“I believe you knew my late husband, Sir Roger Wyndham.”

“Ah, yes. We were members of the same clubs.”

Roger had been killed in a duel over an opera dancer, but if Lord Sinclair knew of the scandal, he was too gallant- or too indifferent-to bring it up.

“So how may I serve you, Lady Wyndham?” When she remained mute, he added gently, “You obviously wish something from me.” His gaze was quizzical, probing, though his smile held a self-deprecating charm. “Forgive me, but I cannot fail to notice when a beautiful woman scrutinizes me all evening.”

Vanessa flushed at his forthrightness. Only a bold rogue would remark on a lady’s interest. “Truthfully…”

“Yes, let us be truthful by all means.” The lazy drawl held a hint of cynicism.

“Truthfully, I hoped I might speak to you on a matter of some urgency, my lord.”

“Consider me at your service.” He gestured toward the door. “Shall I escort you to your carriage?”

“If you would be so kind.”

She moved through the door ahead of him, and he fell into step beside her.

“I confess my curiosity is aroused,” he admitted as they moved down the hall toward the sweeping stairway. “Your examination of me all evening suggested interest, perhaps calculation, yet it was not flirtatious or coy or in the least amorous.”

“I fear I never mastered the art of coyness,” Vanessa replied rather tightly, annoyed that he’d managed to put her on the defensive so easily.

“Would you care, then, to tell me what engenders such seriousness?”

“Aubrey Trent, Lord Rutherford,” she said quietly, “is my brother.”

He came to an abrupt stop. The eyes he turned to her were suddenly a deep, storm-gray. There was no mistaking his anger.

His expression was potentially lethal, yet she held her ground. “If you please, I wish to discuss your wager with Aubrey.”

“Have you come to pay his debt?”

“Not… precisely.”

“Then what, precisely?”

Vanessa took a deep breath. Two nights ago, Lord Sinclair had challenged her brother at piquet. Aubrey had played recklessly and far too deep-and wound up losing his entire inheritance, including the Rutherford estates and the London town house, leaving nothing for his dependents to live on.

She herself was not especially daunted at the prospect of spending the rest of her life in genteel poverty; she’d endured worse. But she had her mother and sisters to consider. It was one thing to live with creditors nipping at your heels. It was quite another to be literally thrown out on the streets to starve.

“I’ve come on behalf of my family. I was hoping… you might consider, at least partially… forgiving Aubrey’s debt of honor.”

Sinclair stared at her. “Surely you jest.”

“No,” she said quietly. “I am entirely in earnest. He has two younger sisters to care for, you see. And a mother who is ailing.”

“I fail to understand how your family circumstances concern me, Lady Wyndham.”

“They don’t, I suppose. Except that in claiming the Rutherford estates, you will take away their only means of support.”

“That is indeed unfortunate.” His tone conveyed no remorse.

Disheartened, Vanessa made another attempt to plead her case. “My lord, my brother is no gamester. He had no right to gamble away our family home.”

“Then he ought not to have done so.”

“As I understand it, you left him little choice. Surely you don’t deny deliberately challenging him to cards?”

“I don’t deny it. He may count himself fortunate I didn’t follow my first impulse and put a bullet through him.”

Vanessa felt the color drain from her face. Sinclair was known to be a crack shot and an expert swordsman. He had fought two duels that she was aware of, and doubtless more that she wasn’t.

“I wonder that you didn’t,” she murmured.

His jaw hardened. “A duel would only have compounded the scandal to my sister.”

“I’m not aware of every particular,” Vanessa said in a low voice, “but I do know of your sister’s injury.”

“Then you know she was crippled, perhaps for life.”

“Yes. I’m dreadfully sorry.”

“Are you?” The terse question was cynical, even savage.

“Yes, as is my brother. Aubrey deeply regrets his actions toward your sister. They were cruel, unforgivable. The behavior of a spoiled, thoughtless youth.” When Lord Sinclair made no reply, Vanessa gave him a beseeching look. “I well know how selfish my brother can be. He’s young and a trifle wild. Surely a man of your reputation can understand that. Rumor has it that you’ve indulged in your fair share of wildness.”

“My character is not at issue here.”

“No, but… I entreat you to reconsider. My brother is a mere boy.”

“Obviously. A man would not send his sister to beg in his place.”

She started to protest that Aubrey had not sent her, but that wasn’t quite true. Certainly he hadn’t objected when she declared her intent to seek out Lord Sin.

Vanessa placed an imploring hand on the nobleman’s sleeve. “My lord, have you no mercy? No compassion at all?”

A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Your brother is not deserving of compassion. He destroyed something precious of mine. And I intend to destroy him in turn.”

The declaration was cold, ruthless, implacable.

He glanced dismissively down at the slender hand that detained him. “My carriage awaits, Lady Wyndham. It is not my practice to keep my horses standing.”

Deliberately he stepped back. Then he turned away, leaving Vanessa to stare after his retreating back in dismay and despair.

Vanessa fiercely fought back tears as she entered the London town house that had been in her family for four generations. She had seldom cried during the unsavory period of her life when she was wed to a notorious libertine, or in the two difficult years following Sir Roger Wyndham’s death-and she would not cry now.

A hollowness in her heart, she climbed the stairs to the drawing room. Her brother had opened the London house for the Season, even though he could ill afford it.

Aubrey was waiting for her in the drawing room, anxiously pacing the carpet. For a moment Vanessa watched him, wondering how the loving boy she remembered from childhood had turned out so wild. But she knew the answer. The favorite and only son, he had been raised in unchecked license by parents who coddled and indulged him. The lack of discipline would doubtless prove his ruin.

