There was no way to get people to answer questions when they didn’t want to. Emily stood against the wall in the Hollingberrys’ grand ballroom and scowled. Especially when by “people,” one meant the Earl of Blackstone.

Unanswered questions about why he’d been following her—for surely his appearance in Mr. Manning’s garden hadn’t been a coincidence—had plagued her since he’d unceremoniously deposited her on her doorstep an hour earlier. As Catharine cooed over her new gown and bundled her into the carriage, Emily had fulminated, growing angrier with every jostle and more indignant with every jolt.

A cup of lemonade appeared under her nose, drawing her back to the ball. “Is everything all right, Miss Mirren?” inquired James Burnham, handing a glass of champagne to his wife. He didn’t wait for her answer as he shot Catharine a grin. Emily sipped the cool, tart drink and regarded her new friends. Catharine met her husband’s grin with one of her own, and they now seemed to be locked in a silent combat, a test to see who would look away—or laugh?—first. It was easy to see that they were besotted with each other.

Sighing, Emily turned her attention to the room and patted her hair. Angela had done a wonderful job, and her coiffure was holding its shape remarkably—for goodness’ sake, she’d committed a crime earlier in the evening, and her hair was no worse for it! Still, she was not accustomed to wearing jewels in her hair and kept worrying that the tiny paste stones—cunning approximations of aquamarines if she did say so herself—would dislodge themselves.

While Angela dressed her hair, she’d quizzed Emily about the eligible gentlemen who would attend the ball.

“I’m not looking to marry,” Emily had protested. “I’m not attending the ball in order to find a husband.”

“It can’t hurt to look,” Angela said, dusting Emily’s cheeks with some pale pink rouge, “If you meet the right gentleman, you might change your mind.”

Instead of answering the question, Emily posed one of her own. “Are you certain I should be painting my face?” She could not deny that the subtle wash of color made her look bright and vibrant, but it felt so scandalous.

“Absolutely certain.”

Emily was startled out of her reverie to realize her maid’s phrase was the same one being uttered right now by Catharine.

“Absolutely certain. I won’t leave Miss Mirren,” she said to her husband. “If you want to dance, ask one of the debutantes. It will be good for their image to be seen with a scandalous reformer.”

“But I don’t want to dance with a debutante.” Emily swallowed a giggle as Mr. Burnham pouted, looking very much like a little boy. “I want to dance with my wife.”

She sensed him coming before he arrived. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and her intuition was confirmed by the wide smile Catharine flashed over Emily’s shoulder.

“You’re saved, James. Look, here’s Blackstone, and he can dance with Miss Mirren, leaving me free to partner you.”

Lord Blackstone came to stand beside Emily, placing his hand against the small of her back. The touch was brief, but strong enough to signal that it was not an accident. It was as if he’d pressed an invisible button that sped up her heart. After greeting the Burnhams, he turned and bowed formally to Emily. “My first question: may I have this dance, Miss Mirren?”

“You don’t dance, if I recall correctly.” She didn’t bother with his title. Or with a curtsy.

“I’ve been known to, when the situation absolutely calls for it.”

“I can’t see how the current situation absolutely calls for it.”

“Perhaps you recall that you agreed to answer some questions at this ball, Miss Mirren.”

“You did?” Catharine said incredulously. “When did you do this?”

Emily ignored her. “There you are mistaken. You are simply assuming—”

“Miss Mirren, I will ask again, but this time I will be so bold as to inform you that phrasing this request as a question is merely a courtesy on my part. May I have this dance?” He took a rather firm hold of her elbow as he spoke.

“You’d best go,” Catharine whispered. Emily shifted her gaze to the older woman, only to find that she looked very much like she was trying not to laugh.

