“Oh, that’s very nice.” She grinned despite herself.

  “Perhaps I’m inclined to take your side over his,” he continued, grinning back at her, “but I agree that he should have made an effort to become acquainted with you. And I also agree that you aren’t foolish for wanting an assurance of happiness before devoting the remainder of your life to a man who deliberately remained an aloof stranger.”

  Another tear joined the first. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t cry, Cammy. It upsets my masculine feelings and I don’t know what to do.”

  She put a hand over her mouth to cover her damp laugh. “It’s not funny,” she protested, sobering again. “When I arrived back at home that evening, my parents were waiting by the front door. My father said I was an ungrateful wretch and turned his back on me. My mother told me I was selfish and had ruined my sisters’ chances of making good marriages, and then she slapped me. They closed the door in my face.”

  He muttered something that sounded like a curse. “Did you go directly to The Tantalus Club?”

  “It didn’t exist yet. When I stopped crying enough to see, I walked to Amelia Danning’s house. They wouldn’t even open the front door.”

  “That’s the chit I kissed yesterday, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  His smile this time looked a great deal less friendly. “Good.” His fingers tugged at her skirt as they moved sedately along the main driving path in Green Park. “Where did you go, then?”

  Just remembering that night made her shudder; she’d walked for what felt like hours, still wearing her wedding gown and with three shillings and twopence in her silly little lace reticule. Everyone had stared at her, and the only offer of help had come from a dirty-looking man who’d offered her a roof in exchange for what he’d termed “kissing his pig.” She shivered again.

  “I walked. All night. I was afraid to stop anywhere, and falling asleep out in the open seemed a very poor idea. Finally a farmer offered me a ride in the back of his wagon, and I went to my aunt’s home in Chatham. She permitted me to sleep in the maid’s quarters and had me polishing things. I don’t think she ever told my mother I was there. One morning I was cleaning the dining room and I saw the newspaper, and an advertisement seeking well-educated young women for employment at The Tantalus Club. I left for London before noon.”

  “And that was what, a year ago?”

  “Just under.” She nodded. “I owe Lady Haybury everything. Without the club, I have no idea where I’d be now.” Or rather, she did have an idea, and it terrified her every evening in her dreams.

  “So you’ve only known Sophia White for a year? You two seem very close.”

  “We are. Sophia may not have done anything scandalous on her own, but she has a unique … understanding of what happened to me.”

  “She didn’t flee a fiancé, then?”

  Camille sent him a sideways look. “You don’t know who she is?”

  “I’ve been in Shropshire for six years. I missed out on a great deal of juicy gossip.”

  For a moment she debated whether to say anything more. Telling other peoples’ secrets simply didn’t sit well with her, but then everyone else in London already knew about Sophia. And she’d never made any pretense about secrecy. “Sophia White is the Duke of Hennessy’s daughter. By his wife’s favorite personal maid.”

  He didn’t flinch or even hesitate. “Her mother must be a goddess, to compensate for Hennessy’s rhinoceros face.”

  Coughing, Camille nudged him in the shoulder with the handle of her parasol. “You aren’t supposed to make me laugh when I’m discussing scandal and ruination.”

  “I like a challenge.”

  “Nothing shocks you, does it?”

  Keating shook his head. “Very little. Remember, I’m the worst blackguard I know. But I am relieved, actually, to discover that Stephen’s fault was one of omission. In a sense I suppose that’s better than if he’d actually done something unsavory to drive you away.”

  Some of the things the Marquis of Fenton had said after her flight had been less than polite, but she supposed she deserved them. And Keating was Fenton’s cousin; he didn’t need to know all the details. Particularly not when she couldn’t help the nagging thought that she’d been relieved to have an excuse to run away.

