"Were you afraid I would not return?" he asked her. "Have you been feeling very conspicuous and self-conscious?"

"Because everyone here is expecting me to draw an axe from beneath my skirts and twirl it about my head while letting out a bloodcurdling shriek?" she asked him, her eyebrows raised. "No, I take no notice of such nonsense."

She was very forthright. But perhaps she had discovered that the best defense was often offense.

"Gossip usually /is/ nonsense," he said.

That scornful smile still hovered about her lips as she selected a lobster patty from her plate and lifted it to her mouth.

"Usually," she agreed, raising her eyes to his as she bit into the patty. She chewed the mouthful and swallowed. "But sometimes not, Lord Merton. You must wonder."

He could only follow her lead.

"If you killed your husband?" he said. "It is none of my business, ma'am."

She laughed – and several heads turned openly their way.

"Then you are a fool," she said. "If you are going to allow me to seduce you, you ought perhaps to have a healthy fear of what I might do to you when your guard is down and you are naked in my bed."

She was becoming more outrageous. He hoped he was not flushing.

"But perhaps," he said, "I am not /going/ to allow it, ma'am. Indeed, I do not believe I would ever /allow/ myself to be seduced. If I were to take a mistress or a casual lover, it would be something I /chose/ to do because I wished it and because /she/ wished it. It would not happen because I had fallen a mindless prey to a seductress."

He really did not have any appetite, he realized as he looked down at his own plate. Why had he piled so much food onto it?

And why was he having this conversation? Had he really just spoken those words aloud to a lady – /if I were to take a mistress or a casual lover/…?

Had he completely lost all sense of propriety? Outspoken and notorious as she was, she was still a lady. And he was still a gentleman.

"And I do not fear you," he added.

Perhaps he ought to. Perhaps what he had just said to her was so much hot air. He had never kept a long-term mistress, though he was by no means a virgin. He had often slightly envied Con, who always seemed to find a respectable widow with whom to conduct a discreet affair when he was in town. A few years ago it had been Mrs. Hunter, last year Mrs.

Johnson. Stephen was not sure if there was anyone this year.

If he himself was now considering taking a mistress or a lover – and, Lord help him, he /was/ considering it – was it because he had suddenly chosen to do so quite deliberately and rationally in the middle of a ball or because he had been /seduced/ into doing so by a woman who was quite blatant about her intentions?

She was not at all his type, he reminded himself. Not the type of woman he would ever consider for a /bride/, anyway. But he was not considering her for a bride.

Unbidden, an image of what she would look like naked on a bed flashed into his mind, and he felt an alarming tightening in the area of his groin.

Enough of this!

"Lady Paget," he said firmly, "it is high time we changed the subject.

Tell me something about yourself. Something about your girlhood, if you will. Where did you grow up?"

She selected a small cake from her plate and lifted her head to smile at him.

"Mostly here, in London," she said, "or at one of the spas. My father frequented the gaming tables and went wherever the gambling crowds went and the stakes were highest. We lived in rented rooms and hotels. But lest you think this a pathetic story, Lord Merton, and one designed to draw your pity, may I add that he was as bountiful with his affections toward my brother and me as he was in wagering at the tables. And he had the devil's own luck, to quote him. By that he meant that he always won marginally more than he lost. I cannot even remember my mother, but I had a governess from an early age, and she was as dear to me as any mother could be. We saw a great deal of the world together, Miss Haytor and I – both in reality and through books. Your own upbringing would have been far more privileged than mine, but it cannot have been happier or more entertaining."

For the first time he sensed that she was lying, though it was impossible to know about which details of her story. She just sounded too defensive to be telling the truth. Such a life, if the bare facts of what she had said were the truth, must surely have left a child with anxieties and insecurities. And every child, he believed, needed a fixed home.

"More privileged?" he said. "Perhaps. I grew up at first in a vicarage in a Shropshire village – my father was the vicar – and then in a smaller cottage in the same village after his death. I lived with my sisters.

Meg, now the Countess of Sheringford, was the eldest and, like your Miss Haytor, she was a splendid substitute mother. Nessie, now the Duchess of Moreland, is my middle sister, and Kate, now Baroness Montford, is next above me in age. I was the youngest. I had a happy boyhood until I inherited my title at the age of seventeen. It was a considerable shock since none of us had even known that I was next in line for it. I do not regret that I did not know, though. It can be character-building to grow up expecting to have to work for one's living and the support of one's sisters. At least, I hope it built my character. I understand privilege and all its advantages and disadvantages better perhaps than I would had I grown up with expectations."

"Lady Sheringford is your /sister/?" she said, her eyebrows raised.

"Yes," he said.

"And she married the notorious Earl of Sheringford," she said, "who ran off with another man's wife on his own wedding day not so many years ago and had a child with her."

It always bothered Stephen that he could not tell the truth of what had happened both before and after Sherry took Mrs. Turner away from London the night before he was to marry Turner's sister. But he had promised Sherry that he never would.

"Toby," he said. "He is a cherished member of our family. Meg loves him as dearly as she loves her own two children. So does Sherry – the Earl of Sheringford. He is their son. My nephew."

