As they stepped down into the crowded ballroom, Mary gripped West’s arm.

The announcement of their names—Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Westmore—had pulled two hundred pairs of eyes their way, and sent up a din of murmured speculations rippling through the room. “They are all staring,” she told him, concentrating on not tripping over her feet as they descended into the mass of curious people.

“They all want a peek at the woman who took me off the marriage mart.” West’s hand closed reassuringly over hers as he led her toward the waiting crowd. “They are only staring at you because they are wondering.”

“Wondering what on earth you were thinking,” she retorted. Not even the importance of tackling her half of the list, which was tucked discreetly inside her glove, could ease the strain in her lungs.

West’s lips brushed her ears. “No, they are wondering what they missed before. You might look like a mouse, but they can’t help but wonder what sort of a minx you must be in bed, to have so successfully snared this infamous bachelor.”

Heat flooded her cheeks. “I am not a minx!”

“Well, perhaps an innocent minx.” He chuckled, and then drew her into the thick of the crowd. “And I am looking forward to debauching you in the most wicked way possible later tonight,” he added in a low whisper of a promise. “But first, we’ve a traitor to catch.” He looked up, his voice returning to its usual timbre. “Oh, good evening. May I introduce my new wife, Mrs. Westmore, formerly Miss Channing of Yorkshire?”

And so it began. The crowd pushed in and West greeted them all, smiling like he’d come into a great fortune. By the time they made it to the refreshments table, Mary was nearly convinced herself that theirs was a love match for the ages.

“Good gracious,” she gasped, bracing herself against the punch table. “That was . . .”

“Crucial.” West poured a ladle of punch into a cup and handed it to her. “We needed to be seen together, our heads held high. It is important that everyone realizes you are under my protection.”

Mary nodded, taking a sip of the cool beverage. She glanced back across the ballroom, at the long gauntlet they’d just navigated. “It helped you were with me.” She offered him a smile. A month ago, she couldn’t have done it, would have curled into a ball and rocked herself into denial. “Truly, it wasn’t as terrible as I’d feared.”

“Well, it was as terrible as I’d feared,” came a masculine drawl. Mary turned to see Mr. Grant glowering at them from the far end of the punch table. “My first sighting of you in days, and it’s to see you presented to the crowd like a stuffed and married pheasant.” His eyes narrowed as he moved toward them. “Where have you been, West? The new Mrs. Westmore keeps you on a tight chain.”

“Willingly, I assure you.” West poured his friend a glass of punch. “I was hoping to see you here tonight.”

“You were?” Grant accepted the glass, then immediately added to it from a flask he produced from his jacket pocket. “Any why, pray tell, would you be hoping to see me, when you haven’t even deigned to make an appearance at White’s in the last six nights?”

“To apologize, of course. I should have given you more than a few hours’ notice about my nuptials. You are my oldest, dearest friend, and you deserved better.”

Grant held the flask out, presumably for West to help himself to its contents. “Does this mean you will come with me later to White’s?”

West shook his head. “No, but that doesn’t mean I don’t hope my best friend and my wife will find a way to get along, somehow. I do not want you to blame her, for any of this.”

“Oh, I do not blame her.” Mr. Grant lowered his hand. “I blame you, you silly sod. For leaving me alone in bachelorhood, and at such a tender age.” He took a gulp of his laced punch, and then offered Mary a conciliatory smile. “I hold your new wife in the highest esteem. Truly.”

West beamed. “Excellent. Then will you help introduce her to the Duke of Rothesay and perhaps the Duke of Harrington? Because believe it or not, I already need to use the necessary.”

“Oh, I believe it.” Grant winked at Mary. “Although, if you are planning to loosen a capful of spiders in there again, give me a heads-up this time, would you? I still can’t sit down in a lavatory without looking for the nasty creatures.”

In spite of it all, Mary giggled. In this, at least, she and Mr. Grant could find some common ground—being on the receiving end of her husband’s jokes. “Oh, I think we are safe enough tonight,” she told him. “I’ve made him leave his spiders and his wind-maker at home, you see.”

Grant grinned down at her. “Touché, Mrs. Westmore! I see West has married a woman with a sense of humor.” He held out his flask. “Would you like to make things more interesting tonight?”

“Er . . . no thank you.” Things were proving interesting enough as it was. She eyed West’s retreating back, and realized with a start that instead of moving purposefully, he was drifting through the crowd, searching to the left and the right.

Not, it seemed, a man with his mind on the necessary.

“Will you excuse me, for just a moment?” she murmured. “I just want a quick word with my husband, and I will be right back.”

Grant chuckled. “And so the nagging begins.” He lifted his glass in salute. “Carry on, Mrs. Westmore. Carry on.”

Lifting her skirts, Mary hurried after her husband, her chest feeling tight for reasons that had nothing to do with the swirling, bright, perfumed crowd. “West,” she called out, making him turn. “Where are you going?”

