The Wallflower Wager. Tessa Dare

off the end.

      She squinted into the mirror again. Better, she judged. Not a great deal better. But better.

       “Pretty girl!”

      From the dressing room, Mr. Duke gave an annoyed groan.

      “I’m so sorry for the imposition,” she called. “Delilah only came to live in Bloom Square a few weeks ago. Her mistress passed away. Parrots are loyal and intelligent, and they often outlive their human companions. So she’s not only been uprooted from her home, she’s in mourning.”

      “I must say, she doesn’t sound particularly aggrieved to me.”

      “She does say the most amusing things, doesn’t she? ‘Pretty girl,’ and ‘yes,’ and—Do you hear that one? ‘Fancy a . . .’ what? I never can catch what she’s saying at the end. It’s certainly not biscuit. ‘Fancy a cuppa,’ perhaps? But who gives a parrot tea? It sounds a great deal like ‘fancy a foxglove,’ but that makes even less sense. I don’t mind saying the mystery is driving me a bit mad.”

      “Fuck.”

      She froze. “I’m not that upset about it.”

      He returned to the bedchamber, now clothed in a pair of trousers and an unbuttoned shirt. “It’s what the parrot’s saying. ‘Fancy a fuck, love.’ That bird came from a whorehouse.”

      She spent a few moments in scandalized silence. No one had ever spoken to her in such a manner—but that wasn’t the disturbing part. The disturbing part was how much she liked it.

      “That can’t be,” she said. “She belonged to a little old lady. That’s what I was told.”

      “Bawds turn into little old ladies, too.”

      “Pretty girl.” Delilah gave a cheeky whistle. “Fancy a f—”

      Penny pressed a hand to her mouth. “Oh, no.”

       “Yes! Yes! Ooh! Yes!”

      Mr. Duke sat to pull on his boots. “Please tell me I don’t need to translate that for you.”

      Penny couldn’t think of anything she might say to make this exchange less horrifying. She couldn’t have said anything at all. It wasn’t that she’d lost her tongue. Her tongue had curled up and died.

      Boots donned, he strode to the door and held it open for her. Penny gratefully lifted the birdcage and hurried to escape.

      “I know how fragile a lady’s reputation can be,” he said. “Just so it’s understood—no one can ever know you were here.”

      “Lady Penelope?”

      Penny jumped in her skin.

      The housekeeper, Mrs. Burns, stood in the corridor. Her eyes slid to her employer. “Mr. Duke.”

      Mr. Duke cursed under his breath. If she were the sort to use profanity, Penny would have cursed, too.

      Mrs. Burns had managed the Wendleby house for as long as Penny could remember. When she was a girl, the housekeeper had terrified her.

      Little had changed in that regard. The woman was even more frightening now, clad in black from head to toe with her hair parted severely down the center. The candle she held threw macabre shadows across her face.

      “Is there some way I can be of service?” she solemnly intoned.

      “My parrot flew in through the window and I came over to retrieve her,” Penny hastily explained. “Mr. Duke was kind enough to help. Mrs. Burns, perhaps you’d be so good as to accompany me home?”

      “That would be prudent.” The housekeeper gave her a disapproving look. “In the future, my lady, might I suggest you wake a servant to let you in the house.”

      “Oh, this won’t happen again.” Penny slid a glance toward Mr. Duke as she moved to leave. “I can promise you that.”

      In fact, Penny had formed a simple plan to cope with this situation.

      Thank the man for his help . . .

      Calmly make her retreat . . .

      And then never, ever leave her house again.

      As the owner of properties all over Britain—hotels, town houses, mines, factories, country estates—Gabe was accustomed to awakening in unfamiliar rooms. Three things, however, never altered.

      He always woke with the dawn.

      He always woke hungry.

      And he always woke up alone.

      He had a set of rules when it came to sexual congress—he didn’t pay for it, he wouldn’t beg for it, and he damned well wasn’t going to wed for it. When based in London, he found casual lovers with no difficulty, but lately he’d been moving from place to place so often he simply couldn’t find the time.

      On this particular morning, he sat up in the bed, gave himself a shake, and familiarized himself with his surroundings. Mayfair. Bloom Square. The house that ought to bring a satisfying profit, once it was finally ready to be sold.

      The house next door to her. Lady Penelope Campion—the aging, frazzled, unsightly spinster who . . .

      Who wasn’t any of those things. Not by a mile. As fortune would have it, Lady Penelope Campion turned out to be a fair-haired, blue-eyed beauty.

      In his mind’s eye, he could still see her sprawled across this bed in her dressing gown. Like an all-grown-up Goldilocks, having crept into his house uninvited to test the mattress. Too soft, too hard . . . ?

      He didn’t know her opinion, but Gabe’s reaction was the latter. His cock was in its usual morning prime, standing at full mast.

      He scrubbed his face with one hand and stumbled to the bathroom.

      He’d been too weary from travel to inspect the new fixtures yesterday, but all looked to be in order this morning. Tiled marble floor and an immense copper tub, complete with taps for running water—both hot and cold.

      Last night he’d settled for a quick, cold dousing. Today, he meant to have a hot bath. He settled into the tub and turned the tap marked with an H. The tap shivered, but refused to give up any water. Gabe gave it a gentle shake, then a firm slap. Nothing.

      In all his life, he’d never backed down from a fight, but this had to be his most inane confrontation yet: fisticuffs with a water tap.

      He banged on the pipe, and it finally gave way with a rattle and groan. A blast of cold water sprayed him in the face. Needles of ice speared him in the eyes, the mouth. Bloody hell, even up his nose.

      Round one to the water tap.

      Blocking the spray with one hand, he closed the H tap with the other. Annoyed, he reached for the one marked with a C. A cold bath did have its benefits. After a few minutes of scrubbing in the bollocks-shrinking bathwater, he’d rinsed his mind of his neighbor’s soft, pink lips.

      Mostly.

      The remainder of his morning toilette was simple. He brushed his teeth, shaved, combed back his stubborn shock of hair, and dressed.

      Before leaving the room, he reached for the dull silver coin on the dressing table—a single shilling, rubbed smooth—and tucked it in the pocket of his waistcoat. Over the years, a shilling had become his talisman. A reminder of where he’d come from, and how far he’d climbed. Gabe never went anywhere without one.

      He opened the door and bellowed. “Hammond!”

      His architect appeared a minute later, huffing from the climb up the stairs. “Good morning, Mr. Duke.”

      “It might be a good morning, if the hot water taps I paid hundreds to install were functioning.” He shook his head. “This house should have been complete months ago.”

      “I