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He didn’t turn his head. Geoffrey fell into step with him.

“Lord Alan Daft. You look well.”

Alan shot him a glance. They looked like each other, a matched pair in their formal suits, expertly tailored to flatter similar frames. All black, but for the gold glitter of their cuff links.

“Your grace,” he said pleasantly. “I’m passing a most enjoyable evening.”

“You can’t be serious.” Geoffrey eyed him with suspicion. “It’s like bloody Vauxhall in here.”

Alan raised his brows. “An excellent characterization.” The glittering canopy of lights, the screens of flowering vines, the overflow of invitees—it all combined to evoke a populous pleasure garden, uncomfortably compressed. He suspected the evening’s immoderation owed more to Fanny’s ire than to her tastelessness. She meant to punish Geoffrey for her imminent banishment.

He laughed. “Ingenious.”

“Gauche,” Geoffrey muttered. “I’m surprised she didn’t sell tickets.”

“I paid sixpence.” Alan plucked a flute of champagne from a passing tray. “For a shave. And more for the haircut. I gathered from you that was the price of admission.”

Geoffrey’s slow smile looked satisfied. A few pro forma complaints couldn’t disguise his good humor. Whatever gaucheries Fanny perpetrated tonight, he thought to be rid of her by the month’s end. And here was Alan, no longer styled like an eccentric bohemian, but like an eligible bachelor. All but bending the knee. Small wonder his spirits ran high.

As they reached the room’s perimeter, Geoffrey’s voice boomed with rare jocularity. “What ho?”

He addressed the Earl of Bettany and Pelham Osborne. They were conferring by a column, their faces beaded with sweat. Osborne leaned toward Geoffrey with the vibrating intensity of a man trying not to hop.

“Lord Salisbury made a compact with Parnell.” As he named the leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party, his nose twitched as though he smelled something foul. He lowered his voice. “Gladstone’s budget is doomed. It’s a fait accompli.”

“It’s also a party secret.” Bettany glanced at Alan. “And now it’s going straight to print.”

“No, indeed.” Geoffrey’s voice sounded sleek. He looked at Alan too, with gloating approval. “My man Friday here won’t put down a word.”

Alan tamped down a flare of temper and shrugged.

“Publishing hearsay isn’t in my line.” He couldn’t resist throwing a wink at Osborne. “Your on-dit is safe with me.”

Another waltz struck up. He glanced again at the entranceway. Lord Kilderbee filled his line of vision, pink as a prawn and beaming as he shouldered into the circle.

“Beastly hot.” He mopped his forehead with his handkerchief. “Lady Kilderbee and I were steamed on the dance floor.”

Alan felt Geoffrey snap to attention at his side. There, a few yards behind her husband, stood Patricia, breathtaking in gold-maize silk. She was conversing with a petite woman who’d bought extra inches dear in the form of a high-gabled diamond tiara.

Patricia wasn’t looking at her companion. She was looking at Geoffrey.

Alan had always found her manner supercilious, her beauty cold. The expression on her face now had a feverish intensity. Geoffrey’s expression, too, burned with naked desire.

Hell. He had to look away. This reminder of his brother’s humanity was bloody inconvenient. Geoffrey was vain and shallow. And yet, he loved Patricia, deeply. It felt fraught, suddenly, his plan to exploit that fact. But the devil take the hindmost.

“If you’ll excuse me.” He spoke abruptly and didn’t wait for a response. He exited the ballroom, pausing in the hall, which was quieter and cooler, banked with white-muslin-clad debutantes. Matchmakers and gossipmongers chatted among them in clusters.

What if Nina had run into trouble? What if one of Geoffrey’s drunk, presumptuous friends had stumbled upon her in the act and decided to have his fun with a pretty interloper whose only hope was his silence?

Alan wove his way down the hall and climbed the stairs, passing two defiant-looking wallflowers as they descended. Their loitering must have delayed her. And yes, she was just stepping toward the door to Geoffrey’s study when he turned the corner.

She sensed a presence before she knew it was him. She swerved from the study door, not like a startled thief, but like a woman who’d had too much champagne. Her hips swayed, and then she saw him and froze.

Silk roses had been sewn to the train of her vibrant blue gown, rust red, as large as hearts. Her breasts brimmed above the ribbons of the daring décolletage. Her smile was relieved, intimate, excited. The kind of smile that said Thank God it’s you.

He wanted her to smile at him like that, always. He wanted to push her against the door and take her now, damn the letters, damn everything. The light was dim, and her eyes glowed with radiant darkness. She gave him a curt, soldierly nod.

“Keep a lookout,” she said, and then she was at the study door, sliding two pins from the wreath of rosebuds Lavinia’s lady’s maid had fastened to her hair.