“If we both succeed,” he said, “we can then proceed to live happily ever after. Reformed rakes are said to be the most constant of husbands, you know. And the most skilled and excellent lovers.”

“Oooh!” She drew back her head and glared indignantly at him. “You are trying to seduce me even now.”

He winced theatrically.

“I would really rather you did not use that particular word, Miss Huxtable,” he said. “I tried it with you once, and you vanquished me.”

“I did not!” she retorted, and blushed to the roots of her hair when she realized what admission she had been drawn into.

“Ah,” he said, both eyebrows raised, “but you did. I did not proceed to the main feast on that occasion and thus have remained forever famished. We are straying from the point, however. Do we have a wager?”

However had she been drawn into such a conversation-with Lord Montford of all people? But then no other man could possibly talk thus.

“Of course we do not,” she said scornfully.

“You are afraid, Miss Huxtable,” he said. “Afraid that I will win, that you will not. And that you will go into a permanent decline and die of a broken heart, your family weeping inconsolably about your bedside.”

She glared at him-and then laughed despite herself at the ridiculous mental image he had conjured.

“That,” she said, “is something you really must not flatter yourself into dreaming of, Lord Montford. You would be doomed to certain disappointment. I would not waste such an affecting deathbed scene on you.”

He laughed too.

“And what if I were to agree to such a preposterous suggestion?” she asked him. “And what if I won my wager? You would never admit to being in love with me, would you?”

His eyebrows shot up. He looked astonished-and affronted.

“You are suggesting that I could ever be a liar, Miss Huxtable?” he asked her. “That I am not an honorable gentleman? But even if I did lie, you would soon know the truth. You would be able to watch me sink into a deep depression and become a mere shadow of my former self. I would sigh constantly and piteously and write bad poetry and forget to change my linen.”

She could not stop herself from laughing again at the mental picture of Lord Montford in love.

“I would be perfectly honest and admit defeat in the unlikely event that it were true,” he said. “Are we speaking hypothetically, though? Are you still determined to be craven and to refuse to engage in the wager?”

“Lord Montford,” she said as they twirled again and the light from the candles in the wall sconces became one swirling band of brightness, “let me make myself clear. Despite my agreeing to waltz with you this evening and to engage in this quite improper and absurd conversation with you, I am not the green girl I was three years ago. Although I will be polite to you whenever I encounter you for the rest of the Season, and indeed for the rest of my life, I really have no wish either to see you or to converse with you again. Ever.”

“Do I understand,” he said after a short pause, “that that was a no?”

She looked at him, exasperated. Why was she finding him ever so slightly likable? Why was she finding his company more stimulating than that of any of the worthy gentlemen she knew?

“It was a no,” she said.

“You are a coward,” he told her. “I shall be forced to engage in a unilateral wager, then-that I can bring you to love me… ah, let me see, before the summer is out. Before the first yellow leaf flutters to the ground.”

Her nostrils flared.

“If I should hear,” she said, “that there is another bet concerning me in any of the infamous gentlemen’s betting books-”

“Ah, no,” he said, smiling with sudden warm charm. “This will be a private wager between you and me, Miss Huxtable. No, pardon me-between me and me since you are unsporting enough to refuse to participate.”

“I see,” she said testily. “I am to be harassed, then, am I? For your private amusement? You must be very bored indeed, Lord Montford.”

“Harassed?” He raised one eyebrow. “I would call it being wooed, Miss Huxtable.”

“And left with a broken heart if you succeed,” she said. “Which you will not, I am happy to say.”

“But I might be left equally brokenhearted,” he told her, moving his head slightly closer to hers as the waltz tune appeared to be coming to an end. “The other half of the wager is that you will cause me to fall in love with you.”

She clucked her tongue.

“I would not waste my time even trying,” she said. “Not even if I wanted you in love with me. Which I do not. In fact, it is the very last thing I want.”

They had stopped dancing. So had everyone else. The dance floor was slowly clearing.

“But just imagine how it would be, Miss Huxtable,” he said, his voice low, eyelids drooped over his eyes, those eyes fixed keenly on hers, “if we were both to win. We could have a grand wedding at St. George’s in Hanover Square with every member of the ton in attendance and then proceed to a lifetime of sleepless nights, making babies and passionate love, not necessarily in that order.”

Her nostrils flared again at the same moment as her knees threatened to disintegrate under her. Oh, how dared he?

“And how do you know you will not win my wager?” he asked her. “Many ladies have tried to woo me-or rather my position and wealth-and have failed. Per haps not trying will have better success.”

“If you choose to amuse yourself with such foolish delusions, Lord Montford,” she said, turning away from him, “I cannot stop you. Nor do I have any interest in doing so.”

“Ah, cruel heart,” he said, taking her hand and setting it on his sleeve to lead her across the floor in the direction of Meg and Stephen. “Mine is already in danger of shattering into a million pieces.”

She turned her head to look up at him and found him smiling down at her just as if they were engaged in the most trivial of social conversations.

Gracious heaven, had she really just been having such a conversation with Baron Montford ? After all these years of demonizing him in her mind, had she just been almost enjoying matching wits with him?

