Marianne Roland inhaled the brisk clean air of Paris and grinned at her cousin Lily Hanniford who climbed in to sit beside her in their family town coach.

“I’m glad we left without waiting for Madame Chaumont. We were lucky to avoid your father’s wrath!” She couldn’t believe her Uncle Killian had not gone into one of his famous tirades. Their escapade last night to go to the cabaret was such a fabulous adventure. But downright scandalous. No lady should ever be caught attending a performance of nude dancers. But because their French comtesse who was their companion in Paris was late this morning for their dressmaker’s appointment, she and Lily had quickly escaped the man to their carriage. “He was kind, too, after he saw that terrible cartoon of you in the English gossip sheet.”

“He hated it more than I did.”

“That cartoon was awful.”

“That woman looked nothing like me,” Lily said with a scowl. “He made me hook-nosed and skinny!”

Marianne winced at the memory of lovely Lily portrayed as a cowgirl atop a bull drawn from dollar signs. The artist had done his best to make her appear ugly. And absurd. All in the effort to discredit Americans who visited Europe and brought their families and their millions with them.

Well, Uncle Killian had earned his fortune. He’d worked hard and long, running blockades during the American war between the states and later in manufacturing. He deserved to enjoy his riches. He also wished to enjoy them without a tinge of ridicule and he’d asked for Marianne and Lily to cooperate with him in that. Time and again, her uncle had warned them both to be careful and not create a scandal while abroad. In the few weeks they’d been in Paris, both of them had been perfectly behaved until last night when Lily’s avid suitor, Lord Pinkhurst, agreed to take them to the cabaret in Montmartre.

“When we go to London,” she told Lily, “I’m sure he’ll have a few harsh things to say to the publisher of that rag.”

“And in the meantime, you diverted his attention with that discussion about singing and dancing in the chorus line. You were splendid.” Lily shivered in delight. “My heart is still pounding wildly. I thought he’d die of apoplexy when you told him you liked how the ladies did the cancan.”

“Those were no ladies, my dear.”

“So true,” Lily said with a chuckle.

Marianne smiled. It was always sublime to see Lily laugh. She was younger than Marianne by nine years. But they’d formed a friendship borne of shared joys and sorrows. The loss of Marianne’s aunt, Lily’s mother, soon after Marianne had arrived to live with the Hanniford family in Baltimore, had been the first that bound them closer. Their mutual respect for each other made love all the easier.

“But when you admitted to singing with the patrons? That was outrageous!” Lily shook with laughter.

“He even expected that of me. Did you notice?”

“I did.” Lily sank back into the cushions.

“Besides, I sang only with the other patrons,” she said suppressing a grin. “That’s surely acceptable, wouldn’t you say?”

“Ha! To others, not to Black Hanniford, the robber baron of New York and Baltimore.” Lily often referred to her father by his less than noble monikers. She was proud of him, despite some people’s accusations that he was a ruthless businessman.

“Still, he didn’t punish us.”

“Papa knows you so well that punishment would not change you.”

“Or you.”

Lily tipped her head to and fro. Her little red velvet toque wobbled on her lustrous dark hair. “True. Two peas in a pod.”

“He could tell I’d like to learn how to do that cancan.” Marianne gave her cousin a sly look. “But I’d never raise my skirts like that.”

“Oh, definitely not,” Lily added. “Especially without any drawers!”

Marianne put a hand to the lace bodice of her mint green walking dress. But the memory of the dancers’ black lace garters and silk stockings had her grinning. “Oh, but of course, I’d wear drawers. That is, if I could and still kick that high.”

The two of them sputtered in laughter.

“No, honestly,” Lily recovered herself first. “I think if Papa were older, you’d have given him a heart attack with that admission.”

“Well, it was only right to do so.” Marianne dug a handkerchief from her reticule and wiped a happy tear from the corner of her eye, then cleared her throat. “Uncle Killian likes the truth. I only wish to please.”

“Still. You promised him you wouldn’t return.” Lily’s dark brows knit together.

“I’ll honor that,” she said in truth.

Lily gave her a skeptical glance. “Even if you don’t want to?”

“What your father has done for me deserves my compliance.” Marianne shifted in the plush squabs of the family carriage. Her uncle had offered her hope and hearth when she’d had none. She would never forget that or be ungrateful for his kindnesses to the poor Confederate widow who’d lost everything in a cruel war. But someday, she’d leave her uncle’s nest and be totally independent. “Someday I may go back to Montmartre. Not soon.”

