – or perhaps ever. He had /certainly/ not planned to come to London any year soon.

How the devil was he to begin?

There were pretty women and plain ones, young ones and old ones, animated ones and listless ones – that last group being the wallflowers, he suspected. Most of them, indeed, were still standing on the sidelines, nary a partner in sight though the dancing was about to resume. He should probably concentrate his attention upon them.

It was one devil of a way to choose a bride! Pick the most bored-looking wallflower and offer to brighten her life. Offer her marriage with a man who had abandoned his last bride almost literally at the altar in order to run off with her married sister-in-law and live in sin with her for almost five years. A man who had no wish whatsoever to marry but was being forced into it by the threat of penury. A man who no longer believed in romantic love and had never practiced fidelity. A man with an illegitimate child he refused to hide away in some dark corner of the country.

He had fixed his narrowed gaze upon a mousy-haired young girl who, if his eyes did not deceive him from this distance, had a flat chest and a bad case of facial spots, and who was beginning to notice his scrutiny and look decidedly frightened by it, when he was distracted.

A missile almost bowled him off his feet – something hurled his way in order to expel him after all, perhaps?

He clamped his hands about the two arms of the missile in order to save himself from landing flat on his back – what a spectacular reentry into society /that/ would be! – and realized that it was a human missile.

A female human, to be exact. /Very/ female.

She was all generously sized breasts and delicious curves and subtly fragrant dark hair. And when she tipped back her head to apologize, she revealed a face that did the body full justice, by thunder. She had wide eyes and a porcelain complexion and features that had been arranged on her face for maximum effect. She was loveliness personified from head to toe.

He held her against him longer than was necessary – and far longer than was wise in such a public setting, when his sudden appearance was already provoking attention. But she would surely fall over if he released her too soon, he reasoned.

She had long legs – he could feel them against his own.

She was beautiful and voluptuous – and pressed by some happy chance to his body. Could any warmblooded male ask for more? Privacy and nakedness and a soft bed, perhaps?

The only negative thing that could be said about her – on the spur of the moment anyway – was that she was not young. She was probably his own age, give or take a couple of years. That was not at all young for a woman.

She was undoubtedly married, then. She must have been snaffled up off the marriage mart ten or twelve years ago. She probably had half a dozen children. A pity that. But fate was ever a joker. He must not expect his search to be /this/ easily or happily concluded.

There was no ring on the left hand that was splayed over his chest, though, he noticed.

All of which thoughts and observations flashed through his head in a matter of moments. "Excuse me," she said, flushing and looking even more beautiful, if that were possible.

She was pushing at his chest. Trying to get away.

There was no harm in being hopeful, was there? "Why?" he asked her. "What is your hurry? Why not stay and dance with me? And then marry me and live happily ever after with me?" He felt her body grow still and watched the arrested look on her face.

Then her eyebrows arched above her eyes – and even /they/ were lovely. It was no wonder some poets wrote poems to their ladies' eyebrows. "Does it /have/ to be in that order?" she asked him.

Ah. An intriguing answer indeed. An answer in the form of a question.

Duncan pursed his lips.

She had bowled him over after all – and rendered him temporarily speechless.

4

MARGARET almost laughed, though more with hysteria than with amusement. /What/ had he said?

And /what/ had she answered?

Gracious heaven, he was a total stranger, and not a very reputable-looking one at that. Was anyone observing them? Whatever would they /think/?

His hands had loosened their hold on her arms though they still remained there. She could have broken away quite easily and hurried on her way out of the ballroom. Instead she looked up at him and waited to see what he would say next.

He had pursed his lips, and his very dark eyes – surely they could not be literally black? – gazed steadily and boldly back at her.

He appeared to be quite alone. Some instinct told Margaret that he was not the sort of man with whom she ought to be talking, especially without a formal introduction. But here she was standing very close to him, her hands splayed on his chest, his clasping the bare flesh of her upper arms between her sleeves and her gloves. And they had been standing thus for more seconds than any ordinary collision ought to have occasioned. They ought to have sprung apart, both embarrassed and both apologizing profusely.

Oh, goodness.

She pushed at his chest again and, when he still did not release his hold on her arms, she dropped her own to her sides. Her back prickled.

Half the /ton/ was somewhere behind her. Including her family. And including Crispin Dew. And the Marquess of Allingham. "I am afraid it does," the stranger said at last in answer to her question. "If I dash off immediately in pursuit of a special license, you see, and then someone to perform the ceremony, this particular set will surely be over by the time I return. And someone else will have discovered you and eloped to Scotland with you and left me clutching a useless document. If we are to both dance and marry, it must be done in that order, I am afraid – much as I am flattered by your eagerness to proceed to the nuptials without further delay." How very outrageous he was, whoever he might be. Margaret ought not to have laughed – she ought to have been offended by the levity of his words, absurd and quick-witted though they were.