Aslyn awoke to sunshine pouring in through her bedchamber window. She hadn’t expected that. With such a heavy heart, she should be greeted with rain, an abundance of it gushing down in sheets that hampered visibility. Heaving a deep sigh, she shoved herself up and settled against the pillows. Last night, she’d instructed Nan to bring her breakfast. She couldn’t face the duke across the dining table.

Fortunately neither he nor the duchess had been waiting for her when she returned home, so they’d been spared wondering why their son didn’t escort her inside. After his bout of retching, he’d clambered back into the carriage, curled up on the seat and begun to snore loudly as though her threat of calling things off mattered little. For all of a heartbeat, she’d considered waking him so they could finish their conversation and come to some sort of terms or an understanding, but she’d been unable to rely on any rational discourse in his current state. She’d have to wait for him to sober up.

Upon arriving at the residence, she’d made a hasty retreat from the carriage, leaving him to see his own self home, where she assumed his servants would either assist in getting him inside or simply leave him to sleep it off in his conveyance. She rather hoped for the latter. He’d betrayed her trust, proved himself unworthy of her affections.

Where he was concerned, how could she have been such a fool? While she’d been brought up to expect marriage, to see becoming a wife and mother as her duty, presently she wasn’t convinced she wanted it. Never before had Kip shown such blatant disregard for her feelings.

With a deep sigh, she scrubbed her hands over her face. Melancholy didn’t suit her. She was weary of being so passive, of waiting for life to happen to her. She was as dependent on Kip for her happiness as he was on his damned cards and wagering for his own. When he had described what it was to win, all she’d been able to think was that the same things happened to her when she was near Mick Trewlove. She wasn’t exactly sure precisely what that meant. The man confused her in ways she’d never even known existed.

And with whom could she discuss all these confounding feelings, the ones about Kip whom she’d once admired and whose actions she now detested, Mick whom Society insisted she shun because of his birth, and yet she’d grown to admire?

She couldn’t seek advice from the duchess, couldn’t tell her about her son’s abhorrent behavior nor could she reveal what a gentleman she found Mick Trewlove to be. So who was there for her to talk to? She’d been raised in near isolation at the ducal estate until it was time to have a Season. She’d met other ladies, but she hadn’t become close to them; they didn’t share intimacies, only gossip. Kip was the one to whom she’d always spoken before, had shared her doubts and fears, her hopes and dreams. She felt as though he’d squashed them, torn them up, cast them aside and in so doing had cast her aside as well, with little thought, and anger, and words that could never be unheard.

Tossing back the covers, she scrambled out of bed, unable to abide this moping about. She was going to join the duke for breakfast. She was going to find a purpose to her life that didn’t involve marriage. She was going to determine how best to help Kip realize he needed to leave the gambling tables before they destroyed him. She wouldn’t abandon him, but neither could she embrace him, not as he’d been last night, not as he may have been many nights before.

A soft rap sounded on her door just before Nan opened it and walked inside carrying a tray. “I thought you wanted breakfast in bed.”

Oh dear. She couldn’t very well not eat in her room after putting her servant to such bother. “I’ll have it in the sitting area.”

Nan set it on the low table before turning to face her, looking rather guilty as she did. “Another package arrived for you—­same as before. Well, not quite. It wasn’t the same gent who delivered it but a scruffy little lad who was told to give it only to me and I was to give it only to you.” She held out a leather box, similar in shape to the other, but larger.

Aslyn took it, opened it. On a small card was written: A lady should never be separated from her pearls.

She lifted out the note. Beneath it rested her necklace and comb. There was a pain in the center of her chest, a tight knot as though her heart were being squeezed tighter and tighter. Her eyes burned more than they had when she’d walked into the smoke-­hazed card room. More than they had when she’d realized Kip had not kept his promise to her, that he had in fact lost the wager.

Mick Trewlove was showing her a kindness that her own betrothed had failed to do. A second man was stepping into her life while the first was stepping out of it. Confusion rocked her. She felt as though she were perched on the deck of a ship in the midst of a tempest. She had no business whatsoever thinking about Mick, but the horrible realization struck her that she had no desire to think about Kip.

Still, two hours later she found herself standing in the foyer of Kip’s town house.

“I’m sorry, m’lady,” his butler said, true sorrow reflected in his tone, “but his lordship is quite under the weather today.”

Glancing up the stairs, she wondered if she looked hard enough if she might see him suffering. She needed to speak with him; they needed to get things sorted out. Too much had been said, too much left unsaid. “Let him know I came by, and that I expect him to call on me as soon as he is able.”

