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I blinked at the barman, who had to repeat his question before I realized what he was asking. Focus, Briar! “N-No. No, I think I’ll go find a seat. Join someone’s table, like you said.”

Whatever had possessed me to say that was now propelling me forward, as though there was nothing better in the whole world than going up to a random stranger and asking to join their table.

What was wrong with me?

Even before I turned around and started walking, I knew where my feet were going to take me. That gentleman in the corner table. There was something enticing about him, something utterly different from every other gentleman who I had ever met.

He…he hadn’t known who I was.

I was standing before him far sooner than I had expected, and I hated how my voice cracked as I said, “M-May I join you?”

The gentleman’s lips tilted into a broader smile. “I won’t stop you.”

It wasn’t precisely the resounding endorsement I had expected, but it wasn’t a no.

This was the time to be bold, I told myself. How often, after all, did I have the chance to sit and chat with a gentleman who had no idea who I was?

“Are you waiting for someone?” I said, as lightly as I could manage.

Was I as transparent as I thought, cheeks burning? It wasn’t so direct as to ask if he was married, was it?

The gentleman grinned. “Markham. And no, I'm not waiting for anyone else. I was waiting for you.”

On the lips of almost any other gentleman, that line would have been absolutely ridiculous. I would have rolled my eyes, given a cutting remark, and strode out of there.

Yet somehow, spoken by this Markham…it was different.

Honest. As though he had somehow predicted I would be here, and all he’d done was ensure he was in the right place to meet me.

“And you are?”

A shiver rushed down my spine. Not being recognized…it was something I thought I’d have to go abroad to achieve, and even in Boulogne, the local magistrate had followed me within days.

Unknown. Anonymous. Able to do anything without this Markham knowing I was one of the richest women in Britain.

It was heady.

I sipped from my glass of wine. “My name is Briar.”

“Briar? Unusual name,” Markham said, his dark eyes flickering over me.

Oh, hell. I should have used a fake name.

Well, it was too late now—and besides, he clearly didn’t know who I was, or he would have disappeared as quickly as all the other gentlemen.

This may just be the most interesting man I have ever met.

Markham

She was the most interesting woman I had ever met.

Well. I hadn’t exactly met her. I’d spotted Lady Briar Weatherford, heiress extraordinaire, the moment she walked into this place.

You just didn’t expect to see people of her caliber in a place like this. Our caliber, I supposed. Oh, I didn’t have access to the fortune I was due, but then that was my own damned fault.

Steal from the Gambling Dukes club, get thrown out. It was a tale as old as time.

Except it had been something I’d built, something I’d loved—and I’d betrayed my three closest friends in the process.

“You heading out or heading home?” Lady Briar asked, gazing out at me through delicate lashes.

My stomach stirred.

Right, fine. Not my stomach. A little lower than my stomach. Still, something stirred, and I hadn’t excepted it.

She was pretty. Beautiful even, if she could ever bring herself to look at me properly. How did a woman with such fine eyes and such swelling curves become so…shy?

I shrugged. “Not heading anywhere in particular. Just seeing where the night will take me.”

Lady Briar raised a dark eyebrow and I tried to focus on that, and not the way her breath hitched in her throat. Or the way that breath caused her breasts to rise, just for a moment.

Something quivered down the back of my neck. I swallowed. I was not going to let this woman see just how swiftly she could affect me.

“Seeing where the night will take you?” Lady Briar repeated. “Sounds like you don’t have anyone to see, Mr. Markham. Sir Markham? May use your first name?”

Try as I might, I couldn’t quite keep the grimace down.

Peregrine, Duke of Markham. I was notorious, I knew, and not for the reasons I had hoped this time last year.

We—my friends and I—we had formed the most exciting new club. A gambling club, only open to widows or widowers of a certain pedigree who were willing to earn their keep through bets and wagers.

Everyone bet. We almost always won. We each took an income from the pot.

But I’d wanted a little more. All I needed was a little excitement. Who could blame me? It was our club, after all. Who cared if I took a little off the top, just while I was getting on my feet?

Everyone, as it turned out.

I swallowed, then turned on the charm that I knew so well. “Just Markham, if you don’t mind. What’s life without a little mystery? They call me the duke who risks it all, after all. May as well live up to that.”

