Rumours in the Regency Ballroom. Diane Gaston

her, she did need him. She needed to feel him hold her with strong arms, needed to run her hands up his firm chest, to dig her fingers into his hair. She needed to feel him fill her again, as a man fills a woman. She trembled with need.

      But she backed away. “I need nothing from you.”

      He stared at her, a hint of pain in his angry eyes. Her guilt escalated. Obviously he had not shared her carnal thoughts.

      He swung away and started walking towards the door. It felt the same as when he had left her before, loneliness engulfing her.

      He reached the door and turned back to her. “I will trouble you no further.”

      As he disappeared into the dark hallway, she collapsed in her chair and placed her hand over where his baby grew.

      Adrian went straight to Madame Bisou’s, a gaming hell he knew on Bennet Street. He and Tanner had often spent a night at the tables there, and Adrian had been known to flirt with the pretty girls Madame Bisou employed.

      When he walked into the gaming room looking more for a drink than a seat at a table, a voice greeted him. “Pomroy!”

      A flaming red-haired young woman wearing a dress of ice blue ran over to him and grabbed his arm.

      “Katy Green.” He kissed her on the cheek. “But it is not Pomroy. It is Cavanley.”

      She laughed. “I forgot. Sir Reginald told me about you being called lord now.”

      She released him and examined him with her elbows akimbo and a line creasing her forehead. “I declare, you look healthy enough. I thought you must be very ill. You have not been here in an age.”

      He had not been to Madame Bisou’s since the previous spring, and it seemed a lot had happened since then. “I’ve been in France.” France was as good an explanation as any.

      She grinned at him and winked. “Wait until Madame Bisou hears. You will make her homesick.”

      The closest the madame, born Penny Jones, had come to France had been drinking a bottle of champagne and he and Katy both knew it.

      Katy took his arm again and escorted him through the room where the tables were covered with green baize. Three of the walls were lined with faro and hazard tables. Against the fourth wall one of the girls served drinks.

      “What are you looking to play tonight?” Katy asked him. “Faro? Hazard?”

      He rolled his eyes. “Fool’s games.” Luck, not skill, made winners in hazard and faro, and luck always favoured the house. “What I really want is a brandy.”

      “Brandy!” she cried. “Come with me.”

      He was soon sipping the burning liquid, but it failed to ease the hard rock of emotion inside him.

      He’d done his duty by offering to marry Lydia. He ought to be glad he’d escaped marriage. The parson’s mousetrap, he and Tanner used to call it, but it nagged at him that she did not think him worthy of marrying. A libertine, she had called him. And she wanted nothing to do with him.

      It also nagged at him that she’d not actually denied that the child was his. He only knew she did not wish him to be her husband. Why had she not accepted his proposal? He was wealthy. He came from a good family.

      Adrian finished the brandy, took another, and answered his own question. She had no wish to be married to a libertine.

      He could not blame her for that opinion of him. He’d cultivated the reputation of a rake, even if it had never been entirely accurate. He did not trifle with women’s hearts. His liaisons with women involved mutual desire, and their partings were mostly amicable.

      He finished the second brandy in one gulp and asked for another.

      Katy’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, ho, you are thirsty tonight.”

      He extended his glass again for the girl to refill. “Very thirsty. Thirsty enough to get thoroughly drunk.”

      “Oooh. That must mean a problem with the ladies.”

      He downed the third glass and thrust his hand out once more. “Have you not heard, Katy Green? Libertines do not have problems with ladies.”

      At a proper morning hour, Samuel Reed waited in a small parlour off the hall of Lord Levenhorne’s townhouse, a place where, undoubtedly, tradesmen and other men who toiled for a living waited for his lordship. Samuel did not resent it. He was only grateful that he had not been summarily ejected.

      After at least a quarter of an hour, a footman entered. “Lord Levenhorne will see you now.”

      Samuel was led to the library, where Lord Levenhorne sat behind an elegant desk with thin carved legs and made of some dark wood—mahogany or oak, perhaps.

      “Mr Reed, m’lord,” the footman said before bowing and leaving the room.

      When Levenhorne looked up, Samuel bowed as well. “Thank you for seeing me, my lord.”

      “What business do you have with me, Reed? Your card tells me you are from that New Observer paper.” Lord Levenhorne sounded none too pleased.

      But he had agreed to see Samuel, so that gave him courage. “If you read my paper, sir, you will know that I am following the story of Lady Wexin—”

      Levenhorne coughed. “I’ve seen what you wrote.”

      Samuel nodded. “I wonder, my lord, what you can tell me about the lady. My sources inform me that she is to bear a child—”

      “That, unfortunately, appears to be true—” Levenhorne seemed to catch himself. He stopped talking and peered more closely at Samuel. “These are family matters, Reed. Not the stuff for newspapers.”

      Samuel took the liberty of advancing one step closer. “Ah, but I have a reporter’s sense, and I believe there is a story in Lady Wexin.” He gave Levenhorne an intent look. “If she produces a son, he will inherit Wexin’s property and title, is that not correct?”

      “Such as it is,” the man murmured just loud enough for Samuel to hear him.

      “And you will inherit if she produces a daughter, or if the child is not born in time.”

      “That is so,” Levenhorne said in a careful voice.

      “If this child is not Wexin’s, however…”

      Levenhorne leaned forwards. “What do you know?”

      The man was interested. Samuel had him. Levenhorne would tell him what he wanted to know. He spoke carefully. “I am speculating that Lady Wexin’s child is not Wexin’s.”

      Levenhorne rubbed his chin. “She certainly did not appear to be a woman in her sixth month.”

      Samuel almost smiled. He had his verification. Lady Wexin was breeding and the baby was not her husband’s.

      Levenhorne waved his hand. “It is of no consequence. All she must do is give birth in time and it bloody well doesn’t matter who the father is.”

      Samuel gave Levenhorne an earnest look. “But what if my newspaper can bring pressure on the lady to openly identify the father? Would not there be a chance she’d marry the fellow? If they both acknowledge the baby as that other man’s, then the inheritance goes to you.”

      “Indeed,” said Levenhorne in a contemplative voice.

      “I will write the story. We have four months to put pressure on her.” Four months of building sales of the newspaper. Everyone would want to see what next would happen with the scandalous Lady Wexin. “All I ask is that you support the idea that another man is the father.”

      “I do support it,” said his lordship.

      “I am in your debt, then, my lord.” Samuel bowed again. “If you hear anything about who the man may be, please send word to me.”

      Levenhorne