Emily hadn’t danced for at least a year. And the local assemblies she and Sarah attended in Somerset paled in comparison to this glittering affair. The crowd roared. Strangers stared, hardly bothering to disguise their almost clinical regard. It was all quite overwhelming, and though she’d tried to discourage Lord Blackstone, now that he was towing her determinedly toward the dance floor, she had no choice but to follow or risk getting lost—or trampled—in the crush. Emily thought she might prefer the more modest Somerset parties, where one knew most of the attendees, and if one’s best gown was a simple, moss-green muslin, one still looked perfectly presentable.

A minuet was winding down and he stopped suddenly, causing her to nearly crash into him. He glanced up at the musicians seated in a balcony above them. The violinist made eye contact, nodded, and struck up a waltz. Apparently the world simply bent to Lord Blackstone’s will.

“I don’t know how to waltz!” she said, blurting out the first thought that came to mind as they approached the floor. “Even if I could, I couldn’t! Don’t I have to get permission or something?”

Ignoring her protest, he dropped her elbow and took her hand in his. “I’m meant to press my other hand against your back, but you’ll have to make do with the stump.”

Emily opened her mouth to object, but could summon no response. What could a lady say that wouldn’t make her seem an insensitive beast when a gentleman proclaimed that he was going to rest his stump against her back?

“Just follow my lead.” He nudged her right foot back with his left.

“I am familiar with the dance in theory.” Huffing in resignation, she looked down, trying to focus on the required footwork and not on the heat emanating from the very broad chest only inches from her bosom—which, though Angela and Catharine had assured her was appropriately covered, now felt a little too vulnerable.

“You’ve read a book about the waltz, no doubt.”

His smirk ignited a spark of irritation. “Merely a newspaper article,” she informed him. “The papers can hardly report on the scandalous nature of the dance without describing what makes it so.”

While she spoke, the infernal man started stroking his thumb over her wrist. It was an absent sort of stroking—a tic, really—so he probably wasn’t even aware of it. But she wished he would stop. They were picking up speed, which no doubt explained the breathlessness that had overtaken her. She could feel his eyes on her as she watched his thumb move back and forth. Even covered as it was by an evening glove, the skin beneath his thumb grew hot and prickly.

“I know I’m not supposed to look at my feet, but I don’t know where I should look.” Drat! Why did proximity to Lord Blackstone always cause her to simply blurt whatever nonsense flitted through her head?

“Look at me.” His eyes found hers, and it was as if an invisible cord was being knit between their gazes as they twirled. Despite the discomfort his searing gaze caused, she could not have looked away if she wanted to. He pulled her closer—not quite scandalously close, but enough to make her pray that no one was watching them too carefully.

“Everyone is watching you.”

Not only could Lord Blackstone bend the world to his will, it seemed he could read minds, too. “If that’s true, it’s no doubt because I’m dancing with the infamously hermetical Earl of Blackstone. You know, the one who doesn’t dance.” Her confident tone belied the fluttering of her heart.

“No, it is because you are unknown to them, and you are a beautiful woman. They don’t know what to make of you.”

She dropped her eyes, looking for respite from his unstinting regard.

“Look at me.” The repeated command was harsher this time.

She grudgingly obeyed. His eyes fixed on hers again. The cord between them grew tauter, drawing her in even as she strained against it.

“Will you marry me?”

It was cruel, really, for him to ask again. Part of her wanted desperately to accept, to open her mouth and utter the one syllable that would change everything. Who cared what his motivations were? Marriage could mean children, a family. Love—if not from her husband, then from the children he gave her.

But, she reminded herself, he’d quite clearly suggested the first time he asked that they wouldn’t need to live together as man and wife. He couldn’t have been more plain about his lack of desire to have her for a true wife. And there was Sally to worry about, and Billy—the family she already had.

Besides, she’d seen marriage. Her own mother, had she lived, would have been alone all the time while her father was on campaign, her life organized around the machinations of a far-away military she had no control over. And, worse, she’d seen Mrs. Manning literally cowering beneath her husband’s fury. Emily wondered if the consumption she’d succumbed to hadn’t been a blessing after the years of abuse she’d suffered.

