Chapter 1

Hamilton Ball, 1816

“I cannot believe you are doing this,” Pippa, Nancy Byrne’s best friend and sister-in-law, muttered into her glass of punch.

The ballroom shimmered in full command of the season. Candlelight softened the room, a country dance in full progress, and enough hands joined and lost again to make a single indiscretion wonderfully easy to miss.

“Why?” Nancy asked. “I vividly recall you declaring once that you intended to steal a kiss from the most infamous rake in London.”

“I didn’t, though.”

“You still intended, though,” Nancy pointed out, placing her glass on the tray of a passing footman. “Before you became the Countess of Chatteris. Now I intend to do the same.”

“So you are truly moving on from Jeremy?”

“There is nothing else to do.”

“You love him.”

“Unrequited love. The worst kind of love.” The most painful.

“Does Jeremy know about this plan of yours?”

“To move on from him? Of course not. Have we not established the man is as dense as a log. Besides, if he were to know, he’d probably aid me in my mischief.”

“The fact that you are calling “moving on” mischief is rather concerning.”

“It quite feels like it is, to be honest,” Nancy admitted. She was, after all, testing a new version of herself. The version after Jeremy. “Remember to keep my brother’s eyes on you and not me.”

Pippa grinned, glancing to where Nicholas chatted with the Duke of Mortimer. “Oh, I don’t believe you have to worry about that.” Her friend paused. “Wait, with whom are you planning to move on with?”

Nancy returned her friend’s grin and pointed to a lone figure leaning against a pillar, watching the crowd with boredom. “The Marquess of Knoxley.”

“Oh, God, please don’t.”

“Why not?” Nancy crossed her arms. “Knoxley is a kitten compared to who you intended to steal a kiss from?”

“But you’re planning to move on,” Pippa said. “That man is not someone you move on with!”

Nancy’s grin widened. “He’s the perfect man, and this,” she motioned to the ballroom, “is the perfect setting. Candles alight everywhere, lively music—”

“Viscount Graford retching in the potted plant over yonder.”

Nancy shot her friend a flat stare, refusing to look and spoil her vision. “Retching aside, it’s the perfect night to turn the page.”

Her friend blinked at her. “I probably should have asked this earlier, but what do you mean by moving on? Kissing? Courtship?”

“I haven’t decided quite what it means.” Which was what made her decision rather bittersweet. Sweet as in the thrill of something new, bitter, as in realizing her affections would never be returned and it was best to let go of this love, reluctant though she may be.

Honestly, she hadn’t asked to fall in love with Jeremy Locke.

It just . . . happened. Not an explosion of feeling. No grand moment to mark it. Simply a smile directed at her and oh.

However, she might have been a potted palm in the corner for all the man noticed her. Unless someone retched on her, perhaps. And that was not the way she wanted to be noticed. She’d fooled herself long enough.

Two full years.

Perhaps if they hadn’t been best friends the dynamic might have been different, but there was no escaping his presence. It lived in her surely as it did in the spaces their friendship had claimed. Hope, she had learned, was a remarkably comfortable place to remain stuck. Pippa’s wedding, fortunately, had clarified matters. There was, after all, no clearer—nor more humiliating—way to receive such clarity than by drunkenly confessing her love and being promptly, unequivocally rejected.

“Well, don’t look now,” Pippa murmured. “But Jeremy just arrived.”

Nancy allowed herself a single glance and immediately wished she hadn’t. That rogue was as handsome as they came. His legs were impossibly tall, the sort that made one drag one’s gaze up them first to discover the man attached to them. His hands, Lord, his hands, were strong but slender. How many times had she envisioned them settling at her waist? Lifting her with careless ease, tossing her over his shoulder like a caveman and stalking off to ravage her. His shoulders were broad, too. Not excessively so. Just enough to have a woman imagining how they’d envelope her in protection. And seduction.

Then there was his face. That face. His cheekbones must have been chiseled by the gods themselves. How else to explain such perfection, framed by an unruly mop of brown hair? But what she loved best were his eyes. Dry. Mischievous. More often than not rolling to the sky. Pools of amber freckled with gold.

