MELODY THOMAS.

A Match Made in Scandal.

For my wonderful father and brother, the engineers in my family.

I appreciate the hours you spent with me on the phone talking in terminology I will never understand, but which my characters surely do.

Love you both.

Chapter 1.

London 1873.

W ith a sigh of frustration, Rachel Bailey thrummed her fingers on the polished banister, the diaphanous froth of her emerald skirt whispering with her movement. Perfumed currents of air mingled with cigar smoke drifting from the ballroom below. She turned, her fan dangling from one wrist, an empty dance card on the other.

She'd tried not to care that so many here found her an intellectual oddity or had excluded her from their social circles.

Especially tonight.

For Cinderella had nothing on Rachel, except perhaps the eye of the handsome prince, or in this case the talented recipient of one of the most prestigious awards in all of Great Britain. A civil engineer could garner no higher honor than the Gold Telford Award, an honor that she would never receive because of her gender, but one that Ryan Donally most aptly deserved. From the gilt-edged balcony of the Palace Hotel, overlooking the ballroom, she watched him, his tall, dark form easily recognizable among the colorful assemblage. Music floated high above the spacious floor to resonate against the dome-shaped roof, elaborately paneled in Venetian mirrors. All about her, the ball was in full swing, the swirl of colors arcing across the polished floor like a rainbow.

Incredibly handsome, Ryan was suited to the petite blonde he held a little too intimately in his arms, Lady Gwyneth Abbott. His future wife, if one was to believe the rumor running rampant among the crowd. She was a jewel of elegant architecture in vermilion silk and upswept blond hair wrapped in a diamond tiara. The two conversed, his vital energy mesmerizing, his open smile reflecting an animated conversation that drew more than Rachel's attention.

Ever since they'd been children, Ryan had garnered attention wherever he went. He mastered crowds as easily as he gathered accolades, his charisma a reflection of his Irish good looks. Now, having amassed a fortune in the iron-ore industry, Ryan himself had since become an international conglomerate separate from his family-and separate from her-a far reach from the uncouth boy who used to throw spiders in her hair when they were children.

Theirs had always been an impossible relationship. He was her curse.

And the very reason she had returned to England.

Drawing in her breath against her tightly laced corset, Rachel knew she was naive to think she could walk back into his life tonight after everything she'd done to him, and not feel panic.

They had not spoken since Kathleen had died four years ago.

She had to find a way to speak with him. She needed to talk to him.

"The woman in my brother's arms is the Earl of Devonshire's niece," a masculine voice murmured next to her ear and startled her.

John Donally had managed a soundless approach and caught her staring at Ryan. "And of whom are you speaking?" Rachel plucked a fluted champagne glass off the tray of a passing footman.

"You know of whom I'm speaking. I understand that she's the earl's ward and that she's sought after among the ton's bachelors. But she has eyes only for my brother. She's quite beautiful."

And Ryan's brother, with whom she usually managed an excellent rapport, only jammed the knife a little deeper into her heart. Rachel truly didn't want to know that the girl was flawless as a snowflake. Sipping champagne, she welcomed the wet effervescence against her senses. "Did Lady Gwyneth make him cut his hair?" she asked, for lack of anything charitable to say. She'd noticed Ryan's trademark queue missing.

"I doubt it, colleen." Johnny crossed his arms. "But you can always inquire."

"I would very much like to talk to him. He's not been in London for a week."

"He's been in Bristol. They returned last night."

"They?"

Ryan's older brother peered over the balcony, his dark curly hair catching the light from the Venetian chandelier. "He and Lady Gwyneth, and the girl's sister," Johnny said. "He just purchased property there."

"Can he really want to marry her, Johnny?"

"What do I know about Ryan's heart? Since Kathleen's death, he's kept his emotions locked away so tightly none of us have been able to make sense of anything he does." Slipping a hand into his pocket, Johnny turned. "He's not the same man he used to be. Don't be lulled into thinking otherwise."

"Does he ever speak of Kathleen?"

Johnny folded his arms and leaned against the balustrade. "Why have you come all the way from Ireland to be here tonight, colleen?"

"Despite everything else he's done these past four years, Ryan still chairs Donally & Bailey Engineering." She studied the champagne bubbles in her glass, realizing they were perfectly formed spheres and, if she held them to the light, they glittered. That such perfection could result from the nasty by-product of massive chaos and organic upheaval was the essence of true chemistry.

Rachel swiveled her glass in the light and blinked as Johnny's handsome face suddenly came into focus over the crystalline rim. Realizing he might construe too much from such unusual whimsy, she sipped. "You have to admit the award is well deserved. He's required reading at Edinburgh and Gottingen."

"And naturally, you're filled with admiration for his talents." Johnny plucked the glass from her fingertips and set it on the table beside the richly gilt Corinthian column. "Me-thinks you've imbibed enough, colleen."

