West sat at the Cardwell breakfast table, his head cradled in his hands, though he’d not had a drop to drink. In fact, after the debacle in the library, he’d come straight home—an uncharacteristic diversion from his usual nocturnal patterns. He’d paced his carpet into the wee hours of the morning, studying both of his dilemmas from every possible angle.

And finally, he’d reached an unpalatable decision.

Nearly as unpalatable as his breakfast. After such a long night, he ought to be ravenous, but the sight of eggs and toast this morning made his stomach turn. The only good thing he could imagine doing with his fork this morning was sticking it in his eye.

“You are up early today, Geoffrey,” his father observed from across the table, rattling his morning paper.

“Yes, it is good to see you up for a change, and on a Wednesday, no less,” Mother chimed in as if the day of the week made a difference. She lifted a cup of chocolate to her lips. “Though, you’ve shadows beneath your eyes. Are you getting enough sleep, dear?”

“Mmmph,” West replied, capable of little else. His parents might think his appearance this morning at the breakfast table was a good sign, but they didn’t know the truth: he was only here because he’d been unable to sleep.

And because he had a sour bit of business to tend to this morning.

He stared down at the eggs on his plate, contemplating whether he could choke them down. Relief from that decision came in the sound of shoes clicking against the floorboards. His gaze pulled toward the dining room door to see Wilson appear, a smile replacing the servant’s usual scowl. “You’ve a visitor, Lord Cardwell,” he announced, sounding happy for once.

“A visitor?” Father nudged his spectacles farther up the bridge of his nose. “It is scarcely nine o’clock in the morning.” He looked down at his plate. “And we already finished all the eggs, thanks to Geoffrey’s unexpected appearance at breakfast.”

Clare appeared at Wilson’s side. “Fortunately, it is a visitor who doesn’t expect to be fed,” she announced, looking crisp and polished as she sailed into the room. She slid seamlessly into the chair where she’d always sat growing up, and beamed up at the butler. “Thank you for announcing me so formally, Wilson. My life is so different now—sometimes I forget what it is like to have a lovely friend of a butler greet you at the door.” Clare’s smile shifted to their parents. “Mother, Father, it is good to see you all.”

“Well, I must say, this is a lovely surprise,” Mother exclaimed. “Just like old times, when we’d gather every morning for a family breakfast.” She sighed, almost wistfully. “If only Lucy and Lydia were here too. Though there are times I enjoy the quiet, I miss having my children in the house again. Geoffrey is hardly ever up in time for breakfast anymore.”

“Oh, I don’t think we want Lucy and Lydia to hear what I’ve come to discuss just yet.” Clare’s smile faltered, and she pulled a folded up bit of newsprint from her reticule and placed it in front of her. “It’s a bit delicate, actually.”

His mother put down her cup of chocolate. “Has something happened to you or Daniel?” Her hand fluttered near her throat. “Or one of the children?”

“No, no, the children are fine, and already at their lessons for the day. As for whether something has happened to me or Daniel, I think that depends on Geoffrey’s decisions this morning. We’ll be fine, I think, if he comes up to scratch.” His sister looked at him, her hazel eyes narrowing. “Has he told you about what happened last night?”

“Clare—” West warned. Surely this was the sort of conversation best had in private.

“What has he done now?” Mother asked, sounding resigned. “Is it worse than last year, when he took out an advertisement in the London Times and advertised Cardwell House for sale?”

West winced. That had been blown entirely out of proportion, a bit of fun intended to make his father sweat after threatening to cut off his monthly allowance for some small transgression. The advertisement had offered the house and its furnishings—including several Ming dynasty vases and the gold-plated china—for two hundred pounds. There’d been a line of agitated buyers a half mile long wrapping around Grosvenor Square, all desperate to purchase such a valuable property for such a paltry price. His father had certainly been surprised.

So had West when the authorities had knocked on the door and accused him of fraudulent advertising.

Clare shook her head. “Worse.”

“Is it worse than that time he let the rats loose in the room of that bully at Harrow?” Wilson chuckled.

The pounding in West’s head got worse. However well-intentioned, that had been an adolescent prank that had miscarried. Although the rats were intended to terrorize Peter Wetford—the son of the Duke of Southingham, a brutish young man who liked to pummel those with lesser titles and who, thanks to room assignments based on alphabetic order, occupied the room next door to him at Harrow—the rats showed no allegiance to worthy causes. They had chewed beneath the walls and found their way back to West’s room.

