Bakeley settled his hand on the swell of Sirena’s hip and held it there. The heat coursing between them was like the exchange of a blood oath. Need, want, and anger did battle with his finer senses.

His father had entered his study down the hall, and that had been Lord Denholm’s voice he’d heard too. Making plans for his future they were, to settle him with the little miss down below who deserved someone better than him, someone younger, someone who wanted her.

What he wanted he had in his arms right now, in a dark bedchamber. She’d tried to push him back, but that had been no display of maidenly airs—it was a fine-honed sense of survival. A maiden she was, he’d guess, and had never been properly kissed before, yet every instinct in her had made her respond. And damn it if he didn’t want to take that further, to show her just how sensual she was.

He could. He could do this. He could have her.

His heart quickened and began to pound fiercely against the hand she had planted on his chest.

He could have her, but not this way. He moved his hands to her shoulders and let his thumbs sweep the soft skin there. “My sister’s rooms are on this floor. She told you to go up and lie down there if you needed. You got lost.”

He could feel the movement of her throat as she swallowed.

“She will back you up,” he said.

“Yes. I’ll go now.”

“No. I’ll go to my father’s study. Wait until you hear the door close again. Then go. Take the main stairs.”

“Thank you.”

He dropped a chaste kiss on her lips. “I’ll call on you tomorrow.”

He rapped once on the study door and sauntered in. Surprise lit Denholm’s face, but Shaldon merely sunk deeper into his chair, as though he’d been expecting him. Both men were seated comfortably at the low coal fire, drinks in hand, settling his future.

“Just the man,” Denholm said. “Join us.”

“For a moment.” He poured himself a drink and pulled a chair over from the writing table. Why Father had brought Denholm to his chummy, cluttered study was a mystery. No one but two trusted servants were ever allowed to clean, and they only delivered coal and dusted around the piles of paper and books.

But perhaps Father had looked for him in the library. Father was a cagey one. He would have noticed that both his son and Lady Sirena had disappeared.

To hell with it. “I hear you have a horse running at Ascot this year,” he said. His father’s interest in horses had necessarily waned, what with having to save England from Napoleon. But with Denholm, horses were a safe subject.

“Indeed. And I have a fine filly downstairs in your music room. What think you of her? She’ll give you some fine foals. Good stock she is, like her mother.”

Shaldon watched, as ever, unreadable in a crisis.

“She’s a lovely young girl.”

Denholm slapped his knee, immune to sarcasm. “Indeed she is. Kept a tight rein on her, I did. None of these young ladies’ academies for my chits. Have another one at home just like her. The settlements will be easy. Shaldon and I have already come to terms and we’ll have you married in no time.”

He sipped his drink and stared back at his father. This desire for an alliance with Denholm was baffling. Father had claimed to be too ill to attend Parliament, but he was no doubt busy meddling behind the scenes of government. Of course, Denholm’s would be an easily controlled vote, but he would follow Shaldon’s lead anyway. The man had no political aspirations, unless a horse was involved. And Shaldon had plenty of fine horses to bargain with.

There was the Denholm money, of course, but the Shaldon earldom had plenty of that also. No, his father had some other motivation.

“Well, boy, what say you? Will you marry my daughter?”

And have a lifetime of Denholm at one end of the table and Shaldon at the other?

“I have spent all of five minutes with her, Denholm. She’s lovely and very young, and my strong sense is that she deserves better than me.”

The man’s thick eyebrows drew together as he sorted through the words. “Ah. Because of Lady Arbrough.” He rubbed his hands together. “A man wouldn’t want to give that up. Glenna has been taught the way of the world. She’ll not mind.”

His stomach roiled and his head began to ache, the revulsion he felt seeping inward. Lady Arbrough had seemed a great prize a few months earlier. That she’d picked him as her first liaison in widowhood had raised his spirits. But marrying a young innocent and keeping his mistress on, like some eastern potentate? Bink would not do so, nor would Hackwell. Nor, he suspected, had his father so many years ago, else he would have brought Bink’s mother to England.

He didn’t give a damn if that were the way of the world. It would not be the way of his world.

“Denholm, she’s a lovely young girl, but still a girl. She needs some seasoning, a year making her way through the ton. Let us all understand one another—I am not going to marry her.”

“Wife won’t like it. She wants her girls married off in their first season like she was, to the best catch. We can agree to a long engagement.”

“No, Lord Denholm.”

His eyes wheedled. “Ah. You’ve been snared. Lady Arbrough has set her cap.”

His head felt like it was gripped in a vise. “No. However, I did hear about a stallion coming up on the market down in Kent. Descended from the Darley Arabian, they say. You were in need of a stud, were you not?”

Denholm was soundly diverted. They talked through another drink about horses and racing, giving Sirena plenty of time to escape. Shaldon observed in his quietly menacing way, and then they all returned together.

At the door of the music room, Denholm left them to find another drink. The music had stopped and the guests were mingling.

