Emily woke up and immediately dressed. She had a full morning ahead of her, despite spending a late night at The Market in Cooper’s arms. It still amazed her how unexpected he proved to be in bed. Of course, her only knowledge outside her experiences with him suggested that one was to lie very still and think of other things until the man was finished. Fortunately for her, she had been quickly disabused of that notion, and Cooper had done so in the most delightful way. On the other hand, she wasn’t having married sex, so perhaps that was the difference?

An hour later, she found herself standing once more on the doorstep of Lucifer’s gambling hell. Her belly flip-flopped as she thought back to her previous visit. The man had been fierce and a little frightening, but she had come with a purpose then. And her purpose remained unchanged. Lifting her arm, she rapped firmly on the door. She waited a few moments and then knocked once more. Standing on the doorstep, she resisted the urge to tap her foot as she waited. Raising her arm another time to knock, she was startled when the wood surface swung open.

Emily once more faced the very large man with the ugly, jagged scar running from his temple near his hairline down to the corner of his mouth. He frowned. “You again.”

“Yes, me again. I need to speak with Mr. Lucifer.” She stuck her chin up, letting her stubborn nature take over and carry her beyond the pounding of her heart.

“Come inside.” He opened the door, letting her into the dimly lit foyer. Nothing had changed since her last visit, not that she had expected that to occur. “Sit.” He pointed at the same seat she had occupied previously.

With the exception of knowing what Lucifer looked like and more or less how he would behave, she felt every ounce of the same trepidation she had previously. Sweaty hands, a light tremble in her limbs, and the throb of her pulse had her sitting on edge. When the scarred giant returned, she stood, prepared to be escorted upstairs as she was last time.

“Lucifer cannot see you. You’ll have to come back during business hours.” The large man lumbered toward the entrance.

Determined to conduct her business now, before the hell’s more unsavory clientele arrived, she turned on her heel and took off up the stairs. Fleeter of foot than the doorkeeper—despite her skirts—she was halfway to the second floor before he’d even turned.

At the top, she turned right and walked the length of the gallery to the same double doors she had previously passed through. Inside, she found Lucifer’s office empty. Disappointed, she turned to leave when a door she’d not noticed during her first visit opened.

“I should have known a woman like you would not take no for an answer.” A deep voice resonated into the open space.

She turned only to find herself confronted with the man’s bare chest. Having only seen Cooper’s before that moment, in lieu of blushing and running from the room, she stopped and considered his physique. Where Cooper was leaner and roped with muscles, Lucifer was built like a man who had labored all his life. His torso and arms were packed with muscle and dusted with dark hair. Suspenders hung from the waist of his trousers, which were still partially open and offering a peek at more.

He chuckled. “My, my. It seems much has changed since your last visit.”

Her gaze snapped up to his face. “I can’t imagine what you are suggesting.”

“The shy blushing girl has become a brazen woman. Tell me, Lady Emmaline.” He stalked across the room to where she stood. “Who has had the pleasure of introducing you to the carnal arts?”

Pulling herself together, she ignored his teasing. “Mr. Lucifer, I am here to conduct business. Shirtless or no, I believe you are still interested in money?”

His brows rose, but he couldn’t hide his grin. “You are correct, my lady. Shirtless or no, I am indeed still interested in money. The question is, how much?”

“Fifteen hundred pounds.” She reached into her reticule and pulled the bills out. “I need more time to gather the rest.”

He wrapped his fingers around the wad of paper. “I told you, no more time. You had ninety days. Now you have sixty.”

Panic swamped Emily. There were two house parties left in the hunting season. After that, she’d have to begin pawning their things, and she was certain there would not be enough to cover the remaining balance.

Lucifer stepped closer to her, reached out with his free hand, and stroked her cheek with a fingertip. “I told you, Lady Emmaline. I am not an unreasonable man. I would be amenable to working out Arthur’s debt in trade.”

She smacked his hand away. “And I told you, Mr. Lucifer, I am not that kind of woman. I shall get you the rest of the money.”

Somehow. She spun in a whirl of fabric and stormed from the room.

“Gordie!” Lucifer bellowed from the door of his office. “Ensure Lady Emmaline knows the way out, and no more bloody visitors!”

Emily was met on the stairs by the scarred giant, Gordie, she assumed, and was shown to the door. Not that she couldn’t find it as easily as she had found Lucifer’s office again. As she was all but pushed out into the glare of the midmorning sun, she stumbled.

A handsome gentleman with black hair and deep blue eyes caught her arm and righted her. “Are you well, miss?”