Blinking, she snapped the invisible cord that connected her to the earl.

“Is that another of your questions that’s actually a command?” She didn’t wait for his reply. “Regardless, the answer is no.”

“It was a question,” Blackstone murmured into Miss Mirren’s ear, trying to tamp down his annoyance as he thought of her “Reasons Never to Marry” list. “But clearly, I’m going to have to change my tactics.” He smiled in spite of his perturbation—picturing all the ways one might force Miss Mirren’s hand made for entertaining thoughts. But then, really all that was required was the addition of an audience to any of their encounters. He’d already kissed her—and more—several times. Polite society was strange that way. A man could swim with an unmarried woman, barely clothed, in the middle of the night, and yet to be caught alone in a drawing room, a foot of space between himself and said woman, would mean ruination unless they subsequently married.

“Change them how?” she asked.

He shrugged. “There are so many situations a woman could find herself in that could lead to ruin.”

She raised her eyebrows, daring him to continue.

“For example, she could be caught conversing in the library in the middle of the night with a gentleman.” Pausing, he waited for the veiled threat to sink in. She gave him no satisfaction. Her face did not change beyond a slight pressing together of her lips. “Or,” he lowered his voice so much that he was practically breathing in her ear, “she could be caught swimming with a gentleman, late at night, in nothing but a drenched chemise, one that leaves nothing to the imagination.”

An almost undetectable hitch in her breath told him he was getting somewhere, so he pressed on. “But it wouldn’t even take that much. She could be at a ball, say, and find herself suddenly alone with a gentleman in a parlor, a library—it doesn’t even matter where. All that need happen is someone else stumble onto the scene. Then our young lady must hope the gentleman in question is prepared to do the honorable thing.”

The music stopped, and she slipped out of his embrace. “But this all assumes that the lady in question is threatened by the prospect of social ruin.”

“Yes,” he agreed, “but it’s difficult not to be, isn’t it? Ostracism can’t have much to recommend it.”

It was her turn to shrug. “I can only speak for myself, and not for your hypothetical lady. Though of course I would not welcome ruination, it wouldn’t be enough to induce me to marry.”

Damn her. She’d called his bluff—and he had the sinking feeling she meant what she said.

“It might be different if I’d grown up among the ton,” she said, further skewering his plan. “But I’m a newcomer, and I’ve spent most of my life outside polite society. So social ruin is no great loss. Certainly not worth giving up my freedom.”

Couples were queuing around them for a country dance. After delivering her final blow, Miss Mirren curtsied, turned, and walked away, ever so slightly faster than was called for. The swooshing of her silk skirts roared like a storm in his ears.

Dammit. What ammunition did he have if she was immune to ruin? He hadn’t decided whether to follow her when Catharine glided over. “Abandoned on the dance floor, Blackstone?”

He merely scowled.

“I’ve sent James for drinks, so I’ve a few minutes alone. Therefore, this would seem the perfect time for you to tell me what’s going on between you and Miss Mirren.”

What was going on was that he needed a Plan B. And he needed it now. But Catharine didn’t need to know that. Would deepening his scowl scare her off?

No. She just raised her brows expectantly. “Would it be enough for me to tell you that it’s imperative I speak to Miss Mirren alone?”

“That might be enough if your intentions were honorable, but—”

He cut her off. “My intentions are honorable.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “Not intentions in the broad king-and-country sort of way. That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it. Miss Mirren is a lovely girl and she can aim high, despite her age. I won’t have you mucking up her prospects.”

“Did I not serve four years under Captain Mirren? You of all people should know that. My intentions toward his daughter are entirely honorable.”

Catharine’s face did not change, but she said, “I will refrain from expressing my true astonishment, but I assure you my jaw is hitting the ground right now. Metaphorically.”

“Will you help me?”

She cocked her head at him. “Yes. Reservedly. But I’m watching you, Blackstone.”

