Lord Radington chuckled. "If one wished to, I suppose."

There was a look in Adrian's eye as if he wished to do that very thing to the younger man. Surely he didn't think ...

"Although I have always been fond of a finely honed rapier. Excellent for fencing." Adrian shrugged. "Or dueling."

"Dueling is no longer legal although it was probably common in your day," Lord Radington said with a casual smile.

"Yes, well, in my day, dueling was an acceptable, indeed, an expected means of defending one's honor or one's property." His eyes narrowed so slightly only Evelyn would have noticed. "Or one's wife."

Good Lord! At once Evelyn realized her husband thought she'd come to the library to meet Lord Radington. The dear man was jealous. How utterly absurd. But rather delightful nonetheless.

"Then I am no doubt fortunate it is outlawed," Lord Radington said blithely.

"Pity," Adrian said under his breath. "Do you fence?"

"On occasion." An uneasy note sounded in Lord Radington's voice, and he slanted Evelyn a quick glance as if asking for her intervention. She cast him a pleasant smile.

"Perhaps we can meet for a match someday." Adrian's polite smile very nearly masked the intent gleam in his eye.

In spite of her best intentions, Evelyn laughed. Both men turned indignant looks on her.

"What," Adrian said in a cool voice, "might I ask is so amusing?"

"Not a thing, darling." She beamed at her husband. "A random thought crossed my mind, nothing of importance." She took her husband's arm. "We have been gone far too long and I should like another dance before we leave for the evening."

He stared down at her as if he were trying to read her thoughts. "As you wish."

"Good evening, Lord Radington." She cast the man a grateful smile.

He, too, looked at her as if trying to read her mind. He nodded. "Lady Waterston."

"In my day," Adrian said under his breath as they strolled back toward the ballroom. "The man can't be more than five years younger than I."

"The nerve of the man." Evelyn bit back a laugh. She'd never imagined Adrian, who was not the least bit vain, had a touch of vanity when it came to his age. He was a mere thirty-eight and was as fine a figure of a man as she'd ever met. Still, she'd never imagined him to be a jealous sort either. Odd the things one learned when one had thought there was nothing left to learn. She chatted brightly about anything amusing that came into her head, and by the time they reached the ballroom, Adrian's mood had lightened.

She knew she should have been upset that he was even a little jealous. And any other time she would have been. But proving she was not unfaithful, should it ever come to that, would be far easier than explaining what she was involved in. That would inevitably lead to what she had done in the past. She certainly wasn't going to do anything to encourage Adrian in thinking she was seeing another man, but for now, she wasn't going to entirely correct his erroneous a.s.sumption.

His mistake might well be her salvation.

Celeste slipped out of bed and danced out of the way of the hand reaching to pull her back.

"Don't go." Max groaned. "Come back."

"As much as I would like nothing better, I'm afraid I must be going."

"You never stay the night." He struggled to sit up. "It's insulting."

"Don't be absurd." She looked around for her clothes, discarded in their usual haste to touch and taste and partake of the pleasures they found in each other. "How on earth is it insulting?"

"You come to my home. You take liberties with my person-"

"Liberties?" She laughed.

"You have your way with me-"

She raised a brow. "Are you complaining?"

He ignored her. "And then you leave me." He heaved a sigh worthy of the most poorly trained thespian. "I feel like a ... a trollop."

"A trollop?"

"A common trollop." He plucked at the bedcovers. "It's not at all pleasant and I don't like it one bit."

"My apologies," she said absently. Her clothes lay scattered over the floor in a haphazard trail from the door to the bed, her corset hung tipsily from the bedpost, and good Lord-was that her chemise dangling from the sconce? "Are you familiar with karma?"

"Moral causation? The idea that one gets what one deserves?"

She nodded.

His brows drew together. "Prevalent in Eastern religions, I believe. Buddhism, I think."

"Very good, Max," she said wryly. "I do so love a man who is well read."

"I am nothing if not well read." He grinned and patted the bed beside him. "I'd be happy to demonstrate exactly what else I do well."

"You are too generous."

His wicked grin widened. "You have no idea how generous I can be."

"Oh, I have some idea." She studied him for a moment. Lord, he was a handsome beast. All that blond hair, tousled now, he had the look of a small boy. If one ignored the lascivious gleam in his bright blue eyes and the evidence of his growing excitement beneath the sheet. The man was insatiable and b.l.o.o.d.y well irresistible. "Don't you find it ironic that a man like you, who has left the beds of who knows how many women, now finds himself in precisely the same position?"

"First karma, now irony." He narrowed his eyes in feigned suspicion. "Are you saying I'm getting precisely what I deserve?"

She smiled and pulled on her chemise.

"Well, I don't like it."

"Now you're pouting and it's not at all attractive." In truth, though, it was rather endearing. Sir Maxwell Osgood was not the type of man to pout.

"Do help me with this." She looked at him over her shoulder, holding the sides of her corset together behind her back.

"I would be delighted." He stood and crossed the room. Most men tended to look better with clothes on. Max was not one of them. She never tired of looking at him naked. He took the laces and tugged them tight. "There's something about this I like."

"You were no doubt a ladies' maid in a previous life."

