Lucien Tregellas. Margaret McPhee

pressed a glass into his brother’s hand. ‘Really?’

      Lucien arched an eyebrow and ignored the comment.

      Guy continued on, knowing full well his brother’s irritation. ‘You know, of course, that the chit will now be thrust under your nose at every opportunity. Why should Miss Langley’s mama settle for a mere baron when an earl has just waltzed right into her sight?’

      ‘Your puns get worse, Guy.’ Lucien’s fingers rubbed against the Tregellas coat of arms artfully engraved upon the side of his glass. ‘Mrs Langley may do her worst. I had no interest in Madeline Langley other than to stop Farquharson getting his hands on her.’

      ‘Had?’ queried Guy with an expression that bellied innocence.

      ‘Had, have, what’s the difference?’

      ‘You tell me,’ came Guy’s rejoinder.

      Lucien took a large swig of brandy. The liquid burned a satisfying trail down to his stomach. ‘I made my meaning clear enough to Farquharson.’

      ‘And what of Miss Langley? Did you make your meaning clear to her, too? Perhaps she has expectations following her waltz this evening. A girl like that can’t have too many men hanging after her.’

      Lucien took another gulp of brandy. ‘Miss Langley has no expectations of me.’ He thought momentarily of Madeline Langley’s clear nonjudgemental gaze, and a touch of tenderness twitched at his lips. The girl didn’t have a conniving bone in her body.

      ‘News of your waltz with Miss Langley will be all over town by tomorrow afternoon, and you know what people will think.’ Guy paused to take a delicate sip from his glass. ‘Dallying with a respectable girl can only mean one thing in their tawdry little minds—that you have finally decided to take a wife and beget an heir.’

      ‘Let them think what they will,’ Lucien shrugged. ‘We both know that I have no intention of marrying, and as for the Tregellas heir…’ Lucien raised his glass in the direction of his brother ‘…I’m looking at him. Hell will freeze over before I find myself in parson’s trap.’

      A peculiar smile hovered around Guy’s mouth. ‘We’ll see,’ he said softly. ‘Only the devil or a fool tempts fate.’

      Not so very far away in Brooks’s Club on St James’s Street, Cyril Farquharson was also sipping brandy. His attention was not on the small circle of fashionable gentlemen with whom he was sitting. Indeed, Lord Farquharson’s thoughts were concerned with someone else entirely; and that someone was Miss Madeline Langley. The whores at Madame Fouet’s had been meagre rations to feed his appetite. Five years was a long time to starve. He had grown tired of them. They were too willing, too coarse and worldly wise, and, even though they role-played otherwise, that fact detracted something from the experience for Farquharson. And he was tired too of Tregellas’s constant watching, his constant waiting. Damn the man for curtailing the best of his pleasures. But Farquharson would be held in check no longer. He hungered for a gentlewoman, someone young and innocent and fearful, someone with that unique je ne sais quoi; in short, someone like Madeline Langley.

      She had taken years in the finding, but Farquharson had known that Madeline was the one from the moment he had seen her. She was quiet and reserved and afraid of him, all the things he liked in a woman. He played with her, like a cat played with a mouse. He liked to see her discomfort when he stepped too close or lingered too long over her hand. He liked the way she tried to hide her fear and her futile efforts to avoid him. Dear, sweet, fearful Madeline. He meant to take his pleasure of her…in the worst possible way. If the empty-headed Mrs Langley was determined to dangle her delicious daughter before him in the hope of trapping him in marriage, who was he to refuse the bait? Cyril Farquharson was far too cunning to be caught. So he had enjoyed his game with Madeline Langley until Tregellas had entered the scene.

      The interruption in the Theatre Royal during the play had been an irritation. Tregellas’s dance with the girl at Lady Gilmour’s ball went beyond that. It smacked of more than a desire to thwart Farquharson. Tregellas had not looked at a female in years, and now he had waltzed with the very woman that Farquharson held within his sights. Perhaps Tregellas had an interest in Miss Langley. There was an irony in that thought. Lord Farquharson mulled the matter over. By the time that he finished his brandy and headed for home, he knew just what he was going to do. In one fell swoop, not only would he secure Miss Langley to do with whatsoever he might please, but he would also effectively thwart any move that Tregellas might mean to make. And that idea appealed very much to Cyril Farquharson. He smiled at his own ingenuity and looked forward to Madeline Langley’s reaction when she learned what he meant to do.