  And particularly not when she’d met Fenton’s much more interesting cousin. Heat and sin seemed to radiate from his skin, tantalizing and very, very naughty. She sent a quick glance around them, not surprised to see most of the women present looking in their direction. The odd thing, though, was that the ones who gazed at her didn’t have that expression she’d been accustomed to seeing on even strangers’ faces. For a bare moment, she imagined they were … jealous. Of her. Because she sat beside Keating Blackwood.

  For a heartbeat, she allowed herself to smile. Perhaps her luck was finally beginning to change—and not at all in the way she would ever have expected.

  Chapter Seven

  Keating could measure how close he was to Pollard House by the growing tightness in the muscles across his shoulders. It was one of life’s peculiarities, he supposed, that while he’d been quite close to Stephen Pollard as a boy, he didn’t particularly like his cousin now that they were both adults.

  As he’d expected, the butler kept him waiting in the morning room. Even though it had been seven or eight years since he’d last been inside the house, not one thing seemed to have been changed. Candlesticks sat in their same place on the mantel, the same volumes of leather-bound plays by Shakespeare still kept their same place on the bookcase.

  “Do you actually live in this house?” he asked as the Marquis of Fenton walked into the room.

  “I like things a particular way. You have some news, I take it?”

  So much for familial banter. “I do. I need a piece of paper, a pen, and for you to sit down and pay attention to what I’m going to tell you.”

  “I’m not an infant, Keating. Say what you’ve come to say, and leave. I have friends coming to take me to breakfast, and I don’t wish them to see you here.”

  Keating sat at the small table in the corner. “You have the oddest way of asking for help. Paper.”

  Fenton glared at him for a moment, then rang for the butler. “I need paper and a pen,” he said, and with clear reluctance sat down opposite his cousin. “I saw Greaves in Parliament yesterday,” he continued. “He gave me a look. If you’ve told anyone that you’re here at my behest, our agreement is going to change.”

  “Are you attempting to tell me that Greaves has never looked at you before?”

  “Well, n—”

  “He knows we’re cousins, and he doesn’t like you,” Keating interrupted. “I’m prepared to wager that he glares at you quite frequently. I haven’t said a word to him. Or to anyone.” He leaned closer. “And our agreement is not going to change. You marry Camille Pryce, and I receive ten thousand pounds.”

  “Yes, yes.”

  The butler returned with the writing implements and set them down, then left the room again. As soon as the door was closed, Keating pulled the paper over in front of him and dipped the pen in the accompanying inkwell.

  “‘Number the first,’” he said, writing out the number as he spoke, “‘Send Camille flowers. Tomorrow.’”

  “What? The chit abandoned and embarrassed me. I am not sending her posies. She needs to apologize to me.”

  “‘Number the second,’” he continued writing, ignoring the protest, “‘In two days, send a second bouquet of flowers, and a note. The note will read, “A much-delayed gift for your tenth birthday.” Nothing else. Not your name, or anything.’”

  Fenton slammed his fist on the table. “No. I refuse. This is not what I agreed to.”

  “‘Number the third, each subsequent day you will send Camille flowers, each with a note for the next-numbered birthday, until you reach the twenty-first birthday.’” Keating looked up. “You can count that high, yes?”

  “Why are you putting this on me?” his cousin snapped, the red of his face deepening. “Stop insulting my intelligence and explain yourself.”

  Taking a breath, Keating put the pen aside. As he’d noted on more than one occasion, Stephen had never been impulsive, warm, or … sensitive to the needs or emotions of anyone other than himself. Getting angry with him now for nonsense he’d begun—or rather, not begun—twelve or fifteen years earlier was pointless. In addition to that, it annoyed him that Camille’s story of yesterday had angered and troubled him.

  “Very well,” he muttered after a moment. “In Camille Pryce’s eyes, this debacle is your fault.”

  Fenton slammed to his feet. “What? My fault? I offered her a home, a husband, stability, a family, th—”

  “That’s the point,” Keating interrupted. “You didn’t offer her any of those things. You relied on a piece of paper she’s likely never set eyes on to offer things to her. She’s a young female, Stephen. She had expectations that you would at least send her a note introducing yourself. At the best, she wanted to be courted.”