"I have touched upon a raw nerve," she said, setting an elbow on the table and cupping her chin and one cheek in her hand. "Why did your sister marry him?"

"I suppose," he said, "because he asked. And because she wished to say yes."

She pursed her lips, and her eyes smiled their slightly scornful smile.

"You are annoyed," she said. "Am I being impertinent and intrusive, Lord Merton?"

"Not at all," he said. "I am the one who began the personal questions.

Have you just recently arrived in town?"

"Yes," she said.

"You are staying with relatives?" he asked her. "You mentioned a brother."

"I am not the sort of person relatives would wish to claim," she said.

"I live alone."

His eyes met hers.

"So very alone," she said. But her lips were smiling too now, as though she mocked herself, and one gloved finger of the hand that had been cupping her face a moment ago was now tracing the low neckline of her gown, as if absently. The top joint of the finger was beneath the emerald green fabric. Her elbow still rested on the table.

It was very deliberate, he realized as he felt the heat of the room more acutely.

"You came alone in your carriage this evening, then?" he asked. "Or did you bring a m – "

"I do not own a carriage," she said. "I came alone in a hackney carriage, Lord Merton, but I had the coachman set me down outside the square. It would have been lowering to arrive at the red carpet in a hired carriage, especially since I was uninvited. And yes, thank you, I will."

"Will…?" He looked inquiringly at her.

"Accept your offer to escort me home in your own carriage," she said, and her eyes were laughing now. "You /were/ about to offer, were you not? You must not embarrass me now by telling me you were not."

"I would be happy to escort you home, ma'am," he said. "Meg will lend one of her maids to accompany us."

She laughed softly, a low, seductive sound.

"How very inconvenient that would be," she said. "How would I be able to seduce you, Lord Merton, with a maid looking on, or take you inside with me when I arrive home with her trailing along behind?"

He was being drawn deeper and deeper into this scheme, he realized. She really did mean to take him as a lover.

It was perhaps understandable.

She had arrived alone in London recently to the discovery that her reputation had preceded her. She was a pariah. Even her brother – if he was himself in London – had abandoned her. If she was to see any company, attend any entertainments, she must do so alone and uninvited as she had tonight. She was indeed very alone. /And doubtless lonely/.

She was an extraordinarily beautiful woman. She was a widow and only twenty-eight years old. Under normal circumstances she might now be looking forward to a brighter future, her mourning period at an end. But Lady Paget stood accused in public opinion of having murdered her husband. It seemed clear that she did not stand accused by the law – she was free. But public opinion was a powerful force.

Yes, she must be dreadfully lonely.

And she had decided to try to alleviate that aloneness and that loneliness by taking a lover.

It was perfectly understandable.

But she had chosen him.

"You are not going to be tiresome, are you," she asked him, "and insist upon being the perfect gentleman? You are not going to hand me out of your carriage outside my door and escort me to the door-sill and kiss the back of my hand as you bid me good night?"

He looked into her eyes and realized that sexual attraction and pity were a lethal mix.

"No," he said, "I am not going to do that, Lady Paget."

She removed her elbow from the table and looked down at her plate. But nothing took her fancy there. She looked back at him. There was a pulse beating quite noticeably at the side of her neck.

"I really have no interest in staying at this ball any longer, Lord Merton," she said. "I have danced and I have eaten and I have met you.

Take me home now."

He felt that tightening of the groin again and fought the onset of lust.

"I am afraid I cannot leave yet," he said. "I have solicited the hands of two young ladies for the next two sets."

"And you must honor such solicitation?" she said, her eyebrows arched upward.

"I must," he said. "I will."

"You /are/ a gentleman," she said. "How very provoking."

The salon was emptying fast, Stephen realized. From the ballroom, he could hear the sounds of the orchestra tuning their instruments. He stood and offered Lady Paget his hand.

"Allow me to escort you back to the ballroom and introduce you to – " he began.

But Elliott was making his way toward them, and it was obvious to Stephen why he was coming. The family was rallying round – though whether for Meg's sake or his own was not clear.

" – the Duke of Moreland," he said, completing his sentence. "My brother-in-law. Lady Paget, Elliott."

"It is a pleasure, ma'am," Elliott said, bowing and looking as if it were anything but.

"Your grace." Lady Paget inclined her head and grasped her fan as she stood. She looked instantly aloof and haughty.

"May I have the honor of dancing the next set with you, Lady Paget?"

Elliott asked.

"You may," she said, and set her hand on his proffered sleeve.

She did not look back at Stephen.

There was a grayish film on the surface of the untouched tea in their cups, he saw. Only two items had gone from her plate, none from his.

Just a few years ago it would have seemed an unpardonable waste.

He had better go and claim his next partner before the dancing started again, he decided. It really would not do to be late.

Was he really going to sleep with Lady Paget tonight?

And perhaps begin a longer-term liaison with her?

Ought he not to know more about her first? More about the death of her husband and the facts behind the very nasty rumors that had preceded her to London and made an outcast of her?

Had he been seduced after all?

He feared he had.

Was it too late to change his mind?

He feared it was.

Did he /want/ to?