What’s the good of being Juliet when Romeo shows no sign of killing himself for love, but instead prances off with Rosalind?

She felt as stupid as Oyster.

There was an audible hum of interest in the room, just as she sensed someone at her shoulder. “Astley,” came the drawling voice of the Duke of Villiers. “Your Grace.” He was bowing before her mother.

The duchess held out her hand to be kissed, doing a magnificent job of pretending that Villiers’s appearance meant little, and that every pair of eyes in the tent wasn’t focused on their little group. “I understand that we might well see each other in the country,” she said, dimpling. “I’m not certain that I can spare the time for such frolicking, but I always try to please my daughters.”

“London is so tiresome at the tail end of the season,” Villiers said. “And you are so much in demand, Duchess. You must long to escape the throngs of your friends and admirers.”

Since her mother loved nothing more than an admiring horde, Eleanor thought he was overdoing his praise. But her mother giggled, and might even be blushing underneath the permanent blush she had painted on earlier in the day. “That is so true,” she agreed, fluttering her fan madly.

“You’re planning a trip to the country, Duke?” Gideon said in his measured, formal tones.

“I have some business in Kent.” Eleanor held her breath. She was hoping to break the news about his motley family to her mother at some later date. Preferably after the duchess had drunk two brandies. But Villiers said nothing further.

She caught sight of Gideon’s still-clenched jaw out of the corner of her eye. “We are meeting at a house party,” she said, favoring the three of them with a huge smile.

“I expect you’ll be busy in the House of Lords,” Villiers said to Gideon. “Such a pity; the countryside is beautiful at this time of year. But there you are…we grasshoppers will frolic, and the ants must needs keep slaving.” There was a trace of scorn in his voice. Just a trace.

A second stretched to twenty before Gideon said, “Exactly so.”

“What a pity you’ve never taken up your seat, Duke,” Eleanor’s mother said to Villiers, showcasing her profound deafness to conversational undercurrents.

“I can’t imagine why I would,” Villiers said lazily. “I don’t see myself in a room full of bantam roosters strutting and squawking at the dawn.”

“One could describe them as caring for the business of the country,” Gideon snapped.

“Nonsense. The business of the country is shaped by two forces: the king and the market. As it happens, I know a great deal about the market. I can assure you, Astley, that quite frequently the market trumps the king.”

Gideon’s jaw worked. “The market can do nothing when it comes to serious problems. In the House of Lords we fight ethical lapses such as the slave trade.”

“The slave trade is entirely governed by money: those with it, and those who wish they had more. And it has long been my opinion that the only way to end it is to cut it off at the root. You can make all the proclamations you wish, but it’s only by cutting profit that that damnable practice will end.”

“Wonderful!” Eleanor’s mother said brightly. “I can see that you’re both working toward the same goal.”

“So to speak,” Villiers said. His eyes slid to Eleanor, and suddenly she knew that he had guessed her most private secret. He knew.

“I doubt we have ever had similar goals,” Gideon said.

“Given that my intentions are entirely honorable, I believe you,” Villiers said with a faint smile.

Gideon drew in his breath sharply. The insult flashed by like a poison dart, so sleek and so pointed that Eleanor almost missed it. Her mother just smiled.

“That must be a novel sensation for you,” Gideon said, making something of a rejoinder.

Apparently he had heard rumors of Villiers’s illegitimate children. Both men were tall, but Villiers’s physique was so much broader that Gideon looked willowy in comparison. Villiers didn’t say a word, but all of a sudden he looked…dangerous.

Eleanor’s mother apparently decided the same thing, since she suddenly shrieked, “Goodness me, just look at Mrs. Bardsley’s absurd wig. It’s tilting to the side!”

Villiers paid her no attention at all. He turned from Gideon as if the duke were no more than an impudent servant, bowed before Eleanor, and smiled at her.

That smile…

It could have seduced Cleopatra out of her golden boat. It would have lured Bathsheba from her bath. It was the smile of a wicked man, a man who didn’t bother much with honor, but promised to bother a lot about…other things.

“I know that you prefer I spare you a storm of gossip.” His voice caressed her like a touch of his hand, just loud enough to be heard by Gideon. “I fully meant to stay away from you, but when I glanced across the room and saw you, I could not resist.”

He took her hand. Then, without smiling at her, without saying a word, without doing anything other than meeting her eyes, he slowly peeled off her glove. It was utterly surprising—and scandalous. She heard her mother make a small huff of disapproval as he drew it off.

But Villiers didn’t look away from her eyes, just lifted her bare fingers to his lips as if they were entirely alone. His gesture was the antithesis of Gideon’s polite greeting. Villiers’s kiss was slow and deliberate, giving everyone in the tent more than enough time to enjoy the spectacle.

For Eleanor, the world tilted—and changed. She suddenly saw the man before her in focus: his thick lashes, his deep bottom lip, the hard line of his chin, the thick hair tied back and defiantly unpowdered. The maleness of his shoulders. The coiled strength of his body.

A sultry warmth spread from her cheeks and flooded down her body. Yet it wasn’t the kiss that did it. It was something in those black eyes that made heat rise in her cheeks…and in her body.

The Duke of Villiers was notorious for his chilly, indifferent eyes, famed for surveying the world from a height defined by his disdain and his title. What she discovered at that moment was a rather terrifying truth: when the duke’s cold eyes turned voluptuous, it would be a rare woman who could resist him.

She was not one of them.

It was the first time in years that she’d felt a melting sensation course through her body, the very kind that had persuaded her to throw her chastity to the wind and seduce Gideon—but she knew it. She recognized it. And some treacherous part of her body welcomed it joyously.

Villiers saw; he knew. There was laughter in his eyes now, competing with a dissolute, and altogether enthusiastic, invitation to pleasure.

In one swift gesture he turned her hand over and pressed a burning kiss on her palm, a touch so fast that she didn’t see it, though her hand curled instinctively, as if to protect the kiss itself.

She didn’t have to see it to understand it.

It was the kiss of a man who was staking a claim.

There wasn’t a man or woman in the tent who could possibly have misunderstood that.

Chapter Five

London residence of the Duke of Villiers

15 Piccadilly

June 15, 1784

To the boy’s mind, the duke looked almost sleepy, despite the fact that he was holding a rapier with a dagger-keen edge. He padded in a slow circle, holding that blade as casually as another man might an enameled snuffbox.