Embarrassment heated her cheeks as she took in the man’s finely cut suit and aristocratic air. His classically Greek nose was long and straight, which only seemed to highlight his questioning gaze at finding a woman dressed as she was stumbling from a gambling hell.

“I am fine, thank you, sir.” And then she darted off down the street where she’d left the carriage waiting as fast as her legs would carry her.

She needed to complete her shopping, and then it would be time for afternoon calls. It had become imperative that she pinpoint the wealthiest of the guests who would be traveling to the Marquis of Holden’s house party. She had to come up with another twenty-five hundred pounds before mid-November.

* * *

Sitting on a settee in Lady Stonemere’s—or Theo’s, as she was bid to call her—drawing room was proving to be an unusual experience. After all, it was not every day she visited with a marchioness and a former madame at the same time.

“And how were your errands this morning, Emily?” Theo asked.

“Mostly uneventful.” Emily dearly wished she knew Theo and her other new friends better. She could certainly use some advice. But how did one broach such a vulgar topic as money? No, better she keep her own counsel.

Lizzy, Theo’s sister, who had dark blonde hair, soft gray eyes, and had married the Marquess of Carlisle, smiled. “I do hate running errands. They are most tedious.”

Marie, the former madame now married to Baron Heartfield, offered a wicked grin. “One simply needs to know how to enliven the process.”

Theo and Lizzy chuckled while Emily sat a little confused by the exchange.

“Do share more of your sage advice, Marie. I fear Stone is getting a bit complacent again what with my pregnancy. He could use a reminder of whom he is married to,” Theo encouraged her friend.

“Well, the other day, Heart surprised me by joining me for my errands.” Marie glanced about the group and then lowered her voice a bit. “While amorous activities in the carriage are not a new idea, typically we had restrained ourselves to long carriage rides. At first, he merely teased me between stops so that I was forced to conduct business in a rather flushed state. Eventually, Heart succumbed to his baser instincts. Our poor driver ended up circling London aimlessly as we repeatedly ordered him to keep driving.”

Emily laughed a little, along with everyone else, despite her astonishment at such an intimate tale being shared, and that married people behaved in such a manner.

Marie noticed her discomfiture. “Oh, dear.” She shushed Lizzy and Theo. “I fear I’ve shocked Emily with my story.”

“Only a little.” Emily couldn’t control the heat rising in her cheeks.

Theo smiled gently. “Well, I daresay if Cooper is as taken with you as I believe, you may find out firsthand how husbands sometimes behave.”

“Oh, heavens no, Theo. I have no intention of ever marrying…anyone.” Emily ignored the first inkling of doubt she’d had in a long while as she said the words that were once an incontrovertible truth.

“Surely, you jest. Cooper is a bit wild, I will admit, but he is a good man with a rather soft heart. I don’t see how you could do better in selecting a husband, since Stone is quite taken.” Theo looked at her, all expectation and a bit of worry.

Emily hesitated but plunged ahead. “I have never seen a ton marriage that inspired anything but dread. When I was a girl, I held girlish dreams about marriage and love. But as I’ve gotten older and wiser, I realize spinsterhood is the better choice, since one cannot become a widow without having been married.”

“And I take it you have relayed to Cooper your unwillingness to wed.” Theo’s brows drew together.

“Indeed. I have made it eminently clear I have no intention of marrying,” Emily assured her new—though possibly short-lived—friend.

Theo sighed. “Well then, I suppose Cooper knows well enough what he is about. But if we might offer another view of married life?”

Emily glanced at the three women, and for the first time, she realized that not one of them had that pinched look that most of their female peers seemed to carry. These women looked serene. Content, even. “Please do.”

Theo settled back. “Lizzy here married for love. She and Carlisle fell madly in love in the usual fashion over waltzes in the ballroom and warm punch. Then once they were wed, the man did a full retreat from her. With Marie’s help, Lizzy was able to tempt her husband back into the marriage. It turned out that as large as he is, he feared hurting poor little Lizzy. She had to take the bull by the horn, so to speak, to show him she was no wilting lily.”

Lizzy smiled and nodded. “Sometimes men take to a notion, and it requires a great deal of effort to break them of it.”

“Marie, on the other hand, was the madame of The Market when her long-lost sweetheart reappeared in her life trying to rescue her. Of course, she neither required rescuing nor wanted it.”

Emily couldn’t help but identify with such a sentiment. “And how did you show him the truth?”

“Ah, my dear. That’s the crux of the thing. While I was content in my life and quite self-sufficient, I had missed the truth. I was lonely. For quite a while, I made every attempt to dissuade Heart from his notion of saving me through marriage. I did shocking things with him in the bedroom to prove that I neither required saving nor was adequate marriage material.”