“Yes, m’lady.”

She turned to go, stopped, swung back around. “Is he often under the weather?”

Clearing his throat, the butler looked down as though needing to check the polish on his shoes. His silence revealed his loyalty as well as providing the answer.

“My apologies. I’ve put you on the spot. I’ll be certain to let him know you hold his trust.”

“Thank you, m’lady.”

She walked out with her two maids following. All her life she’d listened and adhered to the duchess’s admonishments that dangers loomed afield, and she must never stray far from the familiar. Yet it was the familiar causing her heartache. She needed to help Kip, but she didn’t know how. Although she thought she might have a good idea regarding where to begin.

She waited on tenterhooks until the residence was completely quiet and absolutely still. Eerily so. She ignored Nan’s warnings and declined her maid’s offer to accompany her. If something went awry, she didn’t want her loyal servant to be faulted. Besides, there was a thrill to walking out of the residence unaccompanied. Until the precise moment when the door closed behind her and she found herself standing alone on the stoop, she didn’t realize she’d never ventured forth without a cadre of servants waiting for her or following in her wake, or Kip offering his arm.

But tonight it was only she. Well, she and the hansom driver waiting at the end of the long drive that now echoed her hurried footsteps. She’d made the arrangements earlier in the afternoon when she’d supposedly gone shopping. Instead she’d been scouting out her options for making a clandestine escape.

An unfortunate word that, but there were numerous ways to be caged and not all of them came with steel bars or locked doors.

The driver tipped his hat and opened the door as she approached. “Miss.”

“Thank you, sir, for meeting me.”

“Not often I get paid double in advance of the journey.”

Her earlier outing had included a visit to the bank in which she had an account where a small bit of money from a trust her father had set up for her was deposited each month—­so she had some spending money. Most of the monthly allotment went to the duke so he could oversee her needs without causing a burden to his own family. When she married, it would go to her husband. If she were unmarried at twenty-­five, it would all begin coming to her. Until last night she’d never contemplated the final option. But now it loomed clear and welcome.

As she placed her hand in the one the driver extended to her, a quiver of foreboding shimmied through her. If she was going to change her mind, now was the time to do it. Instead, she took a deep breath, climbed up and settled onto the seat. The door closed with a rather loud snap that gave her a little start.

“Where to, miss?”

She gave him the address.

“I’ll have you there in a thrice.” The driver climbed up. The horse took off.

She pulled the hood of her pelisse up over her head, not that she thought where she was going anyone would recognize her, but it seemed the sort of thing a lady traveling alone should do: hide her identity as much as possible. A lady going about without a chaperone was no lady at all.

A chill hung in the air, or perhaps it was simply fear making her bones cold. All the responsibility rested with her, weighed on her. What if she’d judged Mick incorrectly, what if he was exactly the sort of rapscallion the duchess had warned her about, a man who would take advantage of a woman alone? With two sisters, how could he be? How could he look them in the eye if he treated another woman poorly?

It was nearing eleven. Few people were out but more than she expected wandered about. She’d often returned from a ball late at night but never given any heed to what was going on around her. Now she wondered who these people were. Why were they not abed? What entertainments did they find?

She saw the hotel long before they reached it. It stood out like a talisman. The carriage came to a halt, and she realized she had one more chance to change her mind, to instruct him to carry on, to take her home. Instead, when he opened the door, she allowed him to hand her down.

“I’ll wait till yer safely inside.”

She wasn’t quite sure she was going to be any safer inside than out here, but appreciated the sentiment. Marching up the steps, she saw the red-­clad porter who was standing outside the double glass doors straighten his spine and touch his finger to his top hat. “Miss.”

As long as she could remember, she’d been addressed as “my lady.” No doubt the term had followed her into the crib. It was odd to have two gentlemen not refer to her as such, but then proper young ladies weren’t expected to be skulking about at all hours of the night.

“I’m here to see Mr. Trewlove.” It suddenly occurred to her that it was very likely he wasn’t in residence. In which case it would turn out to be a good thing the hansom driver had remained.

“Top floor, miss.” He pulled open one of the doors.

“He’s in?” An inane thing to ask at that moment since he certainly wouldn’t have provided entry if the person she was seeking wasn’t about.

“Aye.”

Giving a nod, she glanced back at the hansom and the driver waiting patiently. “Will you wait twenty minutes? I’ll pay you for your time.” Her visit shouldn’t take any longer than that.

