“You were going to finish your thought, Nicholas.”

“I am going to listen to you play me a lullaby,” Nick informed him, “while we both get sentimental over some of my best brandy.”

“Of course. My very thoughts, but, Nick?”

“Hmm?” Nick passed off hat, cape, gloves, and cane to a footman, and Val waited until they were again alone to continue.

“You should marry only for love,” Val said, oddly serious. “Another man, even I, might be able to carry off the typical cordial war that passes for a Society marriage, but it will destroy you to make such a compromise.”

Nick settled an arm around his friend’s shoulders and steered him toward the cozy confines of the family parlor. “Valentine, you are a dear man, with artistic sensibilities and a paucity of single brothers. Spare me your pronouncements about matrimony until the reality looms a little closer to your own experience, hmm? There’s a lad. Tell me, how many bottles will it take before you play me some of that stuff you make up on the spot but don’t write down? You’ve a name for it.”

“Improvisation,” Val said, letting Nick lead him toward the Broadwood. “Because you’re being contrary and stubborn, you’ll get only Scarlatti from me tonight.”

“Scarlatti it is.” Nick signaled his butler for an extra bottle of the good stuff anyway.

* * *

“Darius?” Lady Leah Lindsey stifled a yawn as the horses swung into a trot.

“Hmm?” Darius Lindsey was not so polite and exercised a brother’s prerogative by yawning audibly and rolling his neck.

“What do you know of Viscount Reston?” Leah asked, glad for the lack of light in the coach and for a brother who would join her on the forward-facing seat.

“I know he’s quite, quite tall, and in vulgarly good physical condition.” Darius peered at her with a brother’s inconvenient curiosity. “Built like a Viking, and blond like one.”

“So you’ve seen him. But what do you know of him?”

“He’s not married,” Darius said musingly, “and a certain type of woman lines up to offer him her wares, according to gossip. Some say he was rusticating for the past few years. Others say he was taking the cure for years of mischief. He has friends in odd places, high and low, and he’s rumored to be looking for a bride, because old Bellefonte is approaching his last prayers. He doesn’t gamble to excess, and there’s no mention of public displays of temper or inebriation. Lots of speculation about the man, but little real fact.”

Leah said nothing, while she privately concluded Reston must be a decent enough fellow, because as she well knew, vices were pounced upon and dissected by the gossips without mercy.

“Finances?” Leah asked, thinking of Reston’s casual offer to buy up Hellerington’s markers.

“Finances…” Darius tipped back his head to rest on the squabs—he was in demand as dancing partner, and the night had no doubt been long for him. “Word when we left for Italy was that Bellefonte was all but rolled up, and with all those daughters to launch, the gossip was probably accurate. Reston is rumored to have taken over the reins and set things to rights rather quickly. He isn’t seen to be in trade, so one wonders how he’s done it.”

“You could ask him,” Leah said, sinking down a little more against the cushions.

“I could.” Darius’s tone was sardonic. “Just sidle up to a man who could snap my neck with his bare hands and ask how he’s pulled his family out of dun territory with no one the wiser. Do you comprehend what that question implies?”

Smuggling, though an older brother would turn that admission into even more of a scold. “I do, though I would not for anything risk my brothers. Still, it would be nice to know.” Nice, too, to have an excuse to converse with the man again—to kiss him again.

The thought was useless—also harmless, because there would be no opportunity to indulge it.

Darius propped a foot on the opposite seat. “So you ask him. He’s looking for a bride, you’re available, and an acquaintance between you would not be so unusual, at least in proper social settings. I’ve been introduced to him, so I can see to the proprieties.”

“You said he’s a womanizer. Is that whom you want me consorting with?”

Darius’s tone became lazy. “My dear, I am a womanizer. Every man who can get away with it, practically, is a womanizer. You ladies inspire us to it.”

“Blaming the women, Darius?” Leah’s tone was cool.

“Oh, now.” Darius looped an arm across her shoulders. “Hellerington has rattled you. He’s rattled me, too. I cannot bear to think of you with that man, Leah.”

“Then don’t think of it,” she said, letting her head rest on his shoulder. Of all the considerations her brothers showed her, this one—this casual affection—meant the most. She’d felt cast out, judged, unclean, and unforgivably stupid as a younger woman, and Society had done its cruel best to reinforce her opinion. Her brothers, though, had stood by her, and eventually the scandal had been faced down.

There were good men in the world, Leah reassured herself. Her brothers were good men.

Lord Reston… was a puzzle. His kiss lingered in Leah’s memory like a bonfire on a hill, a bright, riveting, but isolated event that drew her attention even while she should be figuring out how to tolerate a life as Lady Hellerington.

Reston was kind. She’d felt it in his touch, heard it in his voice, tasted it in his kiss and in the way he’d assumed an unthreatening, companionable honesty with her from the first moment. He was also stunningly, spectacularly masculine in that kindness. He wore some kind of Eastern scent, sturdy like sandalwood but sweetened with an exotic note of spices. His hands had been gentle, for all their size, but they’d also been undeniably knowing.

So he was kind, handsome, and single, but he was also—and most especially—wrong for her.

He would never take from a woman by plunder. He’d seduce instead, and make a lady grateful for the privilege of giving to him what he had not earned and would not treasure past a fleeting moment.

Two

Nick punched his pillow, the strains of Val’s soft music drifting to him through the darkness. Val played like this only when he was alone with a good instrument, the music flowing up from his soul, out across the keys, and off into the night air, never to be heard again. Nick was in awe of such a gift, such an endless flow of creativity and sheer beauty from inside one generally quiet man.