Marie laughed. Her golden-blonde hair glinted in the sunshine as her blue eyes danced with merriment. She was a beautiful woman with lush curves that made Emily wonder if she even needed to tightly lace her corset.

“And how did you convince him?” Emily was eager for a solution to her problem.

“I convinced him that I was no longer the girl he remembered. He convinced me it was the woman he was after. Now I am both self-sufficient and happy.” The older woman’s genuine smile was hard to discredit.

“And then there is Stone and me. He inherited me along with his title, and he wanted none of it. As for me, I was so busy managing everything, I nearly missed the truth about my husband. While he can be a high-handed sort at times, he loves me. I keep him from being stodgy, and he keeps me from being reckless.” Theo glanced around conspiratorially. “Sometimes that results in him spanking me when I’ve been particularly reckless.”

Emily gasped. “It’s true?”

Theo winked and grinned naughtily. “I wouldn’t dare equivocate.”

Her mind spinning with the confirmation of what Cooper had once told her, she tried to reconcile her old perception of marriage with all the new information she had so recently received. And while Cooper had been amorous at every turn, she still could not picture such behavior continuing after they were wed. Doubt about her long-held view crept in until she added in the fact that upon her marriage, she would legally cease to exist as a person, becoming her husband’s chattel. She still could not stomach such an arrangement.

After all, she currently had the best of both worlds, didn’t she? A so far satisfying intimate arrangement and all the freedom she could eke out as a spinster. Could marriage to Cooper be worth giving that up? What if she could have it all, like her newfound friends seemed to?

* * *

Emily arrived home to find her brother sitting in his study. He was looking at the daily newspaper, and for a moment, her heart lurched. Would he discover her secret? Was there something new about the Waltzing Thief? Fear grabbed hold of her, all but choking off her ability to breathe. To think.

But then a rush of fury swept in. He should bloody well know what she had been doing. Perhaps then he might reconsider how he spent his evenings. Anger spiked her pulse and had her fisting her hands as she stalked into the room, spoiling for a fight.

“Arthur.” She strode across the space. “Have you reviewed the invitations I left for you?”

He looked up from his paper in surprise. “I did not see any invitations.”

Emily spied the stack she’d left in the middle of his desk now neatly perched on the right corner. “Didn’t you? They seem to have migrated from where I left them.” She lifted one eyebrow.

Her brother’s cheeks took on a faint pink tinge. “I did not realize you wished me to look at them.” He cleared his throat. “I will, of course, take care of that at once.”

She sighed. “Very well. Supper will be served at seven.”

She turned to leave him before her tart tongue took hold once more.

“Oh, did I not tell you?” Arthur’s words halted her progress and had her turning around. “I’m dining at White’s this evening.” He grabbed the pile of invitations

She knew what would come next. He would be out with his cronies racking up even more debt. Every muscle in her body grew so rigid, and she had to force the words past her clenched teeth. “And then?”

He looked up from the invitation he was reading. “And then I shall be out for the evening.”

“Doing what?” She drew a deep breath, trying to stem the tide of her fury.

Nonplussed, Arthur stared at her. “I haven’t been in leading strings in a very long time. As I recall, I do not owe you an accounting of my whereabouts as you are neither my mother nor my wife.”

Emily growled at her brother. “You unmitigated ass. I am the woman who ensures that your house is cleaned and your meals are on the table. I may not have given birth to you, and I certainly did not marry you, but I am your de facto hostess.”

Not to mention your acting man-of-affairs.

“And I value all that you do, Em. But I do not owe you an explanation. I apologize if I failed to mention my supper plans, but do not think you have some say over my comings and goings.” Arthur tried to look stern as he pressed his lips together.

And just like that, her temper snapped. “So, I shall sit here alone—again—while you traipse off across London racking up chits and vowels we cannot afford! Arthur, for once in your life, think about me. Think about how your fun affects not only me, but Aunt Hortense and our staff.”

He snorted and tossed the invitations on the desk. “Em, I sit in parliament all day, listening to droning speeches and pointless debates. How can you begrudge me a bit of relaxation?”

The fact that he was honestly bewildered, or appeared to be, at any rate, crushed the fight in Emily. She’d always known he was oblivious. She’d just told herself that it was his way of coping. She never truly believed he could be so idiotic, so utterly obtuse as to not understand their situation.

“You are a bloody fool!” Seething mad, she spun around and fled to her room for fear she might do or—more aptly—say something she shouldn’t. Because as angry as Arthur made her, she was not going to make her aunt and the staff suffer any more than necessary.

Her brother, on the other hand, could go hang.