Thomas had barely been at the Portings' crush for forty-five minutes when a tall man hailed him down with a grin.

"Thomas, there you are. I've not seen you at the tables in a dog's age."

Thomas grinned automatically at Robert Gordon, Earl of Dellfield, but there was a feeling of distance there as well. There had been a time when they saw each other at least two or three times a week, sometimes just in passing at the same tables, other times they would drink until dawn together.

"Well, I do prefer to play at winning tables, Robert. How're you keeping yourself?"

Robert shrugged. "Well enough, though I will say that more than once over the last few weeks, I've been asked where Demon Tom got off to. I've been telling them that you finally got carried off to hell where you belong."

Hearing about his old life in the hells, his name, the voice of the friend who had caroused with him, made Thomas feel strange, almost sick. It felt long ago and far away, and when he looked back at the man he had been before Blythe stepped into that fateful fight, he found someone he did not like very much.

"Back to Hell, well, I suppose that is right enough. I've had my fill of the tables for a while, and I'm afraid it might be a while before I return."

Robert whistled, low and long, and looked at Thomas a little more closely. Thomas endeavored not to squirm under the man's regard, but Robert had always had a knack for seeing more than he was meant to see. It made him formidable at the gambling tables, but it also made him one of the few people in the world Thomas could not easily fob off with a quick smile and a quip.

Thomas knew he probably couldn't fool Robert in the long run, but the last place he wanted to have a deep heart-to-heart was in the damned ballroom of the Portings' ball. "So, what have you been up to besides gambling yourself into ruin and playing chess with old spinster ladies?"

Robert's grin was fond. "Miss Welton is quite well, so far as I can discern from her letters. She roundly beat me at chess again with some gambit I've never heard of. I think she's writing to a chess master in Istanbul, truth be told."

"My god, your spinster is cheating on you!"

"She might be at that. I can't complain. I've made no claim on her or her three cats or her collection of strange quilts."

"You have the strangest friendships, Robert."

"I do, and tonight, the strangest thing I've seen is a man who should be in his element and at the top of the world looking like he might like to go and find out if they are serving some arsenic among the refreshments."

Thomas managed to keep the grin on his face, but he took Robert by the arm and pulled him a little out of the crush and into the shelter underneath the musicians' mezzanine. "For the love of all that's holy, Robert, can't you keep your damned tongue inside your head?"

"I merely commented that you didn't look like you were having a good time. You're not, are you?"

Thomas turned so that he was facing Robert, away from the rest of the hall. He dragged one hand down his face and shook his head. "Goddamn it all to Hell. I thought at least I was putting up a good show of things."

Robert shrugged. "You are. I'm fairly sure that you managed to charm at least a few debutantes and maiden aunts just by smiling at them, and I heard someone talking rather wistfully of wishing they could be on your arm this evening. But you don't care about any of that, do you?"

"I should. I should be having a fine time, and I know it. The Portings have been throwing a fine ball. Good music, good food, good company, everything that Georgiana promised me and more."

"I see, is Georgiana behind your presence here tonight?"

"She kindly requested my presence, yes."

"And by that, I assume you mean she dragged you out to see if she could lift your spirits."

"I believe her exact words were something along the lines of, 'If I have to look at your sad face for one more evening, I shall tear it off you.'"

"Well, that's our Georgie. Sweet to the very bone, that girl. But obviously, it's not working."

"No, and I think that if one more debutante bats her eyes at me and asks me what I think about the music, the food, or the atmosphere, I shall be forced to dump her into the punch bowl."

"Ah, there's the family resemblance. Well, does Georgie have a friend you trust to get her home?"

"Georgie has nothing but friends here, and anyone who isn't is too afraid to deny her anything."

"Well, let's find the little saint and tell her we're leaving. We have a reputation as rakes to keep up, after all, and we can't do it at a place like this, no matter how good the music and the food is."

Thomas made a face. "I don't know if I'm going to be any better at a gambling hell."

"Well, we can tell everyone we're going gambling. We can actually go back to my townhouse where, if you're going to insist on being melancholy, you can at least do it with some decent brandy."

"You are a true friend, Robert, and I will fight Miss Welton for your honor. Come on, I think I saw Georgiana making her way through a clump of admirers somewhere in this direction."

Thomas had a sinking suspicion that even good alcohol with a friend who wanted nothing from him wasn't going to make him feel better, which was unfortunate, but either way, Robert wouldn't mind if he drank himself into a stupor tonight. Thomas had never been a very heavy drinker, but having one night where he didn't pace and think about Blythe sounded damned appealing.

He followed Robert through the crowd, fending off the people who wanted a moment of his time with a wave. They were almost back to where he had last seen his sister when he stopped dead in his tracks.

Robert noticed and stopped as well, following his gaze. "Damned beautiful, isn't she? Could hardly believe that it's the same person as that pinch-faced chit who used to run around rattling a donation box for the poor and the hungry. Heard she got an inheritance up north, nothing to sneeze at either."