“The necessary, as I said.” He stopped and offered her a wink. “Or do you want to follow me there and see what pranks we can get up to together?”

“No.” Her cheeks heated. She may be a new bride, but she’d already been granted a rather thorough education, and she could well imagine what sort of mischief they could generate in a room with a locked door. “You said you had already ruled out the Duke of Rothesay and the Duke of Harrington. Why should Mr. Grant have need to introduce me to them?”

“It doesn’t have to be one of them.” He shrugged. “Pick anyone else on your list.”

She bit her lip. “Truly?”

“I only suggested those two as a start because I thought you might wish to begin with easy targets, ask questions of those we think are safe first, hone your approach. Although it occurs to me we may have been hasty dismissing Rothesay. I’ve heard his wife has relatives in Ireland. There could be a Fenian connection, you know.”

“Oh.” Her irritation lessened slightly. “So you truly want me to speak with the men on my half of the list?”

“Absolutely.” He waved her on with his fingers. “The sooner the better.”

But as she watched him disappear into the crowd, a lingering doubt remained. His about-face on the matter of her involvement in such a dangerous undertaking seemed out of character for a man who’d married her to save her from harm. Was he trying to shift her in a safer direction, freeing his time up to pursue the more likely list of traitors? Why, then, had he felt a need to teach her how to handle the knife sitting so precariously in her small bag?

And she couldn’t help but notice that the Duke of Southingham—a man who seemed far more dangerous than not—was on West’s half of the list, not hers.

As West threaded his way through the crowd, he risked a peek back over his shoulder and sent up a silent prayer of thanks to see Mary returning to stand next to Grant. He’d left her in Grant’s dubious company because it was safer by far than having her with him. Grant was battle tested, as scarred inside as he was. He would protect Mary, no questions asked.

Which was a good thing because West had no answers for those questions. Yet.

He felt guilty as hell for telling Mary the lie he’d spun about Rothesay’s wife. Yet, he was also resolved to suffer his guilt in silence. He had to be sure Southingham was their man before telling her of his suspicions. He was more than a little worried about what would happen when they yanked the cover off this secret and exposed such a powerful man as a traitor.

The urge to protect Mary from the repercussions of a wrong move was a powerful enough incentive to keep her in the dark. But the repercussions of involving her in a right move?

Far more terrifying to contemplate.

He caught sight of the Duke of Southingham on the periphery of the ballroom, and aimed for the man, contemplating how to best orchestrate this confrontation. But as West drew closer, he recognized the duke’s pale, pretty wife standing meekly to one side.

His feet slowed. Damn it, he hadn’t imagined speaking to the duke with an audience. Perhaps it would be better to do this another time, another place. But then Southingham spied him and the matter was taken out of his hands.

“Mr. Westmore,” the duke said, looking none too pleased to see him.

“Your Grace.” West’s hands curled to fists. “It’s been a while.”

“Never long enough, where you’re concerned.”

West paused. Not at the insult, but at the hopeless task of trying to sort out whether Southingham’s voice matched the whisper he’d heard from the library. It was frustratingly difficult. The duke had the sort of perforating voice that moved through walls, and he was projecting it loudly now, as if to call attention to their interaction. It was nearly impossible to compare to a whisper he’d overheard in the library.

But oh, how he wanted to imagine they were one and the same.

West offered Southingham’s wife a more gracious smile. “It is good to see you again, Duchess. How long has it been? A year?”

The duke’s eyes narrowed. “Have a care, Westmore,” he warned.

“Oh, surely you aren’t still upset about that?” West forced a laugh. “It was simply a joke, no harm done. But if it helps, I would again offer the duchess my most sincere apologies. I am truly sorry for any confusion.” Although, West felt more sorry for the woman, who appeared hesitant to speak up for herself. And was that a hint of a blackened eye he spied beneath the duchess’s carefully powdered face? Anger needled him with sharp teeth.

Southingham had always enjoyed using his fists.

“To make up for my former boorish behavior,” he said slowly, thinking to possibly get a closer look at the faint bruise, and to ask her some questions about her husband’s political leanings, “would the duchess do me the honor of a dance later?”

The Duchess of Southingham stared up at her husband, her eyes wide, as if waiting for his answer. Southingham nudged his wife in the opposite direction, toward the refreshments table. “Alas, my wife’s dance card is already full,” he growled. “And didn’t you say you could use a glass of punch, dear?” He jerked his chin. “Go on, quickly now.”

She did as she was told. West watched her retreat, noting the hunched shoulders and bowed head. If he ever treated Mary that way, he suspected his new wife would pull out her knife and show off her newly honed skills—and rightly so. Still, he suspected he’d just found Southingham’s weakness. The man was overly protective of his wife.

“Whatever does she see in a brute like you?” he observed, hoping to prod Southingham into saying something imprudent—preferably a threat delivered in a terse whisper that could be compared to the one in his memory. “Especially when she could have had me?”

Southingham bristled. “She would never want you.”

“No?” West shrugged. “It is so hard to know what women want.”