"Shouldn't you be dancing with your wife?" She recaptured her glass, prepared to do battle for one more taste. "What will she be thinking to see the two of us all alone up here, cozy as lovebirds grappling over my champagne flute?"

His dark eyes filling with mischief, he deftly snatched the glass from her hands and set it on the tray of a passing footman. "She'll be thinkin' that we've known each other all of our lives, Rachel." Taking her elbow, he forced her gaze from the glass of spirits disappearing down the back stairway that led out to the hotel kitchens. "She told me to find you and drag you onto the ballroom floor if need be. Neither of us thinks you should be watching the world from up here. It's time to play for once."

Swallowing a groan, Rachel allowed Johnny to lead her down the marble steps into the man-made rainbow of silks and satins, where she immediately sank within the bright colors. "You don't need to hold my hand," she whispered. "Metaphorically speaking, of course."

"I do if I intend to dance, literally speaking." Johnny placed his fingertips at her waist, then bent to look into her face. "You're not thinkin' you've forgotten how to waltz, are ye?" he asked, stepping with her onto the floor, his movements carefully precise.

There was nothing that put the starch into her spine like the fear of failure. "I think that you're treading hazardous waters. I could ruin your two perfectly good feet before the clock strikes midnight."

"But this does provide me the opportunity to hold a beautiful woman in my arms. With my wife's permission even. How fortunate am I?"

Rachel let herself fall into the easy step of the waltz. "You've blarney for blood, Johnny Donally," she said. "But I thank you for it just the same."

She was grateful that, even after all the mistakes she'd made with her life, anyone in the Donally family could still be her friend. Yet they had remained staunchly so. Most of them anyway.

Except Ryan.

Even as her throat tightened, her eyes remained dry. Life had taught her the uselessness of tears and the dangers of emotions that crept into the orderly world she'd created for herself as one of only two female civil engineers in the world. But the cracks had begun to form after Kathleen's death four years ago and widened when Rachel hit her twenty-ninth birthday last month. She didn't know what to do with the impractical, feminine part inside that had suddenly reawakened.

She needed desperately to rectify her past with Ryan.

Long ago, she'd watched as he married her best friend. And Rachel knew if she left tonight without telling him anything in her heart, she would never have another chance.

In a few months, he would be out of her life forever.

"Do you actually drink this stuff, Donally?"

Havana in hand, Ryan turned from the arched doorway where he'd been standing for the last half hour watching the ballroom. Lord Devonshire entered the billiard room from the terrace, and Ryan regretted the demise of his solitude.

"The Engineering Society could have afforded a better stock of champagne, don't you agree?" Devonshire rebuked.

Ryan held up his tumbler. "Compared to stock Irish whiskey, everything else is tame, my lord." He tipped back the glass and relished the burn down his throat before setting down the glass to rack the pool balls. The billiard room had emptied when the orchestra began to warm up again for the last set.

Like every man present, his lordship wore a black formal swallowtail coat, white cravat, and gloves. This was not the kind of event men like Devonshire usually attended. Ryan's professional peers were commoners, but tonight the earl and his family had come as his guests.

"You're not dancing?" Devonshire stood in the archway, looking out onto the ballroom floor.

"Your niece's dance card is full." Ryan took the cue stick he'd leaned against the billiard table. "I had my requisite two dances. Do you play billiards, my lord?"

Devonshire continued to watch the dancers with interest. "No," he said absently.

Ryan chalked a stick. Smoke curled from the ash tin in which he'd stubbed out his cigar. He listened to strains of the waltz. Laughter. His own disorganized thoughts.

He knew who had caught Devonshire's attention. Ryan had been watching her for most of the night. Even when he'd been dancing with Gwyneth, he'd glimpsed Rachel on the balcony overlooking the ballroom. He'd returned from Bristol yesterday to learn she'd been in London over a week.

"Miss Bailey's presence tonight is curious. She is not the kind of woman I'd expected to find dabbling in the engineering profession."

Ryan fixed his gaze over the cue stick. "Why is that, exactly?" He cued the white ball, sending balls

scattering over the table.

"A woman who looks like she does should have more appreciation for the finer talents of her sex."Chuckling into his glass, Devonshire froze as he looked across the rim and into Ryan's gaze.For a moment, the earl's eyes flickered as something in Ryan's expression wiped the smirk from his face.Ryan potted the orange ball into the left pocket. "Is there a reason for this conversation?"His lordship picked up the red ball. "You must be aware that my niece wants an autumn wedding,"

Devonshire said. "Clearly, whatever it is that you talk about whenever you are alone, she is agreeable to a future as your wife."

"Clearly the size of my bank account makes her more tolerant of my inherent faults." Ryan continued to observe Devonshire's darkening color with calm interest. The man treated those he considered beneath him with contempt, which was every man present that night. Yet, they both knew where they stood in their business relationship. Devonshire needed his money. Their personal relationship had yet to be defined.