He was going to lay siege to her heart-merely for the pleasure of doing what she had told him was quite impossible.

It was impossible.

As impossible as it would be to capture his.

Ooh, if only it could be done. If only she could make him love her and then spurn him, laugh in his face…

“Was not that a lovely waltz?” Meg said as they came up to her. “You dance it very well, Lord Montford. So does Lord Allingham.”

“It is possibly,” Lord Montford said, “the most romantic dance the world has ever known, ma’am, especially when a man is privileged to dance it with one of the two loveliest ladies at the ball. Allingham danced with one, I with the other.”

He spoke with warm charm and not a trace of mockery, but with enough humor not to sound ridiculously fawning. Katherine looked up at him reproachfully, and he took her hand from his sleeve with his free hand, bowed over it, and carried it briefly to his lips.

Sensation licked up her arm, down into her breasts, and on down to pool between her thighs. Well, she had never tried to deny to herself that he was impossibly attractive, had she? That did not make him lovable.

“Merton,” he said to Stephen, who was grinning from one to the other of them with open good humor, “would you care for a hand of cards in the card room? But no, of course you would not. There are too many young ladies demanding your attention here. Stroll that way with me anyway.”

He released Katherine’s hand and did not look at her again as he walked off with Stephen.

“Oh, Kate,” Margaret said as soon as they were out of earshot, “what a very charming gentleman Lord Montford is. And exceedingly handsome. I do not believe he took his eyes off you even once while you danced.”

“I have it on the most reliable authority,” Katherine said, “from Constantine, in fact, that he is a shocking libertine, Meg. And is the Marquess of Allingham still devoted to you? How many times have you refused his hand?”

“Oh, only once,” Margaret protested. “And that was three years ago. He does not seem to hold any grudge against me, though. He is a very amiable gentleman.”

“Only amiable?” Katherine pulled a face.

They smiled rather ruefully at each other before having their attention taken by the arrival of their partners for the upcoming set of country dances.

7

JASPER was not as totally self-absorbed as his behavior in London often suggested. He was carelessly fond of his elder sister, Rachel, who was now married to Laurence Gooding and living in the north of England with him. But he had a deep affection for Charlotte, his young half-sister. So deep, in fact, that he sometimes suspected that she had perfected the art of winding him about her little finger whenever she wanted something badly enough.

She had wanted very badly indeed to come to London with him this year after Easter, and he had brought her. But there were strict conditions attached, one of which being that she spend her days glued to the side of Miss Daniels, her erstwhile governess, now her companion, who could be relied upon to see to it that she behaved with the proper decorum at every moment. Another condition was that she clearly understand that this visit was in no way a sort of premature come-out. She was still only seventeen years old.

Her eighteenth birthday was in August. Next year she would make her debut in society. All would be done right and proper when the time came. He was still not quite sure how it would be done since Rachel was adamant in her refusal even to think about coming to London for a full Season in order to sponsor her half-sister when she had her own home and husband and family to occupy her days. And Aunt Florrie, his mother’s only sister, was an invalid and living somewhere in Cornwall. The only other possibility-Lady Forester, Charlotte’s Aunt Prunella on her father’s side of the family-was really no possibility at all. He would rather keep Charlotte as a permanent resident of the schoolroom than hand her over to the tender mercies of that particular lady. By next year he would have to think of something-some decent way of launching Charlotte into society and onto the marriage mart.

But he had brought her to town this year, bowing to her wheedling arguments that it would be to her advantage next year if this year she learned her way around London, got to know which were the best dressmakers and the best shops, acquainted herself with all the best galleries and museums and libraries-he had pursed his lips at that particular argument-and perhaps called privately upon a few older ladies who had been their mama’s particular friends.

Charlotte was his mother’s daughter by her second husband, who had died when she was not quite eight. Their mother had survived him by only five years.

Jasper lay awake thinking about Charlotte’s upcoming birthday the night after the Parmeter ball, his fingers laced behind his head, his legs crossed at the ankles. Or, to be more accurate, he was thinking about her birthday party.

It was no new thought. He had promised even before bringing her to town that she might have some sort of birthday celebration in August, after she returned home. She had concocted a happy scheme of inviting all the young people of the neighborhood for miles around to a day of frolicking in the park and an evening of charades and country dancing in the drawing room. He had been quite prepared to indulge her. One’s young sister turned eighteen only once in her life, after all.

And since that was so, he thought now, then perhaps something altogether grander than her idea would be more the thing. Something far more lavish.

His generosity of spirit did not arise entirely from a selfless motive, of course. There was another.

He gazed up at the pleated silk of the canopy over his head.

He must be mad. Not that that was any new realization.

What the devil had got into him? Why ever had he even asked her to waltz? Because she had looked so prunish?

Probably that had been it.

And why had he spent the half hour of their dance trying to wheedle her into agreeing to a double wager with him? Just to see if she could be goaded? She almost had been too, by Jove. Her interest and her pride had certainly been piqued. But she had got cold feet at the last moment.