“My pleasure, miss. And don’t you be worrying about the additional fee. You’ve more than covered my time already.”

“Thank you!” With a little wave, she turned back and strolled inside.

A man stood behind the desk where guests received the keys to their rooms. “Evening, miss.”

“I’m here to see Mr. Trewlove.” At this rate all of London was going to know she was here and who she’d come to visit. She really hadn’t given this part of her plan adequate thought. Obviously organizing clandestine meetings wasn’t her forte.

She started up the sweeping staircase and climbed, climbed, climbed until there were no more red-­carpeted steps, only a long hallway with several closed wooden doors and one glass one. Etched in the glass was Trewlove. As it was nearest to her, and she could see a light shining from within the depths beyond, she decided to start there.

The door silently opened into a sitting area with a large desk where she suspected Mr. Tittlefitz worked while people waited to have an audience with Mick. She assumed that was the owner’s office farther inside. The door was open. She crept toward it—­

He sat behind a desk of dark wood, almost ebony in color, twice the size of Tittlefitz’s. He wore no jacket or waistcoat or cravat. The buttons at his throat were undone, the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up past his elbows as though he were in the thick of laboring. His hair curled in disarray. Little bits of shadow just above and below his beard hinted he had not shaved recently. He seemed rough, dangerous, a product of his origins. Her mind betrayed her with the thought that she’d never seen anyone look so marvelously masculine and alluring.

He was reading from a stack of papers, occasionally scratching a pen over the parchment. The sight of him did funny things to her insides, as though a thousand butterflies were fluttering around. He went to dip his pen into the inkwell, paused, lifted his head, pierced her with his blue gaze, and it was like the one time she’d dared to climb a tree, fallen from her perch and hit the ground hard. She struggled to draw in breath, thought it would forever be denied to her—­and then it swooshed back in with a sweet, delicious ache.

Slowly, so slowly that his movements were almost imperceptible, he set down his pen and came to his feet. “Lady Aslyn.”

His voice was raw, as though he’d not had anything to drink in a century, although there was a glass of amber liquid on his desk, near the edge of the papers, within easy reach. Perhaps whatever he’d been sipping had burned his throat.

“Mr. Trewlove.”

He darted a glance toward the windows as though to confirm it was still night beyond these walls. His gaze came back to her. “How might I be of service?”

Gathering her resolve, she marched forward and set the leather box in the center of his desk. “A lady cannot accept such a precious gift from a gentleman with whom she is merely an acquaintance.”

Slowly his deep blue gaze traveled over her, seeming to halt a fraction of a second at each button, each ribbon, each clasp. “The last time you returned a gift to me, you had a solicitor handle the matter.”

She noticed a small leather box on the corner of his desk. Was it the cameo? Did he keep it visible as a reminder that she’d rejected his overture? But if he were bothered by it, surely he wouldn’t have given her a tour or danced with her. “At the time, I didn’t know where to find you.”

He dropped his gaze to the box containing the pearls and comb, then looked at her through lowered lids. “It’s not a gift but simply the return of something that belongs to you.”

“I’m certain you had to pay to obtain it.”

He gave a little shrug as if it were of no consequence. “Purchase it from me, then.”

A hundred pounds alone for the comb. The pearls had probably been valued the same or perhaps more. She was quite certain it wasn’t going to be an even swap, but she did long to have them. “How much?”

“A quid.”

“I’m certain he charged you more. I have a ­thousand—­”

“Have you taken leave of your senses?” he bellowed, the blue of his eyes reminding her of the hottest flames dancing in a fire. “You’re walking about London at night with a thousand pounds on you?”

“No, I traveled in a hansom.”

“And what if some bloke decided to stop that hansom and rob it? Rob you? Take that money off your pretty little person?”

Did he think she was pretty? He was angry with her, and yet she couldn’t seem to be frightened by his belligerence. Rather it warmed her that he seemed to care about her safety, even though she felt she’d taken adequate precautions to ensure it. “Why would someone think I was worth robbing?”

“Because you’re dressed in finery like a lady who might be silly enough to walk around London with a thousand quid stuffed in her—­” He waved his hand at her as though he thought she might have stashed it in an unmentionable area.

“My reticule.”

“Well, he’d have not stopped with the taking of it. He’d have given you a thorough search—­”

She didn’t care to hear where he might have searched. “As I said, I did not walk. Well, except up your steps, and then there was your man to look out for me.”

