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  To Marla Daniels, for her unflagging enthusiasm and professionalism these past two years. Thanks for all your efforts.

  And to all the other hardworking professionals at Pocket who’ve had my back through the past fifteen years. Thanks for the support, and may success follow you wherever you go!

  One

  CAPTAIN LORD HARTLEY Corry had come to his brother Warren’s Shropshire hunting lodge, Hatton Hall, to play cards, drink fine brandy, and do some shooting with his male friends. So when, upon his arrival, he was shown into a ballroom filled with dancing couples, Hart could only groan.

  “You came!” a decidedly female voice exclaimed behind him.

  He turned to find his sister-in-law Delia approaching. “I don’t understand,” he muttered. “Warren invited me here to do things men do. Without women.”

  Her eyes twinkled. “Ah, but that was before I reminded him that he’d chosen the week of St. Valentine’s Day and that his friends were all married. Once I did, he very sensibly altered his plans, changing this into—”

  “A marriage mart?” he growled.

  She blinked. “No, indeed. Why would I have a marriage mart and invite married couples?”

  Uneasily, he glanced about. “Not just married couples. I see a few bachelors from St. George’s Club—not to mention a few unmarried friends of yours.” He narrowed his gaze on her. “All eyeing me as if I’m dinner. I know a matchmaking scheme when I see one, dear lady.”

  “Well, aren’t you full of yourself?” she said archly. “I would never foist you on my friends. You’re a cantankerous second son with a penchant for trouble, a tendency to gamble, and no fortune to speak of. Why on earth would I want them to marry you?”

  “Now see here, I’m still the son of a marquess.” He didn’t like being characterized as some wastrel, even if he understood why, given their history. “And I’ve paid back, with interest, every penny I owed your family.”

  Her features softened. “Yes, you have, which is admirable. But honestly, matchmaking was the farthest thing from my mind when I invited you. Warren misses you. These days, you spend all your time doing heaven knows what for Lord Fulkham.”

  That was precisely how Hart had gained the money to repay the funds he’d purposely cheated her brother out of to keep the man from hunting down his exiled cousin.

  For the past few years, Hart had been spying, first abroad and more recently in England, for the undersecretary of the foreign office. Indeed, Fulkham was grooming him to step into the position of spymaster, something Hart was considering now that Fulkham had become foreign secretary.

  Hart liked the work. It challenged and intrigued him in ways his position in the army hadn’t. That was why he’d sold his commission a few months ago. His future looked brighter by the day.

  So he ought to find a wife. Unfortunately, he’d only ever wanted to wed one woman, and he’d lost her long ago. She’d vanished during those years he was posted abroad, and his few brief leaves hadn’t enabled him to find her. He’d even considered searching for her now that he was permanently situated in England—now that his skills as a spy had been perfected.

  But after eleven years, Miss Anne Barkley was probably the wife of some squire up in the north country, whom she was steadily providing with a string of progeny. It would explain why he hadn’t been able to locate her—her name had changed. And he simply couldn’t bear the thought of finding her happily married and thus out of his reach forever. So instead, he did nothing.

  Yet there didn’t seem much point in courting anyone else, when his image of the perfect woman was still only her.

  “You will stay, won’t you?” Delia asked, jerking him back to the present. “You don’t have to speak to a single young lady if you don’t want.”

  He snorted. He didn’t believe that for one minute. If Delia was here, then the other wives were, too, and they were all bent on marrying him off.

  “Besides,” she continued, “on Saint Valentine’s Day we’re having a charity sale of handiwork made by the Ladies of St. George’s Club.”

  “Wait a minute, who are they?”

  “You know, wives of the members. We’ve formed a charitable group.”

  A hen party, no doubt.

  “Anyway, the proceeds of our sale go to Burke Orphanage in nearby Shrewsbury. It’s for a good cause and I could use your help with it.”

  “How?” he asked, suspicious.

  “Entertaining the ladies from town who will be coming to buy things, of course. Having a few gentlemen around to charm them will help them be more generous with their purses.” When he eyed her askance, she added, “Do stay, Hart. It would please Warren enormously.”

  God, but the woman knew how to tug at a man’s guilt. “Will there still be cards? And shooting?”

  She brightened. “Of course. And fishing, too. You’ll have fun, I promise.” She surveyed his slapdash traveling clothes—a frock coat of brown wool, buff trousers, and a waistcoat he generally only wore among other men bent on masculine endeavors. “Although not until you change into appropriate attire for dancing.”

  “I have a better idea.” He winked. “I’ll simply go find my friends in the card room. No one there will care about my attire.”

  “You’re incorrigible,” she said with a rueful shake of her head.

  “That’s what all women say when a man won’t bend to their will.” He glanced about. “What room did you designate for cards?”

  She sighed. “The breakfast room. I take it you know your way there?”

  With a nod, he set off for the hall. Unfortunately, just at that moment the dance ended, so he was caught up in the swirl of ladies being led from the floor by their partners. In the confusion, he collided with a young miss.

  Or rather, with the young miss’s hat. The bloody thing was huge—a purple turban that billowed out so far from her head that the gauze ribbon trailing from it caught in his watch fob.

  “Good heavens!” she cried as she twisted around to face him.

  Then three things happened at once. Her turban fell off to dangle briefly from his watch fob before its weight carried it to the floor. The lady’s flaming red hair tumbled down about her ears. And as she pushed back the gorgeous locks to get a good look at him, he came face-to-face with the woman he’d given up on ever seeing again.

  “Anne!” he said hoarsely.

  She started, recognition showing in her freckled features. Then she narrowed her amber eyes on him. “How dare you!” And, scooping her turban up off the floor, she shoved past him to head for the door.