Lily’s pale blue eyes danced in glee. “When you have a lover to escort you?”

“Which is doubtful.” Marianne patted Lily’s gloved hand in reassurance, knowing her cousin teased her. “I haven’t found a soul yet who’d please me. It’s been so many years since Frederick died. Honestly, I said I’d take a lover just to make you laugh.” But one would definitely brighten my days and nights.

“But if doing that made you happy—”

“I’d still not do it, Lily. I’d never hurt any of you and taking a man to my bed would cause a scandal that even I would not know how to live down.”

Lily squeezed her hand.

“And you? You have no regrets about what you just said to your father?” Marianne asked Lily to be certain of the twenty-year-old’s intentions about marriage.

“None. You know Papa.” Lily tossed her dark curls, appearing satisfied with her bargain. “He loves a wager.”

Marianne lifted a brow. “One he can win.”

“I promised I‘d stay for one year and look for a husband, but that’s my time limit. I won’t be made fun of. That cartoon of me on that bull made me look like a fool.”

Marianne recalled the ugly sketch and hated the man who used his art to insult people.

Lily set her gaze out the window. “I don’t intend to be put up on an auction block.”

No young girl does. Nonetheless it happens, too often, for one reason or another. “Uncle Killian wouldn’t do that to you.”

Former blockade runner, factory owner and American buccaneer Killian Hanniford wanted a British lord or a European nobleman for his oldest daughter. Most likely for his younger one, too. And if he could find one for his niece on whom he’d settled a large inheritance equal to his daughters’, he’d do that too.

Lily fidgeted. “It’s not so much what he would do as what I would feel. I agreed to come to Europe for the fun of it, but I won’t be corralled into taking a man I don’t care for. Especially if he seems to like me for Papa’s millions.”

“No one is forcing you to take any man. We’ll go slowly and enjoy the opportunities before us. All of them.”

Lily glanced at her and Marianne wiggled her brows.

Then Lily challenged her with narrowed eyes. “There you go again. Implying naughty things.”

Like having a man without all the folderol of marriage bonds? “As if you don’t want to experience a few risqué activities?”

“Well, last night was definitely fabulous,” Lily said smug as a bug, folding her gloved hands in her lap.

“Astonishing.” They’d left the dinner party they’d attended with an English nobleman who had an eye for Lily. Lord Pinkhurst was a charming fellow and he sought favor with her cousin by assisting her in escaping to Montmartre and a scandalous cabaret. The raucous show consisting of female dancers had amazed Marianne not only for the women’s agility to kick their legs above their waists but also because they wore no drawers. Marianne, however, had found something else much more fascinating. Someone else, actually. A man. A most virile and captivating creature.

“I’ll admit I want new gowns,” Lily went on while Marianne smiled recalling her favorite moments of last night’s adventure. “From Worth.”

“Of course.” Marianne’s marvelous male specimen had sat in one corner of the dim cafe with a male friend. Dark though the room was, his huge form caught her attention. It wasn’t merely his shock of bright blond hair strictly combed, slicked back to his nape that held her, handsome as a god though he was. It was more. His formal evening frock coat, open to a crisp white, if loosely tied stock showed him to be a gentleman. His numerous rings—three or four—twinkling on his long fingers marked him as a man of wealth. But his hands were her focus. They were large, massively boned, as was the rest of him. But long, elegant and agile. Deft, his fingers swept across his bound sketchbook, his graphite stokes forming impressions she longed to see.

“And of course, I want new lingerie from…what is the name of that designer?” Lily rattled on.

“Piderot.”

“Yes, that’s the one.”

In her reverie, Marianne saw her giant stand again, felt her heart leave her chest at his height and his beauty. She bit back her self criticism for how she’d looked away when her eyes couldn’t get enough of his power and might. She’d never seen a man so tall or commanding. He shocked her with his size, his health, his stamina. His broad shoulders and thick muscular arms seized her will power, as if she were a fawn frozen in a bear’s sight. He was a man of consequence and presence. And if that were not enough to fascinate her, he possessed this other occupation, so unusual in so raucous a place as the cabaret. How could a man so large do so delicate an act as draw? And care to draw women? Have the skill to draw them dancing? Marianne felt her blood warm at such evidence of his sensibilities. A man like that was one a woman would never wish to leave. Unless she was mistaken and he was an artistic dilettante…and a brute.