Thanks to Catharine’s machinations—the woman had been a hell of a fine spy—Miss Mirren was seated next to him on a bench on the Hollingberrys’ back terrace. Catharine and James lounged against the wall, taking in the moonlit gardens. Twenty or so feet away, they were close enough to provide the illusion of chaperonage, but not close enough to hear. He hoped.

Miss Mirren was not happy about this arrangement, her jumpiness betraying her agitation. “I’ve said no, and I fail to see the point of repeating this exercise.”

“That’s not what I mean to ask. I’m sorry. I thought we might rub along together well enough, but I won’t ask you again.” Correction—I won’t ask you at all. “I want to speak frankly about something else.”

She took a deep, resigned-sounding breath, as if she were summoning the patience to deal with a recalcitrant child. “Very well.”

“Are you planning to give an abolitionist speech on Friday?”

Her mouth fell open. He’d shocked her, and part of him took delight in the fact. He’d always enjoyed besting an adversary, and the fact that this particular adversary was…more compelling than most didn’t change that fact. “I’ll take your astonished countenance for assent.”

She didn’t even bother arguing. “How did you know?”

“I’ve been watching you,” he teased. It was true, of course, but she didn’t need to know the extent of it.

“So you were following me earlier this evening.”

Setting aside the impulse to defend himself, he said, “You know I read the letter you dropped at Clareford Manor. Give me a little credit, Miss Mirren. After that, it wasn’t a great leap to connect you to the mysterious veiled lady who will speak at this event entitled, ‘A Day of Speeches to Reopen the Question of Abolition.’”

“But how do you even know about the event?”

“It’s all over the papers. They’ve run out of tickets.”

Then the infernal woman smiled—a great, wide smile of genuine delight. He tamped down a stab of guilt.

“Miss Mirren, I have a proposition for you.” He almost laughed at the indignant look she shot him. “Not that kind of proposition. You’ve been accusing me of taking an undue interest in your affairs as a result of my loyalty to your late father.” He held up a hand to stop any interjection she might offer. “It’s true, I admit it. I don’t like the idea of Captain Mirren’s daughter putting herself in harm’s way.”

He took the bold step of reaching for her hand—after all, Plan B required her to find him irresistible. Even gloved, her hand transferred a sort of buzzing awareness into his own. “He loved you very much.”

“He had an odd way of showing it.” Her voice was heartbreakingly small as she pulled her hand away. He had a sudden sense that perhaps the Captain Mirren he’d known was not the same man she had known. But that was a thought to be examined later.

“By all accounts the day of speeches is going to be a mad crush. A dangerous crush.”

“I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself.”

“It’s not your abilities I question, Miss Mirren. It’s the behavior of an agitated, restless crowd. What if they set upon you? What if they tear off your veil?”

“I’m planning to speak about sugar, my lord. It’s hardly the most incendiary of topics.”

That, and she was planning to dangle the fact that she’d come close to unmasking a major slaver. But he opted not to mention that. It was one thing for her to think he’d been following her around, quite another to admit to entering her home and rifling through her private things.

“Hear me out,” he said. “Let me give the speech in your stead.” Her eyes widened, and he smiled. “Miss Mirren, I find I rather enjoy shocking you.”

“That’s an absurd idea.”

“Think about it logically. Ladies were not unheard of as speakers at the assemblies before the trade was banned. A mysterious veiled lady, I admit, has a certain cache.” He swallowed his guilt as he delivered the line that would win this battle. “But so does an earl, a high-ranking peer of the realm. I’ll announce that I’m reading a speech by an anonymous woman. It will draw everyone’s attention, not just those in attendance. The papers will go mad for it, and the cause of abolition will be on everyone’s lips again.”

Her face softened as she considered his words. “Why would you do this?”

“To atone for the fact that I’m collaborating with Mr. Manning.”

“So you know he’s running slaves,” she said. “I’d planned to tell you this evening. But then I got…”

“Distracted by my incessant exhortations toward matrimony?”