"There you are, Uncle." Devonshire's younger apple-cheeked ward stopped beneath the archway. Her face flushed, she was breathless. "I have been looking everywhere for you. They have started a new waltz."

"Beatrice," Devonshire snapped. "Have you forgotten your bloody manners?"

The girl's blue eyes rounded on Ryan, blond ringlets framing her plump face. "Please allow me to steal my uncle away, Mr. Donally." She lowered her lashes and curtsied, her pale blue skirts whispering with

her movement. "Gwyneth put his name on my dance card so that it would be filled. I was only hoping thatperhaps-""Where is your sister now?" Devonshire looked out onto the ballroom floor."She's dancing, of course. Her card is always filled."Devonshire glanced down at her. "Consider that her card is always filled because she doesn't go flitting about like some silly schoolgirl, Beatrice."Turning away, Ryan lifted up his jacket from the chair where he'd laid it earlier."I'm sorry, Uncle," he heard the girl murmur."Go to the withdrawing room and straighten your hair.""Yes, Uncle."Ryan kept his gaze focused on his sleeves as she fled the room. Devonshire looked over his shoulder at him, a hint of iron in his gaze. "We've an agreement, Donally."

Adjusting his silver cuff links, Ryan regarded the elder with a tight smile. "Your servant, as always, my lord." A crisp bow implied the opposite.

Watching Devonshire leave, Ryan walked to the arched doorway and leaned a shoulder against the wall. One hand in his pocket, he was conscious of a sour taste in his mouth that the strings of a waltz and the gaiety on the dance floor could not dispel. His entire life, he had gone horns to horns with men like Devonshire, who thought they owned the world and the people around them by virtue of their birth. In the process, he'd made enemies. Let there be no mistake-Ryan knew Devonshire was one.

Ryan's gaze came to an abrupt stop on the lone feminine figure standing on the outskirts of Johnny's crowd, and every other thought in his mind fled.

Rachel Bailey had been his adolescent obsession.

His curse.

The only woman in the world who could beat him at croquet, outscore him in arithmetic, and probably knew more about him than any other being alive.

A glimmering wash of candlelight set her apart like some ethereal Madonna, etching her profile in revealing shadows and light. Devonshire knew not the woman he besmirched with the insinuation that Rachel Bailey had returned to London for some other purpose than seeing Donally & Bailey receive the award tonight. She lived and breathed D&B, toeing the line between good and evil like one born to the task of martyrdom. She'd been working out of their office in Dublin for four years.

He had always had a way with women. The smart ones avoided him, which proved that Rachel had always been smarter than most. Yet, even as she'd chased after his oldest brother for most of her youth, she had always managed to cloud Ryan's vision and ruin his judgment. Then somewhere between the years he had given her her first openmouthed kiss and graduated at the top of his class in Edinburgh, he'd met Kathleen.

Silent, Ryan simply stood now, watching Rachel, until some inherent resonance of his thoughts turned her head and, for a dragging moment, he waited for her to see him through the press of people. She was searching for someone, he realized, as she looked out across the dance floor-and the restlessness he'd felt all night returned.

Growing up, he'd known just where to place a spider in her hair, or how to knot the strings of her pinafore to the barn post so tight that she had to undress to escape. Old habits died hard, he realized. As he withdrew his gloves from his pocket and absently began to apply them to his hands, he thought about her hair, wondering if it still flowed to her waist in a fiery wave of sin. He began to shoulder through the crowd, only to find his way blocked as people stopped to congratulate him for the reward he'd received. His eyes on Rachel, he worked the crowd as efficiently as he did everything else in his life.

The crystal chandelier hanging in the center of the ballroom illuminated the throng of dancers. Rachel stood for perhaps five seconds more, searching the faces before she turned and attempted to squeeze her way through the crush. Lady Gwyneth had yet to leave the dance floor. But Ryan was nowhere to be seen.

She secured a new glass of champagne from a footman, too hot to care that she had little in common with the people in the room or that she disliked crowds immensely. Stopping in front of a console table festooned with an enormous fuchsia arrangement, she paused to consider an austere rendition of Queen Victoria staring down at her from the wall-and wondered how the most powerful country in the worldcould have a queen at its helm and be so completely archaic when it came to a woman's station in life.

"Your Majesty-" She raised the champagne flute to her lips.

A gloved hand reached over her shoulder and slipped the glass from her fingers. "Has anyone ever told you that you drink too much?" Ryan stood behind her, nearly scaring the wits out of her, looking even better up close than he had dancing.

"Practically your whole family."

He set the glass on the table. His dark eyes faintly challenging, he merely held her gaze. "Can you still dance?"

Her heart hammering, she watched his fingers curl around her palm and deftly turn her into his arms

before leading her onto the dance floor. "Truly, Ryan," she managed to quip, as he swept her out onto the ballroom floor, "you can be quite full of yourself at times."