  “You mean she fled—she left our wedding because I didn’t woo her?”

  That was likely as much as Fenton would ever understand about it. “Precisely,” Keating said aloud. “And in order for her to consider returning to marry you, you need to alter her perception of you.”

  Fenton strode to the window and back. “No. I refuse. This arrangement was made by our parents. She benefits from a union even more than I do. I’m a marquis, after all. She would be a marchioness. No one wooed me, but I didn’t flee.”

  “You aren’t a chit.”

  Returning to rest both fists on the table, the marquis drew in a hard breath through his nose. “Let me make something clear, Keating. She embarrassed me. Her presence at The Tantalus Club continues to embarrass me. At least once a day one of my peers comments that they saw my almost-bride the evening before, putting bread on a table or dealing cards or seating them at breakfast. And then they laugh behind their hands, muttering to each other.”

  For someone with Fenton’s strong sense of self-importance, that would indeed have been intolerable. Keating was somewhat surprised the marquis hadn’t fled London. And yet he remained, and persisted in the idea that he would make this right. For himself, of course.

  “I could choose some other female and marry, but I am still willing to honor the agreement,” Fenton continued. “That is the best way to improve Society’s view of me, and of her. Tell her that. I am not going to send her flowers after what she’s done.”

  “Stephen, this isn’t a business arrangement. It’s a man and a wo—”

  “I am willing to give her a second chance. See that she understands that she won’t receive another. If she still expects posies and poetry after what she did, she is sadly mistaken.” He bent his arms, moving his face closer to Keating’s. “And I’m paying you a very handsome sum to see to this unpleasantness. Don’t expect me to do your work unless you wish to forfeit your reward.”

  The old Keating would have flung the contents of the inkwell directly into his cousin’s face, closely followed by a fist. The reformed Keating, however, merely took the piece of paper and tore it in half. “Very well,” he said, rising. “I hope, however, that you are keeping in mind that once you’re wed it would be easier on both of you if you weren’t enemies.”

  “You are the very last person I would ever ask for advice on the sanctity of marriage.”

  Keating’s right fist coiled. At the same moment that Fenton saw the motion and backed away, Keating reminded himself about the very large stack of blunt that would vanish if he struck the blow. Using every ounce of his willpower, he straightened his fingers again. “Interesting, then,” he said instead, “that you are doing precisely that. If I may remind you, you are relying on me to put your little ceremony back together.”

  Before Fenton said something that truly would get him flattened, Keating left Pollard House for luncheon with the Duke of Greaves. Clearly his cousin didn’t understand the workings of the female mind. Camille might blame herself for overreacting, but she blamed Fenton for causing the dilemma in the first place. And considering how well he knew his cousin, he couldn’t blame Camille for hesitating.

  If Fenton refused to make any overtures, the equation wouldn’t change. After all, while she might have acted rashly and underestimated the ramifications of her flight from the altar, Camille had decided she valued love—or at least friendship—over marriage to a previously well-respected marquis. Asking her to make a different decision while changing none of the circumstances wasn’t precisely reasonable.

  Of course she found herself in different circumstances now. He couldn’t even imagine the difference between being the pampered eldest daughter of a wealthy viscount and being an employee in a gentlemen’s club. Perhaps if given the chance again she would decide that security was more important than something intangible like affection. The truth of the matter, however, was that he didn’t want her to have to do so.

  Greaves waited for him on the steps of the Society Club. “You weren’t banished from here, were you?” the duke asked, straightening from leaning his hip against the railing. “I forgot to ask you, so I thought I’d best remain outside. Just in case.”

  “I don’t remember,” Keating supplied. “Shall I attempt it?”

  The footman at the front door only blinked at him once or twice, so Keating surmised that he hadn’t been banned from entry. Thanks to Greaves’s presence they were seated at a table in the front window—though it might also have been the maître d’s attempt to bring more attention to the club. How many of them could boast a murderer enjoying a roast pheasant in their establishment, after all?