He bent to kiss the back of her neck and she shivered. His lips murmured against her skin. "I doubt that. Although it would have its benefits ..."

He straightened and tied the laces, then spun her around and pulled her into his arms. "Tell me again why you won't stay."

"I tell you every time I'm here." She rolled her gaze toward the ceiling. "I have servants, you know, and I am trying to live a proper sort of life. Servants talk, and as the house belongs to Evelyn, I daresay it would only be a matter of time before she wondered what I did with my evenings if she learned I was not returning to my own bed." She shook her head. "She is my dearest friend. I do so hate lying to her."

"It's not lying, really. You said yourself she never asks what you do in the evenings."

"No, she doesn't," Celeste said slowly. "Still, she might well consider my presence with her at all a lie."

"Celeste." A warning sounded in his voice.

"Yes, yes I know." She huffed. "You and Sir thought it was necessary. But she would certainly take my leaving the department to keep an eye on her, and provide protection if necessary, as deceit at the very least."

"She will never find out," he said firmly.

"Regardless, I am going to endeavor to lie less in the future." She paused. "To Evelyn and everyone else."

"Rubbish." He laughed. "Everybody lies."

"I do so hate lying." She sighed. "Obviously I've changed."

"Two years of proper behavior will do that to you." He pulled her tighter against him.

"It hasn't been entirely proper," she said under her breath.

"Thank G.o.d." He lowered his head to kiss that sensitive spot between her ear and her jaw, and she moaned softly. The man knew exactly what to do to make her melt in his arms.

She drew a deep breath and pushed away. "That's quite enough." She cast him a chastising look. "Do you think you could at least don a dressing gown?"

"I'm tempting you to stay, aren't I?" He grinned wickedly but grabbed his dressing gown nonetheless. She found her skirts and stepped into them, then slipped into her shoes.

"Not at all," she said in a lofty manner. "I am simply concerned that you will catch your death of cold."

"I didn't know you cared."

"Of course I care." She was b.u.t.toning the last b.u.t.ton on her polonaise when his arms slipped around her from behind.

"I'm glad." He nuzzled her neck.

"I would hate for anything to happen to you," she said brusquely, sounding rather more affectionate than she'd intended. She much preferred not to reveal her emotions.

"I want you to stay with me." He paused. "Do you realize, from the moment you first shared my bed, there has been no other woman in my life but you?"

"My G.o.d, Max." She forced a light note to her voice. "What on earth has happened to you?"

"You have happened to me." His tone was abruptly serious. "I could make an honest woman out of you."

Her breath caught. She ignored it but was glad he couldn't see her face. "Don't be absurd. You're the youngest son of a marquess. You've been knighted. I am not the sort of woman you should have as a wife."

For an endless moment he didn't say anything. Then he blew a long breath. "Perhaps."

A few minutes later she was on her way home in the cab he had, as always, arranged to wait for her, refusing, as always, to allow him to escort her. His suggestion lingered in her thoughts. He'd never mentioned marriage before; she never imagined he would. They'd been together for more than three years now, and she had long ago accepted this was all they would have.

Still, when she'd said she wasn't the type of woman he should marry, it would have been nice if, just this once, he had lied.

Chapter 7.

"I would never presume to question either your decisions or your conclusions, sir, and I have done precisely as you instructed but ..."

Adrian narrowed his eyes. It was already late afternoon and his patience had worn thin hours ago. Worse, he had no real idea where his wife was at the moment. "But?"

"But ..." Isaiah Vincent, Adrian's valet, chose his words with care. "It would seem to me you are jumping to unwarranted conclusions."

"They're not entirely unwarranted." Adrian tried and failed to hide the defensive tone in his voice.

Vincent raised a questioning brow.

"She has not been herself."

"Perhaps not. The weather-"

"I'm tired of the weather being used as an excuse," Adrian snapped. "I have experienced the exact same weather she has and have felt no ill effects."

"You did mention you have been feeling restless of late, sir."

"That has nothing to do with the weather." Adrian waved off the comment and paced the length of his bedroom, the largest such room in the London house. It had been his father's before him and his father's father before that. As the heir, Richard had occupied rooms that were nearly as big and he'd never seen any reason to move to this suite. But then Richard had never had a wife either. A wife who had pointed out that the furnishings were sorely in need of updating. She had replaced the heavy, dark, centuries-old furniture with lighter, burled wood and carved pieces. He quite liked it, although, in truth, it scarcely mattered to him as long as the bed was comfortable and his wife was in it. He and Evie had separate bedrooms, of course, connected through adjoining dressing rooms, but as often as not, she slept in his bed. Their bed. Precisely as he preferred. "Before my marriage, before my brother died, when I was free to do anything I wished, as you may recall, I did."

"You did have an interesting life, sir," Vincent murmured.

"A certain restlessness is to be expected in a man after two full years of eminently proper living," Adrian said and wondered exactly whom he was trying to convince.

Vincent cleared his throat.

Adrian knew that sound. "Well?"

"Well what, sir?"

"Well, tell me whatever it is you are thinking."

"I daresay you won't like it."

"I don't expect to like it."

"Permission to speak freely then?"

"Because you haven't spoken freely up to now?" Adrian glared. "I know exactly what you're doing, you know."