Bakeley backed stealthily to the door, thinking.

Soon after her arrival, Lady Sirena had left the room, and had only returned as the performance was starting, with Lady Arbrough in tow. Both had most likely been in the salon set aside for the ladies.

Lady Sirena might truly be ill. She might not have been lying about megrims.

As the host, he was entitled to check. It was more properly left to the hostess, but she was thick in the middle of an étude.

He knocked at the retiring room door, and the maid in attendance said no one was there except herself. He opened his mouth to ask about the lady in the yellow dress, but then remembered—the maid, like every other servant in this house, was likely to share his questioning with the housekeeper, who would speak to the butler, and sooner or later, Shaldon would hear of it.

The strands of music filtered through the corridors. Where would she have gone?

That was the wrong question. Why would she go off exploring the home of the Earl of Shaldon?

Why, indeed. Shaldon was all tied up in her family’s troubles. Perhaps she, too, would be looking for the same thing he’d searched days in a row for—a file on the Hollisters.

His father’s study wasn’t on the first floor, and it would be locked. Even if she could find the room on her own, she wouldn’t be able to enter.

Unless she could pick a very complicated lock, which, being Irish, she probably could.

The other places to search were his father’s bedchamber and the library. Even if she found her way up the stairs to the correct bedchamber, the valet might be there, fussing about with his father’s things.

The library it was.

He followed the corridor to the other side of the house and listened a moment at the closed door, then turned the latch. A low fire burned in the fireplace, and the room was disturbingly quiet.

Yet he sensed a presence, heard a rustle suddenly shushed. The only scent in the air was the stale smoke of cigars. Lady Sirena used no scent that he could recall, or perhaps her perfume was too subtle amongst the cloying perfumes of the other ladies.

As his eyes adjusted, he spotted a candelabra and went about lighting the tapers. “I do hope Perry is not disappointed that I have a megrim...also,” he said.

When he looked up from the lit candles, she had moved in front of the fire.

“I shall return then.” She stepped out toward the door.

He blocked her path and heard her small gasp. And smelled her, a faint hint of some flowery soap.

She stepped to one side, and he matched her, as in their dance at the Hackwells’ ball.

“Pray, sir, what are you about? Sure, and I mayn’t be here all alone with you.”

The lilting words warmed him. “Whatever are you doing in the library?”

“Have I offended? I am sorry. I do have the headache, and I could find no peace in the ladies’ retiring room.”

“Ah. Is that where you befriended Lady Arbrough?”

Her low chuckle moved over him. “Aye. I walked up to the fashionable lady and asked her to help poor me back to the music room.” She clucked her tongue. “Do you think? For some reason, it was the lady befriending me. Said we will be fast friends, which Lady Perry said also tonight, and her I may believe.”

“Lady Arbrough is starting trouble.”

“Are you and she friends then? Two peas from the same pod?” She tried to skirt him again, and he matched her—again. “Let me pass and the trouble will be less.”

He took a step closer, close enough to feel the swirl of her skirt, and his heart lifted. “Lady Arbrough...until very recently was a very close...friend.”

And that friendship was over. He would talk to Jocelyn on the morrow.

He felt a shock travel through her, and when she spoke her voice trembled with it. “Your amorous congress—isn’t that what it’s called?—is nothing to me. I’m leaving now. Take your sorry self out of my way and let me pass.”

“No.” He snatched up her hand. “You look lovely tonight. Stay. Keep me company.”

She tried to pull away but he reached for her other hand.

“Do not do this, sir.”

The anger was giving way to fear, though whether it was real or feigned he couldn’t tell. He drew her closer to the light. Her eyes glowed with that same luminosity he’d noticed at Hackwell’s ball, her lips were plump and inviting, and gold highlights bounced off her dress and her hair. She was a beauty in daylight. By candlelight, she was a goddess, a golden siren. No wonder she’d had to run away from the cousin.

And that thought brought him up. He didn’t ravish women, unless they wanted it. This girl didn’t want it.

Unless he convinced her she did.

He eased in a breath. No. At least, no, not tonight.

“You and I, my lady, we’re looking for the same thing.”

She swallowed hard, her lovely throat jumping. “You are mistaken.”

“Am I? What do you think I’m talking about?”

She pursed her lips. Opened them. “A liaison.”

“An improper one?”

Her brow furrowed. “You’re mocking me now. Let me go.”

“First we should search together.”

“I don’t know what you mean, and we’ll be missed. Both of us gone? Together?” Her eyes became shiny. She’d drummed up some tears. “I’ll be...on the street. I’ll be fortunate if I’m sent back to serve as my cousin’s, my cousin’s—”

“Files, Lady Sirena. Files that say Hollister on them.”