And if there was a price for such talent, Nick hadn’t yet puzzled it out. Usually, when Val conjured lullabies, sleep came to heel like a biddable spaniel.

Tonight, though, Nick was preoccupied with a single kiss.

In his thirty-some years on earth, Nick had done more kissing than he could remember. Kissing was fun, sweet, and harmless. He enjoyed it; the ladies enjoyed it; he suspected even his horse enjoyed it.

But kissing was also meant to be forgettable. No more worthy of recall than a pleasant meal, a good book, an enjoyable walk in the garden. Nick kissed his lovers, his sisters, his friends, his grandmother. Lately, he’d kissed his father a time or two, hoping each one was not a kiss good-bye. Nick kissed babies—babies were particularly fun to nuzzle and kiss and tickle—he kissed his horses and his cats and his cousins.

So why should it matter that he’d stolen a kiss from this Leah person, who was bound for holy matrimony with the odious Hellerington? He’d meant it as a little gesture of encouragement to her and himself both, a kiss for luck, as he’d said.

Nonetheless, lying in the acreage of his bed, surrounded by mountains of silk-covered pillows and the softest of linen sheets, Nick felt a growing unwillingness to let a disgusting old man have a taste of the lady, much less a husband’s claim on her. From the place inside Nick that would have killed to protect a sister or a friend, a place that had been tempted to violence on behalf of beaten animals, Nick felt a growing desire to spare the woman the fate that had moved her to tears.

His fate was sealed. He would marry a calculating little jade, and that was that.

Her fate, however, he could still influence.

Tossing aside the covers, Nick got up and found a dressing gown to cover his nakedness. The room was cold—Nick liked it cold. He lit some candles and found writing supplies in his escritoire. A note to his solicitors came first, asking them to attend him at their earliest convenience.

Then a note to Benjamin Hazlit, discreet investigator for the privileged few who could afford him. If anyone could bring Nick what he sought regarding old Hellerington, it would be Hazlit.

Those decisions made, Nick returned to his bed and let Valentine’s music drift over him once more. Val was sad about something; that was as clear as the tones of the piano’s lovely middle register.

Ah, well. Nick closed his eyes. What a gift it must be, to be able to turn sadness to beauty. He thumped his pillow one last time and let his imagination conjure up the memory of a sweet, soft, lingering kiss between strangers.

* * *

Nick thought of spring and autumn as feminine—changeable, unpredictable, lovely—and winter and summer as masculine—entrenched, reliably trying, challenging, not for the faint of heart. April qualified as spring, and this morning, she was wearing all her glory. The sun shone in beneficent abundance, a hint of softness graced the air, and in the park, daffodils bloomed in profusion along with the occasional precocious tulip. The distance to his grandmother’s house might have encouraged another man to ride, but Nick had already taken Buttercup out for her morning hack, and he liked to move about whenever possible.

Then too, he needed time to think, to consider Valentine’s question from the previous night: Were there any young ladies available this Season to whom he might offer marriage? Unpleasant topic to contemplate, but—

“I beg your pardon!”

Instinctively, Nick reached out to steady the lady into whom he had very nearly plowed.

“My apologies,” he murmured, catching a hint of lily of the valley fragrance, though it wasn’t coming from the petite blond squirming to retrieve her balance.

“I’m sorry, sir.” The little blond peeked up at him with a tentative smile from under her bonnet brim. “I was intent on getting to the ducks. I should have been watching where I was going.”

Nick stepped back and tipped his hat with a little bow.

“I am at fault.” He smiled down at her, then included the lady’s maid in his smile. “I was lost in thought and cannot even claim the topic as interesting as hungry ducks.”

Not a lady’s maid, but rather, a youthful maiden aunt who could indulge in an alluring perfume but no longer needed—or afforded?—a fashionable wardrobe. Still, there was something about the other woman that drew Nick’s interest, and not simply because she had lovely brown eyes, a bit of height, and lustrous dark hair framing a serious, pretty face.

Nick marshaled his manners. “If I may be so bold: Nicholas Haddonfield, Viscount Reston at your service, ladies, and again my apologies.” The blond glanced askance at the taller woman, obviously uncertain of the proprieties.

“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” the taller woman said, her tone cultured, a little husky, and liltingly soft.

Five innocuous words, but it was enough. That soft, almost amused voice, the poise of it, and the charm… Nick knew immediately who she was, and drew in a slow, steadying breath. The lily of the valley scent connected with memories of their previous meeting and made the pretty day a shade closer to glorious.

“Whom was it my pleasure to nearly knock insensate?” Nick kept his smile in place, though it was arguably rude of him to ask when they hadn’t been introduced. Still, he could not abide to tip his hat and saunter away.

“Ladies Leah and Emily Lindsey,” the taller woman replied. She bobbed a curtsy, and her companion did likewise. Lady Leah gave not a hint of familiarity in her tone, gesture, or expression.

Not a hint of rejection, either.

“Might I impose my escort on you as far as the duck pond?” Nick offered. For good measure, he smiled disarmingly at the footman who hovered a dozen feet away, looking uneasy. “It’s a lovely day, and I would rather spend it in the presence of pulchritudinous ladies such as Mother Nature and yourselves than hurry to my destination.”

“You flatter prettily,” Lady Leah said, clearly more amused than impressed. “We will take pity on you.” She glanced over her shoulder at the footman. “John, Lord Reston will escort us to the pond.”