“Are you listening to me?” Lily touched her hand.

“Absolutely.“ Tearing her mind to the topic, Marianne focused that they were on their way to the famous House of Worth for a fitting. They would later to look at silky nightgowns and peignoirs. Such a feast of the senses was surely meant for some other fortunate woman, it always seemed to Marianne. Not me. “I like new clothes, gowns, lingerie as well as any woman. I’ll order something no one else will ever see. Something frothy.”

“Mmm. You mean transparent.”

Marianne gave her a wicked look. “Deliciously so.”

Lily chuckled. “You are very bad.”

“It will be only for me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Eventually you’ll want someone to see it, see you. You’ll want someone to love.” Lily eyed her. “Papa urges you, too, to find a good husband.”

Marianne struggled with that. “I am aware. But it’s more difficult to marry off a jaded war widow thirty years of age than a lovely ingénue of twenty.”

“Almost twenty-one.” Lily sobered, her pale blue eyes boring into Marianne’s. “After what you endured during the war, you deserve to be happy. To have a husband again who walks with you through the years would be a blessing.”

I doubt it.

The carriage turned into the Rue de la Paix and Marianne breathed a sigh of relief. This conversation was one she always tried to cut short. “I’ve searched for a man I might care for as a husband. But I haven’t found one. Indeed, I found more comfort in my nursing.”

Lily squeezed her hand. “They loved you in that rebel hospital in Virginia, I’m sure. I know they did in Corpus Christi. Among all your patients, I wonder you didn’t find a man to love.”

“I was too busy tending them to think of marrying any of them.” My own wounds from the war were too raw to think of taking another man to my bed. “And you discovered you liked the work, too. So there. We both benefitted from the nursing.”

After Marianne had gone to live with the Hannifords, she’d volunteered at hospitals in Corpus Christi and Baltimore. When Lily grew older, she went with her. Uncle Killian had not liked it, but Lily was insistent that she go. It became more Lily’s calling than Marianne’s. For that, Marianne prided herself that she’d helped Lily find a vocation she liked. For herself, she struggled to define what precisely her interest was in medicine. Saving others from disease and disability and death was a noble cause. She felt gratification that she’d offered it to those in need—and she tried not to dwell on the fact that what she needed was something more or something else. And she postponed the time when she must declare to herself what that was.

“Here we are,” Lily said, scooting forward on the velvet squabs. “I hope Madame Chaumont has arrived or at least sent a message here to our vendeuse.”

“She’s never been late before,” Marianne said. “I fear she’s ill.”

“We’ll soon know,” Lily said, gathering her skirts.

The Hanniford coachman slowed the horses to a halt. The conveyance idled and the groom was at the door, swinging it wide for them.

Lily took the groom’s hand and stepped down and out into the sunshine. She smiled up at Marianne while she adjusted her big hat that trembled in the sharp breeze.

“Merci beaucoup, Robert,” Lily said to their French groom.

“Uncle Killian says we’re not to say thank you too often, if at all,” Marianne reminded Lily as she brushed the folds of her skirts, then watched their coach drive away. “He says Europeans believe servants are not to be even noticed.”

“Well, I’m an American.” Lily looped her arm through Marianne’s. “We’re different. What do you say?”

A din rent the air.

Women in front of them scrambled to flee the sidewalk.

One screamed.

“Good heavens,” Lily said, looking to and fro. “What’s happening?”

“There!” Marianne pointed to a large black carriage that careened this way and that along the street.

“A woman’s inside!”

“I hear her,” Marianne said as the public hackney passed them in a crazy swerve that barely missed two pedestrians. Up on the box, the burly coachman attempted to control the wild horses, yelling at them.

Two men, one dark and one blond, pushed through the throng. Marianne gasped. She recognized them both from last night. The tall blond was the one from the cabaret. He was a whirl of motion as he ran and caught up with the coach, grabbing the rims of the box and swinging himself up beside the panicked driver.

His companion meanwhile ran like the wind to catch up with the runaway animal. The poor horse bared his teeth in fright and turned a corner to a side street off the boulevard.

Marianne picked up her skirts and hurried along the walk.

“Wait!” Lily yelled after her. Where are you going?”