A tear ran unchallenged down her creamy cheek and her mouth dropped. “Oh.”

He swept the tear away with his finger. So soft her skin was, as he dragged the moisture down to her lips and traced a path over them. Her chest rose, her breasts straining the modest bodice of the yellow gown.

He yanked her closer and settled his lips on hers, and a sharp gasp escaped her before she clamped her mouth shut.

“Just one kiss,” he whispered. He nibbled around her locked lips and stroked the line of her jaw until she shivered in his arms and her lips parted, allowing him entry.

He kissed her then, sweeping his tongue against hers, for long minutes, then tasting her skin, following the path of his fingers along her jaw and down to her neck, inciting a sharp gasp and a moan, and more wriggling. He wanted her, and she wanted him, and—

“Stop.” Her hands locked on his shoulders, pushing.

Heart pounding, he froze. He was a gentleman. Even if she had been no lady—which she most definitely was—he would have stopped. No matter how hard his cock screamed for release, as it did now. “Right.” He stepped back and straightened his neck cloth.

Sirena’s heart pounded so wildly she could barely find breath to speak. “The files,” she said finally.

“Yes. He wouldn’t keep them here in so accessible a location.”

Oh, he was lathered, she could tell, almost as much as herself. This was what was meant by seduction—not the graspy, slobbery, forced thing her cousin had attempted. If not for the housekeeper and butler and a strong dose of laudanum...oh, this was very different, and this man a far more powerful lord than her cousin.

She’d be lucky to survive this night with her maidenhead intact. But she wanted that file. She needed to know what happened to Jamie. “His study then? My father had a room like that.”

“Yes. We’ll look there.” He gazed down that bored nose, straightened his neck cloth, though not so much as a hair of the man was out of place, while inside herself, every nerve was dancing a jig. She pressed a hand to her throat and hoped her heart hadn’t pounded her bodice askew. She daren’t look away first.

Music still played, and a wobbly contralto could be heard. Finally, he turned away, blew out the candles, and took her hand, leading her up the servants’ stairs.

Using the backstairs—it tweaked her pride, but she quickly dismissed the emotion. Lady or no, she was an Irish girl in London with no money or family, and no right to put on airs. And now was no time to take offense. If Shaldon’s heir required her to mop or dust, she’d do it and gladly, and mayhap have more chance to see what the old man was hiding.

She’d not willingly spread her legs for him though, and as he squired her down the dimly lit hall she decided he’d not likely try to force her either. He’d stopped immediately upon her request, like the gentleman he claimed to be.

No, like a true gentleman of any country, his would be a sneaky attack on her virtue. She must be strong and forbearing of carnal pleasure. Not even dear Lady Jane would rescue her if she cheerfully surrendered her virtue to Bakeley.

Men’s voices on the grand staircase brought Bakeley to a sudden halt, and she collided into him. Her cheek bumped his shoulder and she uttered an oof.

He turned quickly, hooked an arm around her, and placed a finger over her lips. The voices had paused and picked up again, and she recognized Lord Shaldon’s deep tones.

Bakeley quietly opened the nearest door and twirled both of them in, shutting it without so much as a click, turning the key. Under his fine coats, his chest rose and fell against her breasts.

Oh, heavens. The man was all muscle and lean strength, and he smelled—wonderful. Some manly perfume mixed with hints of tobacco and leather. And just a touch of the stables. Her father had smelled almost wholly like horses and whiskey, which were wonderful in their own way. But this?

His hand crept up her back, and the other—there were two wrapped around her—the other moved down, and... Oh. His hot breath caressed her ear in a long shhhhh that sent warmth curling through her.

Voices came through the smoky fog in her brain. In the corridor, Shaldon was speaking.

She strained to hear his words, tried to discern who he was with, but that whoosh of hot breath, like the brook near her home rushing over the boulders, swallowed the voices.

The men retreated and a door slammed, cutting them off. She unwound her arms, realizing she had been holding him as tightly as he held her.

You are a fool, Sirena.

Dim light penetrated the room through the drawn back curtains. Her eyes had adjusted and she saw the outline of a grand bed. She could make out no scattered garments, no books, no clutter of any sort. Perhaps this was an unoccupied guest chamber, and they at least wouldn’t be discovered by an occupant turning in early.

You cannot stay here with him. Get out now.

She pushed against his chest, so solid and strong, her hands itching to slide under the layers of coats.

“Well, that’s that,” she whispered. “I’ll be off.”

“Not yet.” The low masculine murmur stirred her, as did the hand traversing her bottom. The thin muslin, the delicate petticoat, the fine gloves, they were the flimsiest of barriers for his lordship’s heat.