Chapter Nine

bed on a particular visit, make your wishes

known immediately, even if you

must suffer his foul temper for the rest

of the evening.

—Anonymous,Memoirs of a Mistress

How dared he! After he’d made her send Rosa away and insisted that she play fair—“Take off your drawers, Byrne,” she demanded.

“Make me,” he said again, cool as you please.

She saw red. Ooh, that was so like a man—to cheat, then assume he’d get away with it!

With an oath, she strode up to him and seized the band of his drawers. “I’ll take them off of you myself, I will.”

As she worked loose the top button, the fabric began to bulge beneath her hands. That’s when her good sense finally kicked in. She jerked her hands back, but he caught one and flattened it against his half-buttoned drawers…and the erection beneath. His very solid, very dangerous erection.

“Go on,” he said in a guttural voice. “You want your winnings, don’t you?”

Her gaze shot to his, but that proved a mistake. Because his expression of rampant need was the last thing she saw before his mouth crushed hers.

Like a mare cornered by a stallion, she realized the danger only when it was too late. Curse her unruly temper. And curse him for taking advantage of it, for thrusting his tongue so deliciously between her lips, for making her forget why…she…ought…to resist…

And now his hand was sliding hers inside his drawers to cup the heavy length of him, and her gut was knotting in a welter of fear and excitement actually to be touching it. Him. His flesh. Dear Lord in heaven, she must be mad. Yet her hand moved of its own accord, stroking, caressing—

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“Yes, lass,” he whispered against her lips. “Yes, like that, yes…”

He returned to ravaging her mouth. But gone was the restraint he’d exhibited earlier in the day. He cupped her breast through the chemise, then slid her chemise off one shoulder so he could knead the naked flesh beneath with his warm, broad hand.

But when he squeezed her nipple, sending a shock of pleasure straight to her belly and below, she tore her mouth from his to murmur, “Byrne, please…”

She wasn’t sure if she was begging for him to stop or to go on. Taking her by surprise, he lifted her onto the card table behind them, forcing her to release her grip on his…his thing. The flimsy table wobbled under her weight, and she grabbed for his arms to steady her. “What in blazes do you think you’re doing?”

His only answer was to tug her chemise down enough to expose one aching breast to his heavy-lidded gaze. “What does it look like I’m doing?” He bent his head to suck her nipple. Hard. She nearly shot up off the table. “Oh, Lord,” she moaned, even as she clutched his head close for more. He happily obliged her, teasing her nipple with teeth and tongue, making her gasp and sigh and yearn. She’d never felt anything this intense with her husband, never. What sort of wanton was she, that she could only feel it with this blatantly immoral scoundrel?

“Blast you,” she whispered. “You are such a…devious…devil…”

“I do try,” he rasped, sliding his hand inside her chemise to find her other nipple and roll it between his thumb and forefinger in a motion clearly designed to drive her insane. “Do you like that, lass?”

“Yes…oh…yes…” When he removed his wicked hands so he could shove her chemise down to her waist, she caught his hands before he could touch her again. “Wait a minute—I’m not supposed to be naked. Onlyyou are, you…you cheater,” she accused him breathlessly. His eyes glittered like the fiercest of foxes in some dark-forested night. “You won’t be happy until I concede defeat, will you?” He shoved down his drawers and kicked them away. “There—you’ve got your winnings. I’m naked as the day I was born.”

Her gaze shot inexorably to the flesh he’d bared, and her mouth went dry. Lord help her. She’d seen only one man naked in her entire life, and he’d been nothing like Byrne. Philip’s member had been long, sleek, and slender. Easy to manage.

Byrne’s didn’t look easy to manage. It thrust boldly forward like the impudent scoundrel that it was—hard and huge and heavy. And unmanageable. Exactly like its owner. Who was presently inching up her chemise—

“Stop that!” she protested, grabbing for his hands. “You mustn’t—”

He cut her off with a long, needy kiss, the sort of soul-deep kiss she was rapidly growing addicted to. Philip hadn’t been much for kissing…or for silken caresses, either. Lovemaking had been a basic need he satisfied as quickly as possible, often leaving her craving the inexplicable. Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv But even as Byrne’s caresses built that same craving inside her, he began satisfying it. He fondled the breasts that craved his touch, fingered the nipples that yearned for his teasing, slid his hand up inside her thigh until his thumb found the pulsing center of all her cravings and…

“Byrne!” she cried as he rubbed her most impudently. She grabbed his hand. “I don’t think you should—”

“Hush, my sweet, you think too much.” He stroked her on that tender spot again, making her squirm on the table shamelessly.

