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But no one was paying any attention to her. The beauty scrambled into her carriage with less grace than she’d descended, and the young man followed, slamming the door behind them. In a moment, they were off.

But he wasn’t alone. He turned to focus on the girl they’d abandoned in the worst streets of London.

No, she wasn’t quite a girl, though clearly not long out of the schoolroom.

He’d heard that the fashion that year was for dark hair—the unpleasant young woman was most likely an absolute diamond.

This one had hair that was neither blond nor brown but a tawny shade in between, coming down from a messy knot, and her evening dress was plain and unadorned.

There was a faint streak of black on the side of her face.

“What are you still doing here?” he growled, hoping to scare her away.

She was made of sterner stuff, though. “I...I thought I should apologize,” she said, stammering only slightly.

“For what?”

“For leading my sister here. For agreeing to hunt for the dregs of society and coming down here to you. It wasn’t very nice.”

She looked absurdly chastened, and he was tempted to laugh.

He kept his expression a powerful glower, hoping to scare her away before she got a good look at him.

Not that he was recognizable with the full beard and shabby hat, but he couldn’t afford to stand chatting to an ingenue in the midnight air.

“No, it wasn’t,” he agreed. “And exactly why did you want me?”

“Oh, it wasn’t you. Anyone would do. We were having a treasure hunt, you see, at Millie Rutherford’s, and we each had a long list of things we must retrieve in order to win the prize.

Except there is no prize, just the glory of winning, but Norah always wins, and just this once I really wanted to beat her. ” She stopped, a little breathless.

“Your sister deserves to be beaten in every sense of the word,” he said. Why the hell was he extending this conversation?

The girl sighed. “It’s true. She’s so pretty she’s always gotten her own way, and now she’s too big and too important to punish.”

“Too important?” he echoed, confused.

“Well, she’s a beauty, you see,” the girl said explained.

“I noticed.”

“And our family is very, very poor. My father made some bad investments, and my brother Neddy gambles, and now we can barely afford servants. It’s up to Norah to marry well and bring in a nice marriage settlement, but so far her nasty tongue has scared them all away.”

“What about the young man with her?”

“Alcott?” she said. “Oh, he’s like her faithful dog, following her and doing whatever she wants. He’s in love with her, like half the men she meets, and she uses him. You’d fall in love with her too if she weren’t being so unpleasant.”

“I doubt it,” he said. He was waiting for a chance to slip back into the shadows, when he thought he heard the most absurd thing. “Was that a goat?” he asked, astonished.

She nodded. “I’ve got the last things I needed, including two goldfish and a baby goat.

All that was left was the dregs of society, but I’ve decided that’s not fair, and I should probably get rid of the baby goat and the goldfish.

I just don’t know where.” She took a deep breath at the end of this long, artful sentence, and he found he wanted to smile.

He couldn’t—fearsome beggars didn’t smile.

He had to get rid of her, but for some reason, he was strangely loath to. “Shouldn’t you be heading back rather than conversing with the dregs of society? How many men do you have with you?”

“Just Edgars, our coachman, and he’s so old he doesn’t provide much protection,” she said cheerfully. “But I have a gun.”

She’d managed to startle him. “You do?”

“Up in the carriage. Unless the goat ate it.”

Rafferty sighed. “It won’t do you much good in the carriage if I decide to hurt you.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t,” she said with supreme confidence. “If you didn’t interfere with my beautiful sister, then you’re hardly going to bother with me.”

He watched her, thoughts tumbling over and over in his brain. What seemed to be a disaster could be turned upside down. He made up his mind in an instant. “What would it take to beat your sister?”

She looked surprised. “Well...you. Or someone like you. But I couldn’t ask you to come. It’s degrading.”

“It is,” he said. “And you didn’t ask me. I’m offering. “

“Would you really?” she said, her eyes shining brightly. “That would be so kind of you. But if we’re to beat Norah, we must hurry. She could have found another dreg...er...gentleman already.”

“Hardly a gentleman, miss...?”

