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The woman’s glare was quite something. Burning, and terrible, and oh so delicious with that angelic mouth pursed into something I wouldn’t mind?—

I pulled my mind out of the gutter. That only led to heartache and mistakes, I reminded myself. Getting involved with anyone like that…it would end in tears.

And not mine.

I was tired of women crying over me, tired of them expecting more than I could give, tired of them demanding emotions I just didn’t feel for them.

Tired of dreaming of the wife I had loved…who had died.

“And if you must know, I don’t have that sort of money!” The woman was still speaking, her cheeks reddening as her fingers clutched the now utterly crushed paper bag. “I don’t have any money really, to speak of, and I'm terribly in debt and—and…”

Her voice trailed away. Perhaps she thought she’d said too much.

She would never know just how ideal her declaration was.

I glanced over my shoulder. An art shop, or whatever it was. It looked like the sort of place she would work. Her wrists were covered in bangles, and the threads in her hair, all evidence of someone who didn’t know what it was to have the burden of an estate resting on their shoulders.

There was a flyer posted on the door.

EVICTION.

“About to be out of a job?” I said, turning back to her.

The woman’s glare somehow intensified. “Something like that. What do you care?”

I didn’t, not really. But she didn’t need to know that.

It was important information, and information was always useful. A woman down on her luck, about to be without a job. Clearly destitute, if that frayed pelisse was anything to go by. Someone who didn’t have money, and yet had gumption.

It wasn’t anyone who could berate me in public.

“I'm not surprised, I doubt this place gains much custom,” I said, my eyes taking in the front window.

It wasn’t that the art was bad. Most of it was pretty good. But it was all so…so obviously handmade. I could almost see the thumbprints from here, and most people didn’t want something that looked like old Bob down the road’s granddaughter had made it at seven years old.

They wanted refinement. Elegance.

“It does well enough,” she said firmly. “The idea is?—”

“I can see the idea, pretty pottery that looks like a child painted it to give you a sense of the real London when all the tourists head home,” I said dismissively, turning back to her. “It doesn’t take much, I suppose, but it pays the bills.”

The woman snorted. “Most of them.”

Her cheeks flushed as she realized she had spoken aloud, and I grinned, despite myself.

“I don’t know what you’re grinning at,” she said sardonically. “You’re the one with a raspberry stain right across that pristine cream waistcoat of yours.”

I glanced down. She was right, of course—but what was far more interesting was that she had apparently been staring at my chest .

When I looked up, she flushed. But she didn’t say anything.

She didn’t know who I was. And that was strangely…well, not intoxicating. I didn’t get intoxicated by women, they got intoxicated by me.

But it was convenient, almost as though I had been handed her on a platter.

“—and it was an honest mistake, anyone could accidentally walk into—and you could have been looking where you were going, it takes two to?—”

“Let’s have luncheon,” I said quietly.

The woman halted, uncertainty flashing in her eyes. “It’s…it’s not even nine.”

“I didn’t mean now. I meant at one, or whenever your employer can let you go.” I glanced back at the art shop place. “Not that I can imagine that’ll be difficult, I doubt you get many customers.”

The woman’s glare was a positive frown by the time I turned back to her. “You don’t know my name.”

I waited. “What is it?”

“Catherine. Catherine Shenton,” she said suspiciously. “Why would you invite me to luncheon?”

“Does a man have to have a reason?”

It was the wrong thing to say. The last thing I needed was for another woman to traipse about London wishing that she’d managed to make me fall in love with her.

“I have a proposition for you,” I added hastily.

Miss Shenton’s eyebrows shot up. “What sort of woman do you take me?—”

“A business proposition—no, really, a job,” I said, immediately spotting the next misunderstanding. “I was looking into hiring someone for a position and I think…I am almost certain that you would be perfect for it. ”

A part of me was screaming that this was all wrong. Dukes did not walk the streets of London offering work to women who cover you in raspberries!

But I needed no complications, no ties to myself, no emotions of any sort. If the only emotions between this Miss Shenton and myself was mild irritation, all the better.

She was still looking at me suspiciously. “You’re some rich gentleman, right?”

I tried not to grin. Honestly, it was so refreshing, speaking to someone who didn’t know me. “Something like that.”

“With a large income.”

I inclined my head. “Bigger than your employer’s, I would guess. You could you’re your position tomorrow and have all you need to live on for a year, if this works.”

If it works.

And it was a foolish idea. A mad one. One that would come to bite me on the arse, I was sure. But I couldn’t help it.

It all seemed so perfect.

Catherine was still frowning. Then— “And where are we going to luncheon? ”