Desperately, she fought to keep her sanity. “No doubt you’ve used…that line before.”

“Hardly.” He slid a finger inside her, and she gasped. “You met my mistresses—did they seem the type to need coaxing to misbehave?”

“No, but—”

“The trouble with you is that you have everything backwards.”

Now he was thumbing her nipple with one hand and thrusting his finger inside her with the other. She couldn’t catch her breath, couldn’t halt the rush of sensations assaulting her. He went on in a husky rasp. “When youshould be using that clever brain of yours, playing whist, you let every emotion sway you. But let a man try to make love to you, and all you do is think.”

He heated her cheeks and brow and temples with a series of kisses designed to do anythingbut make her think. She struggled against the fog stealing over her.

“There you go again,” he murmured. “You’re thinking. I can tell from your frown.”

“If I don’t…keep my wits about me…you’ll destroy me.”

He gave a low chuckle. “Such drama. Does this feel like destruction?”

He drove another finger deep inside her, making her rise up on the table with a cry of alarm…of delight…of pleasure. Blast him.

“You can think later,” he added. “Right now, just feel and enjoy.”

But if she gave herself to him in this, she would give herself in other…more dangerous…Oh, Lord, what was he doing to her?

She gripped his shoulders as he battered her defenses on every front, giving her another of his too-enticing kisses while he caressed her inside and out, her breast…her nipple…the soft, throbbing flesh between her legs. She’d felt a vaguely unsatisfying ache down there before, but Byrne’s caresses sharpened it to a piercing need that grew and swelled and consumed her below, carrying her forward in a rush until she was arching into his hand and gripping his shoulders and reaching for something…

She tore her mouth from his as the craving grew insatiable. “Oh, Byrne…please…oh yes…”

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“Is this what you want?” he whispered, his motions growing fiercer, his breath thick and heavy against her cheek. “Is it, lass?”

“I want…I need…” It hit her suddenly, a flood of exquisite sensations she’d never known. “Byrne, yes!”

she cried out, as they swamped her senses. “Byrne…oh, my word…Byrne…”

“I’m here.” His hand slowed to a sensuous caress, gentling her, soothing her as she shook from the waves of pleasure rocking her body.

And when it was over, and the excitement faded to a sweet contentment, he nuzzled her cheek, and said again, “I’m here, my sweet.”

For a moment, all Christabel could do was breathe and wonder and try to figure out how he—

“You’re thinking again,” he whispered, then laved her ear with his tongue.

“I’m not…I…what on earth was that? What happened?”

Moving his hand from between her legs, he drew back to stare at her. “You don’t know?”

“Should I?”

His lips tightened into a thin line. “Haversham should have shown you, yes. But I’m not exactly surprised that he didn’t.”

His condemning tone stung. She leaped to defend her late husband. “You can’t expect him to have been as wicked as you. He was a respectable man—”

“Who was too selfish to pleasure his wife.” His eyes bored into her, unsettling her. “Unless you found what we just did unpleasant, don’t excuse him for denying it to you.”

She colored. “Perhaps he didn’t…know how—”

“Then he should have learned.” His hands caressed her thighs. “Trust me, that’s the very least that a man…a lover…ahusband should do for his wife. Though plenty of them don’t.”

“I see,” she said inanely. And she did. So very much.This was why married women clamored to play the role of his mistress. They wanted this heady, addictive pleasure that their husbands wouldn’t or couldn’t give them.

He bent to kiss her cheek, then her jaw, then her throat. “Now I see why you balked at sharing my bed. Because you didn’t know what you were missing.”

“That wasn’t why,” she whispered without thinking.

“Then what was the reason?” He tongued the pulse in her neck that still beat so wildly. Because if I share your bed, I’ll lose myself.

She couldn’t say that; it would give him an advantage.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv Still kissing her neck and her hair, he moved in closer, the tip of his erect shaft brushing between her legs. Panic seized her. Oh, Lord, she’d already given him an advantage. He’d pleasured her, but he hadn’t gained his own pleasure. And now he would expect to gain it in her bed. Unless—

Almost desperately, she reached between them to close her hand about his hot, rigid flesh. He groaned. “Damn, that feels good.”