“To see—” That man. “A woman. It might be— Oh, Oh, Lily! It’s the Comtesse.”

The huge Frenchman handed the woman out of the carriage into the street. Supporting her, he spoke to her softly. He was solicitous, an arm around Chaumont’s waist, leading her to support herself with one hand to his chest, her hip touching his.

Marianne caught up to them—and halted.

His sky blue eyes seized hers. She was riveted. So near, his features in light of day were a palette of appealing manly hues. His eyes, large and almond shaped, were indeed the color of the cerulean heavens. His complexion was flawless, tinted by exposure to the sun, while his hair, no longer slicked back but wild, curled around his ears and caressed his nape. The color was golden. And he, in his fullness, was imperial.

“Are you in pain?” Lily asked Chaumont as she hurried closer. Then she turned to the lady’s rescuer. “Monsieur, if she’s hurt her neck or back, she must not stand.”

“Do you have pain, Madame?” the man cajoled the lady in his arms.

“Pain?” The comtesse offered a small smile to Lily, a hand going to the crown of her head. She patted her lank curls, her eyes dazed. “I—I don’t think so. My hat? My hat is gone. My hair’s a fright. We will be late for our appointment. We mustn’t. Monsieur Worth will be angry.” She went on into wild laments in French.

“Do not worry, Madame,” Lily comforted her while Marianne still had not found her wits. Nor had the comtesse. Instead the woman appeared dazed.

Marianne snapped to attention, discreetly lifting the comtesse’s skirts above her ankles. She had to see if one of the lady’s legs or ankles were injured.

“Your pulse is rapid,” Lily said to Chaumont, holding her wrist. “We should take you inside Worth’s. We’ll get a chair. A brandy.”

The giant’s dark-haired companion approached, leading the runaway horse.

“Can you stand?” Marianne asked their female companion.

The comtesse shook her head. Clemence Bernier, the widow Countess of Chaumont, moaned and ran a shaking hand through her chestnut hair, her hat askew, her white glove torn and dirty. She favored one foot over the other.

The dark-haired man frowned at Chaumont, then turned to his friend, “She should not walk, Remy.”

The Frenchman nodded at Lily and her. “My friend is right. Madame le Comtesse is weak.”

“But we must go inside for our appointment,” Chaumont complained.

“Worth can wait,” the dark gentleman said, his accent most definitely English. “Monsieur Worth has a sitting room, chairs, brandy and tea. Madame needs every one.”

Lily absorbed his words as if she were mesmerized. But she shook her head and tore her attention from the dark-haired man to focus on the countess. “Can you point your toes, Madame?”

“Oui, you see?”

“Wonderful,” Lily said with a smile. “Nothing’s broken. But I’m not certain if she’s injured her ankle.”

Marianne turned to the blond man called Remy. “Can you carry her, Monsieur?”

He peered down at her with an intense regard that sent shivers of delight up her spine. “Of course,” he said but turned to the comtesse. “Shall we adjourn, Madame? Hmm?”

“Oui,” said the comtesse with a coquette’s smile. “I welcome that.”

I bet you do. Marianne bristled at Chaumont’s joy and her own unreasonable jealousy.

“I’ll see to the driver,” Remy’s friend announced to the assembly.

Lily stepped forward to thank him for his help.

Marianne could not tear her gaze from Remy as he caught the countess up in his arms and turned to the entrance to Worth’s.

In his same formal clothes of black tails and gold waistcoat, disheveled as they were from his evening revels and from this daring rescue, he devastated her senses. Marianne could not get her fill of looking at this towering man. In the shadows of the cabaret, he’d been a phantom of her girlish dreams. In gay sunshine, he was a gilded god.

What’s more, he moved like the wind. Swiftly. With precision. Without an iota of exertion, he held the delicate countess Chaumont in his massive arms and carried her to shelter beneath the awning of the House of Worth. Indeed, he cooed to her with all the comfort of a field doctor soothing a wounded man. His kindnesses sparked Marianne’s praise, but Chaumont’s simpering dependence on him inspired her ire.

Stunned by that rare emotion, Marianne stood rooted to the pavement. Ridiculous to feel that. She did not know the man. Only his looks. Only his strength…and charm. A dangerous combination for a widow who’d known few dynamic men with debonair manners or the compelling might of a Titan.

His incomparable blue eyes met hers once more.

And she could not tear away.