“You have dodged for the last time,” Shaldon said. “You will marry.”

“Or?”

His father actually sighed. Another fake sigh, because there wasn’t much he could threaten him with. The estate was entailed, and his mother’s settlements had provided generous portions for all her children, even the heir.

“I should like to bounce the next Viscount Bakeley on my knee before I die.”

Perry smiled at him over her shoulder and pivoted to reveal Lady Sirena, whose smile disappeared when she saw him.

“Denholm, Father? What were you thinking?”

“You would have the damned horses in common. And his money is not soiled by war profits.”

And he is not Irish. “Yes, well, I’m done with the war profits.” He strode away before his father could add a snide remark.

He must make a trip to the jewelers tomorrow.

Sirena sat very still on the coach ride home. Her head no longer hurt, but her insides felt filled with bubbles. Excitement trembled within her, and why, she couldn’t tell, except that all she could think of was the feel of Lord Bakeley’s warm hand resting upon her bottom and his whispered promise that he would call on her tomorrow.

And why would he promise that? She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want this troublesome lord interfering. She needed to find out about Jamie.

And she couldn’t share any of it with anyone, not Lady Jane, nor Lord and Lady Hackwell. All of them conversed, and she pretended to listen, but heard not a word.

“Sirena, are you still unwell?” Lady Hackwell asked.

“I’m better. Only a little fatigued. London is so very exciting after Dublin.”

“You must sleep late tomorrow,” Lady Jane said. “None of this running off to the market.”

“A good night’s rest will set me straight, and you shall have your warm bread, my lady.”

The Hackwells exchanged a glance but said nothing. Thank heavens. Good people they were, and not inclined to pry. A pox on Lord Bakeley’s kisses, his promise to visit. She’d rise early tomorrow, as usual. Walter and his brother were bringing a man to meet her. It had taken all of her persuasion and most of her meager funds to arrange it, for this was a man well and truly on the run, much more so than the O’Brians.

Early the next morning, Sirena saw Walter’s tall, lean figure in the shadows of a shop doorway, and he was not alone. The other man moved, and the twist of tension in her stomach relaxed. It was Josh, Walter’s brother.

Walter tipped his hat to her. “We’ll both be going along with ye, milady. He’ll not come here. And we must go to him, and not a good place neither.”

That hadn’t been the plan.

“I mustn’t be gone long. How far is it?”

“The East End, milady, near the docks. A place called the Sign of the Bull. Faster, if we can hire a carriage.”

She thought of the coins tucked away in her pocket alongside her gram’s good luck charm, the quaternary knot. She’d brought it along just in case…well, it was the only identifying thing she had of her brother.

Gram had used up all the good luck in Queen Brighid’s knot, which was probably why this morning was going awry, and money spent on a hackney left less coin to buy information. “We’d best go afoot. We’ve walked farther at home.”

She set off and they came up on either side, escorting her into a part of London she’d heard of but not seen. Lady Hackwell had spoken of it in the one meeting of her Lady’s Relief Society she and Lady Jane had attended.

There’d been no more meetings. Not that she and Lady Jane didn’t sympathize, no. They sympathized aplenty, but they had no money to help.

And back in Donegal, she herself had seen plenty such hardship.

A poor woman with two urchins in tow shouted out for a coin.

“Off with ye,” Walter growled.

Her heart lurched, but she kept her eyes straight ahead. She needed every farthing to find news of her brother.

At the end of the block she turned and saw the woman shaking a hand at her.

“A faker, that one is,” Josh said. “She’ll be in the gin mill drinking away her coins.”

“And the children?”

“They’ll be with her, chewing a crust of bread and swilling gin also. Not much further now.”

But it was. The sun was full up before they’d stopped at a tavern with a swinging sign of a bull.

“Wait here with Josh, miss. I’ll get the man.”

Bakeley rapped on Lady Arbrough’s door just as Lord Pelham was making his exit, at an extraordinarily early time of day.

Pelham opened his mouth and seemed to not know what to say. A bachelor also, he had inherited his title when he was still in leading strings. Pelham had far more experience in keeping well-bred mistresses, yet this awkward moment was making him nervous.

“Be at ease, Pelham. I won’t call you out.”

“You always were a good egg, Bakeley.” The butler hovered at a discreet distance. Pelham leaned closer. “Yielding the field are you?”

Bakeley nodded. “Yes.”

Pelham’s eyes brightened. “Denholm’s daughter? I thought congratulations were in order when I saw you enter with the old man. Everything’s settled then?”

“No. Denholm’s daughter is still on the market. Beware, old man.”

Pelham laughed. “Dodged the parson’s trap, did you? Thank you for the warning.” He clapped Bakeley on the back and left.

He found Lady Arbrough quite at her leisure amid a field of flowers that occupied every spare inch of table. Pelham wasn’t the only one making overtures.

She extended her slender hand and he kissed it.

“That was very courtly of you, Bakeley, but not quite what I was reaching for.”