Lady Briar laughed, her gaze darting down to her hands grasping her glass of wine, then back up to me through long lashes. “Mystery, I see? I suppose you don’t want to know my surname either, then?”

Leaning back as nonchalantly as I could manage, I took in the sight of the tight red gown, the stained red lips, the way she was evidently trying not to look directly at me.

My God. Lady Briar Weatherford.

I’d heard about her, of course. Who hadn’t?

One of the richest and most untamed women in London—that was the gossip.

The newspapers said that she had a whole crowd of advisors round her because she couldn’t make her decisions.

The gossip columns said that she had never considered matrimony because those same advisors never let her.

Yet here she was, alone and clearly assuming I’d know who she was.

And I did. Obviously.

But she didn’t have to know that.

“Briar will do,” I said with a grin. “Having a good night?”

There it was—the surprise, the dissonance in her eyes. Evidently, Lady Briar couldn’t believe I had no idea who she was.

And that was just fine by me. I didn’t want any notoriety, any attention turning my way. I’ve only just lived down the scandal when my friends threw me out of the Gambling Dukes. The last thing I need was more speculation about what I was up to.

Drinking at Ferncombe's Gaming Hell had become a habit, I suppose. Not doing anything was a habit.

But this woman? This woman was different.

“You know, you’re very handsome man, aren’t you?”

I blinked.

“But then you do know that, don’t you?” Lady Briar said, her lips lilting into a curved smile. “Who is your family?”

Who is your family?

It was the question everyone asked in London. The swiftest way to categorize someone. Worth knowing, worth buttering up, worth leaving behind.

“I have no family,” I said, not quite telling the truth. My friends were my family. “I am in London to invest.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. Kineallen—the Duke of Kineallen, my oldest friend and leader of the Gambling Dukes—had been good about that. He’d given me a payout which had far more zeroes than I deserved, and freedom to stay in my townhouse.

More than most people would have ever given.

Lilah—Delilah, the Dowager Duchess of Rotherwick—had suggested hanging, drawing, and quartering. Georgiana, the Dowager Duchess of Cartice, whose husband had left her penniless, had agreed with Kineallen.

Which wasn’t great. Kineallen had never been the same since his late wife, Georgiana’s sister, had died in childbed along with their babe.

Understandably so, he was rarely in a good mood. Me thieving from the Gambling Dukes…that hadn’t helped.

“Invest?” Lady Briar repeated.

I tried not to look at her lips as she took a sip of her wine. Dear God, did the woman have any idea that the whole place was staring at her?

Or did she know, and simply not care?

“It’s not as boring as it sounds,” I said, a strange desire to impress rising in my chest. “It’s actually?—”

“Oh, I know investors,” Lady Briar said dismissively. “I suppose you’re one of those people who mark up a person’s worth just by looking at them.”

A wicked smile crept over my face. Two could play at that game. “I sure can. Take you, for example.”

Lady Briar brought a hand to her chest. I took the chance to look at it, clean fingernails and gold rings, pressed against that firm, soft skin.

Christ.

“Take me?”

“Don’t tempt me,” I growled, losing control just for a moment. Clearing my throat, I continued, “You’re wearing the most impressive silk, the gold on your fingers is real?—”

“You can tell?”

“And you didn’t pay for your wine,” I finished, tilting my head slightly. “That tells me you have a tab here—and only the very wealthy have a tab at Ferncombe’s.”

Lady Briar flashed a smile. “Or I stole it.”

“I doubt that.”

“Or I gained it through my feminine wiles,” she countered, leaning forward. A necklace swung between her breasts, tempting me to look down again.

I wasn’t going to give in. Probably. “I doubt that even more.”

Damn it was a thrill, teasing this woman. Had anyone ever spoken to the great Lady Briar Weatherford like this before? Perhaps I was the only one to treat her like anyone else. Was she getting the same thrill, the same rush that I was?

“You don’t think I could get a glass of wine just by smiling at a man?” Lady Briar said, her words oozing sensuality.

My traitorous heart skipped a beat. Well, now I could believe it. How did she do that—just turn on the charm so swiftly?

However she managed it, I couldn’t allow that to distract me.

This was my chance.