“Mademoiselle, the doorman has left his duties. Might you do me the favor of opening the door?”

“Pardon. Of course,” she said with a polite bow of her head and scurried to pull open the heavy door.

At Number 7 in the glamorous Rue de la Paix, the English designer’s offices and showrooms were the epitome of elegance. Brass fittings on the walls and doors plus the spotless glass gave a patina of wealth. But the commotion in the boulevard had distracted the attention of Worth’s doorman. Suddenly, he stepped to them now with apologies and sprang to his duties. Inside, the receptionist welcomed them and indicated they should follow her up the winding marble staircase.

Marianne led the way, nervously aware of Remy on her heels with Chaumont in his arms.

In a private room Marianne took a chair as Remy placed Chaumont in another, then stood by the window. Lily, looking dazed for some odd reason, soon joined them and took her own seat. A stiff silence reigned while the four of them awaited their personal vendeuse.

“Madame le Comtesse,” Remy said to Chaumont in that melodious bass voice made for candlelit boudoirs, “will you do the honors of the introductions, s’il vous plait?”

“Ah! Pardon e moi. Of course.” She fanned herself, touching his forearm, but extending one hand to Lily and Marianne. “Mrs. Roland and Miss Hanniford, may I present Monsieur le Duc de Remy, Andre Claude Marceau, petit fil, prince du sang.”

“Really, Madame,” he said with a wince, “you need not add all the details.”

“Remy is modest,” the woman said with a titter as if she confided a secret. “He is that rare beast, a prince of the Bourbons and Bonapartes. Unique, nez pas?”

A duke and prince of two royal bloods? Marianne was in special company. But why was she surprised? She’d felt the appeal of him in so many indescribable ways long before she learned his name or rank.

He gave them a genteel bow. “My pleasure to meet you.”

The countess continued her duty. “Monsieur, Mrs. Marianne Roland and Miss Lily Hanniford, both from Baltimore and Texas.”

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance,” he said with a smile curving those lips that formed words with sensuous allure. “Please call me Remy. My friends do. And I hope we will become so.”

Friends? Marianne struggled for a breath. The last thing in the world she wanted from this man was his friendship. If she saw him again, too soon, too near, she’d want to touch him. Learn if he were real or a phantom of her lost childish daydreams.

Lily inclined her head. “I am charmed to make your acquaintance, Monsieur le duc.”

Marianne followed with the same sentiments.

“Remy, I insist,” he said with a smile at her.

“Remy,” Marianne murmured.

He took his clear blue eyes from hers and focused on Lily. “You have recently come to Paris?”

They talked about small things while Marianne tried to calm her racing heart.

A sales girl entered making apologies for the accident outside their establishment and for the failure of their assigned vendeuse to appear. She would make do, she promised, in the meantime. So she rushed to accommodate the ailing Chaumont with a stool for her feet and asked if they might wish refreshment. Only Chaumont requested a large brandy.

And to Marianne’s irritation, the countess played up her disability, if there was such, to the very hilt. She simpered and smiled at Remy as if he were her gallant knight or her fondant, a confection to lick.

Marianne set her teeth. Uncle Killian had hired the widowed countess to instruct Lily and her on the intricacies of Parisian society. Accompanying them to modistes and museums, Clemence Bernier was charged with introducing them to French food, French manners and, if the occasion arose, French men. Here was one that the opportunistic countess had an interest in herself. Damn her eyes.

When would this end? She had to go home, retire, reassess her girlish infatuation with a man she’d seen twice. In the dark. In the light. In command of all he surveyed.

At last, their own vendeuse appeared and so did Remy’s companion, the dark-haired gentlemen who’d calmed the horse in the street. This man with wavy brown hair and chocolate eyes was not only English but by his speech and manners, a gentleman. To all of them, he bowed politely and could not seem to take his gaze from Lily.

Marianne smiled to herself. It was a day for sudden fascinations.

Aside from Lily, the man was most interested in the accident of the public coach in the street and how it had come about. He related the details he’d learned in the street.

“One wagon wheel is precariously balanced,” he reported to them. “One side of his cab is caved in. He’ll need quite a bit of repair on that hack, I’m sorry to say.”

“Oh, what damage! Will he charge me for it?” Chaumont ran a hand through her brown hair, now totally loose of its pins. “I don’t know if I can afford to pay such a bill.”

