Lindow Castle, Cheshire

Country seat of the Duke of Lindow

June 28, 1778

Late afternoon

Alaric walked down one of the long corridors of his childhood home, a deep feeling of satisfaction in his belly. His older brother, Lord Roland Northbridge Wilde—or North, as he preferred to be called—was at his side.

The heir and the spare. The courtier and the explorer. The duke’s best beloved and the disgrace.

The infamous disgrace, it seemed.

He and North were of equal height, with similar features and cut of jaw. But the resemblances stopped there. Had they consciously tried, they couldn’t have been more different in personality.

“I did not bed the empress,” Alaric said once they had reached the bottom of the stairs. He stopped at the gilt-encrusted mirror hanging in the castle entry to slap a battered, powdered wig on his head and then grimaced at his reflection. “Maybe I should change my mind and return to the Russian court. At least I wouldn’t have to wear this monstrosity.”

“Seriously, there’s no truth to the rumor?” North persisted, coming up at Alaric’s shoulder. “Joseph Johnson is selling a print entitled England Takes Russia by Storm. It’s set in Empress Catherine’s bedchamber, and the fellow looks remarkably like you.”

Their eyes met in the glass, and North visibly recoiled. “Good God, is that your only wig?” He frowned at the lumpy mound on Alaric’s head. “Father won’t like to see that at dinner. Hell, I don’t like it.”

That wasn’t surprising. North was wearing a snowy towering creation that turned him into a cross between a parrot dipped in plaster dust and a fancy chicken. Alaric hadn’t seen his brother in five years, and he’d scarcely recognized the man.

“I came straight from the dock, but I sent my valet into London. Quarles should arrive in a few days, new wig in hand, although his acquisition won’t come close to the elegance of yours.”

North adjusted his cuffs. Pink silk cuffs. “Obviously not, since this wig is Parisian, enhanced by Sharp’s best Cyprus hair powder.”

Just then the family butler, Prism, came into the entrance hall. He was the sort of butler who firmly believed that the aristocracy could do no wrong. Butlering for the Wildes offered constant assaults to this conviction, but he was wondrously able to dismiss evidence to the contrary.

“Good afternoon, Lord Roland, Lord Alaric,” he said. “May I be of service?”

“Afternoon, Prism,” Alaric said. “My brother is determined to disrupt the duchess’s tea by introducing me to his fiancée.”

“The ladies will be shocked and delighted,” Prism said with a cough that managed to convey his dismay at Alaric’s unexpected fame.

“I’m as baffled as you are,” Alaric told him. He had escaped the crowd on the wharf by throwing on Captain Barsley’s hat. None of the women shrieking his name recognized him as he made his way through the crowd, which made the experience all the stranger.

“Give me a minute,” North said, adjusting his elaborately tied cravat in the glass. “Brace yourself, Alaric. I suspect every woman in that room has at least one print depicting your adventures.”

“The duke says that in the years since I left England they’ve littered the entire country. Actually, I think the word he used was ‘defiled.’ ”

“The way people gossip about you, not to mention collecting portraits, does not please our father. He thinks your celebrity is ill-becoming to our rank. Do you remember Lady Helena Biddle? Supposedly she’s papered her house in prints of you, so she might faint when you walk in.”

Alaric bit back an oath. Helena Biddle had already been in pursuit of him five years ago.

“She’s widowed now,” his brother added, starting to tweak the curls that hung over his ears.

At this rate, they’d be here for an hour. “I’m looking forward to meeting your fiancée,” Alaric prompted.

North had the trick of looking severe no matter his mood, but now his mouth eased. “Just look for the most beautiful, elegant woman in the room.”

Who cared if North had transformed into a peacock in the years Alaric had been away? His older brother had clearly fallen in love.

Alaric gave North a rough, one-armed hug that risked the perfection of his brother’s neckcloth. “I’m happy for you. Now stop fiddling with your wig, and introduce me to this lovely creature.”

Prism threw open the great doors leading to the green salon, where the female half of the duke’s house party had gathered for tea. The room before them was crowded with things that Alaric loathed: silks, wigs, diamonds—and insipid faces.

He loved women, but aristocratic ladies, bred to giggle and talk of nothing but fashion?

No.

There were twenty assorted gentlewomen in the room, including his stepmother, the duchess, but North’s gaze went directly to a lady whose overskirt was bunched into no fewer than three large puffs. Other women’s arses were adorned with puffs, but this woman’s puffs were larger than anyone else’s.

It seemed the bigger your bum, the more fashionable you were.

“That is she,” North said in a low voice. He sounded as if he had caught a glimpse of some royal being.

If sheer volume of attire were indicative of rank, Miss Belgrave would certainly be fit for a throne. Her petticoat had more bows, her open gown more ruffles. And she wore an entire basket of fruit on top of her head.

Alaric’s brows drew together. Could his brother really intend to marry a woman like that?

“Lord Roland … and Lord Alaric,” Prism announced.