The fury seemed to deflate out of him. “There are men around here who would kill for a thousand quid.”

“I suspect there are some who would cheat for it, as well. Did your bricklayer cheat while playing cards with Kipwick?”

“No. My people know I don’t tolerate cheating. I’d have let him go. A man who cheats at cards might cheat elsewhere, including in the work he gives me. Besides, my brothers were watching. The problem, Lady Aslyn, is that your fiancé bends his elbow as much as he holds the cards. Guzzling too much drink hampers a man’s judgment, his ability to calculate the odds of winning.”

She feared drinking wasn’t the only problem Kip had. “Since he lost fair and square then, and you’ve offered to sell the items to me, tell me how much I owe you.”

“I told you. A pound.”

“I don’t believe you.”

He arched a dark brow over one of those beautiful blue eyes. “Are you calling me a liar?”

She angled up her chin. “Yes. I quite believe I am.”

His laughter, deep and masculine, circled around her, sent the calming butterflies back into flight. “No one has ever dared call me a liar—­at least not to my face.”

“I just find it very difficult to believe the gent last night would be willing to settle for so little when he obviously knew the pieces were of value.”

“He had no idea of their value. He based their worth on what he could tell about the lady who was wearing them. He knows quality when he sees it.”

“What did he insist you pay in order to hand them over to you?”

“He owes me his livelihood. As a favor, he traded them to me for a quid.”

She shook her head. “I can’t give you only a quid. It doesn’t seem right.”

“I gave a crown to the lad who delivered them to Hedley Hall. You can reimburse me for that as well.”

Stubborn man. If he really paid a quid, she’d eat the hood of her pelisse. Opening her reticule, she scrounged through it until she located the two coins she needed. She placed them on the desk, took the leather box and dropped it into her bag.

He left the coins where they were, tipped his head toward the corner of his desk, grinned. “You can purchase the cameo for a shilling.”

She wasn’t half tempted. “You paid a good deal more for it than that. I, too, recognize quality. And don’t tell me the jeweler owes you his livelihood so he sold it to you on the cheap. It is frightfully pretty, though.”

“My mum always longed to have a cameo, thought it was something posh ladies wore.”

“You should give it to her, then.”

“I’ve given her a dozen by now. Anytime I see one that’s a little bit different, I pick it up for her. Makes it special that I was thinking of her when I bought it. I wasn’t thinking of her when I purchased this one.”

She felt her cheeks warm. He’d been thinking of her. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t known that fact. Still having it voiced made it seem all the more scandalous, especially because she found herself wondering exactly what visions of her might have been prancing through his head at that time. “I can’t accept it.”

“Not even as a betrothal gift?”

Her cheeks warmed further, and she was surprised they didn’t ignite. “That would be entirely inappropriate.”

“Pity.”

She glanced around the room, at the bookcase of ledgers, the one of books, a piece of wooden furniture that was naught but nooks, crannies and drawers in an assortment of sizes. In addition to the chair behind his desk, there were two in front of it. Black leather, thickly padded. Those who carried on business with him would be comfortable while doing it. The room was dimly lit, the only light coming from the lamp on his desk. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed before. He had seemed to loom within her vision, to absorb her entire focus. “You have a very nice office.” A corner one at that, with windows behind him and on the wall off to the side.

She wandered over to a side window and glanced out. It faced the street where the hansom had stopped. The driver was still waiting, even though she suspected twenty minutes had passed. Although he made not a sound, she was acutely aware of Mick coming to stand just behind her left shoulder. The room shrank with his nearness.

“That building across the street, on the corner, is that the one your sister wants for her bookshop?” Based on the windows, it was three stories in height and had a quaint appearance to it.

“It is.”

“Are you going to let her have it?”

“If she truly desires it.” His voice had gone lower, raspier, as though he were answering a different question entirely. His mouth was hovering extremely closely to the nape of her neck. She could feel his breath stirring loose tendrils of her hair.

Her mouth was suddenly dry. She couldn’t have swallowed if her life depended on it.

“Why are you truly here, Aslyn?”

No formality. His use of only her name created an intimacy that was thick with promise. She shouldn’t be here, and yet she seemed incapable of forcing herself to leave. Was this how Kip had felt at the table last night, when he’d been desperate for her pearls?

“You’ve been spending time with Kipwick.”

“On a couple of occasions, yes. He had an interest in the questionable parts of London.”

“I want you to dissuade him from traveling these paths that will lead him to ruin.”