“The driver claims a pet dog ran into the street. Tangled up in the horse’s legs. The person who should pay for the repairs of that hack should be the lady who owns that dog. Don’t you think?”

“I agree,” Remy said.

“We need to find that person here in the house,” he said and asked the sales woman to do just that. He wished to confront her with the details of the accident her dog had caused.

The vendeuse was not happy to inquire of the other customers.

“But, Mademoiselle,” he said with purpose, “I insist.”

With a frown, she left to do so.

Marianne focused her attention on Chaumont. The woman was lagging in not introducing this Englishman. But at Marianne’s nod, she took her cue and promptly announced him as Julian Ash, Lord Chelton. Marianne checked Lily’s expression. But at the man’s name, her cousin did not so much as blink. The dashing marquess of Chelton was a man known to them because Killian Hanniford had business dealings with his family. In fact, her uncle wished to buy property from him, but cool and calm, Chelton gave no hint of that in his demeanor. Nor did Lily. Marianne breathed more easily at that, not wishing to color any negotiations her uncle had with Chelton’s family. Besides, the only man she really wished to know was Remy.

Chelton turned to Marianne and Lily. “Tell us if you will stay for your fitting.”

“Please do,” Remy said. “I offer my carriage to escort you home.”

“Thank you, Monsieur le Duc,” Lily said, “but no. We must remain. My father expects it. No accident of rain, sleet or frightened dog amid the carriage wheels should prevent it.”

Marianne agreed. “Uncle Killian is a taskmaster.”

Remy was not dissuaded. “I have my carriage close by, farther down the street and I’m sure my coachman is attempting to pull forward amid the crowd. I’d be quite happy to offer to take you home. All of you.”

“Merci beaucoup, Remy,” Chaumont was quick to accept. She leaned back, regarding him with hazel eyes misty from her consumption of alcohol. “I must not desert my duties. I am charged with escorting Miss Hanniford and Mrs. Roland through the rigors of Paris.”

“No, Madame.” Lily had other ideas. “Thank you, for your kindness. If you wish to return home, certainly, do go with the kind man.”

“Et vous?” she asked Lily. “You also need assistance.”

“Not at all.”

“I’m uncertain.” Chaumont demurred with a coy look up at Remy.

Marianne silently fumed.

“Madame, please.” Lily was quick to continue. ”We can proceed with our selection of fabrics and styles. Our carriage is scheduled to return for us in two hours. In the meantime, we would be reassured that you are recovering if you were in your own home resting.”

Marianne sniffed. Chaumont wished to enjoy her recovery in the arms of this impressive French prince. Torn, hating her envy, she patted Chaumont’s hand. “We can finish ourselves.”

“If you think it possible,” Chaumont postured prettily.

“I do,” Marianne said, so conflicted that she was not able to discern if she wished the woman to go or stay.

“I insist,” said Lily.

The vendeuse reappeared. “Pardon. The lady in question with the naughty dog is the Grand Duchess of Volenska.”

Remy frowned at his friend. “Anna Drobova.”

“Trouble?” Chelton asked him.

Remy rolled his eyes. “No angel.”

“It matters not.” Chelton inclined his head to Chaumont, Lily and her. “I will leave you and discuss certain financial matters with the grand duchess. It was my pleasure to see you again, Madame le Comtesse. And a pleasure to meet both of you, Mrs. Roland and Miss Hanniford. Remy, I leave you to assist Madame. When your carriage arrives, I’ll have the doorman summon you both. Good day.”

“I cannot leave you.” Chaumont did protest too much. “My duty is here.”

“No, Madame,” Marianne said to her with finality. “You should return home. You’ve had a fright.”

“Quite right,” Remy took up the cause, polite but firm. “You shall come with Chelton and me, Comtesse. It’s best that we leave these ladies to their dressmaker.”

Marianne and Lily bid them adieu, standing as Remy carried the countess out of the room.

“Oh, my,” said Lily after they’d gone. She was pale, her voice soft, a hand to her throat. “That was exciting. Papa knows him, you realize.”

Lily meant Chelton. Clearly, by her dreamy expression, she was taken by him. “I do. He is quite handsome.”

Lily blinked and looked askance at her. “Come now. You much prefer the duke.”

“He is…arresting.”

“Arresting?” she blurted.

Why prevaricate? “The height, the hair, the power of him. Yes.”

“Ah, ah. I know that tone. You saw him as a subject to draw.”