Tentatively, she worked her hand up and down his shaft, rewarded by another heartfelt groan. She’d caught Philip doing this once, watched secretly as he stroked himself to release. If he could do it to himself, then surely she—

“That’s enough,” Byrne growled, catching her hand to stay it. “I want to come inside you.”

“But I want to touch you as you touched me.” Frantically, she searched for an argument that would convince him. “Philip never let me touch him like this,” she whispered. Though it was true, it shamed her to reveal it. Still, if the choice was to let Byrne take her here, in her own parlor, like one of his wanton mistresses—

“Please,” she continued, “let me touch you.”

After a second, his hand fell away from hers. “If you want.” He thrust into her hand. “We do have all night.”

“I thought you had to be at the club.”

“They’ll send for me…if they need me,” he choked out. “With luck, they won’t.”

Then he surprised her by lowering his mouth to suck her breast. It was like tossing kindling into smoldering embers—her blood raced hot again, and that insatiable flesh between her legs began to throb. Oh, no, no, she mustn’t let him arouse…her…again….

Praying she was doing it right, she increased the rhythm of her strokes. His response was heartening. With a choked gasp, he tore his mouth from her breast and began pumping his hips against her hand. She couldn’t believe how fiercely firm he was, yet how silky soft his skin, like liquid velvet encasing steel.

“God…oh, God…yes, lass, yes…” he growled.

For the first time in her life, she understood what he must be feeling. And to think thatshe was the one giving this pleasure to him was intoxicating. Perhaps she wasn’t entirely inept at pleasing a man. She stroked him harder. “Is that what you want?” Drunk with her own exhilarating power, she consciously echoed his earlier words. “Is it, Byrne?”

With a heartfelt curse, he threw his head back, the muscles in his neck stretched taut. “You know…that it is…you bloody, teasing…minx.” Reaching behind her, he snatched up the pair of drawers she’d tossed onto the table earlier and wrapped it about her hand and his aroused flesh.

“Damn…damn…damn!” he cried out seconds later as his seed, warm and thick like buttermilk, flooded her linen-bound hand.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv As she witnessed the blood flush fill his face and heard his breath come raggedly from his throat, a strange awe stole over her. So even the fiercely controlled Byrne was human. Perhaps he was not so very controlled after all. Perhaps he was even capable of real feeling—

No, how could she even think it? Yes, he enjoyed lovemaking fully—what else could she expect of a man like him? But he would never go beyond that, a fact that he’d made clear in every act, every word. He wasn’t the sort of man to care for a woman beyond the bedchamber. His head lowered, and his eyes slid open. “Well, well,” he managed to gasp as his breathing slowed.

“For a woman who never before experienced pleasure with a man, you are…quite talented at giving it.”

Trying not to let the frank approval warm her, she dropped her gaze from his. “Am I?”

He wiped her hand clean on her drawers, then tossed them aside. “Oh, yes.” Bending to press his lips to her cheek, he murmured, “Time to move to your bedchamber, my sweet, where we can be more comfortable.”

A groan escaped her. He was not going to take this well, was he? “I…I would rather not,” she evaded.

“I’m tired, and you have to be at the club—”

“I don’t, I told you.” He nibbled her ear as he laid his hands on her waist. “And if you’re tired, we’ll sleep a while.” A teasing note entered his voice. “Making love is even better in the morning.”

“No, I can’t.” She drew back from him, her head lowered. She couldn’t look at him. “I…I just can’t.”

His fingers curled into her waist. “You can’t?” he said disbelievingly. “You mean, you won’t.”

She nodded.

Seizing her chin, he lifted her head until her gaze met his, now icy gray as a winter storm. “You never intended for us to share a bed tonight, did you? That’s why you jerked my mutton.”

“I…What?”

“You’re a cock-chafer,” he hissed. “You excite a man, then throw him out of your bed without giving him relief.”

“That’s not true!” she protested. “Idid give you relief!”

A muscle jerked in his jaw. “Yes, I suppose you did. In a fashion. But it wasn’t the kind of relief I wanted.”

She sighed. “Byrne, you have to understand—”

“No, I don’t. What are you so bloody afraid of, Christabel? That you might enjoy yourself? That you might discover you’re secretly as wicked as the rest of us whom you hold in such contempt?”

She dared not tell him that she couldn’t trust herself with him if she took him into her bed. But she could tell him some of the truth. If he could understand.

