"The earl's man is a precaution, should anyone be watching," Molly explained.

"Thank you for your caution and your company as well. I find myself too alone with my thoughts."

"Exactly why you need a diversion. I had Madame Duclaisse send over some frocks to amuse us."

"I shall pay you, of course."

"At your leisure, my dear. Come now," she said, sitting down, "which would you like to try on first?"

Isabella selected a morning gown, her immediate need that of replacing her robe. The pale blue gauze was embroidered with a wide row of floral designs at the hem, but the simple lines were otherwise unadorned.

Not unfamiliar with servants, although she'd preferred living without a lady's maid, Isabella allowed the girls to help her dress. Mrs. Crocker had thoughtfully provided a chemise of the finest lawn, and after quickly discarding her robe and having the chemise slipped over her head, Isabella tried on the blue day dress.

"You have an eye for size." Isabella twirled before a cheval glass, the belled skirt billowing out around her.

"It was easy. You're the same size as Kate… one of the ladies here," she added in explanation. "The blue is excellent with your eyes."

"It is rather nice."

"Try on some of the slippers. There's some matching ones in several sizes."

A perfect fit was selected from the array, and she could have entertained royalty in her elegant gown. "I must say, a pretty dress always does wonders for one's disposition."

"My feeling exactly. Do try the apple-green silk next. The cashmere shawl is a delicious contrast."

"I don't plan on stepping out just yet," Isabella playfully noted, although the delectable fabric was alluring. Napoleon had introduced cashmere shawls to Europe after his Egyptian campaign only a few years past, and they were the height of fashion. And very dear.

"For when you do, then. I kept two of them for myself." Mrs. Crocker waved to have the green silk brought over. "Humor me. That color is going to be adorable with your coloring."

Before long, a half dozen dresses had been tried on and the room had the air of a dressmaker's salon, piles of colorful silks and gauzes scattered about the room, shoes and shawls and bonnets adding to the flower-garden effect. Mrs. Crocker had had a bottle of iced champagne brought in to add to the festivities. After having put on a rose-colored silk afternoon dress awash with ruffles they'd both agreed were overdone, Isabella and Molly were giggling over the ostentatious confection and casting on eye on the next possibility in their private fashion show.

"You're a trifle young for black lace, but try that one on anyway."

"It has the air of seduction."

"The point, I'm sure. Let's see it-just for fun."


Dermott had spent the morning at Tattersall's adding to his racing stable and had taken lunch at Brooks's afterward. He'd gone home for a time, intent on discussing some business affairs with his secretary and steward. But he found himself unable to concentrate on the ledgers and correspondence, and his employees exchanged speculative glances after he said "Would you repeat that" for the tenth time. They politely repeated their statement, only to find the earl indifferent to the crop figures he normally followed with great enthusiasm. After returning from India, he'd had the means to see to enormous improvements at Alworth. And until that day, he'd taken a detailed interest in each rick of hay and bushel of wheat, every head of cattle and sheep his acres produced.

"If you'd prefer discussing the crop projections some other time," Shelby, his secretary, suggested.

A small silence fell.

The young man was about to repeat himself, when the earl pushed away from the desk and stood. "Some other day would be preferable," he said, glancing at the clock on the mantel.

Both men came to their feet.

Another awkward silence filled the large study. The earl seemed not to take notice of them, his dark eyes shadowed by his lowered lashes, his mouth pursed.

The steward cleared his throat and Dermott's lashes lifted. "Thank you very much." His smile was distant. "We'll do this another day."

He remained standing for several moments after the door closed on his employees, his large frame immobile, even his breathing difficult to perceive in the stillness of his pose. "I shouldn't go," he murmured into the hushed room.

He raised his hands to his fashionably windswept hair and raked his fingers through the heavy waves. Softly swearing, he held his head between his palms for a transient moment and then, exhaling, dropped his hands. "How the hell can it matter," he muttered, and strode toward the door.

But he resisted still, and once arriving at Molly's, he strolled into the card room and joined a game. He lost, and the rarity of the occurrence caused him to give in to his impulses. Excusing himself to the wide-eyed group of men who speculated once he'd gone that he was surely ill to have overlooked a straight flush, the earl took the stairs to the main floor in a run and walked into Molly's apartments without knocking.

He heard the giggling from the bedchamber immediately on entering the sitting room, recognizing the women's voices. He knew Molly's as well as his own. The other trilling tone was the reason he was there.

Against his better judgment.

Against every principle of disinterest he'd nurtured since his return to England.

He should have knocked, but bad tempered at his need, impelled by desires he'd tried to resist all day, he invaded the women's room like a man intent on plunder.

Molly said, "Hello, Dermott," her voice remarkably calm, her gaze knowing.

And the young woman who had dominated his thoughts since the night before whispered, "Oh, no!" in the merest of breaths.

"Join us in some champagne," Molly invited the earl.

He looked at her as though he'd not heard, his gaze immediately swinging back to Isabella, standing in the middle of the Aubusson carpet, her eyes wide with shock. She was dressed or, more aptly, undressed in black lace over flesh-colored silk mousseline, and he restrained himself from moving forward, picking her up, and throwing her on the bed.

"Do you like the dress?" Molly asked.

He forced himself to respond. "Yes," he said. His nostrils flared as he drew in a calming breath. "Very much."

"Isabella wasn't sure it suited her."