“Miss Georgiana Manning, but everyone calls me Georgie. Except for Norah, who calls me George.” She made a face.

He picked up his abandoned crutch and limped heavily over to her. “Then let’s go, Miss Georgiana Manning,” he said, taking her arm in his and leading her to the carriage like the gentleman he most assuredly was not. The coach started with a jerk and they were off down the street.

He turned his face to find himself nose to nose with an annoyed-looking billy goat. He glanced at Georgie, who smiled back, clearly pleased with herself.

“This will be wonderful!” she said. “Norah went around making Mr. Alcott buy everything she needed, whereas I had to wheedle and beg. This is going to be truly a triumph.”

“A triumph,” he echoed, considering whether he might have made a very grave mistake. He wasn’t in the mood to be paraded in front of some rich nitwits, even for Miss Georgiana Manning. But this was a coincidence he couldn’t afford to waste.

The goat chose that moment to baaah loudly in his face, expressing his displeasure, before Georgie pulled him back to her side of the carriage. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “He’s not the best-behaved goat I’ve ever met.”

“And you’ve met so many?”

She smiled that infectious smile once more. “My share of them,” she said. “We used to live in the country. I hated to leave.”

“What happened?”

“Well, we needed to launch Norah in society so she can marry a rich man and save us all, and there are very few wealthy men in Dorset.”

“What about you? Couldn’t you marry a rich man just as easily?”

She laughed. “I’m not a beauty like Norah.

Besides, I’m not officially out. Mother says we can’t afford to have two of us out, so I mostly stay home.

I only got to attend the Rutherfords’ tonight because they needed another female to make up their numbers, and their company is not too particular.

Apparently, the older generation doesn’t like treasure hunts.

I love them,” she added. A shadow crossed her face.

“At least, I usually do. We’ve never been told to get a human being before, and I must say I don’t like that part of it.

Are you certain you want to come with me? ”

Now was his chance. He could simply request that the carriage stop and he could disappear into the London night. The young woman was looking at him anxiously, and he wanted to laugh. She looked like a saint heading to the stake.

“I rather think I’d like to see you beat your so-beautiful sister,” he said, and was rewarded with her sunniest smile.

“Oh, bless you. And don’t you worry. I won’t let anyone be mean to you.”

The thought of an innocent young woman like Georgie protecting his own six feet four inches should have made him laugh—instead, he was touched.

He’d spent days watching the Manning house with nothing to show for it—as far as he could tell, there had always been someone at home.

He might as well do a favor for this slightly odd young woman with the earnest blue eyes, and maybe it would help him get inside the townhouse.

He glanced at her. If she were older, he could always take her home to bed and roam the place while she slept off the soporific effects of sex.

She was out of the schoolroom, even if she wasn’t actually “out,” and he had a dislike of hurting innocent creatures.

Still, he had to be open to all possibilities.

He was thinking better of it when they rolled up to a brightly-lit mansion in the heart of Mayfair.

Crowds surrounded the place—he spied three more goats, eight bowls of goldfish, and various other detritus in the arms of over-dressed, overbred aristocrats.

He didn’t see another man who could qualify for the dregs of society, and he sighed.

He’d agreed to this, bewitched by those blue eyes. He was going to carry it through.

He pulled the goat with him, striding up the front steps in Georgie’s wake as she transported the goldfish, and he noticed with amusement that he was being given a wide berth, as if he might be contagious.

She marched him straight into chaos, a room filled with people shouting, goats bleating, odd objects of furniture being passed overhead, when there was a sudden, thundering silence.

“Miss Georgiana Manning,” a stalwart gentleman announced in a tempered bellow. “Have you brought to us a Dreg of Society?”

She scowled. “I’ve brought you Mr....” She turned to him and whispered loudly. “I beg your pardon, what’s your name?”

“Rafferty,” he replied.

“I’ve brought you Mr. Rafferty,” she announced. “A man temporarily down on his luck.”