The ladies registered his presence with an audible gasp. Alaric’s jaw clenched. He turned to his brother. “Billiards after?”

North winked. “I’m always happy to take your money.”

With no help for it, Alaric entered the room.

THANKFULLY, WILLA HAPPENED to be facing the door when the great explorer was announced, which meant she didn’t shame herself by spilling her tea as she swung about—as did almost every other woman in the room.

Willa could hardly blame them. Lord Wilde’s image smoldered from bedchamber walls all over the country, and yet no one ever expected to meet him. Confronted by the real man, the lady to her right clapped her hand to her bosom and looked as if she might faint.

It was positively tragic that Lavinia was late for tea; she’d be furious with herself for dawdling once she heard the news.

The man who strode into their midst, looking neither left nor right, was wearing sturdy boots rather than the slippers commonly worn by gentlemen indoors.

He had no rings, no curls to his wig, and no polish.

Willa snapped open her fan, the better to examine this paragon of masculinity, as The Morning Post had called him. He certainly wasn’t a paragon of fashion.

He looked as if he would have been at home in another century—the Middle Ages perhaps, when gentlemen fought with broadswords. Instead he was stuck in a time when gentlemen’s toes were often rendered invisible by the floppy roses attached to their slippers.

At that moment, the silence that had gripped the room broke and there was a swell of chatter and more than one squeal.

“I see his scar!” someone behind her yelped.

Only then did Willa notice the thin white line snaking down one sun-browned cheek in a manner that should be objectionable but somehow wasn’t.

There were many stories about how he’d acquired that scar, but Willa’s guess had always been that Lord Alaric fell in a privy and knocked his head against a corner.

Lavinia’s distant cousin, Diana Belgrave—Lord Alaric’s future sister-in-law—had been moodily staring out the window at the gardens. Now she scurried over, positioning herself with her back to the room. “Do you think Lord Roland caught sight of me?” she hissed.

The two brothers kissed their stepmother’s hand, and …

Turned directly toward them.

Willa almost sighed, except she’d made a rule years ago that Wilhelmina Everett Ffynche never sighed. But if there ever was a situation that called for a sigh, it was when a young lady—Diana, for example—was so dismayed by her future husband that she would do anything to avoid his company.

“Yes, he has,” she stated. “Turning your back is no disguise when your wig is taller than anyone else’s. They’re headed this way like homing pigeons to a roost.”

Watching them approach, Willa suddenly understood for the first time why prints of Lord Wilde adorned so many bedchamber walls. There was something shocking about him.

He was so big and—and vital in a primitive way.

Which would be an uncomfortable quality to live with, she reminded herself. She possessed only an engraving of Socrates: a thoughtful, intelligent man whose thighs were doubtless as slim as her own.

“Willa, I beg you to do the talking,” Diana whispered. “I already endured an exchange with Lord Roland at the breakfast table.”

Her fiancé reached them before Willa could answer. “Miss Belgrave, may I present my brother, Lord Alaric, who has just returned from Russia?” he asked Diana.

While Diana demonstrated her remarkable ability to curtsy while balancing half a greengrocer’s stall on her head, Willa discovered that Lord Alaric had sculpted cheekbones, lips that wouldn’t shame an Italian courtesan, blue eyes …

Oh, and a straight nose.

Those portraits of him that could be found in every printshop?

They didn’t do him justice.

He bowed before Diana with surprising finesse, given the breadth of his chest. His coat strained over the shoulders. One might think that a body so defined by muscle would find it hard to bend.

One might also think that a duke’s son would employ a better tailor.

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Belgrave,” he said, kissing Diana’s hand. “I am honored to welcome you to our family.”

Diana managed a wan smile.

Willa almost stepped backward as Lord Roland turned to her. Lord Alaric was so large that she had the absurd feeling that he might be swallowing up the air around them.

At least that would explain her slight feeling of breathlessness.

Lord Roland was eager to converse with his future spouse, and promptly drew her aside for a tête-à-tête, which left Willa alone with the explorer. “Lord Alaric, it is a pleasure,” she said, holding out her hand to be kissed.

The elite seminary she had attended had excelled at teaching the protocol of awkward social situations. In this case, it meant that Willa pretended that the circle of ladies behind her, breathlessly awaiting the same experience, did not exist.

Interestingly, Lord Alaric appeared to be paying no attention to them either. As he brought her hand to his lips, the smile in his eyes seemed to be for her alone. “I’d say the pleasure is all mine,” he murmured.

His voice was deep and husky, as unusual as his costume. It wasn’t the voice of a courtier. Or of a boy, as were many of her suitors. It was the voice of a grown man.

Instead of kissing the back of her hand, he raised her curled fingers to his mouth, and their eyes met as his lips touched them.

She wasn’t wearing gloves, but that didn’t explain the way her skin prickled to life. Willa felt her lips curling into a smile entirely unlike the calm expression with which she usually greeted a stranger.

“I understand that you have just returned to England,” she said, hastily withdrawing her hand. “What do you miss when you are traveling abroad?”