For months, I’d waited to meet someone like her. Someone with more money than sense, someone who could bankroll my life in a way that I could never hope to dream. Even if they didn’t intend to.

Perhaps my luck was finally turning, now such a gorgeous opportunity had opened up. Plenty of money, and a beautiful woman, too.

“I don’t know how good these feminine wiles are,” I said teasingly, leaning back. “Why don’t you show me?”

“Show you?”

I swallowed. Lady Briar’s voice had changed. There was a darkness there now. A darkness I had not expected.

Perhaps I had gambled too far. This was Lady Briar Weatherford, after all, the heiress to some duke who was constantly one of the most fabulously wealthy in London just by…existing, as far as I could see.

“You really don’t know who I am, do you?” she said softly.

The place was heating up as the night progressed, more people pouring through. You could hardly hear the roll of the dice for the noise of the crowd trying to get the barman’s attention, but I’d only just noticed.

Lady Briar was intoxicating. Just by shifting ever so slightly in her chair, she gave me an even greater view of herself—and damn, it was a view worth seeing.

I ensured my smile was calm. “I know you’re Briar, and that you stole a glass of wine. I'm still trying to work out how.”

Something was fizzling in the air between us now. The challenge wasn’t a great one—Lord knows, I’d used better lines in my time. Probably.

But I could tell pretending not to know who Lady Briar was had irked her—or thrilled her, I couldn’t be sure. Either way, I’d got a reaction.

It wasn’t the one I expected.

“Well in that case, let me show you how I did it,” said Lady Briar with a smile that promised hot honey and kisses against a wall.

I swallowed. I’d never been particularly good with women. No, that wasn’t true. I’d never been particularly good for women.

Good with them? Definitely. But after my arranged marriage had ended in the death of my wife mere months after our wedding, I’d never kept a mistress more than a few weeks. They got bored of being treated like something I could come back to whenever I was bored, apparently.

I’d certainly never had a woman look at me across a table like Lady Briar Weatherford was right now. Her eyes were liquid lust, her lips slightly parted, begging to be crushed under mine —and the way she’d put her elbows on the table, crushing her breasts together to give me the perfect view…

“You see, Mr. Markham, I'm in a bit of a bind,” Lady Briar said, her voice low.

I leaned forward. To hear her better, obviously. No other reason. “You are?”

She nodded, curling a lock of her behind her ear. My gaze flickered from the soft vulnerability of her wrist to the curve of her neck, the way her lips arched into a smile.

“You see, you’re right. I did steal that glass of wine, and the barman is going to come over here any minute and ask me for the money,” Lady Briar continued in a low, fearful tone. “And I…I don’t know what to do.”

There was a vulnerability in her voice I hadn’t expected—a pain, a panic.

Something twisted in my chest. “You don’t?”

Lady Briar shook her head slowly. “If…if only there was something who could help me out. I’d owe a pretty large favor to that person.”

My mouth was dry, and my manhood was hardening in my breeches. “You would?”

A favor from Lady Briar Weatherford. If I wasn’t in such desperate need of money, I’d know precisely how I’d want that favor to be repaid.

Lady Briar, naked, underneath me, begging for?—

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a pound note on you,” Lady Briar whispered. How had she moved so close to me? She was seating right beside me, one of her hands on my leg. My damned quivering leg. “I can make it…worth your while.”

I swallowed, fingers scrabbling at my pocket. “I think I’ve got?—”

“And that is how I used my feminine wiles,” said Lady Briar, her voice rising as she moved back to her original seat. “Or I just put it on my tab, which Michael always knows I pay.”

I blinked. The place stopped spinning.

Lady Briar was laughing. “Damn, I am good!”

I breathed a laugh. “Yes. Y-Yes, you are.”

God in his heaven, I hadn’t expected that. Lady Briar Weatherford was, by all accounts, dim. That was what everyone said.

But this woman was sharp as knives and had me as clay in her hand within sixty seconds.

And she was rising to her feet.

“You’re leaving?” I said hurriedly, getting out the booth.

Lady Briar glanced up at me through dark eyelashes. “Of course. Do you want to come with me?”

“Come with you?” I breathed. This could not be happening.

She nodded, taking me in, her gaze flickering from head to toe. “I need a…distraction. Do you think you could come back to my place and be suitably distracting, Mr. Markham?”