So, she was going to make this easier. He pulled the box out of his pocket.

She opened it. “Ah. Rubies.” She studied them for so long she began to remind him of his father.

“Is a speech required?” They had always been direct with one another.

She smiled, and it seemed almost wistful. “Heavens, no. And you may tell Pelham it will not be quite so easy as he might think. I have not at all settled on your replacement.”

He would miss this aspect of her. But, Lady Sirena was a plain-spoken woman also.

She rose and rang for a servant. “We’ll have a last tea together.” Aside from that glorious bosom, she looked altogether too thin, her skin tightly drawn, her years starting to show.

No different than before, but how had he not noticed it? “Will it be poisoned, Jocelyn?”

“No, my dear. It is well past time for you to marry. I was a young bride once, and I would not play the distraction for a young woman’s husband.”

Servants brought tea and closed the door on the way out.

“You are going to marry?” She finished pouring and met his eyes.

“Shaldon wishes it so.”

A grimace. “And whatever Shaldon wishes he gets.”

“Lord of the realm.” He popped a biscuit into his mouth.

She settled back like a cat, kicked off her shoes and curled her feet under her. “I know what you’re up to.”

“Really?” He sipped some tea. Denholm’s wife must have set the rumor mill turning.

She nodded. Her eyes slitted and her lips curved up. “And I approve. We had quite a chat last night.”

“Indeed.” Well, Denholm did say his daughter was broad-minded.

“Pity you won’t be able to tell me about Shaldon’s reaction to the news. But perhaps she will relate it to me eventually. I believe she and I will be fast friends.”

The hair on his neck rose. He leaned back and stretched out his legs. She meant Lady Sirena. And if she thought his wife would be friends with a courtesan, even an aristocratic one...

But Jocelyn’s reputation was not such a wild one. She’d been faithful to her husband, as far as anyone knew. In fact, she’d waited two years after the man’s death to take Bakeley as a lover. Though there were men who whispered of their conquest of her, they were all well-known liars, the sort who claimed imaginary trysts, not worth the aggravation of a duel to defend his mistress’s honor, if he were so inclined. Which he wasn’t.

He opened his mouth to protest, and then closed it. There was no sense attempting to argue her out of the idea “Why?”

“I like her. And, your little fiefdom does not need another infusion of cash.” She shrugged. “And really, Bakeley, she needs you.”

A scratch at the door brought the butler announcing another caller.

He got to his feet. “What do you know about her?”

She bit her lip and looked away. “Only what I’ve said. Though, I suspect, she guards her cards. To truly win her may require all your arts of seduction.” Rising, she kissed his cheek. “You may count me as an ally, my friend.”

The walk to Lady Sirena’s lodgings gave Bakeley a chance to think. Why did Jocelyn care about Lady Sirena? Years before, Jocelyn had famously swept the elderly Arbrough off his feet, but she had not been an impoverished orphan adrift. She’d come from Welsh gentry, she’d said, and he’d heard she’d brought a respectable dowry.

And how had she known of his interest in Lady Sirena? Well, that was obvious. He and Sirena had been absent at the same time. If Jocelyn had noticed, so had at least some of those at the musicale last night. Pelham hadn’t, because his brain had been filled with the vision of Jocelyn’s breasts.

Shaldon would have noticed, yet he’d said nothing about it at breakfast.

She is off limits, Shaldon had said. You have dodged for the last time. You will marry.

Uneasiness crept through him. He should have brought that intemperate horse for a brisk ride instead of taking a brisk walk, something to settle his mind.

Shaldon’s opposition to Lady Sirena. Jocelyn’s support of the girl. Rumors and obsession. All because of a few stolen kisses, which reminded him how well his hand had fit upon her bottom, and how smooth her skin was at her shoulders.

Perhaps he should point himself toward Shaldon House, or better yet, the bachelor lodgings he hadn’t visited in months. A bottle of brandy and some time to brood in peace might soothe him.

He turned a corner and found himself on the same street where he’d met Lady Sirena, mere doors from her rooms.

Yes, well, he hadn’t promised to do more than call on her, and that he would do.

The door of Lady Sirena’s lodgings opened before he could knock. The thin woman who answered was not the same maid who’d admitted them the day he’d visited with Perry. She was older, perhaps Lady Jane’s age, and plainly clad like an upper floor servant.

“Oh, sir, thank you for coming. Lady Jane is aflutter.” She ushered him into a sitting room. “Lord Hackwell has arrived, my lady.”

Lady Jane’s mouth dropped. “Oh, Barton, this is not Hackwell. This is Bakeley.”

“I do beg your pardon.” The servant called Barton, a lady’s maid, he’d guess, settled a shawl on Lady Jane’s shoulders.

“I did not know what to do,” Lady Jane said. “Cheswick is still in the country. I sent for Hackwell.”

His heart quickened. “Where is Lady Sirena?”

“That’s just it. I don’t know. She went out this morning as usual and she hasn’t come back.”