Although she gazed out on the street, and he was behind her, she was very much aware of him going very still. “I cannot prevent a man from seeking what he desires, but I can see he comes to no harm in his pursuits.”

“You wield that much power within the darker realms of London?”

“They shaped me into what I am. Unlike Kipwick, I neither worship nor bow before them.”

“Yet you make use of them.”

“When it suits my purposes or the purposes of those who come to me seeking something that lies beyond their reach but is within my grasp to grant. Tell me, Aslyn, what do you desire?”

His low, mesmerizing voice shrouded her in a veil of trust. All the naughty images, the improper thoughts that plagued her when she let down her ladylike guard came rushing to the foreground. Images that inappropriately filled her mind when he was near. “Things to which I can give no voice.”

“The darker pleasures, then.”

His mouth, hot and moist, landed where her neck curved into her shoulder. Her eyes slid closed. His tongue lapped at her skin. Of its own accord, her head dropped back as heat sluiced through her, pooled in her belly, swirled lower to settle between her thighs.

His lips trailed along her throat. His hand cupped her cheek, turned her head slightly, tilted it up. His mouth retreated. Opening her eyes, she found herself staring into the blue depths of his.

“So many sins from which to choose,” he rasped, just before lowering his mouth to hers.

With a gentle nudging of his tongue, he urged her to part her lips. She complied, and her world spun upside down as he explored the hidden depths with a fervor that matched her own. Here, here was the heat she’d expected of a kiss. The demand for more, the yearning for all.

His mouth was delicious and wicked and skilled. She didn’t want to contemplate all the practicing it had taken to hone such remarkable talent. There was nothing cool, nothing proper, nothing distant in his actions. He was fully involved, devouring her mouth as though she alone provided sustenance, as though only through her could he be sated.

Her heart pounded with such ferocity that she was certain he had to feel it when he pulled her in closer, flattening her breasts against his broad chest. The blood rushed through her ears. Her nerve endings tingled, dampness pooled between her thighs. There was a throbbing, a pulsing at her feminine core that urged her to press herself nearer. He growled, his vibrating chest sending ripples of pleasure coursing through her. She needed to put a name to what she was feeling, to the sensations bursting through her. An insane thought flashed through her mind.

The kiss felt like winning.

Kissing her was the best decision he’d ever made in his life. Kissing her was the worst decision he’d ever made in his life.

He’d been intimate with women, but none had ever kissed him like this, as though their very existence relied on their mouths staying latched together, their tongues swirling, one part velvet, one part silk. Her moans and sighs urged him to take the kiss deeper, even as the soft sounds tightened his bollocks, hardened his shaft. Christ, he was in danger of spilling his seed without even feeling the dampness between her thighs that he was certain was waiting for him, hot and glistening with need.

From the moment he’d looked up from the contracts he’d been studying and seen her standing there, he’d wanted his mouth on hers, his hands on her back, her buttocks, her breasts. He had yet to move beyond the small of her back, to go further. He didn’t want to frighten her with his needs, his longing to possess her.

Especially as his own yearnings scared the hell out of him.

She was no longer the means to an end, but had become the end itself. He was supposed to be cool and dispassionate in taking her. His purpose was to draw her in while keeping himself at a distance. Instead, she’d managed to entice him into a maelstrom of emotions and sensations, needs and desires, that were foreign to him.

He was a man accustomed to controlling his world, his fate, his destiny—­yet where she was concerned, he’d lost his bearings. He felt as though she possessed a sledgehammer and was knocking away his wall of indifference, brick by brick. How would he protect himself when they were all gone? He didn’t know if he could find the resilience to stack the bricks back up.

She smelled so bloody good, like flowers after a rain. Her fragrance was probably taken from a single blossom, but he knew little of plant names. Flowers were pretty to look at, but he had little time for learning the details about them. Yet at that moment he had an insane need to smell every bloom he came across until he found the one that matched her scent.

Sliding his hands beneath her pelisse, he cradled her sides, her back. So narrow, so delicate, so fragile. He suddenly realized he would hate the man who took her innocence from her—­even if it was he.

Drawing back, he was surprised to discover his breathing was labored and harsh. Hers might have been the same, but he hardly noticed. Instead, he was arrested by the sight of her swollen, damp lips and the intense heat in her eyes. He saw the cooling, the arrival of confusion, quickly followed by horror.

Staggering back, she slammed her shoulder against the edge of the window casing, grimaced, shuffled away, her hand coming up to cover the mouth he was desperate to once again plunder. Then she spun on her heel and ran.