Thomas felt a moment of vertigo. Standing by the sidelines, politely fending off a man who seemed desperate to tell her something, Blythe looked like any other girl of the ton, if a very beautiful one. Robert saw a lovely heiress, but Thomas saw so much more. He saw and felt and remembered, and before he could stop himself, he was crossing the space between them.

He approached her from behind; she couldn't see him, but the young fop who likely thought he was courting her did. Thomas gave him a dark expression that had worked to fend off cutthroats in the slums, and the young man took to his heels with barely a goodbye.

Blythe turned to see what had scared the man off, and when she looked up at Thomas, their eyes locked. "Oh, it's you."

"It is. Come dance with me."

He took her hand before she could answer and drew her on the dance floor. He knew that there were people watching, and not all of them were as benign as Robert, but he didn't care.

The moment Thomas touched Blythe, something in him finally relaxed. This was home. This was his. Then he remembered how Blythe had walked away from him and those sweet emotions swept away like leaves in a gale.

"Thomas, you cannot—"

"Oh, so it's Thomas now? I thought I was Lord Amory."

They took their places with the other dancers, and somehow, unbelievably, the song that started to play was “Parson Hollis.”

As they proceeded side by side, Blythe broke with form and turned her head slightly, so she could watch him. "It should be Lord Amory. I should not have made that mistake."

"What about the mistake of leaving me, Blythe?"

"That wasn't a mistake. That was something that needed to be done."

"We are speaking as privately and closely as we can here. Tristan is nowhere in sight. Speak honestly with me."

"What makes you think I am not? What we were doing was madness. It was not something that could continue."

"And the adventures that you wanted?"

"Perhaps I have grown up and grown out of them."

Thomas didn't bother to hide a snort of laughter. "And perhaps the devil himself will come up from a chasm in the floor and challenge me to a game of Faro. Don't make me laugh, Blythe. The woman I have come to know these last few weeks would not be so easily dissuaded from the goals she set for herself."

She gave him a cold look, but Thomas wondered if there was a pure and fiery heart burning underneath the steel. Blythe ran as hot as he did, and the idea of her being so cold was impossible.

"Then perhaps you do not know me as well as you thought you did. Are you so very arrogant that you think you know everything?"

"Arrogance is very much a Martin trait, angel. I'm not going to apologize for being right."

"My God, you truly are insufferable. Well, I may not bear the name, but I do bear the blood. Have you forgotten then, that I am a Carrow, and we're known for our determination and our steadfastness?"

"Your stubbornness and your pigheadedness, more like. I can tell you're lying, by the way."

Her look would have frosted a summer day. "I beg your pardon."

Thomas grinned. "I can tell you're lying. They don't call me Demon Tom down in the stews for no reason, you know. I won my first pot when I was just fourteen, and believe me, angel, I know how to tell when someone's lying. And you don't believe a single thing that you are telling me."

"How—"

"You have certain tells. When you're lying, you hold your breath, you fidget with your skirts, and you look to the right. You don't believe a single word you said, and I can tell."

A rosy red blush crept up Blythe's cheeks, and if she were any less skilled a dissembler, she might have halted in the dance right then and there. "You cannot know that! I don't do any of those things, and you mustn't tell Tristan that—" She halted abruptly, and they danced the next measure in silence. "You made all of that up, didn't you?"

"Of course, I did. Don't be embarrassed, you caught on quickly, though. Most people never do and instead do ludicrous things to stop themselves from flapping their hands or looking right."

"I see."

"So, I was right. And just what can I not tell dear Tristan?"

Thomas was shocked to see Blythe's eyes grow brilliant with unshed tears. He could tell in his gut that this was no ploy at all, and he walked alongside her as she gazed up at the ceiling, trying to keep the tears from spilling.

"Please. Please, just stop. Does it matter why we cannot continue any longer? I cannot answer these questions. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, and I just want to stop feeling like this."

"Then let me help you. Please, Blythe. Let me help you. Whatever has happened, whatever Tristan has threatened you with, it does not need to follow you. I won't let it. I may not be a duke, but I will be someday. I refuse to allow you to slip away. Not when I know you feel the same way that I do.”

“Are you so very sure of that?”

Thomas didn't need to hesitate. “I would stake my life on it, angel. Life and heart and soul.”

For a single moment, he thought he had won. Blythe looked as if she were going to simply spill everything that was inside her, give him what they both wanted.

“No. No, I cannot. I will not.”

The dance ended, and Thomas took her behind a pillar into a spot of relative privacy. He thought he was going to argue with her further, but she surprised him again. She threw her arms around him, and he couldn't resist her. Her lips met his in a hard kiss that was full of need, regret, and longing, all so powerful it could have brought him to his knees. He held her to him as hard as he could, as long as he dared, desperate to have as much of her as he could, even here, even while she was taking his damned heart out of his lungs. She tasted of pure sweetness and need, and his heart craved her as much as his body did.

Abruptly, she tore herself away from him. Somehow, they had not been noticed. She looked at him with wide tormented eyes.

“Blythe.”

“I can't, Thomas.”

Then, damn her quickness, she was gone, twisting through the crowd and lost to sight as if she had never danced in his arms.

---