He still woke up sometimes at night, drenched in sweat, the sensation of rats climbing over him all too real, and in all too delicate of places.

“It is worse than Harrow,” Clare said firmly.

The serving maid giggled. “Surely it isn’t worse than the time he snuck into the Duke of Southingham’s house?” The girl’s cheeks pinked up. “My friend told me about that one. She told me the entire household was in an uproar when he was caught with the duchess’s maid.”

West slumped in his chair. Bloody wonderful. Now, now even the downstairs crowd was spreading tales of his exploits, and ones scarcely suitable for his mother’s ears.

“I feel quite sure it must be worse than his inflated-bladder-on-the-stairwell routine,” his father interjected. “Stepped on that one this morning. Nearly scared the living daylights out of me.” He looked sternly over the top of his spectacles. “Honestly, Geoffrey, you need to find another place to put it. Frightening people on the stairs could have dire consequences. You wouldn’t want someone to fall.”

“It is worse than any of it, I promise you.” Clare leveled a look at him, a look he knew all too well from growing up with a shrew for a sister. “I suppose he’ll claim it’s all a misunderstanding, as he only did it to thwart an assassination plot,” she said, bringing a round of laughter from family and servants alike.

West looked down at his eggs again, his gaze lingering on the glistening mess. Thanks to Clare, they’d never believe him if he told them what he’d heard now, would presume it was just another one of his infamous tricks.

Come to think of it, the authorities probably would think it another one of his practical jokes as well. He knew all too well there was a two-inch-thick file with his name on it in the local constable’s office, overlooked only because of his father’s generous contribution to the Fund for Constabulary Widows and Orphans.

How was he to convince someone to take his worries seriously if they all refused to believe he was capable of anything more than an elaborately planned hoax?

Clare slid the folded bit of newsprint across the table to their mother. “His newest sin is ruining Miss Mary Channing, the Earl of Haversham’s sister. It happened last night, and the gossip columns have all covered it quite thoroughly this morning, even going so far as to identify the poor woman by name.” She leaned back in her chair, not needing to say the rest of it.

And I’ve come this morning to ensure he makes amends.

West’s mother unfolded the gossip column, her lips moving silently as she read. West waited in stiff silence. It was usually considered quite a badge of honor to hold a featured spot in the daily rags, but this morning it felt far less a badge than a noose.

“Geoffrey,” his mother gasped, looking up through rounded eyes. “Is this horrible bit of gossip true?”

“Yes.” He met and held his parents’ shocked gazes. They might not believe an excuse of a treasonous plot, but his past romantic adventures and rumors of his exploits about town ensured they would believe this about him. “I simply hadn’t had a chance to say anything yet. I had planned to tell you both.”

And he had. This was no simple rig, to be swept under a rug. He wasn’t at school, where expulsion was the worst he could expect, or on board a ship, where a half-dozen lashes with a cat of nines would set things straight. He could feel the weight of his sister’s disappointment and the desperation that had brought her here, running below the surface of this conversation. He couldn’t ruin his family. Clare’s and Daniel’s hard work was the only thing holding the hospital together.

And he couldn’t leave Miss Channing to face the gossip alone, either. He’d picked the worst woman possible to follow into the library. No matter the wild nature of his randy exploits, he’d never before—not even once—been linked to the ruin of an innocent. This was all new territory, and he felt as if he was floundering, coming up for air only to find he was destined for a life below water.

He glared at Clare, irritated she’d not had enough faith in him to let him do the right thing without coercion, for telling their parents before he’d found a chance to do it himself. He wasn’t skirting his duties. He’d known his path from the moment that library door had opened last night and he’d discovered a crowd of gaping eyes, instead of just his sister. Even if news of this misadventure hadn’t gotten printed in the gossip columns, he would have still done it.

“Father,” he said, looking up with a grimace. “I must ask you to put in a good word for me with the Archbishop this morning.”

“The Archbishop?” Lord Cardwell asked in confusion. “But . . . why?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” West pushed his untouched plate away, nearly, in that moment, hating his life. “Mother was just wishing for children at the breakfast table again. Well, it seems she shall have her wish, because I’m bringing home a bride.”

“Look on the bright side,” Mary suggested. “It’s done, and I can’t be ruined twice.” She glanced down at her lap, at the small but disastrous column that was printed in the morning’s gossip rag. She traced a finger over the caricature someone had drawn of her, her nipple bared to the room, a sea of shocked faces peering in from all sides.

