Page 1 of To Pleasure a Prince

Prologue

London, April 1814

A young lady’s sponsor at court must be above reproach. If her family is not, they should have the good sense to absent themselves from the proceedings.

—Miss Cicely Tremaine,The Ideal Chaperone, a Guide for Governesses, Companions, and Tutors of Young Ladies

He couldn’t see a damned thing from here.

Marcus North, the sixth Viscount Draker, rose from the marble bench and crossed the terrace to survey the ballroom through the glass doors. Much better. Too bad he couldn’t stand here. But someone might see him. It wouldn’t do for him to be caught skulking about like a French spy.

“What in God’s name are you doing?” asked a voice behind him.

Marcus turned to find his half brother scowling at him as he came up the steps from the garden of his new town house. So much for not being caught.

Alexander Black, the Earl of Iversley, strode onto the terrace. “I thought you went home to Castlemaine hours ago.”

“I did.” Strolling back to the marble bench, Marcus picked up the glass of Madeira he’d left there. “But halfway to Hertfordshire, I decided to come back.”

“Why?”

He sipped the wine. “To watch and make sure everything goes all right.”

“And if it doesn’t? What will you do, leap inside and take care of it?”

“Very amusing.” Marcus stared through the glass doors into Iversley’s ballroom. The guests were entering, and at their center was Marcus’s half sister.

He caught his breath. All he could see of his precious Louisa was her head, but with her hair up in a fashionable coiffure adorned by a large ostrich feather, she looked beautiful. And too damned grown-up. Sloe-eyed and black-haired, she was the very picture of their late mother, and that could not be good.

Marcus drank deeply. What did Iversley and his wife Katherine really know about presenting a young woman to society? Especially one whose pariah of a brother was only mentioned in vicious whispers.

He tore his gaze from the doors. “How was Louisa’s presentation at court?”

“It went very well. She didn’t trip over that ridiculously long train they make the girls wear, and according to Katherine that’s every girl’s greatest fear.”

When the crowds parted enough to reveal Louisa’s low-cut bodice, Marcus cursed the day he’d agreed to let her come to town. Confound it all, she looked more like a married woman of twenty-five than a maid of nineteen. “I hate that gown. It shows too much.”

“Ah, but they like the girls to wear gowns cut down to their navels,” said a familiar voice from behind Iversley. “Louisa’s is actually modest by comparison.”

“Why the hell areyouhere?” Marcus asked as his other half brother, Gavin Byrne, walked up holding a glass of champagne. “She’s my sister, not yours.”

Byrne shrugged. “Louisa’s debut was part of our bargain when we began the Royal Brotherhood of Bastards. The least I could do was attend her ball.” He shot Marcus a faintly contemptuous glance. “Since her own brother won’t.”

“You know damned well I can’t—it would ruin everything.”

“Then for God’s sake, don’t sneak about out here. If you won’t come inside, you overprotective ass, go home and leave things to Iversley and me.”

Marcus snorted. “Iversley, I can trust, butyou—”

“Come now, gentlemen,” Iversley broke in, “we’re all on edge this evening. But the worst part is over, so there’s nothing more to worry about.”

Fat lotheknew. There was always more to worry about with a sister.

Marcus glanced through the glass, then scowled when he saw Louisa smile shyly at some handsome devil being introduced to her. “Who’sthatrascal?”

“Relax,” Iversley said. “He’s perfectly respectable and quite a catch, I’m told. Simon Tremaine, the Duke of Fox-something.”

“Foxmoor?” Marcus growled. “Katherine invited the duke to this?”