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Wrestling her hand away, she tossed the remaining music on the table and fled, battling the tears flooding her eyes.

James’s time in the Swilling Duke’s bedchamber was up.

S imon climbed to his feet in a daze, idly picking up pages of music, restoring them to the ancient publication.

He’d kissed her, she said. And he’d almost kissed her again, today. Would have if she hadn’t broken the spell.

Setting the music aside, he buried his face in his hands, trying to pull the threads of his memory now that Nancy had given him the worst of it.

He’d kissed Nancy. Not a peck on the cheek.

He had a vague impression of a woman that night at one of the parties he’d been to. Pretty, blonde, statuesque. He’d thought to himself, she’d make a plum piece to set up on the side.

His fingers worked through the scruff at his jaw. He still needed to shave. And…

The soiled dove had followed him to Lady Chilcombe’s.

Only, apparently, that had been Nancy. His vision had been as fuzzy as his brain.

Shame swept through him, triggering more details. He’d cast up his accounts, yes. He’d fallen. He knew all of that from the caricature, and from the state of his stomach and the lump on his head the next day.

But earlier… Two heiresses would attend Lady Chilcombe’s ball, the fellows at White’s had said. He and Percy had found their way to Lady Chilcombe’s square. Somehow. Had they walked?

Outside a townhouse on the square, they’d encountered two ladies and learned that the fashionable young buck who lived there, an acquaintance of Nacton, was hosting a party.

Someone had shouted from the front door for them to come in and they entered together.

“The dark one for me,” Percy whispered, “and the blonde one for you.”

Inside, they were met with bare bums, bare breasts, and impossible tangles.

Percy’s friend was hosting an orgy.

Simon had a distaste for prostitutes—not even an excess of spirits could overcome that—and Percy had dreadful luck picking healthy ones.

While Percy indulged himself and the gathering degenerated further, Simon found his way to Lady Chilcombe’s, arriving unfashionably early, and gratified there’d be no competition for the heiresses.

Not that he’d feared competition from Percy, not with a duchess’s coronet on offer.

His hostess greeted him, and a footman directed him down a corridor to the gentleman’s retiring room. Somehow, lost in a back passageway, he turned a corner and ran into a statuesque blonde girl, who called him by name.

His mouth went dry. In his fuzzy brainbox, he’d thought she was one of the doves—the blonde one—accosting him. He came away with the impression that town balls were rather shabby affairs if a lightskirt could sneak in.

He stared vacantly at the jumbled music sheets. What he’d said that night, he couldn’t remember. But the rest—that kiss…

It had taken all his willpower to step back, to… Hades. He had turned her around and spanked her.

He buried his face in his hands again, not sure whether to laugh or to cry. That beautiful, enticing girl, that girl who could kiss with such innocence and passion, that had been Nancy.

Damn, damn, damn.

And laying hands on her? There’d been times when he’d wanted to spank the young imp when she and Cassandra had plagued the boys. But now… now he couldn’t help wondering if she would ever want to play that game in bed.

Likely she’d rather take a switch to him .

Gad, Nancy was right; he was a despicable reprobate.

And he wanted her.

He might be a duke, but he was no gentleman. Fitz and George, if they’d known the whole story, would have arranged for pistols at dawn, with or without his apology.

He paced back to the music room and remembered the little girl at the keyboard, coloring up as she mangled a note here or there but soldiering on to the end.

He’d thought of her as a mostly sweet child; he’d never really known her. The quiet young girl who’d played music with such diligence that he’d carried the memory into battle—that girl had grown into a beautiful woman, one who had hidden depths of passion, depths he’d like to explore.

He’d been about to offer marriage, and her preemptive rejection had stunned him. Dear Lord, but he’d deserved everything she’d dished out, including the slaps.

Lady Loughton had given him a chance to court Nancy; not to win her, like some prize he was competing with Percy over. But because he cared for her. And he did.

Was it possible that she might care for him? She hadn’t spurred her brothers to shoot him.

He’d cling to that hope.

Taking up the book of country dances, he left to find someone to give it to.

In the hall, he met the dowager Lady Loughton, her black mask for the evening on a stick in her hand. She wore a panniered gown like Nancy’s, but it was made from a heavy dark satin and trimmed with beads.

“Your grace, you’re not dressed yet. I hope Sir Percy didn’t chase you out of your bedchamber. We had nowhere else to put him and since he said you had served together, we hoped you wouldn’t mind. I’d meant to tell you after our discussion, but I quite forgot.”

“I didn’t mind at all, my lady,” he said. “Percy and I have shared quarters before. But I imagine he was happy to move to his own room.”

She froze, and her head tipped a fraction. “He was moved?”

“Yes. A footman came for him.”

“I see.”

Her lips formed a thin line. She looked very much like one of his commanders before he delivered a stinging rebuke, and he wondered if he was in for it again.

If so, he deserved it.

“My lady, I’m not sure what to do with this.”

He presented her the book of music, and she juggled it with her mask and then looked up at him. “Country dances?”

“I, er, ran into Nancy in the music room. She’d come to fetch this, and then she left it behind. I imagine it’s for the musicians.”

The older woman blinked, glanced toward the drawing room he’d just come from, looked through to the music room, and then sent him a steely look.

“You were in the music room with Nancy? Alone?”

He nodded.

“How, I wonder, did that come about?”

“I, er, received a note from George, or perhaps Fitz, telling me she’d be there if I wanted to speak with her.”

“The note was unsigned?”

“My lady.” A maid came through from the back of the house, “Miss Cassandra needs—” She saw Simon and made a low curtsey.

“Thank you,” she told the maid. “Tell her I’ll be right along.”

The maid hurried out, and Lady Loughton turned back to him.

“It’s odd, don’t you think?” she mused. “These are the usual dances played at every gathering. The musicians may know them by heart, and if they don’t, they’ll have their own music books.

” She glanced at the stairs leading up to the bedchambers.

“I shall take care of these, your grace. Be sure to ring for help if you need a footman to assist you with dressing.”

He bowed. “Thank you.”

“Later on, you may wish to tell me what was said in the music room.”

He felt the heat rising in his cheeks. “I do not know whether I shall live long enough or grovel low enough to make up for what I said and did at Lady Chilcombe’s ball.”

“Hmm.” She nodded and a twinkle lit her eyes. “Nancy may be a gentle soul, but she’s also a Lovelace.” She tapped him with her mask. “Be on your guard tonight, Simon.”

She’d called him by his first name. That must be a good sign.

He watched her walk away, like the tiniest of elegant cutters, fast sailing, lightly armed, but quick-maneuvering and fierce.