Fallen Angel. Sophia James

must be one of the richest men in England,’ Brenna said as she observed the huge mansion and all the women looked at each other with undisguised apprehension. ‘No wonder he can afford to help us.’

      ‘Lord Deuxberry…’ The name ran upon her lips as she strove for any recollection of such an aristocrat when she was doing the season and failing in her quest. It was strange that she did not know of him, given his obvious wealth, for such opulence rarely went hand in hand with anonymity.

      The carriage stopped outside the front portico, two footmen walking down huge marble steps to help them alight and accompany them to the butler, who stood stiffly at the main doorway.

      Nicholas came out a moment later and his breath froze in his throat as he watched Brenna, dressed in simple blue, hair bound simply and face alight, her beauty reflected somehow in the moonbeams that danced across the glass dome above her, isolating her in the silver of an ethereal lightness.

      ‘Ladies,’ he said gently, striding forward on long legs, his gaze fastened firmly on Brenna Stanhope, ‘welcome to my home.’

      Brenna whirled towards the voice, her glance snapping to his face. The Duke of Westbourne! For a second she thought to turn and leave—indeed, took the first step—before reason stopped her, and in that second she knew that this trap had been set most wisely, with patience and stealth. Her heart beat loudly in her ears as she forced her body into a stillness she was far from feeling, fists clenched white at her side as his hand came forward. She did not dare to let him touch her for fear of feeling again the sharp knowledge of his skin and was pleased when he let his fingers fall. The gentleness in his eyes flummoxed her, though, given her obvious insult, as did his next words.

      ‘I watched you from the balcony as you were on the piano playing “Ring a Roses”,’ he explained softly, his smile touching his eyes.

      ‘Indeed, Lord Deuxberry,’ she stressed the title and raised her chin, licking her lips in an unconscious message of fear.

      ‘I sometimes use the name, which is also mine by right, for it lets me function more anonymously.’

      He looked straight at her and, liking his directness, she smiled.

      Her face changed from hard to soft in a second, large dimples gracing both cheeks and liquid eyes dancing with lightness. God, she was so beautiful, how could her season here ever have gone poorly?

      ‘Could I take you through to meet our guests?’ he asked quietly. ‘I have tried to assemble a group who are the least wolfish that I know and also the most generous.’ Kate and Betsy nodded at his words.

      Brenna frowned. Lord, please let there be none amongst them that she might once have known.

      The drawing room was full of guests though the gaslights burned low, almost as candles, evoking a sense of warm friendliness conducive to their cause, and she felt heartened by the half-light. Missing Nicholas’s sign to his secretary to take the others, she found herself escorted by the Duke, and, as he introduced her to the guests with an unaffected charm, she noticed the deference he was accorded by all with whom he chatted. He made it easy for her to speak of the orphanage, bridging the way with his own admission of patronage. In his company, buffered as she was from any more personal queries, she felt herself relax, all the dreads and fears of discovery pushed away.

      As she asked for their coats at the end of the night, she could not credit just where the time had gone.

      ‘Would you permit me to show you my home before you go?’ Nicholas asked the group as they stood at the front door. Kate and Betsy jumped at the chance, Brenna looked more tentative. ‘Just the music room, then?’ he compromised and led the three across into the other side of the house to a large glassed conservatory filled with palms and flowers, a fish pond along one end of the windows and a huge grand piano down towards the other. The women gasped in astonishment at the size and beauty of the place, so unexpected and inviting. Betsy and Kate moved to the pond and Brenna to the piano, where her fingers tinkled lightly across ivory keys checking its tone. Nick watched her and stood quietly as she played a simple arpeggio.

      ‘Would you like to play?’

      His voice was husky and her eyes expressed her confusion. ‘No, thank you. It’s very beautiful, but now we have to go.’ The words came stilted and formal across her tongue and she sensed his disappointment. ‘My Lord…’ she began, but he held up a hand to stop her.

      ‘Nicholas, please.’

      ‘My Lord,’ she continued more firmly, ‘I have no doubt you have patronised our orphanage purely out of a misdirected belief that you owe me something. I helped you at Worsley simply because you were in trouble and now I want to know that you are helping the children of our orphanage simply because they are in trouble. Tonight was an invitation that, had I known the truth of your identity, I would have refused, and in the future I would like you to know that this cannot happen again. You have paid your debt with more than interest, your chits come regularly and with a generosity that staggers us all. But I am not part of the bargain, my Lord. You could never pay enough for me.’

      He stood watching her, stepping back slightly, wondering why life held her so rigid and noticing the way her lips turned up at each end, even when she did not smile. She was both beautiful and clever—he had not expected that. He observed her carefully and began slowly, mindful of the other two who looked about to join them. ‘May I ask but one small favour, Miss Stanhope?’

      Uncertain violet eyes regarded him.

      ‘If I was able to get a private ballet performance of the Christmas version of La Sylphide at Her Majesty’s Theatre, would you and the children do me the honour of being the audience?’

      Brenna gasped at the invitation. ‘You could do that?’ she asked, amazed that he should think such a feat even possible, her mind running to the reviews she had heard of the pageant made famous by Marie Taglioni herself.

      ‘Money can buy dreams,’ he said quietly, watching the smile die in her eyes and perplexed by her answer.

      ‘That is debatable, my Lord,’ she whispered distantly, ‘for more often it kills them.’

      Charles Pencarrow bounded into the southern drawing room of Pencarrow House the next afternoon and Nicholas stood to greet his younger brother with delight.

      ‘Charlie,’ he said, shaking the proffered hand with warmth. ‘When did you arrive up from Hertfordshire and why did you not let me know you were coming? Grandmama is not with you, is she?’ He looked around behind his brother for any sign of his grandmother, Elizabeth, Dowager Duchess of Westbourne, his eyes coming back to Charles for his answer.

      ‘Grandmama is not here, and I was only coming for the day except the meeting in London went on for longer than I had hoped, so I deemed it safer to wait here and go home in the morning.’

      Nick nodded and crossed to the cabinet behind him. ‘You want to join me in a drink? Whisky?’

      ‘Brandy, I think. I’d already started on one at the club before I heard the news.’

      ‘News?’ Nicholas asked, a puzzled frown across his face. ‘What news?’

      ‘The news that a girl dressed like a nun turned down an invitation to the symphony from the highly acclaimed, but perhaps overrated, Duke of Westbourne.’

      ‘Ahh, that news!’ Nick laughed. ‘The gossips, I fear. Well, they’re half right. She did turn me down, but she doesn’t look like a nun.’

      ‘Who is she?’

      ‘Brenna Stanhope, the same girl who rescued me in the woods on the London Road.’

      ‘But you said she wouldn’t see you?’ Charles queried.

      ‘She wouldn’t. I had to trick her into coming here. I’ve become the patron of an orphanage she runs in the East End, and she only accepted an invitation—and with great wariness, I might add—from that patron, Lord Deuxberry.’

      Charles