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R as was waiting in a café, his tea cold and his temper hot. He sat in a strategic location so he could see when Nate left the newspaper office. Then he watched with narrowed eyes as the man took his time crossing the street before oh-so-casually wandering into the café.

“Well?” Ras said by way of greeting, even as he gestured for a plate of tea sandwiches.

“Nothing useful. The publisher swears that he printed exactly what I wrote.”

“And you believe him?”

Nate shrugged as he sat down. “I think he is so busy he doesn’t remember.”

“So he didn’t add it himself?”

“Definitely not.”

Ras felt his teeth clench. “If you didn’t write it—”

“I didn’t.”

“Then someone tampered with the missive before it got to him.” Ras glared down at his tepid tea. “Did you get a look at the handwriting? Do you know—”

“No and no. I made sure at the beginning that the man would burn everything as soon as he had it set for print. The less evidence that ties it to me, the better.”

And that was why Nate had used intermediaries to deliver his writings to the paper. A primary requirement of being a secret gossip columnist was to remain secret. But that did nothing to solve the current mystery of who had attacked Kynthea in print.

“Who delivered that missive?”

Nate rolled his eyes. “We’ve been over this. I use street boys who cannot read, much less write.”

“But if you pay them, someone else could have paid them more to deliver a different message.”

“To what end?” Nate smiled as the waitress delivered a small tray of sandwiches, quickly grabbing some as he spoke. “Forgive me, Ras, but Miss Petrelli is hardly worth such effort. She’s a nobody companion from the country. Who would benefit from destroying her?”

Ras looked away. The world might see Kynthea as a nobody, but she was rapidly taking over his every waking second. It made no sense, but he couldn’t deny that he thought of her night and day. She’d even become Kynthea in his thoughts, instead of the very proper Miss Petrelli.

“Why do you care so much?” Nate pressed as he finished a cucumber sandwich in one bite. “You’ve shown your support. I’ll write another column that absolves her. It should all blow over soon.”

Good question. Ras had tried to rationalize his interest. After all, in the four days in which he had sat with her to show his support, he’d been impressed by her calm reserve.

She had poise in a very difficult situation.

It was no easy thing to sit there and listen to sly innuendoes as people tried to goad her into revealing a lack of character.

Or suggest to her aunt that she should be dismissed.

His presence had kept the worst of it at bay, but he had heard plenty at his club. And he was sure that even more had reached her aunt and uncle’s ears.

And yet, simple poise did not explain his desperate need to be near her. He hadn’t felt this strongly for anyone before, not even during his adolescence. In truth, it shook him. But that didn’t stop him from spending every afternoon in her parlor in a show of solidarity.

“I fear for her,” he finally said. “She is holding up remarkably well, but I see her shrink every day that this goes on. And her aunt and uncle are hardly immune to the innuendo. If the ton is not distracted soon, she will be dismissed. And then what will happen to her?”

“Nothing good,” Nate agreed. “How did you convince her aunt and uncle to keep her on?”

“I told them it would be a personal favor to me.”

“And how did you explain that interest?”

With a lie. “I said that it was clear that Lady Zoe has a strong love for her cousin. And since all the rumors are absolutely false, there was no reason to hurt both women by cutting their connection.”

Nate was quiet a long moment while he studied Ras to an uncomfortable degree. “You know they will see that as a statement of interest. In Lady Zoe.”

He knew, and it couldn’t be helped. “I won’t have a good woman destroyed simply because I walked outside with her for a moment.

” He rubbed a hand over his face. “She took me out there to give me a dressing down! She was defending Lady Zoe, for God’s sake.

Now I wished she’d slapped me or something.

Anything to show people that she was not setting her cap for me. ”

“You’re taking this quite seriously, Ras.”

“Of course I am!”

“Of course, nothing. There’s been gossip about you since the day you were born. About you and the people you associate with. Some of it was to their benefit, but just as often, to their detriment. This is the first time I’ve seen you this exercised over it.”

The truth of that statement hit a little too close to home. Why exactly was this bit of gossip harder to bear than any other? “It’s the first time I’ve destroyed a woman.”