“Well?” Aubrey asked the instant he spied her. “Did you see him?”

Aubrey was tall like herself and possessed similar coloring. His tawny, light brown hair was almost a shade of amber, while his dark eyes were luminous and could sparkle with laughter. Just now they held only anxiety.

“I contrived a meeting with Lord Sinclair, yes,” Vanessa replied, coming into the room. “He refused to speak to me once he discovered my connection to you.”

“Then I am lost,” Aubrey said hoarsely.

She wanted to dispute him. She wanted to console him, to wrap her arms around her brother and make his troubles vanish. But he was right. Indeed, they were all lost. She sat down heavily on the blue brocade settee.

Aubrey flung himself into the wing chair beside her and buried his face in his hands. After a long moment, he asked quietly, “He refused even to negotiate?”

“We didn’t reach the point of discussing negotiations. He wanted nothing to do with me.”

“Damn and blast him…”

Not for the first time, Vanessa felt a surge of anger at her brother’s childish effort to shift the blame. “You can hardly expect Lord Sinclair to return the estates you gambled away so recklessly, simply because a stranger asked it of him.”

“He means to ruin me.”

“Can you blame him? His sister suffered a debilitating injury… at your hands, I might add. She may never walk again. Or have you so conveniently forgotten that small particular?”

“I haven’t forgotten!” Aubrey’s hands clenched in his hair. “Don’t you think I regret every moment of my foolish conduct?”

“What could possibly have possessed you to be so cruel to a young girl?”

“I don’t know.” When he raised his head, his dark eyes held grief and remorse. “It started merely as a lark, a wager. A means to earn a substantial sum from my gaming friends. With my pockets to let, I needed the funds. And perhaps we were a trifle…”

“Were what?”

“Bored.”

“Hunting in the country didn’t provide you enough pleasure? Cockfights and boxing matches weren’t sufficient entertainment?” Vanessa’s tone held a hard edge of ridicule. “So you had to ruin a young girl’s life. Destroy her reputation and make her a bedridden cripple.”

Aubrey’s grimace displayed agony. “I never intended it to go that far, you must believe me.”

“Then what did you intend?”

He took a deep breath. “I told you, to win a wager, simply that. When we met Miss Sinclair at an assembly… I suppose we’d all had too much claret before arriving. At first the discussion centered on how to get her away from her dragon of a chaperon, but somehow the goal turned more serious. I ended up wagering I could make her fall in love with me. Wooing her proved… far easier than I expected.” He hung his head. “Olivia had led such a sheltered life, she was eager for… affection.”

“So after some weeks of clandestine meetings, you lured Miss Sinclair to a posting inn with the promise of an elopement. You never intended an honorable marriage at all?”

“It would not have mattered how honorable my intentions. I could never have afforded to wed her, even had I wished to. She’s an heiress, but she won’t come into her fortune for three more years. Sinclair would cut her off without a penny if she wed without his permission.”

To his credit, Aubrey’s expression held shame. Vanessa sighed. She well knew how he chafed at his financial state.

But there was little point in bemoaning his lack of wealth, for it was a family failing.

Their father had been a poor manager with no head for business. Hoping his eldest daughter could repair the family fortunes by making a grand match, he’d convinced Vanessa to wed a young baronet who had squandered his vast inheritance and been killed in a senseless duel within the year. Upon her father’s death in a riding accident shortly afterward, Vanessa had willingly escaped London and returned home to live with her family.

She’d spent the two years since managing the household and attempting to persuade her ailing mother and two younger sisters to live within their humble means. Aubrey, however, was the chief problem, demanding funds to support his pleasures and depleting his remaining income on gaming and wenching.

But if they were deep in dun territory before, their situation was now dire.

“Perhaps Charlotte could make a match,” Aubrey suggested in a low voice.

“No! That is out of the question,” Vanessa said fiercely. Charlotte was only fifteen and Fanny thirteen. As long as she had a breath left in her body, her sisters would not be sold into marriage for wealth and position, as she had been.

“Then what do you propose?”

She rubbed her temples wearily. “Perhaps we can simply decline to vacate the premises. Lord Sinclair might find it distasteful having to call in the bailiffs.”

Aubrey shook his head. “My obligation to Lord Sin is a debt of honor. It must be paid, even if we all starve as a consequence.”

She stared at him as her anger rose again. “You’ve lost our home, our sole means of income, and all you can think about is your precious gentleman’s honor?”

“If I cannot pay, I might as well put a bullet to my head.”

“Aubrey, don’t speak that way!” she exclaimed sharply.

He seemed not to hear. “Perhaps I deserve a bullet. When she fell-” He squeezed his eyes shut. “-I thought I had killed her.”

His expression was tortured, distraught, and it frightened Vanessa. “Aubrey, I beg you-”

Abruptly relenting, she rose and went to kneel before him, despite her expensive gown. She took his hands in her own, finding them chilled. “We cannot change the past. We can only strive to be better in the future.”

After a long moment, he nodded. “Pray calm your fears, sweet sister. I don’t have the courage to end my life at my own hand. I haven’t your strength.”

Her heart aching for him, she attempted to divert the direction of his dark thoughts. “What do the doctors say about Miss Sinclair’s condition?”

He drew a shuddering breath. “I don’t know. I was not allowed near her. I wish… I wish I could somehow make amends. That was my intent when I called on Lord Sinclair this week, the instant he returned to town. When he invited me to attend his club, I thought he might have forgiven me… What a fool I was.”