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“I’m not like your other women, you know,” she whispered. “I’m not willing to take a man in parts. I can’t share your bed one day and blithely look the other way the next as you share another woman’s bed. It isn’t in my nature.” Drawing her chemise up to cover her breasts, she slid her arms through the sleeves. “And it isn’t inyour nature to be faithful to a woman, is it?”

He was silent a moment, his eyes boring into hers. And even when he spoke, his answer wasn’t an answer. “So you want marriage then.” He spat the word as if it were loathsome. She shook her head no. “I will never again place my future in the hands of some man who will end up—”

“Betraying you?”

She nodded.

A familiar calculating gleam entered his eyes. “Ah, but that’s exactly why what I offer is better than any marriage.” His hands rubbed her thighs, slowly, caressingly…temptingly. If Satan were a seducer, that was how he’d do it, too. “We can enjoy our pleasure without fearing that one of us will destroy the other—as spouses so often do. And when we tire of each other—”

“What if I don’t tire of you before you tire of me? Two people needn’t be married to destroy each other—just witness the havoc that Lady Caroline Lamb’s behavior has wreaked upon her lover Byron and her own family.”

He quirked up one eyebrow. “I somehow can’t imagine you threatening me with a knife at a dinner party.”

“Are you forgetting that I shot at you? If I came to care for you, and you treated me as you do your other women, I don’t know what I might do. As I said, it’s not in my nature to fall in and out of a man’s bed without a thought.”

His fingers dug into her thighs. “So you mean to remain celibate all your life? No marriage, no lover, no one but your aging father to keep you company?”

She swallowed. In typical Byrne fashion, he’d left out the most important thing—no children. Since she was probably barren, a new marriage would be difficult. Most men wanted women who could bear them sons.

With a sigh, she pushed his hands from her thighs and slid off the table. “I haven’t thought that far.”

“And no wonder.” Refusing to move away, he planted his hands on the table on either side of her to keep her trapped there. He bent his head, his mouth brushing her ear as he lowered his voice to an achingly seductive whisper. “Until tonight, you didn’t know what pleasure was. But now that you know—”

“I must be even more cautious.” Drawing back, she managed a smile. “Besides, you don’t want a jealous mistress who will demand to know where you’ve been, complain when you ignore her, and beg you to share only her bed. That’s precisely the sort I’d be. I drove my own husband to gamble and drink and…who knows what.” She couldn’t keep the pain from her voice. “Only imagine what I’d drive a debaucher like you to do—commit murder, probably.”

Anger flared in his face. “You didn’t drive that fool Haversham into anything, damn it. From the moment Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv I met him, I recognized him as one of those thoughtless arses whose thirst for the tables blots out any other consideration in his life. That isn’t your fault.”

His words were like a surgeon’s knife probing flesh for a bullet. “Isn’t it? If I had made him happy at home—”

“Did you ever refuse to let the selfish idiot bed you?”

“No, but—”

“Did you make sure he was well fed?”

“Of course.”

“Did you plaguehim about where he’d been and what he was doing?”

“Not at first. To be honest, I was relieved not to have to play the marchioness in society when I didn’t know the role.”

“So he found you someone to instruct you, did he? Reassured you that you could learn those things? Did his best to help you feel comfortable accompanying him into society?”

His rather pompous dissertation began to annoy her. “Not exactly, but—”

“As I said, a selfish, thoughtless arse. Tell me, Christabel, when you first met him, was your husband a gambler?”

She stuck out her chin. “Moderately so.”

“How do you know he was moderate? Did he ever promise to be somewhere and then not appear, pleading headache or some other nonsense? Was he always the one to suggest cards as the evening’s entertainment? Did his pay often mysteriously disappear—”

“Stop it!” She shoved his arm aside to escape his too-accurate description of a man whose proclivity for gambling even her father had questioned. Once she’d put some distance between them, she faced him.

“You have the audacity to call him selfish and thoughtless when you daily show a complete lack of feeling for the women you bed—”

“The women I bed are as uninterested in my feelings as I am in theirs.” Eyes glittering, he stalked up to her, apparently unconcerned that he was stark naked. “They want the same thing I want from them—pleasure and nothing more.”

“Are you sure? Is that why Lady Jenner went out of her way to provoke me this evening? She was halfway to scratching my eyes out.”

He went rigid. “Her pride was wounded, that’s all.”

“Perhaps. But even if you’re right about her and the others, even if they did want only one thing from you, I can’t be like them. So we’re back to where we started. I simply can’t be the sort of mistress you want. I know my own nature well enough for that.”