It wasn’t even a good likeness of Mr. Westmore.

He hadn’t had quite such a leering expression on his face last night.

“Though I am a bit affronted my downfall has been chronicled in a gossip rag, instead of a good book,” she added, trying to lighten the mood. Why would her sister even subscribe to a scandal sheet like this? There were so many more interesting things one could read.

“How can you joke about this?” Eleanor moaned, rubbing her eyes. The circles under her eyes had grown darker since yesterday, and as Mary remembered Dr. Merial’s warning, she eyed her sister with unease. “Patrick and Julianne are going to have my very skin,” Eleanor added, sounding distraught. “I promised them I would keep you safe on this trip to London, and instead I have orchestrated your ruin.”

Mary sighed. “Could we not talk about something else?” Yes, she was ruined. Humiliated, mortified, shamed, disgraced . . . any word would do. Eleanor and the gossip rag seemed to have used all of them, ad nauseam. But as Mary had never had any actual prospects to disappoint, surely this definition of “ruin” was a matter of semantics.

And now that it was done, she was having trouble understanding why everyone was so upset, why it was portrayed as such a tragedy in the books she had read. As altered as she was supposed to be, on the inside she felt much the same person she had been yesterday.

Albeit, now with a heated memory of a kiss that kept returning at the oddest moments.

She was really rather impressed with her fortitude. Perhaps she was more suited for adventure than her family believed. And besides, there was a far bigger matter at stake than what to do about her reputation.

Someone was plotting an assassination.

It had been a devastating thing to overhear last night. Worse still, to contemplate this morning. The urge to tell Eleanor itched beneath her skin.

“About last night.” Mary tossed the gossip rag to one side and leaned forward. “I overheard something important, when I was in the library.”

“Was it the sound of your reputation shattering?” Eleanor asked sharply. “Because I am surprised I didn’t hear it in my sleep.”

Mary flinched to hear her sister’s harsh words. “No. It was a plot.”

“A plot?” Eleanor clutched a hand to her swollen abdomen. “A plot?” She breathed in through her nose. “Mary, you need to stop it.”

“Yes, exactly, that is what I am trying to do—”

“No,” Eleanor snapped, the smudges beneath her eyes looking more like bruises now. “Stop inventing excuses, stop imagining things . . . just stop!”

Mary gaped at her sister. “You don’t understand. At the end—”

“The end?” Eleanor was nearly shouting now, her words raw and trembling. “The only ending you ought to be worried about is your own! How can you sit there, nattering on about an imaginary plot? This isn’t one of your novels, Mary. This time it’s real. Do you realize your life is now ruined? Any hope you might have held for meeting a nice gentleman during your time here in London, of finding the husband that just yesterday you confessed you wanted, is now moot!”

Mary cringed. Not because it was all true, but because she could see, then, her sister didn’t believe her about the assassination plot she had overheard.

Or rather, wouldn’t believe her.

And perhaps that was a good thing. Eleanor was growing more agitated by the second. Piling additional horrors like assassination plots on top of her scandal might well force her sister into an early delivery. Dr. Merial had issued a stern warning for her sister to avoid any and all excitement, and as her companion during this confinement, it was supposed to be Mary’s responsibility to ensure it. Instead, she’d invited dark circles and drama into her sister’s life.

What had she been thinking, trying to talk to Eleanor?

She couldn’t talk to anyone about this.

Anyone, that was, except her villain.

The thought of him made Mary’s cheeks heat in a most unfortunate fashion. Mr. Westmore. Not that she needed to say his name to think of him: every time she closed her eyes, she saw the face of a perfect scoundrel.

“On the matter of suitors . . .” she said weakly, deciding that perhaps a change of subject was in order. “Perhaps hope isn’t entirely lost. Mr. Westmore could still call on me, you know.”

“Mr. Westmore?” Eleanor retorted, rolling her eyes. “You should not admit him if he did!” She shook her finger at Mary. “I want you to stay far, far away from that man.”

Mary recoiled from the venom in her sister’s tone. Clearly, she ought to have chosen her new topic with greater care. “I should think keeping far, far away is going to be a bit difficult, given that he is one of your neighbors,” she said cautiously. “What have you heard about him? That is, beyond what was printed in the scandal sheet this morning?”

“What haven’t I heard about him? He’s not to be trusted. He’s a . . . a . . .”

“Scoundrel?” A delicious shiver ran up Mary’s spine to finally say it out loud.

