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Dorian and Harry turned back toward the alley, and the two women still standing there. He was not surprised to find the tall, younger woman still staring at him and Harry with her chin held high and her eyes narrowed, but he was surprised by the words that left her mouth a moment later.

“We did not need your help.”

Dorian’s mouth popped open in surprise as his gaze roved over the woman’s face.

“What do you mean you did not need our help?” he scoffed, throwing a glance toward Harry that clearly said he thought the woman had lost her mind.

“We had everything under control,” she explained.

Her gaze dropped from his, turning toward her skirt where she brushed at it errantly as if clearing off dirt. The woman appeared to not care in the slightest that Dorian and Harry had very likely saved their lives.

“Yes, it sure looked that way.” Dorian rolled his eyes, not caring if the woman found him rude, not when she was being less than grateful for what they had done.

“It looked exactly how I wished it to look.”

Dorian did not think about it as he took a step toward her, but he realized instantly that that had been a mistake.

The small, wiry white dog must have had enough when it came to strangers that day because the animal lunged for him.

The woman holding it yelped, losing her grip, and the small beast careened through the air, its open jaws coming in contact with the front of Dorian’s leg.

Dorian yowled with pain, shaking his leg back and forth as he tried to shake the dog off of him.

“Mr. Taps!” the beautiful woman yelled, her previous air of composure falling away entirely as she rushed forward, grabbing for the leash.

Finally, the canine’s jaws loosened as she gave its leash one swift, hard yank. It darted back toward her before spinning to face Dorian and Harry once more, snarling madly.

“Your beast is wild!” Dorian scolded, noticing rather angrily that Harry was actually shaking with laughter.

He turned his leg back and forth, looking at it at every angle to see the damage that had been done, but thankfully, since the mongrel was rather small, even if it did have the heart of a lion, its teeth had done nothing more than tear the leg of his breeches, leaving the skin underneath entirely unharmed.

“He was just protecting me,” the woman sniffed, holding her head high in the air all over again.

“And a right good job he was doing,” Dorian fired back, frustration bubbling up in his chest. “He was all too willing to let those men harass you, but he bites the very man that tried to save you.”

“Save!” she scoffed. “How absurd. All you did was place your nose into business that was not yours and did not require your assistance. How pompous and arrogant you are to assume?—”

Her words died out as the older woman stepped forward and placed her arm on the younger woman’s shoulder.

Seeming to finally find her voice, the old woman shook her head and began to speak.

“Perhaps we should get going, My Lady. It is very late, and more ruffians will continue to come out the longer we dally. Plus—” She nodded her head toward a small wooden crate on the ground that Dorian had not noticed before. “The kittens.”

As if on cue, the sound of small, terrified meows filled the air within the alley, and Dorian glanced between the crate and the younger woman.

Clearly, she was high born with her haughty demeanor and the fact that she had a maid with her calling her My Lady .

But why a woman of noble birth would be wandering the streets of London in the middle of the night with a yapping dog that offered very little protection and a crate full of kittens, Dorian had no idea.

His mouth opened to ask her exactly that, but he did not get the chance.

“You are right, Louise,” the young woman said, her cool gaze turning away from Dorian and Harry. “We are done here, anyway.”

She turned toward the maid, handing the dog with the leash over to her before stooping to pick up the crate of kittens.

She did not so much as spare the men a backward glance as she began marching forward, the sound of her heels echoing off the cobbled stones.

The maid shot them an apologetic look over her shoulder, her round, kind face creasing with worry.

“Thank you both, very much,” she said with a respectful bow of her head before giving the dog’s leash a quick tug and chasing off after her mistress.

“Well,” Harry said, blowing out an amused breath, “that was rather interesting.”

“You can say that again.” Dorian glanced down at his pants, shaking his head at the torn fabric.

“Those women really gave you a run for your money,” Harry joked, bumping his shoulder against Dorian’s as the two men turned and walked out of the alley and onto the street beyond.

“I don’t know what that woman was thinking,” Dorian answered, anger bubbling up inside of him once more. “No one, let alone a woman, has ever spoken to me in that manner. I can’t believe that someone of nobility would behave so rudely. Especially when we were only trying to help.”

“You seem to be protesting quite a lot.”

Dorian gave his friend a sidelong glance, noticing that the corner of his mouth had tugged up into a sardonic grin.

“Don’t analyze any of this too much,” Dorian commanded. “The woman was annoying, and I am angry. That is all.”

And yet, you can’t stop thinking about her.

Harry seemed to share the same sentiment as his thoughts because he gave Dorian a knowing look. But thankfully, he did not protest any further as the two of them continued walking.

“What if something happens to them on the rest of their walk home?” Harry asked, glancing over his shoulder in worry.

“Then good riddance,” Dorian muttered, lengthening his stride to walk more quickly, putting as much distance between him and the alley as possible.

He did not look behind him to see if Harry had followed.

The following morning, Dorian’s head was pounding as he sat at the breakfast table, staring down at the plate of eggs, bacon, and toast that had been brought to him by a servant. Harry sat directly across from him, looking equally as miserable.

“Did we have to drink so damned much?” Harry mumbled, moving his eggs around on his plate before finally getting brave enough to take a bite.

“We were not even that drunk,” Dorian argued. “There have been loads of nights where we have drunk more and woke up the next morning feeling right as rain.”

“We were also young lads, then. We are not anymore.”

Dorian snorted, taking a sip of the chalice of water that sat before him before taking a nibble from his berries.

Unfortunately, his friend was right, and they were not as young as they had once been.

Earlier that year, Dorian had celebrated his thirtieth birthday, and Harry his thirty-third.

And yet, Dorian still found himself feeling just as lost as he had when he had been twenty.

He had thought that ten years would have made more of a difference.

And yet, Dorian was not entirely convinced that it was merely the drink that had him feeling so horribly. When they had gotten home and he had retired to his bedchambers, he had been plagued by nightmares the entire night. Nightmares of blood, of terrifying men, and of his own terrified screams.

The sound of shuffling steps floated to him from the hallway, and he immediately dismissed the newcomer as a servant. He was proven wrong a moment later when his mother’s voice filled the room.

“Well, aren’t you two a sorry sight?”

Dorian’s gaze snapped up, immediately finding his mother where she stood in the doorway.

Pippa Fletcher, the Dowager Duchess, was a petite woman with black hair kissed with swaths of grey and icy blue eyes that matched Dorian’s own.

At sixty-five, she was the picture of health except for a knee that bothered her every so often, prompting her to occasionally use a cane.

That cane was nowhere in sight now as she stalked through the dining room and took a seat at the table, looking wearily between the two men already dining there.

“You do know you have an important day ahead of you, don’t you?

” she asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “It might do you some good to eat well and get yourself to rights. We received word from the Earl of Markenson,” she explained, pausing briefly as a servant entered the room, carrying a plate of her breakfast.

The servant set the food down in front of her, and Pippa took her time taking a few bites of it before continuing her explanation.

“You are to meet him today around mid-day to discuss the potential marriage between you and his sister.”