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A chill skittered up her spine. “You make the danger sound so real.”

“And the knife in your side didn’t? The fists that pounded your face? The gun to your head?”

Another shiver chased the first. “Point taken.”

“Then take the advice as well. I don’t want to see you bruised and battered again.”

She was still trying to work the pent-up breath from her lungs when movement in the doorway caught her attention. Aunt Mary’s butler—and behind him, Justin, whose gaze had already found her . . . and whose eyes had already narrowed.

“The Duke of Stafford, my ladies. My lord.”

“Heaven help me.” Brice dropped Brook’s hand. “Promise you’ll attend my funeral?”

She shouldn’t have laughed. When she did, Justin’s narrowed eyes turned to his glower.

Justin charged toward the carriage house, telling himself he was overreacting. That he ought to be glad Brook had made such good connections. Found someone to hold her hand and whisper in her ear when she thought Justin chose not to.

He wanted to rip Worthing to shreds. Feed the pieces to hungry wolves. And then, if he were feeling spiteful, burn their waste.

“Stafford!”

He stopped within a few feet of the Rolls-Royce, his hand fisted around the key. The muscle in his jaw pulsed, but he could do nothing to calm it. He turned to see the man in question coming up behind him—and it didn’t escape him that the lighthearted grin that had animated his face through the entire, interminable hour they had spent in the same room was now conspicuously absent. “Can I help you, my lord?”

Worthing flashed a smile, fleeting as lightning, and motioned toward the house. “I think you misunderstood things.”

Like the way he had been holding Brook’s hand so tightly in his? The way their heads were bent together? The fervor in both their expressions?

A striking contrast to the way Brook had greeted
him
two days ago. “Oh, I think I understood perfectly.”

“I doubt it.” Worthing had the gall to smile again, longer this time. “One of us may be in love with her, but it isn’t me.”

Justin gripped the key until it hurt. “So you’re toying with her—is that it? Flirting with her, courting her, inviting a familiarity you have no intention of seeing through?” He took a step forward.

Worthing took one back, raised his hands in exaggerated surrender—but amusement had rekindled in his eyes. “You’re spoiling for a fight, aren’t you? You’ll not have one from me. She means the world to me, but we are only friends.”

Justin snorted. “I know all about being
only friends
with Brook.”

“You used to.” Lowering his hands again, Worthing’s face went from mirthful to serious. Condemning. “I wonder if you’ve forgotten all you once knew. You’ve hurt her. That’s unforgivable, and I won’t stand by and watch you break her heart.”

Of all the arrogant, presumptuous . .
 . He stepped closer, close enough to realize they were of a height, close enough to think that Worthing’s fine, straight nose could do with a knot from Justin’s fist. “You have no idea—”

“I’m not talking about the missing letters.”

Justin stepped back, sucked in a breath. She had told him of that? Already?

Worthing didn’t so much as flinch. “You pushed her away before you ever left—effectively tossing her heart to the ground.
Then you come back and act as though
she
is to blame for not falling at your feet.”

“I did not—”

“Shut up.” Worthing eased half a step closer. “You weren’t here. You didn’t see it. You didn’t see how it hurt her not to have your friendship to rely on. Yet you show up now intent on romance, as if you can charge across that half-burnt bridge and not cause even more damage. Well, I hate to tell you, but she has bigger concerns at the moment.”

Justin’s lip curled. “You?”

“Don’t be an idiot. I’m not the one who attacked her in November—and I’m not the one set to tread on her heart.” Worthing put his hands in his trouser pockets. Such a casual move, but it didn’t make him look at ease. It made him look determined. “Break it, and—I warn you—you
will
have a fight on your hands. But not the kind you want.”

Justin lifted his brows and folded his arms across his chest. “You’re
threatening
me?”

The man smiled again. “Someone has to. And I suspect no one else would dare cross the mighty Duke of Stafford.”

Expelling an incredulous breath, Justin shook his head. “I don’t need to be warned.”

“Good. Then we can be friends.” Worthing withdrew one of his hands and held it out, as if actually expecting Justin to shake it.

He glared at him. “If you’re finished, I have somewhere I need to be.”

Worthing looked at his empty hand. With a shrug, he stepped back. “I know you have. What I don’t know is why you’re leaving it.”

Arrogant, presumptuous . . .
Justin turned and climbed into his car.

Friends? No. Pieces. Wolves. Waste.

Twenty-One

D
eirdre pinned the baroness’s last curl into place and then stood back, unable to keep from smiling. “There. What do you think?”

Her ladyship stood, ran gloved hands over her gown to smooth it, and looked in the mirror. Deirdre couldn’t think why she sighed as she did. The gown the prince had sent fit her to perfection, the colors set off her skin and eyes, and the style was daring enough to steal the attention of everyone who would catch a glimpse of her.

“Is something the matter, my lady?”

“No.” The baroness smiled, but she touched a hand to her pearl necklace, a sure tell of inner turmoil. “But I would rather be in Yorkshire. At home.”