“Degenerate!” Eleanor declared. “This isn’t the first time he’s been in the gossip rags, and it won’t be the last. His antics are legendary. He and his friend Mr. Grant are no better than drunkards, and he always seems to be in the thick of any controversy.”

“So, he is high-spirited?” Mary thought back on her various interactions with the man. Though he’d certainly confirmed her sister’s claims that morning in the garden, he hadn’t seemed drunk last night—not even close. His lips had closed over hers with straight assurance.

Surely a drunk man would have slobbered?

“High-spirited? For heaven’s sake, he’s not a horse,” Eleanor snapped. “Though, judging by the rumors he’s as randy as a stallion, chasing after women twice his own age.” She sat up straighter, then looked from right to left, as if searching for servants who might overhear what she was about to say. “They say he once had relations with his sister’s governess.”

Mary’s imagination immediately conjured a vision of an adolescent boy peeking under his gray-haired tutor’s skirts. Mr. Westmore seemed young, perhaps even a year or two younger than herself. Although . . . perhaps he was an early bloomer?

And who on earth was this “they” Eleanor was talking about?

Surely her sister didn’t believe everything she heard or read. “Hearing a bit of gossip does not necessarily mean it is true,” Mary argued weakly, though she could scarcely countenance the urge she felt to defend the man. She gestured to the discarded gossip rag, knowing that the details of last night’s shameful encounter had been grossly exaggerated. For example, only one of her nipples had been exposed. The cartoonist had gleefully drawn two. “I generally prefer to believe things I see myself,” she added, “not a rumor someone has overheard.”

Eleanor flushed. “Well then, you should know I saw him engage in entirely disreputable behavior with my own eyes, just last month at the opening of the new Royal Opera House.”

“You saw him?”

“Everyone saw him. He was with his friend, Mr. Grant, and a red-haired prostitute in the Cardwell opera box!”

Mary’s cheeks burned. In fact, her whole body felt feverishly hot, and an odd fluttering had started up in her stomach. “What did you see?” Her ears burned in anticipation.

Eleanor finally had the grace to look less sure of herself. “Well, I kept my eyes focused on the stage, as any proper lady would. But from the corner of my eye I could see the woman’s feet thrashing about. One of her slippers came off and went sailing over the balcony railing. She appeared to be quite enjoying herself.”

“With two men?” Mary closed her mouth, which had somehow popped open in astonishment. Good heavens. How would that even work?

“Oh, it gets worse than that.” Eleanor leaned forward. “Ashington told me that he heard Westmore once had four women at one time. And two of them were sisters!”

Mary squeaked. Four women at once? She’d never heard of such a twisted, unnatural thing. She wished suddenly she could go back to Mr. Westmore’s transgressions only being about an aging governess. At least there had only been one of her.

“Well, as long as they weren’t married women,” she laughed weakly, striving for a joke.

“Oh, I am quite sure he considers married women fair game as well, and most of the matrons in town seem all too indulgent of his carnal appetites. He’s already caused one duel, thanks to his philandering nature.”

“But, I thought duels were no longer strictly legal,” Mary protested.

“Well, I don’t think legalities mean much to a man like Mr. Westmore, because there are also rumors he once had intimate relations with a corpse,” Eleanor said tartly.

Mary gasped, forgetting, for the moment, about the rumored duel. “A corpse?” Her cheeks were now so hot they ought to blister. It was worse—far worse—than anything she’d ever read in the pages of a novel. She’d been kissed by a man who’d done unspeakable things to a dead body?

And then—and really, this was the most mortifying piece of it—she’d kissed him back?

“Not that it’s hampered his appeal in any way, mind you,” Eleanor said, sounding disgusted. “The society cows are all aflutter whenever he walks by. Why, women practically knock themselves over in the stampede to earn a chance in his bed. And he cavorts about, basking in their adoration. Can you imagine?” she demanded, her voice going shrill. “The utter egotism of the man?”

Mary could believe it, too well. She recalled Mr. Westmore’s words from last night. How he’d claimed that most women “begged him for a kiss.”

He certainly had a unique . . . confidence in his abilities.

Mary looked down at her ink-stained hands. She was beginning to imagine something else, as well, something beyond a belief in Mr. Westmore’s arrogance and willingness to consort with corpses. Could he really be that . . . exemplary? So skilled, as a lover, that women might truly elbow their way to the front of a line for a chance in his bed? That was an entirely different notion of ruin than the one she was facing at present.

And in spite of it all, it hardly seemed fair to get the short end of that stick.