If only they held affection of a different kind.

Hah. Loving rogues were the worst of them all.

Enough was enough.

Nancy lifted her chin and directed her attention to Knoxley. “I’m ready, Pippa. Wish me luck.”

***

Jeremy Locke, the seventh of Silverton, had the peculiar sense that he had arrived late for something important. Usually, he prided himself on noticing things, however, tonight had left him inexplicably out of step. It had started as an unremarkable restlessness while tying his cravat and grown stronger with every step toward the ballroom, until he very nearly broke into a run.

He found Pippa laughing up at her husband near the tall windows overlooking the gardens, Nancy notably absent.

Jeremy threaded his way through the crowd with uncharacteristic haste, nodding to passing acquaintances on his way. The last time he’d felt so on edge was right before his mother informed him she was departing for the Continent with her Italian lover. Of course, he wished his mother every happiness. He could not, however, entirely escape the sense of having been left behind. That same foreboding pressed upon him now.

“Pippa,” he greeted as he reached his friends. “Chatteris.”

“Jeremy!” Pippa smiled up at him. “You’re late.”

Late, his mind echoed.

“Only just,” he replied lightly. Where was Nancy? “I trust I have not missed anything of importance.”

“That depends,” Pippa said lightly. “On what you consider important.”

Chatteris clapped him on the shoulder, casting a strange look at his wife. “You’ve missed nothing but Graford retching in a plant.”

Jeremy relaxed.

Good.

That’s good, then.

“Ah well, that’s a sight I can do without,” Jeremy murmured, letting his gaze skim the crowd. Had she taken to the dance floor?

“The punch is quite strong,” Chatteris remarked.

Ah. “And for once, I wasn’t the one who spiked it.”

“From what I can tell,” Pippa said. “That’s all the host.”

Jeremy nodded, not spotting the object of his search among the dancers, so he finally asked, “Where is Nancy?”

“She slipped away to make a new friend,” Pippa said, then added. “You know how it is. The age of twenty has a way of inviting new expectations.”

Except for Nancy, his mind supplied, unhelpfully. Inviting new expectations? What expectations? Jeremy’s gaze flicked between an expectant Pippa and an unconcerned Chatteris. Had Nancy taken up a new hobby? That didn’t sound right. The last time these girls talked about trying anything new had been . . .

Jeremy’s back shot straight.

Pippa declaring she was going to steal a kiss from the Earl of Dare.

No, no. That couldn’t be right.

Perhaps she had taken up a game of whist or joined a game of charades, Jeremy reasoned. Or developed an interest in family portraits.

Perfectly ordinary explanations. Entirely sensible.

And yet.

None of them Nancy.

This Nancy.

Spirited, mischievous Nancy. Of course she wouldn’t invite any old boring pastime.

“Where is Nancy now?” Even as the words left him, Jeremy’s gaze resumed its restless sweep of the room, skimming faces, over and over again as though his eyes knew something his mind refused to acknowledge.

“Oh, about,” Pippa said much too slyly for his liking. “Enjoying the evening.”

Chatteris frowned, glancing between them. “Am I missing something?” He turned to his wife. “What mischief are you and my sister up to now?”

Yes, Jeremy thought grimly. I should very much like to know that as well. They were his best friends. Why had they left him out in whatever scheme was unfolding?

I am in with you, Jeremy Locke. Madly, irrevocably, in love.

He blinked at the soft voice again.

Someone had been confessing to him in his dream since the wedding of the two people before him. The voice almost sounded like Nancy’s. Deuced disconcerting.

Pippa’s lips twitched. “Nothing at all,” she said sweetly. “Just the sort of amusement one undertakes when one is inclined to test the waters.”

Chatteris groaned, while the hairs at the nape of Jeremy’s neck rose. That earlier sensation—the one he had tried so diligently to suppress—surged again. He had been late. And whatever he had missed was still unfolding.

“If you will excuse me,” he said suddenly.

Pippa met his gaze, her expression open, innocent, and entirely unconvincing.

“You are excused, dear friend.”

Christ.

That confirmed it. Something wildly, irrevocably scandalous was underfoot.

And he had every intention of stopping it.

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