“I did,” she admitted. Lily had often watched her discover a passion to draw a flower, a scampering squirrel or a baby.

“It’s a wonder you haven’t sketched him yet.”

But I did. Last night. With three good portraits as my prize. But seeing him today, I realize none of them does justice to him. “He does have one imperfection.”

Lily hooted. “Really? Pray tell, what could that be?”

Marianne tapped the tip of her nose. “He is very Gallic. The nose is out of proportion. Too long.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “And I must eat my hat.”

The Parisian vendeuse reappeared, narrowed her eyes and attempted a smile. She pointed toward the hall. “Madame e Mademoiselle, we are ready for the fitting, oui?”

“Oui.” Marianne was quick to nod and sailed past Lily to the hall and the dressing rooms. “We are so very ready.”

She must put the honorable Andre Claude Marceau, the Duc de Remy, from her mind. He was beyond her reach. Last night he had appeared to her as a handsome creature who frequented cabarets, drank wine and sketched lewd dancers. Today, he became a savior of ladies in distress. Even in his rumpled evening clothes, he was larger than her memory of him, a giant of might and manners, to say nothing of the fact that he was also a royal. All of which implied he was most likely a rogue of the first water. He probably had a wife and a mistress or two. Remy was no man who wished for a dalliance with the penniless thirty-year-old widow of a Virginia farmer, living off the good graces of her very rich and very generous maternal uncle.

* * *

Chaumont clung to him like moss on a rock. Remy might have laughed, but he’d not insult her. The woman was indeed injured, her left ankle swelling even as it lay propped on the opposite seat of his carriage.

Chelton caught his gaze and wrinkled a rueful brow. “I do hope you will take care of that ankle, Madame. The quicker you ice it, the sooner you will have full use of your limb.”

“I will, Monsieur le Marquis, I will.” She squeezed Remy’s upper arm.

“We did well to aid them, Julian. You did wonders with the horse.” Remy arched both brows at his friend whom he usually addressed by his given name. He’d noted Julian’s interest in Lily Hanniford and wondered if it was only her beauty that drew him or if it was that Julian had business dealings with her father. As for himself, he was dejected that the delicate blonde with the mysterious emerald eyes was married. Remy envied the man who had her to hand. He hoped to heaven that man was wise and reveled in the arch of her cheek and the fullness of those lips.

He shifted amid the leather cushions, his stab of desire for her sharp.

He prayed to god she was wed to a man who relished her. For if she were his, he’d lay her out as if she were a horde of platinum gold. His fingers twitched. He winced. He’d have to try to recreate her. She was too exquisite to forget, nearly too perfect for most mortals to contemplate. But was it not his duty to show others the perfections of this world along with the distortions?

Julian stirred, focusing on Chaumont. “How do you know Miss Hanniford and Mrs. Roland?”

Remy caught his breath and snapped to his senses.

Chaumont tipped up her head and put on her public face. “I have agreed to show them Paris. They are Americans, you realize, and so—” She waved a hand to denote they could be dismissed as déclassé. “They need a guide to ease their social path.”

Remy winked at Julian. What Chaumont meant was that fees earned escorting nouveau riche Americans around Paris would fatten her pitifully thin purse. With such purpose, she could once more grace salons and ballrooms in finer attire than she’d been able to since her elderly husband had gone suddenly last year toes up into his family crypt in the Montmartre Cimetière.

“Good of you to aid them, Madame,” Remy said.

“It is nothing,” she said with a lift of one shoulder.

Julian ran a finger across his lips. “You’ve met Killian Hanniford, the young lady’s father?”

“I have,” she said with pride. “He is formidable.”

“To say the least,” Julian agreed.

“You know the man?” she asked, surprise in her tone.

Julian nodded. “I do. Quite well.”

“Mademoiselle Hanniford is lovely,” Remy said, attempting to lead her to more revelations. “Suits her name. How old is she?”

“Twenty. Untouched. A beauty with all that black hair and those large blue eyes.”

Julian said nothing but Remy knew his friend well and the intent look on his face told a tale of curiosity about the American girl with such striking features.

“They are here for a few months and then we are all on to London.”

“For the Season?” Remy asked because Julian had directed his attention out the window, lost in some thoughts that made him frown.

“Oui. I am to do what I can for introductions. You are my first, Monsieur le Marquis. And you, Monsieur le duc. If you see them in the future, you must do your duty, aid me, introduce them as they should be. Say you will.”