Lord Alaric’s eyes, fringed by thick eyelashes, were the blue color of the sky at twilight.

Beauty was an accident of birth. But eyes? That was different. Beautiful eyes had feeling in them.

“I miss my family,” he said. “After that, mattresses without lice, brandy, welcoming servants, an excellent plate of ham and eggs in the morning. Oh, and the company of ladies.”

“It must be intoxicating to be so adored,” Willa said, nettled by the way he ranked ladies below a plate of ham.

Lord Alaric’s mouth quirked into a wry smile. “Adoration is a bit strong. I think myself lucky that my readers find something to enjoy in my work.”

She let a trace of scorn shine from her eyes because … false modesty? Ugh. “I enjoyed reading Montaigne’s essay on cannibals, but that didn’t spur me to hang his image in my room.”

He looked faintly surprised. Did no one ever disagree with him? Or was he not aware that his image was enshrined in so many bedchambers?

“Where do you plan to travel next?” she asked, changing the subject.

“I haven’t decided. Do you have a suggestion?”

“I am not certain where you’ve already been,” Willa admitted. “I’m afraid that I’m one of the few people in the kingdom ignorant on the subject of Lord Wilde’s peregrinations.”

His heavy-lidded eyes opened slightly, the tilt of his mouth hitching up a bit more. “A large word for an inconsequential subject. I assure you that you aren’t alone in avoiding my books.”

Willa would really have liked to shrug, but shrugging was like sighing: an inelegant way to indicate an emotion better kept to oneself. “There’s little evidence for that,” she pointed out. “You have been away for some time, but you’ll find that your work is read widely.”

“Do you prefer novels?” he asked.

“No, I’m afraid I’m not attracted to invented stories of any kind,” Willa said. His eyes were so intent on her face that she was beginning to feel slightly dizzy.

Annoying man.

“I do not invent the events I describe,” Lord Alaric said, a thread of laughter in his voice.

“Certainly not,” she said hastily. Then, unable to resist, “Although, from what my friend Lavinia has told me, wouldn’t you agree that your adventures tend to be, shall we say, larger than life?”

“No,” he replied, seemingly even more amused. “What are you reading at the moment?”

“Pliny’s letters to Tacitus, but I’ll put it to the side and read one of your accounts. Where would you recommend that I start? With the cannibals, perhaps?”

One of his brows shot upward. “Cannibals?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Willa exclaimed. “Lavinia told me that cannibals appear only in the play.”

Like a dot on the end of a sentence, that put an end to his amusement. His brows drew together. “Play?”

“Wilde in Love,” Willa answered, astonished that Lord Alaric knew nothing of the hugely successful play depicting his life.

“I presume the spelling of that title includes an ‘E’.” He did not look happy. “Exactly what happens in Wilde in Love?”

“As you might have guessed, you meet a lady,” Willa said, rather enjoying watching his pained expression deepen.

Lord Roland startled her by clearing his throat. It seemed Diana had fled, leaving Lord Alaric’s brother to rejoin them. “I forgot to tell you,” he said, giving his brother a mischievous grin. “A group of us made a special trip to London to see your play, Alaric. Aunt Knowe bought up every single locket they had for sale outside the theater.”

Lord Alaric frowned.

“Reproductions of the locket you gave your fiancée,” Willa explained.

“I not only fall in love, but become betrothed?”

“She was your one true love,” Lord Roland said, his smile growing ever wider. “You wrote and recited a great deal of love poetry—that took up most of the first act—and finally handed over a locket as a sign of your devotion. You’re sure to see ladies wearing them; yesterday Aunt Knowe was handing them out like gingerbread men.”

“What utter hogwash. I’ve never had a fiancée nor written a scrap of poetry. What else happens in this farce?”

“I’m sorry to say that it’s not a farce but a tragedy, since cannibals eventually make a meal of your beloved,” Willa said, unable to stop herself from smiling along with Lord Roland.

“I can’t say that I feel very sad on hearing of the death of the fiancée I never met,” Lord Alaric observed.

“If you don’t mind the advice,” his brother said irrepressibly, “you should have skipped breakfast and overcome your fear of water in time to save the missionary’s daughter from the cannibals.”

Lord Alaric’s body stilled. “Just what do you mean by ‘missionary’s daughter’?”

Willa reflexively moved back a step. All of a sudden he reminded her of a predator on the verge of pouncing. Not that anyone else seemed to notice.

The moment Willa broke their little circle, the gathering of impatient ladies at her back surged forward, elbowing her to the side.

She ought to leave without a backward look, and began to do just that, but halfway across the room, she turned, only to find, embarrassingly, that Lord Alaric was watching her.

Presumably he was accustomed to ladies throwing longing glances over their shoulders, because one side of his mouth curled up as their eyes met.

Was he mocking her for retreating?

Willa snapped her head about. He couldn’t have made it clearer that he paid no attention to the rules of civility that dictated well-bred behavior.

The man was a menace to polite society.

An appealing menace, but a menace all the same.