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv A muttered oath escaped his lips. “Fine. Then perhaps we shouldn’t play Whist for the Wicked anymore.”

“And perhaps you should stop trying to seduce me.”

He arched one eyebrow. “That, my sweet, is not inmy nature.”

Coloring, she bent to pick up his drawers where he’d left them on the floor. “Then perhaps you should go. Here, take these.”

With a glance that would have frozen ice, he walked past her without taking them, headed for the door.

“Keep them. You won them fairly.”

“Byrne, please, at least let me call for your overcoat.”

He stared at her with annoyance. “After tonight, your reputation will be severely tarnished anyway. Since that doesn’t seem to bother you, why do you care if a few servants gossip about how I left your house naked?”

“I just…do.”

His jaw went taut as he laid his hand on the doorknob. He hesitated, then cursed again and opened the door wide enough to call through it. “You there, footman! Bring me my coat.”

There was a ruckus in the hall as someone hurried to do his bidding. Moments later, Byrne thrust his hand out and came back with his coat, then slammed the door.

“Your footman was limping. Another of your ex-soldiers?” he growled as he pulled on his coat and began to button it with jerky movements.

“Yes. He’s missing a foot.”

“Of course.” He gave a harsh laugh. “Only you would hire a footless footman.” He cast her a hooded glance. “You’re the most maddening woman I’ve ever met, do you know that?” He laid his hand on the doorknob again. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“What?” she asked, bewildered.

“Mrs. Watts is coming back, remember? After she leaves, we’ll play cards again—respectablecards, mind you.” He sneered the wordrespectable . “And tomorrow evening we’ll go to the theater, so people will see us together socially. Unless you find that activity not respectable enough for a pretend mistress?”

“No, that’s fine,” she said, a little peevishly. After all, she’d only told him the truth about what she felt. No need for him to be so childish about it. “I like the theater.”

“Of course you do,” he snapped. “Drama is your stock-in-trade.”

But there was a bit of humor in his tone now, as if he, too, recognized that he was overreacting. She let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. “So we’re…in agreement? About my not sharing your bed?”

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“We willnever be in agreement about that.” He raked her with a long, heated glance that turned her knees wobbly. “But I’m not one to force a woman to my bed. I can wait until she goes there willingly.” A devilish smile tipped up his lips. “Because that daywill come. It always does.”

And with that arrogant statement, he left.

Only then did she let out a breath. But even after she heard his cabriolet pulling away, she couldn’t relax. She felt bereft, adrift. Restless. Roaming the room, she picked up a stocking here, a garter there, hardly distinguishing between his and hers as she piled them on a chair and prayed she could get them upstairs without the servants seeing.

She picked up his waistcoat, and his scent wafted to her again, a strangely male blend of sweet and musky. Holding the embroidered fabric to her cheek, she felt tears prick her eyes. How familiar this seemed—picking up a man’s discarded clothes. Before Philip had ascended to the title and hired a fancy valet, she’d been the one to gather up his clothes after he returned from a long night out. But Philip’s clothes had reeked of brandy; Byrne’s reeked ofhim . And if she’d wanted—

No, she’d been right to refuse what he offered. Tempting as the man might be and much as she’d secretly love to experience the delights of sharing his bed, she would surely regret it in the end. She sank into a chair with a sigh. Then why, oh why, did it feel as if she’d made an enormous mistake?

After a moment of driving in nothing but his overcoat, Gavin began to wish he’d accepted his drawers when Christabel had offered them. In early autumn, nights in London were plenty cool and damp. The fog seeped under his coat, chilling him to the bone. Damn Christabel for tossing him out when he could have been lying warm and cozy in her bed, making love to her with slow, easy thrusts—

“Bloody hell,” he growled, as his cock stirred once more. The woman would be the death of him. He reached for his watch, then realized she had it. But it couldn’t be that late. He could always go to one of the better brothels to satisfy his lust. Though he rarely frequented whores, sometimes it was necessary. Yet the idea was so unappealing at the moment that it silenced the clamoring of his wayward cock. Odd, that. The whole situation was odd. No woman who clearly wanted him—who aroused him, too—had ever refused him his satisfaction.

That must be the trouble—he hadn’thad Christabel, so no other woman held any appeal. But that would end soon. He would have her, and when he did, it would be all the more worth it for the waiting. Unlike that idiot Haversham, he knew how to savor the anticipation of bedding a woman. He only hoped he didn’t have to savor it too much longer.