“Of course,” Julian said, casting the duty off absentmindedly.

“I will,” Remy agreed.

“Is your Mama up to a dinner party?”

His mother, at the grand age of seventy-five, held on to her position with an iron glove. As a primiere Bourbon princesse and also a descendant of a minor Bonaparte, she was welcome everywhere. Refined and discerning, a fixture of the Second Empire circles, she was a scion who had become more valued and more fragile these past few years. Yet once a week, she exerted herself and took her weekly champagne luncheons at her favorite restaurant with her friends. Afterward, as she did every other day of the week, she’d retire straightaway to her wing of their house in the Rue de Rivoli at four in the afternoon. She’d last hosted a party during the uprising of the Commune in 1870 and that, so fumed the haute ton in astonishment, was to feed the starving little orphans in St. Bartolome’s parish school. Now a dinner party seemed out of the question for her. But Remy would play the gentleman here. “I will ask her.”

“Oh, do!” Chaumont put a hand to his chest. “At your house in Rue de Rivoli.”

“There, oui.”

”Not your chateau in Tours,” she added. “Too big. Too far away. And the one in Montmartre would not be appropriate, either. All that dust and plaster, Remy.” Chaumont forgot herself, slipping into the more familiar name of his title. He’d never invited her to use it and she immediately blushed. “Forgive me, Monsieur. The moment, you realize. My ankle.”

“I do. Please do address me as Remy. We are friends, oui? Of many years.” He’d lead her on, needing her friendship…and her knowledge of the fabulous blonde beauty whose essence struck him to the quick.

“Oh, indeed, we are,” she eagerly agreed, her hazel eyes dancing at the new intimacy. “You must call me Clemence.”

“Thank you. Overdue, eh? To be more friendly.”

Julian fixed his gaze on him and when the woman chuckled, Julian widened his eyes at him, aware she wished to seduce him.

Remy bit his lip to hold back his laughter. But he was out of patience to learn about the appealing Madame Roland. “So then we have the delightful Lily Hanniford husband-hunting. Are there more at home in America or is she the only princess in this line?”

“She is the oldest daughter. There is a son, who is older than she. He goes by the name of Pierce. There is a younger daughter, Ada, who is still in finishing school in America. They both arrive next spring by boat to London. And then too, of course, Mister Hanniford himself is a widower.”

“Dear god,” said Julian. “He’s old! You don’t mean to say he is looking for a bride?”

“Peut être, maybe, Monsieur, he is not. But he is rich and very attractive. A wise woman would find herself in a happy state to marry such a man.”

“And what of Madame Roland?” Remy was out of patience to inquire.

“Oh, I have heard Madame declare she is happy as she is.”

What does that mean? Are she and her husband estranged? Was the man in America awaiting her return?

“I don’t understand her at all,” Chaumont sighed. “I have been alone since my sweet Gerard passed to heaven. And I long for a man in my home.”

Remy blinked. Aside from her indelicate hint that she’d accept his advances, what did that imply about Mrs. Roland?

Julian caught his confusion, grinned, then beamed at Chaumont. “You mean to say, Madame, that Mrs. Roland is a widow?”

“Certainement. For more than ten years. A tragedy, non? Such loveliness and no man has celebrated her for so very long.”

Remy frowned. A widow. For more than a decade? Why did a woman with so much vitality remain alone? Surely men had come to call upon the lady with the wealth of white gold hair and the dark green eyes of a jungle cat. Why had she not accepted them?

Was she one of those American puritans? A firebrand? Or a recluse?

None seemed probable. She’d gone to the cabaret last night. She dressed with style and verve. She moved like a willow in the breeze. If she was not a prude, was she the opposite? A lady of social decorum who had a taste for the lascivious?

He could not believe it. His instinct for human nature told him her essence was neither puritan nor risqué. The way she looked at him had not been with indifference. On the contrary, the way her eyes devoured him had told him of her hunger. The way her lips parted when she considered him had told him of her fantasies. And who was he to her, but a man she’d only recently met, a cipher at least, an acquaintance at best?

She was a lady to be admired, petted and taught to love her own passions. She was a woman to treasure and to teach the joys of her own sensuality. She’d been in hiding from herself and her potential as a woman, as a loving creature. He could awaken her.

But how?