She exhaled a breathy little laugh. “Something like that.”

“Miss Mirren, I am going to level with you.” He glanced around the sparsely populated terrace, his mind weaving the necessary lies. “Will you walk with me?”

Nodding, she let him lead her down the steps on their side of the terrace.

Catharine noticed. Shooting her a beseeching look, he tried for all he was worth to look like a man besotted. She shook her head, but it was a resigned shake. Prompting James to pull out his pocket watch, she made an exaggerated show of looking at it.

Miss Mirren, thankfully, noticed none of this, merely preceded him down a path so dark, he couldn’t have chosen better himself.

As soon as they were shielded from the house, he got to the point. “Miss Mirren, I can’t pretend to approve of Mr. Manning, but I need money. I can’t put it any plainer than that. My father ignored the estate, and my brother was too compromised to pay it any attention.” She’d stopped walking and turned to face him. This was going to be easier than he thought. “If it was just me, I’d say sod it all. But the tenants are living in leaky cottages. I’ve an army of servants who’ve been with my family since before my birth. People are depending on me, and I’m out of options.”

He could see understanding taking root. He was winning her over. She was a kind woman with a big heart, and she understood about responsibility. In fact, she’d built a life around it.

She trusted him, too. And it was beginning to crack his stony heart.

“So delivering my abolitionist speech will help assuage your guilty conscience.”

He led her to a small stone bench. “Something like that. But I won’t deny it would serve the dual purpose of ensuring you aren’t trampled by an angry mob when I could have prevented it.”

That earned him another low chuckle as she sat, pulling her shimmering skirts to one side to make room for him. Oddly, winning that laugh seemed like an accomplishment on par with some of his greatest missions. He shoved the thought aside. Now was not the time to get sentimental.

“Lord Blackstone, I need to be quite honest about one thing. I am planning to expose Mr. Manning for the slaver that he is.”

He nodded, noticing how the moonlight illuminated her bosom, which was exposed more than was usual for her. “That’s what’s in the red book.”

“Yes. His accounts. I used to help with the books at Manning Abbey. He always keeps his account books in the top right drawer of his desk. I’d hoped it would have incriminating entries, something to show a trail of money that couldn’t properly be accounted for.”

“And did it?” He sincerely hoped not; otherwise he was going to have to add stealing the red book to his list of things to do. Miss Mirren could not expose Mr. Manning before the boat carrying Le Cafard arrived. It simply could not be allowed, no matter his misgivings about deceiving her.

“No.” She cocked her head. “And I imagine you’re glad about that, because as soon as I expose him, your source of money dries up.”

“You’ve sized up the situation exactly, Miss Mirren.” He did not lie, even if it wasn’t the whole truth. “We cannot pretend that our aims are not opposed.”

“Indeed.”

“But you can allow me to deliver your speech, both to assuage my conscience a bit and to ensure your own safety. After all, if you’re trampled to death, you won’t be able to bring down Manning.”

Another laugh, a jab to his guts.

“I won’t stop trying, you know,” she said.

“Why am I not surprised?”

She stuck out her hand. “So we are allies for the moment.”

He took it. “So it would seem. Wary, temporary allies.” Except allies don’t stab each other in the back.

“Wary, temporary allies!” she exclaimed. He hadn’t let go of her hand, nor she of his. “That’s much better than man and wife, don’t you think?”

“Much better,” he whispered, staring at her lips, barely visible in the light of the half-moon. The speech was taken care of, and so it was time initiate Plan B.

She stepped closer. Plan B was not going to be without its pleasures.

When her lips hit his, he realized with a jolt that it was she who’d moved to kiss him and not the reverse. The very same lady who’d refused his suit not an hour ago was pressing her lips rather ardently against his.

Not acceptable. Not part of Plan B.

So he took control. Dropping her hand, which he was still holding, he took a moment to curse his injury. God be dammed, this was when he most missed having two hands. Still, a man learned to be resourceful.

