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W hy did I ever agree to this?

Daphne had asked herself the question dozens of times since impulsively calling Lord Windham back to her in the Harringtons’ garden. It had been a moment of weakness. Or foolishness. Possibly both.

But for some reason she couldn’t bear to watch him walk away and never have reason to speak to her again.

Yet even now, as she stood along the edge of the Bancrofts’ grand ballroom, watching Selina beside him while the musicians tuned their instruments, her doubts multiplied. It was painfully obvious that the earl needed no assistance wooing anyone. Selina seemed convivial in his company.

Daphne forced herself to stop gaping at them and made her way toward a small group of wallflowers—young ladies she’d met on the edges of many dance floors this Season.

She greeted them with warmth. Ivy had begged off tonight, pleading a headache, and without her sister’s easy wit and sharp tongue, Daphne felt a bit lost. Still, she smiled.

She conversed. She pretended not to feel out of place.

But as soon as she’d taken up her spot against the wall, her eyes betrayed her again. They sought him out. Across the ballroom, their gazes clashed the moment he stepped closer to the floor with Selina.

They were going to dance the waltz.

A flare of something hot and bright shot through Daphne’s chest. Not quite jealousy, but something undeniable. And unwanted.

Daphne looked away, looking across at the far wall, as if staring at the gilded molding might somehow help her stem feelings she had no right to.

But then the waltz began, and when she glanced over again, he still stood at the dance floor’s edge, while Selina spun around the parquet in the Marquess of Strathmere’s arms.

Suddenly, beside her, one of the wallflowers, Miss Truscott, burst into tears. Daphne and the girl opposite her bent closer.

“What is it?” the debutante’s friend asked.

“I thought Lord Strathmere might ask me to dance. Foolish of me, I know.” Miss Truscott offered each of them a somber look, her chin wobbling. “All these balls and no one has asked me to dance.”

As couples continued waltzing, Daphne looked up to see Lord Windham making his way toward her.

“Lord Windham,” she said, far too breathlessly.

“Miss Bridewell. I wondered if perhaps you’d changed your mind about dancing.”

Daphne turned to him, keeping her back to Miss Truscott. “I haven’t changed my mind, my lord,” she whispered, “but the brunette over my shoulder has not been invited to dance this whole Season.”

She didn’t know why she was asking him. He’d never shown any particular benevolence toward wallflowers in the past, but he was different now in so many ways. Perceptive, taking everything in, as if he no longer felt the need to be the most jovial or amuse those around him.

With a stealth she admired, he lifted his gaze over her shoulder very briefly. “Tell me her name.”

“Miss Emily Truscott.”

He nodded, gave Daphne a look that made warmth curl low in her middle, then strode past her.

“Miss Truscott.” At the sound of his deep voice, all the wallflowers nearby snapped their gazes his way. “Would you do me the honor of adding me to your dance card?”

“Oh, I… Yes, of course.”

Soon, the waltz ended. The next dance would begin imminently. Lord Windham led Miss Truscott onto the floor, and the girl turned a beaming smile Daphne’s way.

Windham caught her eye on the next turn, and Daphne drew in a sharp breath. When he looked at her like that—as if he couldn’t tear his gaze away—everything else faded. She felt drawn to him, but she told herself she had to stop this.

She would not betray her friend.

Yet the feelings he stoked in her were maddeningly potent.

Far more so than her ridiculous infatuation with Moreland.

That had been like candy fluff. As insubstantial as air.

This was something else. Something that seemed to slip past her defenses, pressing against places inside her that she’d vowed to protect against fancies and fairy tale notions of love.

She’d only begun putting the pieces of her heart together, and this ridiculous yearning threatened to scatter them again.

And it was not right. Selina favored him, so it was improper to harbor a moment’s longing for the man.

Daphne couldn’t keep still. She walked past the other wallflowers, seeking the ballroom’s threshold, seeking escape.

She didn’t know the Bancrofts’ home at all, but there had to be a door that led to the garden or perhaps a quiet room, where she could catch her breath and find the inner calm she’d never in her life had to struggle so hard to find.

Moreland hadn’t unsettled her like this. That had come on gradually, smile by smile, his easy charm pulling her in. Windham consumed her thoughts without effort, and despite Ivy’s reassurances, it was wrong to feel the heat that lit inside her when he looked her way.