The duke’s jaw twitched. “And what does your new wife want? I’d ask her if the rats did any permanent damage, but then, I wouldn’t want to embarrass her if you are less than whole.”

West rolled his eyes in spite of the anger that spiked through him. Following the incident at Harrow, Southingham had gleefully embellished the tale. With every re-telling, the rats had gotten larger, the damage from their teeth more permanent. “I think my exploits about town ought to have laid that rumor well enough to rest by now. Then again, you could always ask your wife what she thinks about it. If memory serves, she caught an eyeful on your wedding night.”

Southingham’s face darkened. “How does your wife even stand you, Westmore? I would feel sorry for the woman, but I suppose it doesn’t matter anyway. She won’t have to suffer you long.”

In spite of the heated exchange, a chill rippled through West. After all, this was the man he suspected of sending a threatening note to Mary. A man who was very likely involved in a plot to assassinate Queen Victoria. “Why would you say that?” he said slowly.

Southingham offered him a nasty smile. “You should check the betting book at White’s. Your friend Grant laid a wager for how long it will take you to stray from the marital bed. He gave you a month, but I’ve got three hundred in you won’t last two weeks.”

The blood pounded in West’s ears, given that he had every intention of this marriage lasting a lifetime. Damn Grant to hell and back.

If this was his friend’s idea of a joke, it wasn’t very funny.

And God forbid Mary ever hear of it.

“Have a care,” West warned. “I am much devoted to my wife.”

“Do you imagine you will last longer?” Southingham sounded surprised. “Need I remind you the gossip rags have given us all an unobstructed peek at the assets to which you now lay claim? Your new wife is a slight, ordinary little thing, isn’t she?” The duke raised a mocking brow. “Perhaps I should have said you would only last one week. If I recall, you always liked women with big tits who lay there as if they are dead.”

The reference to that fateful All Hallows’ Eve was easy enough to ignore, but the insult to Mary proved significantly less so. The urge to plant a fist in Southingham’s face hissed like a lit fuse, but as he’d learned so long ago at Harrow, one didn’t strike a duke without repercussions, and this time they were in a crowded ballroom with two hundred pairs of eyes.

Instead, he let his words serve as weapons. “Do you mean, like your wife?”

The duke reared back, his face turning nearly purple. “I ought to call you out for that.”

“If you do, don’t expect an apology from me this time,” West warned. “And know that you will almost certainly leave your pretty wife a widow, ripe for the picking. I didn’t survive Crimea by being a terrible shot, you know.”

For a moment, West thought he might have pushed the man too far. Southingham looked ready to pick West apart with bare hands. It was just like Harrow again, only magnified tenfold.

This time, though, West had more to lose.

Southingham finally spun on his heel, the crowd parting against his angry charge. “Stay away from my wife, Westmore!” he shouted over his shoulder.

“As long as you stay away from mine,” West muttered more quietly, glaring at the duke’s retreating frame. What had he been thinking, goading the man like that? He knew he wouldn’t have forgiven such an insult lobbed at his own wife. It was a miracle he hadn’t been called out.

Again.

He wanted to smash something. Pound something. Shoot something. Or someone. Because while Southingham’s personal weakness might be obvious, it seemed all too clear that his nemesis now knew he had a weakness as well. “God damn it,” he exploded, hitting a marble column with his fist. Which of course, did about as much good as striking Southingham.

He reeled, his hand feeling as if he’d taken a hammer to it.

Realized everyone was watching.

A steadying hand met his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

West turned to see Grant’s concerned face peering at him. He shook out his throbbing hand. Was he bloody all right? He’d just punched a marble column in front of everyone, and missed his opportunity to match the duke’s voice to the whispers in his head. He’d pretended to be interested in Southingham’s wife, when his own seemed to already suspect him of a wandering eye. And the knowledge that Grant had wagered against him made him want to strike the column again.

“I am fine,” West muttered. He cradled his bruised hand. “Where is my wife?”

“Don’t get yourself in a lather.” Grant held up his hands. “I left her in Harrington’s capable hands, and he offered an introduction to the Duke of Rothesay after. She’s out on the dance floor somewhere, so I figured my usefulness was at an end.”

“Thank you.” In spite of his simmering anger, West gave Grant a stiff nod.

“Why were you arguing with Southingham?” Grant asked curiously.

“He was needling me. About you, actually.” West met his friend’s eye. Held it longer than was comfortable. “I hope you didn’t put too much money on that wager you laid in the betting book at White’s,” he warned, “because you are going to lose every bit of it.”

“Don’t tell me you are angry about that?” Grant rolled his eyes. “And here I thought you were a sensible sort.”

West narrowly held back the urge to take his friend by the neck. It hurt to know that Grant would do such a thing, but then, was it any wonder? West had a reputation he’d worked hard to earn, and Grant had been with him, every step of the way. His friend likely did believe Mary was little more than a passing curiosity.

But that simply meant he needed to be proven wrong.