  “Lady Ogilvy asked after you last evening,” Adam commented twenty minutes later, over a baked game hen.

  “Did she? She’s the one with the very ample bosom, yes?”

  “You don’t truly expect me to believe you’ve forgotten the name of anyone whose path you’ve crossed, do you?”

  Keating took a swallow of tepid lemonade. He’d wanted a whiskey, but considering that he seemed to be having difficulty lately staying sober, he’d decided that lemonade was a wiser choice. “Very well. What did you tell darling Marianne?”

  “I told her you were well, but only meant to remain in London a short time. She said that was a shame, and then wanted to know if it was true that you’d run about Green Park kissing chits. Because she thought she might take a stroll there tomorrow.”

  Lemonade caught in his throat, and he coughed. “That actually explains why chits seemed to be practically blanketing the park yesterday,” he managed. “Good God. They want me to kiss them?”

  “You’re a rather handsome scoundrel, a famed lover, and you’ve been absent for six years. The debutantes only know the stories, my friend. To them you’re a legend, not a—”

  “A fiend?” Keating finished.

  “I was going to say a bounder, but I suppose it’s the same thing.” Greaves indicated the glass in Keating’s hand. “Have you given up the demon rum, then?”

  “For the moment. I find that I seem to cause less trouble when I’m sober. Relatively speaking, of course.”

  “Why are you attempting to cause less trouble, Keating? I mean, you say that you are, but then you become Green Park’s kissing rogue. And you had to know that in coming back to London, you would be stirring those old rumors and stories to life once again. Not to mention the bushels of lovers you left behind.”

  Keating took a breath. “You’re a persistent bastard, aren’t you?” he finally grumbled.

  With a swift grin the duke resumed his meal. “I’ve barely begun digging at you.”

  Greaves had his own secrets and his own agendas, and Keating didn’t have to be particularly keen-sighted to know that something had happened to cause a substantial rift between the duke and the Marquis of Haybury. But as far as he was concerned, Adam Baswich had never been anything but a true and steadfast friend even when it would have been much easier to turn away.

  “I’m doing a good deed,” he said slowly, quite aware of how his cousin would react if Fenton discovered that anyone else knew the particulars of his request. “In exchange for a substantial reward. I can’t tell you anything else.”

  The duke chewed and swallowed. “You’re hardly the person I would have chosen to maneuver a chit back to the altar,” he finally commented, “given how far you generally sway them away from it. But you’ve certainly got a better chance at convincing her than Fenton does.”

  “I never said any of that. And I have no idea what you might be gabbing about.” He wasn’t even surprised that Greaves had put the puzzle pieces together. The duke was masterful at games.

  “I’m just astonished to see you at Fenton’s beck and call for any reason. I thought he’d disowned you years ago.”

  “Not so much disowned me as simply pretended I didn’t exist. Which suited me quite well, believe me.”

  “That must be quite a substantial reward, then.”

  “It is. So don’t go about glaring at my cousin. Not all of us are descendants of Croesus or Midas or whoever it is who left you his fortune.”

  “We both know I inherited from Lucifer himself, but I take your point.” Greaves frowned. “I could lend you a sum, if that would aid you.”

  “A loan won’t do, Adam. But thank you for offering.” He’d actually considered asking the duke for blunt from time to time, when the crops produced poorly or the price of wool and mutton dropped, but this was his penance. He needed to suffer for it. More importantly, he needed to be the one earning the money to pay for his mistakes. Even if he had to resort to unconventional means to do so.

  The duke cleared his throat. “Very well, then. Suit yourself. In fact, I’ll help you. What would you say if I were to offer a private tour of the Tower menagerie as an excursion? Your project could bring along her scarlet-haired friend for safety again. And I’ll lend you some of my so-called propriety.”

  “You mean you’re offering to escort us on an outing?” Keating asked, surprised.