The man looked him over, as if guessing his weight for market. “I’ll have to ask some questions.”

“Of course,” he said in his deep, gravelly voice, using his best cockney accent. “What you need to know, guv’nor?”

“Where do you reside?”

“On the streets. Lately I’ve been sleeping in a doorway near the docks.”

“How much money do you have on you?”

“Not a penny.”

“Do you own any property?”

“Nuffink,” he replied easily. “I’m fancy free.”

“And would you term yourself the dregs of society?”

“Can’t think of anyone much lower.”

The man looked at him for a long moment, then turned to the waiting crowd. “Then I declare the winner of The Rutherford Treasure Hunt is Miss Georgiana Manning,” he announced in a stentorian bellow, followed by enthusiastic cheers and huzzahs.

Rafferty was tempted, so tempted, to tell them exactly what he thought of them, but then Norah Manning might get her wish to see him strung up to the nearest tree.

The British upper classes took their privilege very seriously, as he knew full well.

Everyone had crowded around Georgie, shaking her hand, hugging her as an avalanche of congratulations poured around her, and he judged it a fine time to disappear.

He would have time to get back to the deserted town house and begin his search before they returned.

He moved through the parting crowds, very aware of the suspicious servants watching him in case he decided to take off with the best silver, and he’d almost made it out the door when he ran smack into the beautiful Norah, with some poor, rundown soul in tow.

“Too late,” he announced cheerfully. “Your sister’s beaten you.”

The expression on her perfect face was so ugly it took him aback. “You!” she said in tones of loathing. “How dare you show your face here?”

“Isn’t that exactly what you wanted me to do?” he countered. She really was a looker, even with that mean expression on her face. Given time and inclination, he’d take her bed, and damned if she wouldn’t go willingly if he put enough effort into the task. He wasn’t interested.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said politely, staring to move around her, but she forestalled him.

“I ought to call the police.”

“What for?”

“You pushed me into the street!”

“You tripped.”

“Alcott!” she called, but her faithful swain was nowhere in sight, and he gave into temptation, looming over her once more.

“I didn’t push you,” he said. “But I could remedy the omission.”

She let out a noisy squawk, for all like a discomfited chicken, but before he could take a step closer, Georgie was by his side.

“Hullo, Norah,” she said happily. “I beat you!”

Norah quickly regained her self-control, looking at them both with supreme arrogance. “So you did. I didn’t really care, anyway. So, what are you going to do with our giant now that you’ve plucked him from the gutter? Next thing we know, you’ll be wanting to reform him.”

“And why not?” Georgie shot back. “Mother has her good works, why can’t I? We bring baskets to the poor, don’t we? I think that Mr. Rafferty simply needs a chance in life, someone to believe in him, and he can become a respected member of society.”

He controlled his instinctive shiver of horror at such an idea. “I’ll be taking my leave now...” he said, edging away, but Georgie immediately grabbed him by the arm, holding him fiercely.

“No, you don’t. Norah is absolutely right, you’re my project! I’m going to reform you, make you happy...”

“I’m fine as I am,” he said uneasily, trying to free himself from her grasp. He couldn’t, not without hurting her.

“No, you’re not,” she said. “I’m going to see you’re gainfully employed. We need a butler—our last one took off yesterday, and we can’t afford a new one. But you’ll work cheaply, won’t you, given that it’s your first job?”

He looked down at her, into her shining eyes, about to tell her where she could stick her butler, when the beauty of the situation struck him. He’d spent long, endless nights looking for a way to get into the Manning household. Now it was being offered to him on a silver platter.

Norah was back to squawking her outrage like a chicken, and Georgie was looking determined.

“You want me to be your butler?” he said slowly.

She nodded, told her apoplectic sister to shut up, and then nodded some more. “Will you? Please?”

It was the please that did him in. That and the fact that it was the chance of a lifetime. Still, he’d be mad to do it. This was too good to be true.

He opened his mouth to tell her no when he caught sight of Norah’s mute fury. “Yes,” he said. “I will.”