Nate frowned, clearly thinking back. “What about that maid who claimed you’d fathered her child?”

“An innocent woman,” he corrected. “Miss Petrelli has nothing. She’s the blameless daughter of a vicar who might have made a good life for herself had her parents lived. And because of me, her future looks very bleak indeed.”

“So it’s guilt?” Nate asked, his tone laced with doubt.

“Of course it’s guilt.” He said the words, even put force behind it, but in his heart he knew that wasn’t the full truth.

There was something about Kynthea that drew him.

Something compelling that he could not dismiss.

And until he figured out just what she had that fascinated him, he would not abandon her to drown in society’s treacherous waters. He couldn’t.

“You know you cannot marry her,” Nate said, his voice very low. “At best, you could make her your mistress.”

“I will not!” He said the words to himself more than Nate.

Lust had surged through his body at the idea of having her in his bed.

Indeed, he’d fantasized about it every night since first meeting her.

He’d pictured her mouth in places it should not be, imagined her naked body moving across his, and wondered what sounds she’d make when he entered her.

“She’s a proper woman. I would not insult her that way. ”

But he wanted to. Indeed, he worried what he’d do if he ever got her alone.

“Ras! She’s a nobody with a father who gambled.”

“How do you know that?”

Nate shot him a hard look, and Ras felt his cheeks heat.

His friend had surprising resources sometimes.

He knew things well before anyone else. He would sometimes appear with bruises or, once, a bloody gash for which he had no good explanation.

The man was often underfoot, and then mysteriously absent for days at a time.

No explanation, no apologies. But when he reappeared, he would have coin enough to pay his bills.

And though Ras had given him money as often as Nate’s pride would allow, it had been a long time since his friend had accepted any help.

Longer still since Nate had shared how he made his money.

Every time Ras asked, Nate pushed it off as success at the gaming tables or some other such nonsense.

The man rarely gambled, and he was a lot smarter than the face he presented to the world.

But rather than pursue that line of questioning, Ras focused on Kynthea. He was uncomfortably obsessed with finding out more about her. “What else do you know about Miss Petrelli? Is she hiding something disastrous?”

“As far as I can tell, she is exactly as she appears. An impoverished relative to Lady Zoe’s family. Her father was the one who created the situation. Every vicar has his vices, I suppose.”

“Not every vicar.”

Nate shrugged. “Near enough. And as vices go, gambling isn’t the worst by far.”

“It just severely damaged her future.”

“Yes.”

“And I came along and finished the job.”

“ You didn’t do anything of the sort,” Nate countered. “I cannot understand what happened. Who would add such a thing to my column?”

“Your publisher had no idea?”

Nate sighed. “None. Though he did say that sales that day were quite high. And that he wished I would add salacious tidbits like that more often.”

Ras could tell the idea sat uncomfortably with his friend. He was not a cruel person at heart, and gossip was almost always cruel.

“Nate—”

“He even suggested that he’d hire someone else to do the job if I could not.”

Ras frowned. “Nate,” he began carefully, “how badly do you need this work?”

His friend flashed him a warning look. He did not like discussing money, even with his closest friend, but his answer was honest enough.

“It’s not the pay, though that’s very useful.

” He grabbed the last sandwich and popped it in his mouth.

“I like directing the attention of the haut ton where it ought to go.”

In short, Nate liked exposing blackguards and thieves. But most times, those people were hard to expose. At least in a way that could credibly be printed without revealing the source. And society did love tearing down innocents even more than it liked cutting a blackguard from their ranks.

“You walk a fine line,” Ras said.

“Always.”

“But if you need—” Ras said.

Nate cut him off. “My name is not Broderick.”

That was an old code word between them. Broderick had been the king of all sycophants when they were in school.

An older boy who’d been charming, athletic, and a good friend to anyone who paid for his trinkets.

Broderick was also a liar and a thief, and had taken advantage of the younger, na?ve Ras.

It was Nate who had shown him the truth of the older boy. Nate who had brought Ras secretly to listen when Broderick was drunk and bragging about how he had “a duke dangling by the nose.” And Nate who had stood by him when Ras went to the headmaster to expose Broderick as a thief.