At least one good thing had come of tonight. He now knew that his strategy would work. As she’d said, she wasn’t like his other women. Which meant that once he seduced her—and he would, eventually—it would be easier to get everything he wanted from her, including the truth about her “property.”

Of course, there were other risks involved. First, the obvious one—that he might get her with child. He’d always relied on the husbands of his mistresses to claim any child that might occur despite his preventive measures. Still, he’d been glad it had never happened. It would have unsettled him to know Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv that some child of his was being raised as another man’s.

But if he somehow got Christabel with child, there would be no husband to claim the babe. So he’d have to be extra cautious. They would both take measures to prevent it—there were sponges a woman could use. She couldn’t possibly have any more desire to bear a bastard than he did to sire one. So that left the second risk—that Christabel would become exactly the kind of mistress she claimed. That she’d turn into a jealous, unpredictable, possessive harpy. He chuckled as a sudden image leaped into his mind, of her dragging out her rifle to take shots at any other woman who demanded his attentions. When he realized that the idea appealed to him, his humor faded abruptly. No self-respecting rakehell wanted a woman waiting impatiently for his arrival every night, hanging on his every word, gazing at him with a longing so profound that it—

He cursed under his breath. This was what came of dallying with respectable women. They put ideas in a man’s head that he would never entertain otherwise.

He liked his life precisely as it was. He’d make her his mistress because he desired her, but he would teach her not to expect more of him than that. Surely even the indomitable Widow Haversham could be made to accept the way of the world eventually.

And if it meant that the light in her eyes and the passion in her heart were extinguished? With an oath, he flicked the reins to speed the horses. That sort of thinking was what had led him to be a fool about Anna Bingham. Never again would he succumb to such dangerous sentimental nonsense. Never again.

Minutes later, he reached his town house in fashionable Mayfair. Before he even halted, a groom hurried out to meet him, and his youngish butler appeared in the window. Gavin paid well for such attention late at night—his hours were odd, and he didn’t like to bother with rousing a servant. His entire household operated on the supposition that morning was night and night was morning. In fact, this was early for him; his dire need for clothes had prevented him from going to the club straight from Christabel’s. He halted his rig, handed the reins to his groom, and climbed down, cursing the lack of his boots when his feet hit gravel.

His butler came outside. “Sir, do you need assistance?”

“No, I can manage.” Gavin gingerly took the few steps to the stone entrance staircase, then shook the stones from beneath his toes.

His butler said naught about Gavin’s bootless, stockingless state; he knew better. But as Gavin climbed the steps, the servant hurried down to meet him instead of waiting at the top as usual. “I thought you’d want to know, sir—you’ve received a message from Bath. The messenger is waiting inside for your reply. I had just sent a footboy to the club for you when you drove up.”

Bath. He tensed. “Thank you, Jenkins.”

He took the remaining steps two at a time. A summons from Bath was never good. The messenger from Bath met him at the top and wordlessly handed him a sealed missive. Gavin groaned. Sealed missives were never good either.

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv He tore it open, then scanned the message swiftly. Though the tension left him, it didn’t change what he must do. “Jenkins, as soon as that footboy returns, send him to the livery to have them ready my coach. I mean to leave in an hour. And bring me some paper and a pen. I have to write a note or two before I leave.”

Jenkins nodded. “I’ll take care of it at once, sir.”

Gavin’s jaunt to the theater with Christabel tomorrow night would have to wait. But he’d make it up to her. He’d find some bauble in Bath before he returned.

It shouldn’t be too long. The message said the situation wasn’t as dire as it could be. He’d go tonight, spend the day consulting with the doctor to make sure everything was indeed all right, stay there tomorrow night, and come back the day after next.

He’d only lose a day or two of preparing Christabel for Stokely’s party. That shouldn’t affect matters. It might even work to his advantage to have her stew a bit. She might be more eager to reveal the truth about her property if she thought he was losing interest in helping her. His eyes narrowed. Come to think of it, Rosevine wasn’t far off the road between London and Bath. Perhaps he should stop near there on the way back. A few guineas to the right gossipy villager might afford him a bit more information about her and her family. At the very least, he could learn something about the steward who’d broken into her strongbox. Plenty of lords kept on the previous title-holder’s more experienced servants, so the steward might even still live at Rosevine. It was time to start pursuing this from other angles, just to hedge his bets. Because whether Christabel knew it or not, he meant to discover the truth. One way or another.