"It does." Like sorcery suits an enchantress, he thought, not sure he cared to stay in the same room with a woman who could make him forget everything but lust.

"There, you see?" Molly smiled at Isabella and then, turning to Dermott, who'd not advanced past the threshold, she asked, "Would you like to see another gown on Isabella?"

"No." Male and female voices, instant and soft, spoke in unison.

"Very well." Molly waved the servants out and crooked a finger at Dermott. "Come in and join us." She patted a chair beside hers. "I hadn't expected you so early. Did you have good luck at Tattersall's this morning?"

The commonness of her question set the tone, and Dermott brought his errant senses to heel. "Very good luck," he replied, moving toward her. "I found two yearlings with promise and Harkin's roan was on the block."

"So you helped ease Harkin's gambling debts?"

"I may have paid them off," the earl noted, taking the chair beside Molly and sliding into a sprawl. "That roan is a damned fine racer."

"Do join us, Isabella." Molly pushed a delicate fauteuil forward.

There was no way to refuse and not look like a child, so Isabella tamped her feverish emotions with supreme effort and walked across the pale carpet.

He watched her from under his lashes.

Skittishly aware of his gaze, Isabella approached them with a wildly beating heart and pinked cheeks.

She fairly glowed, the provocative juxtaposition of trembling innocence and flamboyant sensuality intense, her ripe body displayed in all its splendor beneath the sheer black lace, her downcast gaze chaste as a virgin's.

Which thought momentarily disconcerted him, but anyone with a body like Venus herself couldn't be completely chaste, he decided. As if reason were a requirement with the state of his erection. He shifted marginally to ease the tightness of his trousers.

His movement, however slight, drew Isabella's gaze, and her breath caught in her throat. He was blatantly aroused, the black knit fabric of his trousers tightly stretched. And for the first time in her life, she felt a heated shimmer deep within the core of her body, the feeling so exquisite, she came to a halt.

He smiled as if he understood.

She smiled back because she couldn't stop herself.

And Molly thought it best to slow the pace. She wished her young guest to acquire some of the expertise necessary to entice more than Dermott's fleeting lust. "You must tell Dermott of your cartography society," Molly declared. "Miss Leslie owns an uncommon library of rare maps," she added, turning to Dermott. "Pour us all some champagne, and you can compare your visions of the world."

His vision at the moment had to do with a finite view of the paradise between Miss Leslie's legs, but he could see that Molly was intent on putting pause to their heated encounter, and no one ever bested Molly in a confrontation. "Really?" he said, reaching for the bottle in the bucket of ice. "Not the library in Grosvenor Square?"

"You know of it?" A new concentration overtook the fever of arousal, and Isabella took her seat with them.

"I've been there only twice. I didn't realize you were that Leslie, nor that the banker who held my mortgages was your-"

"Grandfather," Isabella quickly supplied. "My goodness!" She felt as though she knew him suddenly, his recollection of their connection enough to make him not so much a stranger who took her breath away but a family friend-who took her breath away, she reflected with an inner smile.

"Isabella will be staying with us for a few days," Molly noted, offering the information as though they'd not discussed her previously over breakfast.

"Lucky for us." Dermott leaned over with a glass of champagne for Isabella, careful not to touch her fingers. Regardless Molly's presence, he couldn't guarantee his docility.

The scent of him wafted over her as he leaned close, and heady with the fragrance of maleness and fresh citron, Isabella took the glass from him and proceeded to drink a good deal of it in one swallow.

Her agitation was appealing. Of course, what about her wasn't appealing, he mused, concentrating with effort on what Molly was saying as she offered him a plate of petit fours.

"She was thinking of perhaps acquiring some additional skills while she's with us," Molly declared, putting the plate down at his refusal.

Suddenly his attention was fixed, his gaze intense. "Additional…" he murmured, his glance swinging over to take in the disconcerted Miss Leslie.

"Isabella requires safeguards… protection from an unwanted marriage."

"I see." His dark gaze held Isabella's.

"Something in the way of a denouement."

"Ah…" His voice was like velvet.

Mesmerized, charmed, warmed by the sultry heat of his regard, Isabella felt as though he might indeed be her white knight in this outlandish predicament. "I have relatives who wish my fortune," she murmured, half breathless under his spell.

"I could call them out." A strange obligation overcame him, as though he should offer her something for what he was about to receive.

"You would kill them surely." Nervously, she shook her head. "They aren't men skilled with weapons."

"Does it matter when they victimize you so cruelly?"

"I wouldn't wish their blood on my hands." The whole world knew of his expertise.

He didn't answer for a moment. "As you wish."

"Isabella wishes to discourage their avarice in a less fatal way," Mrs. Crocker interposed. "With your cooperation."

"At your service, mademoiselle." His voice was soft, low, oddly touched with compassion. Quickly setting his glass down, he slid up from his lounging pose, impatient with such sentiment.

"This is extremely awkward." Isabella twisted the stem of the goblet in her fingers and would have looked completely artless save for her voluptuous breasts about to burst from her low décolletage.

Awkward indeed, he thought, not sure he was capable of taking what she was offering with such guileless naivete. Equally sure he couldn't long resist her bounteous pulchritude. "Please," he gently said. "I believe I know what you're about to say, and there's no need. I willing accede to your wishes, whatever they may be. You decide what and where and let me know."