Wicked in the Regency Ballroom. Margaret McPhee

Square to announce his betrothal to Miss Madeline Langley, elder daughter of Mr Arthur Langley and Mrs Amelia Langley of Climington Street.’

      Guy stopped dead on the spot. ‘He means to marry her?’

      ‘It would appear so.’ There was a harshness in Lucien’s features, an anger that would not be suppressed for long.

      ‘But why?’ Guy turned a baffled expression upon Lucien.

      ‘Keep walking, Guy.’ Lucien touched a hand briefly to his brother’s arm.

      ‘Why not just turn his attention to another, easier target? By Hades, I would not have thought him to be so desperate for Miss Langley above all others. The girl has nothing particular to recommend her. She doesn’t even look like—’ Guy caught himself just in time. ‘Sorry, Lucien, didn’t mean to …’

      ‘I warned him if he ever tried to strike again that I would be waiting. Perhaps he thought that I was bluffing, that I would just sit back and let him take Madeline Langley. I did not think he would resort to marriage to get his hands on her.’

      They walked in silence for a few minutes before Guy slowly said, ‘Or he may have misinterpreted your defence of Miss Langley.’

      ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ snapped Lucien. ‘Why on earth would he think that I have any interest in the girl?’

      Guy raised a wry eyebrow. ‘For the same reason that half of London did only yesterday.’

      ‘What else was I supposed to do? Watch him run his lecherous hands all over her? Let him force her to a dance she did not want … and more?’

      ‘It seems that Miss Langley has changed her opinion of Farquharson. She might not have wanted to dance then, but she wants to marry him now.’

      Lucien thought of the fear and revulsion on Miss Langley’s face as that brute had tried to force himself upon her; of her terror when she’d quite literally run straight into him on that servants’ stairwell; and her loathing at the prospect of waltzing with Farquharson. ‘I cannot believe that it is so.’

      ‘There’s nothing so fickle as women. You should know that, Lucien. Saying one thing, then changing their minds at the drop of a hat. It’s amazing what the odd bauble or two can buy these days.’

      ‘Madeline Langley isn’t like that. You’ve seen her, Guy. She isn’t that sort of woman.’

      ‘Plain and puritanical maybe, Lucien, but still as likely to yield to temptation as any other. The Langleys are not wealthy. The pretty golden looks of the younger Langley chit are bound to catch her a husband. Not so with the elder Miss Langley. Perhaps she decided Farquharson was preferable to life as an old maid.’

      Lucien shook his head. ‘No.’ He could not imagine Miss Langley agreeing to touch Farquharson, let alone marry him.

      ‘Let it rest, Lucien,’ his brother advised. ‘You’ve done all you can to save the girl. If she’s foolish enough to become his wife, then there’s nothing more you can do. Your conscience, at least, is clear.’

      ‘My conscience is anything but clear. My actions have brought about this situation.’

      ‘You don’t know that,’ countered Guy.

      ‘I threw down the gauntlet and Farquharson took it up.’

      ‘Perhaps he planned to marry her all along.’

      ‘Perhaps. Whatever the reasoning, I cannot let Miss Langley become his wife.’

      ‘Oh, and just how do you propose to stop the wedding? Stand up and announce the truth of what Farquharson did? Stirring up the past will release Miss Langley from the betrothal, but at what cost? It’s too high a price, Lucien.’

      ‘I’ll find another way.’

      Guy sighed. ‘What is Miss Langley to you? Nothing. She’s not worth it.’

      ‘Whatever Madeline Langley may or may not be worth, I’ll be damned if I just abandon her to Farquharson. You know what he’ll do.’

      ‘He might have changed, learned his lesson over the years.’

      Lucien drew his brother a look of withering incredulity. ‘Men like Farquharson never change. Why else has he been visiting Madame Fouet’s all these years?’

      ‘Face it, Lucien. Short of marrying Miss Langley yourself, there’s not a cursed thing you can do to stop him.’

      A silence hiccupped between them.

      A crooked smile eased the hardness of Lucien’s lips. ‘You might just have an idea there, little brother.’

      Guy laughed at the jest. ‘Now that really would be beyond belief, the Wicked Earl and Miss Langley!’ Still laughing, he grabbed his brother’s arm. ‘What you need is a good stiff drink.’

      ‘Amen to that,’ said Lucien.

      The more that Lucien thought on it, the more sense it seemed to make. He knew what would happen if Farquharson married Miss Langley, knew that he could not stand by and let another woman walk to her death, willing or not. For all that his brother said, Lucien still could not bring himself to believe in Miss Langley’s sudden capitulation. Could she really want Farquharson as a husband? Lucien drank deeper and stared unseeing into the dying embers of the fire. Did the answer to that question even make any difference? Farquharson was Farquharson. No woman, knowing the truth about him, would willingly agree to so much as look at the man. Lucien remembered too well that of which Farquharson was capable. Mercifully the brandy anaesthetised the worst of the pain that the memories triggered. He emptied the contents down his throat and reached for the decanter again.

      Farquharson. Farquharson. Farquharson. For five long years Lucien had thought of little else. Nothing but that and his own vow to ensure that Farquharson never struck again. Then Miss Madeline Langley had entered the picture and history was suddenly in danger of repeating itself, while all he could do was watch it happen. Lucien’s lip curled at the very thought. His eyes closed tight against the spiralling anger. When they opened again, he was perfectly calm, his thinking never clearer. Lucien Tregellas knew exactly what he was going to do. Raising the stakes was a risky move but, if played well, would resolve the situation admirably. Guilt prickled at his conscience. He quashed it. Even if he was using her for revenge, Miss Langley would also benefit from the arrangement. And besides, being with him would be infinitely safer for the girl than being with Farquharson.

      Madeline sat demurely on the gilt-legged chair, her mother positioned on one side, Angelina on the other. Since the announcement of her betrothal to Lord Farquharson, Madeline had been elevated in her mother’s order of things. There had been trips to cloth warehouses, milliners, drapers and Burlington Arcade. Shopping, shopping and more shopping. Life had taken on a frenzied whirl of dances and parties and balls. The little house in Climington Street looked more like a florist’s shop following the daily arrival of Lord Farquharson’s bouquets. And now, Mrs Langley had managed to obtain the ultimate in social acceptance—vouchers for Almack’s Assembly Rooms. Amelia Langley had finally arrived, and the look on her face told the world that she knew it was so.

      Through it all Madeline appeared as the ghost of the person she had been. She moved mechanically, her emotions disengaged by necessity. It was the only way to get through this, the only way to survive Lord Farquharson’s little visits to take afternoon tea with the Langley household, to bear his hand upon her arm, the touch of his lips to her fingers. It was the shell of Madeline Langley who allowed Lord Farquharson to lead her out on to dance floor after dance floor, to whisper promises of love into her ear, to take her up in his chaise around Hyde Park at the most fashionable of hours for all the world to see. The real Madeline Langley was curled up tight in a ball somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of that protection. So it was Madeline’s shell, and not Madeline herself, who sat that night in Almack’s.

      It did not matter that they were in the famous assembly rooms. It did not matter that the night was chilled, or that the air within the dance rooms was stuffy and