Deirdre would be too, though Beatrix hadn’t been able to fathom that she would rather stay at Whitby Park than come to Town. Perhaps if she didn’t know Pratt was here too . . . if she wasn’t looking over her shoulder every time she stepped out of doors, wondering when he might pounce and ask something terrible of her. . . .

Then she’d have to confess that her ladyship hadn’t been
herself since they’d arrived—and especially not since she’d had the duke and Lord Worthing in the parlor two days ago, then hadn’t seen hide nor hair of His Grace since. Combine the baroness’s melancholy with Lady Melissa’s increasing rancor that Lord Cayton had yet to pay a call, and the house was in a veritable tempest.

Shaking it off, Deirdre smiled and unbuttoned the train of the gown. “You’ll be the belle of every ball, my lady. No doubt you’ll have all the gentlemen in love with you, and you’ll have your pick of them. Though I can’t imagine a better choice than the ones you already have.”

The lady muttered something in French and pressed a hand to her stomach. “Nothing feels right.”

At that, Deirdre’s hands stilled. She rose, met her mistress’s gaze. And prayed she spoke the truth when she said, “It will be.”

The light in her ladyship’s eyes seemed to Deirdre desperate, anxious. No doubt due to the coming evening. “O’Malley . . .” She looked away, sighed. “How is your family?”

If it was a distraction the baroness needed, Deirdre could provide. She chuckled. “Doing well, I hear. Mum said Uncle Seamus sent her a package of silk and spices last month—he’s tried to take care of us since Da died, in addition to his mum. Though my stories are sure to match his when I take my holiday—rubbing elbows as I’ve been with dukes, handling gifts sent from princes . . .”

The baroness smiled. It wasn’t as bright as usual, had none of her characteristic abandon. But somehow, she thought it would serve the lady well in the ballrooms and drawing rooms of London.

Though sure and she knew little enough about it. At the knock on the door, she stepped aside. “That’ll be his lordship. It’s time.”

“Where
are
they?”

Brook’s eyes scanned the room as surely as her cousin’s did. It was crowded with people she had never met, names her aunt insisted were important ones, faces that all seemed to turn her way.

But not Justin’s. And not Cayton’s. In response to Melissa’s hushed, furious question, Brook could only shake her head.

Papa patted her hand, which rested on his arm. “As I taught you, my dear. Trip. Run into the most ostentatiously dressed women. Step on toes, and snub anyone you can. Perhaps sneeze in a cup or two of punch, and Mary will be begging us to leave.”

“Ambrose,
please
.” Aunt Mary slid behind them, tugging here and there on Brook’s gown. Then she paused, clasped Brook’s shoulders, and gave them a squeeze. “You look stunning.”

With that peace offering, she moved to Melissa.

Brook grinned up at her father, then looked over to her cousins. Melissa looked beautiful, if a bit stormy, on her brother’s arm. She spotted Brice near at hand, his usual grin in place . . . but with a shadow in his eyes.

The musicians raised their bows and, of one accord, launched into the opening set.

Her father sighed. “And so it begins. We have missed our chance to run away.” He turned to her, his hand extended.

She placed her fingers on his palm and smiled up at the grin hidden away in his eyes. “I’m glad to be here with you, too, Papa.”

He chuckled and led her onto the dance floor.

Even above the music, she could hear bits and snips of the conversations they spun past.
Whitby . . . all these years . . . carriage accident . . . missing . . . imposter . . . princess.
They needled, but she shrugged them off and raised her chin.

She was not an imposter, but she remembered how to be a
princess. And they would have the answers to the other soon. She knew they would.

“That’s my girl.” Her father’s eyes gleamed as he spun with her to a different corner of the floor.

All too soon, the music changed, and he delivered her back to the edge of the ballroom.

Brice waited, apology in his eyes. He nodded to her father and held out a hand. “Stafford hasn’t arrived yet. Just late, no doubt, but we can’t have you without a partner so soon in the night. If I might step in?”

Her lips tugged up, and she transferred her hand to his. “Selfless of you, with so many lovely young ladies about to flirt with.”

“They will swoon as well later as they would now.” He led her out, his smile never faltering. “You look resplendent. That gown cannot be from London.”

“Paris.”

“Of course.” He spun her with a flourish into his arms for the waltz. “It suits you. Shall we set the tongues to wagging?”

A laugh tickled its way from her throat. “Is there any choice with you?”

“Never.”

She wasn’t surprised to find that he danced without flaw. Nor that he could keep up a steady stream of banter as they sidestepped the other couples. But there was no tingle tonight where his hand grazed her back or clasped hers. Instead, her gaze went to the door each time she spun to face it.

“Keep that up, and I’ll never live it down—that the beautiful baroness kept searching for another when in my arms. Cruel creature.”

Laughing, she turned her face back to him and returned his smile. “Perhaps you could keep my attention if you were ready to confess what you said to him the other day—”

“I’m telling you, I threatened to pulverize him. Fisticuffs, bloody noses, the whole lot.”