Other guests mingled in the hall, and the retiring room and games salon were buzzing with activity, but Daphne kept striding past them all.

She found the library and let out a little scoffing sound at the irony of finding respite in the place she’d so eagerly rushed to over a month ago—like a lamb bounding toward its demise.

Pushing the door open, she examined the interior to ensure she wasn’t disturbing some rendezvousing couple or another forlorn debutante in search of solitude. But the room was empty, so she slipped inside.

The soothing scent of old books settled her nerves, and she trailed her finger along the spines on the nearest shelf. It made her long for the library back at Rosemere, her brother-in-law’s ducal estate, where she and all her sisters had spent many happy hours.

She took down a copy of Mr. Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend , which she’d begun reading and abandoned in the whirl of preparing for her first Season.

Now, she thought perhaps she should have abandoned the Season altogether after the incident with Moreland.

It all felt false now, and she didn’t want to pretend for another month.

She’d told herself she stayed for Selina, but now, with her own fascination with Windham, she felt as if she was failing her friend.

“Miss Bridewell.”

Daphne dropped the book and spun to face Sebastian Moreland.

He stood in the doorway, arms folded, leaning against the frame as if he’d stood watching her for a while.

“I have nothing to say to you,” she managed to bite out, though every muscle in her body had gone tight, and her heart thrashed wildly in her chest.

All she could think about was getting through the doorway he blocked with his body.

“But I have much to say to you, Daphne. No.” He shook his head. “What I must say won’t take long at all, though I’d like to talk with you at length, if you’ll let me.”

“I won’t let you. Step aside.”

He shifted so that he stood squarely in the doorframe and lifted his hands, palms out. “Please, Miss Bridewell. Indulge me while I apologize.”

Daphne glanced to the bank of windows at her right, considering whether to open one and climb out.

“You’d throw yourself from a window to escape me?”

“Yes.” Daphne faced him, then took a step toward him. “If there is a shred of gentlemanly honor left in you, step aside, Mr. Moreland. I wish to leave and do not care to hear anything you have to say.”

As Cassian led Miss Truscott, he had to concentrate to remember each step.

The young woman offered him a smile a few times but seemed to be concentrating as fiercely as he was, looking down at her feet a few times as if doubtful they’d follow the right pattern.

“I appreciate this, my lord,” she whispered as the dance wound down.

“I thank you for dancing with me, Miss Truscott.”

She blushed at that. “I’d almost forgotten how to dance.”

“You can surely tell I feel the same.”

They both chuckled, then the music drew to a close. He bowed to her, then escorted her off the floor.

Scanning ahead for the lady who’d inspired this mission to assist a wallflower, Cassian found she wasn’t there. A moment ago, she’d been standing beside the line of other debutantes, and now she’d disappeared.

“Thank you again, Miss Truscott,” he told his dance partner, then immediately slipped from the ballroom.

Perhaps it was folly to seek her out, but he was beyond propriety where Miss Bridewell was concerned. For the first time in a long while, impulse drove him, though it felt suspiciously like need.

He searched the rooms set aside for guests and interrupted a tryst in progress, though Miss Bridewell was not one of the participants. The relief of that was more than he had any right to.

Then he heard the muffled sound of raised voices—a man and a woman—and picked up his pace.

“Get away from me.” Daphne .

At the thread of fear in tone, Cassian balled his hands into fists and rushed toward the door at the same moment a man roared with pain.

Cassian slammed the door open, colliding with Daphne as she rushed across the threshold.

Like the time they’d stumbled into each other the night he’d met her, he held her a moment too long. This time, she didn’t look wary or offended. She let out a sigh as if relieved.

“Windham, I…kicked him.” Her hand remained clutched against his sleeve as the man behind her straightened and approached.

“Daphne—”

“Get out. Now.” Cassian stepped away from the threshold to allow the man space. Miss Bridewell did the same, retreating farther inside the library. He only regretted that it forced them to let go of each other.

Cassian gave the man only seconds to comply before lunging, grabbing the bastard by the shoulder, and wrenching him through the library door.

He kept hold of his lapel, then slid his hand up to grasp the man’s throat.

Old instincts welled up. Everything in him wanted to strike hard, draw blood, damage the man who’d dared to impose himself on her.

Instead, he shoved hard, nearly knocking the bastard off his feet.

“What the bloody hell, Windham?”