The ordeal had cemented their friendship.

It was also the one wedge between them. Nate would not live off of Ras’s charity, no matter how tight his purse became.

And Ras knew better than to challenge his friend’s pride.

But damn it, the man had more pride than the third son of an impoverished earl ought to have.

“Not Broderick,” Ras grumbled. “You’re Nate the Ass, who has too much pride to ask for help.”

Nate flashed a quick smile. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll find out who is tampering with my columns. And in the meantime, I’ll turn in my work in person.”

“That’s a risk, isn’t it? To be seen going in and out of the paper so often?” Ras knew that was why his friend had always sent in his writing through the street boys. It was too easy for someone in the ton to see him frequenting the paper and guess his identity.

Nate shrugged. “It’s worth the risk,” he said, his tone flat. Then he looked up with a flash of mischief in his eyes. “And you’re going to tell certain gossips that I’m trying to get a series of poems published.”

“Poems? Do you write poetry?”

His friend nodded. “Terrible ones. But I’ve got a few funny ones that I think will serve.”

“Are they better than the ones you penned for Lady Rebecca?” Years ago, his friend had nurtured a deep tendre for a lady who would never be his bride.

It was a true Romeo and Juliet story because the two families had been feuding for years.

Fortunately, the only casualty of their infatuation had been a few mangled poems.

“I’ve improved as a writer since then.”

“Good to know.”

With the last of the sandwiches consumed and the tea long since cold, Nate sat back in his chair. His gaze was focused inward as he undoubtedly started planning something. What, Ras had no idea.

“Ras,” his friend finally said. “Do you plan to go to Baron Francke’s evening of masculine entertainment?”

“Good God no! Whyever would I want to watch drunkards fondle tarts while they play cards?”

“Because you could bring me,” Nate said. “I have not been invited.”

Nate hadn’t been invited because most people knew he didn’t have the ready cash to drop at such an event.

Ras grimaced and mentally added the boorish and often expensive evening to his calendar. “What do you plan to accomplish while watching me play?” Because Nate wouldn’t gamble at an event like that. He would wander around listening to whomever was too deep in his cups—or in a tart—to mind his words.

His friend grinned. “Can you think of a better place to get salacious gossip to print? Not everyone frequents the bawdy houses for entertainment. Some just like to drink, play cards, and—”

“And brag about their lives while someone else pays for their drink.” The Baron was known for serving a generous amount of alcohol at his evenings. “You know, we’re likely to get pickpocketed as we leave. I heard that the street boys wait right outside the Baron’s home just for the opportunity.”

“So win at the table. Then you can lose your winnings without ever noticing the loss.”

Ras shot him a grumbling look which Nate laughed off.

They both knew that Ras would do as asked.

He and Nate had been the best of friends since they shared a room at Eton.

Nate had helped him through his father’s death, and Ras had similarly helped Nate through the realization of his grandfather’s debts and the loss of Lady Rebecca’s love.

They had supported each other throughout the years and an evening of cards was a small price to pay for their friendship.

That didn’t mean that Ras couldn’t exact a price of his own.

“You can repay me by finding out everything there is to know about Miss Petrelli.”

Nate’s expression tightened. “To what end? You cannot marry her.”

Ras snorted as he stood up. It was time to get ready to escort his mother to the next ball. “I’m a duke,” he said. “I can marry whomever I want.”

“Think, man!” Nate matched his friend’s movements. “You are a royal duke in the line of succession.”

“Distantly.”

“It doesn’t matter. Any girl you marry must have Prinny’s approval, and he will never give it to a girl like her. She must have better ancestry if she could someday be queen.”

Ras scoffed as he pulled on his coat. “If I inherit the Crown, then England has much more to worry about than my wife.”

“That is not how it’s done, and you know it.”

He did know it. He just didn’t want to acknowledge it.

He had no designs on the Crown, though he took his political position in the House of Lords seriously.

He found that being distantly in the line of succession a complete burden.

And it especially irked him that he could not choose his own bride without royal approval.

There were many things he happily left to Prinny. Ras’s choice of bride was not one of them. Unfortunately, the law said otherwise.