The good hand stroked her collarbone, shamelessly dipping two fingers into her décolletage, while he used his bad arm to hike up her skirts. A multipronged assault—stun and disarm.

It was working. Her breath was coming fast, and though she continued to kiss him, when he pressed his forearm against her inner thigh, exposing the warm flesh to the cool night air, she gasped and let her head fall back.

“That’s right,” he whispered, quickly moving his good hand down to the other thigh, using his fingers to stroke it, hoping to contrast the localized sensation of fingers against one thigh with the pressure of his whole forearm against the other. “Just because a lady is resolved not to marry doesn’t mean she should go to her grave unversed in the pleasures available to her.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” she answered, all breathy as she tried to lift her head. “It’s just that I wonder if—”

“Don’t talk. Don’t think.” He let his fingers drift up and experimentally draw aside her smallclothes. Usually a seduction would call for less haste, but the last thing he needed was Catharine marching down the path after them. He brushed his hands over her folds. “Oh, God,” he said, before he could bite his tongue and remind himself to keep the commentary internal. She was ready.

And so was he. But that didn’t signify. He exhaled a raggedy sigh, trying to remember if his cock had ever gone so impossibly hard before.

He made another pass across her wetness, and she whimpered.

“See?” he whispered roughly. “There’s so much available for the asking.”

He wondered if she had any idea what she was feeling, what was possible. Most gently bred young women did not, but a low, throaty sigh suggested that she might be an exception. She was very well read. He thought back to the horrid pamphlet he’d found in her room. Hopefully that was not all she’d read on the topic.

“It seems unfair to me,” she gasped, “that such pleasures are only available to married women.”

“Yes,” he whispered, picking up on her cue as he pressed his lips against the pulse madly fluttering at her throat. “A man is free to find his pleasure where he may, but a woman must wait for a husband—and hope she ends up with one who concerns himself with her pleasure at all.” He began circling her bud, coming close but never touching it. “It’s a gross injustice.”

“Please,” she whispered. He was surprised at how quickly she’d arrived at this point. Though he’d never been with a virgin, he always imagined they required a great deal of careful attention. But then, she’d proven to have passion in spades, hadn’t she? She strove toward pleasure the same way she approached her cause—with a furious intensity that blocked out all distraction.

Arching her back, she was instinctively trying to improve the angle. Gradually shrinking the size of his circular caresses, he homed in on the source of her desire. Moving his lips up to her jawbone, he whispered, “If we’re caught, you’ll have to marry me.”

“And have you arranged for us to be caught?”

“No.” Not this time.

“It doesn’t matter. I still wouldn’t.”

Blast her! Without thinking, he increased the pressure he was exerting, and sped up the now-tiny circles, burying his face in her neck. In less than ten seconds, her shallow breathing stopped and she surrendered to her crisis in utter silence.

Oh, to get Miss Mirren somewhere secluded, somewhere she could make all the noise she liked. His mind began sifting through possibilities—but no, that was not the point here. He had to do things in order—there was a list, after all—and this evening was about leaving her wanting more.

Smoothing her skirts back down, he struggled to make out her expression in the near darkness. Satiation, he thought, mixed with a little astonishment. Exactly where he wanted her.

“I’m sorry,” she informed him. “I’m afraid I got quite carried away.” She ducked her head.

Part of him wanted to laugh. She’d apologized to him that night at the lake, too, as if she were a defiling lothario. “There’s no need to be sorry, or embarrassed.” He slid along the bench, away from her, willing the chilly night air to do its work.

She looked like she might say more, but after a moment of silence, she merely nodded. “We should get back before we’re missed.”

Crossing his legs, he cleared his throat. “You go ahead. I need a moment.” Several. I need several moments.

She looked at first like she might argue, but then she flashed him a small, intimate smile—a dagger in his heart—and turned. He watched her disappear down the path, shimmering blue gown gradually swallowed by darkness. Then he rose and went the other way. His work here was done for tonight.