  “You’re in trouble now,” her dance partner said. “One thing you must never do to Lady Anne: come between her and her hats.”

  Hart well remembered those hats, each of them carefully trimmed by her to fit her unique, intriguing taste.

  Then the rest of the man’s words registered. Lady Anne? What the hell?

  He stalked out into the hall after her.

  Anne fumed as she marched toward the retiring room with her embarrassing hair bouncing about her shoulders. Hart wasn’t supposed to be here. Delia had been sure he wouldn’t attend, which was the only reason Anne had dared to come. The last thing she’d wanted was to encounter the scoundrel who’d courted her years ago an
d then given her up when the going got tough.

  Then to have him destroy her favorite turban, probably out of sheer spite, though she should be the one doing things out of spite, considering that—

  “Anne!” he called from behind her.

  Oh no. He didn’t even have the decency to leave her be. She quickened her pace, but the rascal caught up to her with deplorable ease, thanks to those long legs of his. Catching her by the arm, he pulled her around to face him. “Anne, stop and listen to me, for God’s sake.”

  The words, spoken in that familiar husky voice, burrowed under her skin the way he had done years ago, with his eyes the color of a fir forest and his wavy, chocolaty locks so very tempting to touch—

  Heavens, what was she thinking? She didn’t want to touch any part of him!

  She snatched her arm free. “What do you want, my lord?”

  The sharpness in her question made him pale. “To talk to you. You owe me that, at least.”

  “Why would I owe you anything?”

  The question seemed to genuinely surprise him. “Why do you think? You never answered my letters, for one thing.”

  Letters? He’d written her letters? “They probably never reached me,” she said baldly. “Father always had the mail delivered to him first, and he wouldn’t have passed on any missives from you. He didn’t approve of you, which is why he refused to let me marry you, which I’m sure you know.”

  Now he looked stunned. “I did not know. When I asked for your hand, he said he was refusing because you were only sixteen and too young to marry. I got the impression that once you were older, I might have a chance.”

  That surprised her. For years after his proposal, Papa had waxed eloquent to her and Mama on the subject of Hart’s reputation. “My age was one reason, yes. But not the main one.”

  “Then what was?” He crossed his arms over his chest, which had grown even more impressively broad in his years in the army. “I realize I’m merely a second son, but your father was merely a merchant in Stilford. How could he not have approved?”

  “Quite frankly, Papa thought you a gambler and a wastrel.”

  Hart winced. “I suppose the gambler part is fair.” He squared the massive shoulders that had always made her heart flip over, then got the stubborn look on his face that had always put her back up. “But I kept up with my pursuit of law at Cambridge. And if he didn’t approve of me, why didn’t he say so?”

  “How should I know?”

  A muffled whisper behind him caught her attention. They had an audience. It was only a few ladies, far enough down the hall to be unable to hear.

  Still, it reminded her to be cautious. Hart was Delia’s brother-in-law, and the last thing she wanted was to risk Delia’s friendship by being seen in a public argument with him.

  She lowered her voice to a placating murmur. “Perhaps Papa didn’t want to offend a marquess’s son and figured that telling you I was too young would end the matter.”

  A stormy expression crossed Hart’s features. “Then he ignored how passionately I expressed my wish to marry you. Otherwise, he would at least have had the courtesy to demand that I cease writing to you. Rather than confiscate my letters and never make me—or you—aware that—”

  “It was not—is not—proper for a gentleman to write a young lady without her parents’ permission.” Heat rose in her cheeks. “You know that.”

  He stepped closer, his eyes the soft green of freshly sprouted grass. “That didn’t seem to matter so much to you when I sent them through your maid,” he said in a decidedly intimate voice.

  “Step back, sir!” she hissed. “We’re being watched, and I do not wish to be grist for the gossip mill.”

  He set his shoulders. “I don’t care. And the Anne I used to know wouldn’t have cared, either.”

  Her temper flared, and she forgot all about the people behind him. Sarcasm dripped from her voice. “The Anne you used to know wasn’t worldly and didn’t realize that a young man might need money. That he might crave a young lady for her fortune. That he might go about with her, make her promises, and then merrily troop off to join the army without so much as a fare-thee-well once her fortune was denied to him.”

  She stared him down. “Meanwhile, a lady is always left to pick up the pieces, no matter what the circumstances. Even when she’s done nothing wrong except believe those promises.”

  “What? I tried to keep them! And I was not after your fortune, damn it.”

  “For pity’s sake, keep your voice down!” she whispered.

  Glancing back at the crowd forming behind him, he grimaced. When he faced her again, he kept his tone low and even. “Only if you agree to meet me in the library in an hour’s time. Otherwise, I swear I will dog you everywhere until we can discuss this more thoroughly and I can get my answers. That ought to give the gossips something to talk about.”

  “You . . . you . . . devil! I answered your questions!”

  “You answered one. You didn’t explain why, when I finally returned from India and went to Stilford in search of you, you were gone and no one knew where. Or why you—”

  “Fine,” she said tightly.

  Because she had questions, too. Like whether he really had gone in search of her. Why he was here. Why he acted as if he still cared about her.

  That was the only reason she would meet him. Not because it was so very good to see him and talk to him again, and certainly not because she wanted to take up with him again after all these years.

  Sadly, she could guess why he might renew his pursuit. But she would set him straight on that score, and then, when he abandoned his pursuit of her yet again, she would exorcise him from her heart forever.

  “We’ll meet in the library in one hour,” she confirmed.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  His heated gaze alarmed her anew. “But only if you promise to behave.”

  With the smile of a practiced seducer, he bowed. “Of course.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said, painfully aware that although the onlookers probably couldn’t hear them from down the hall, she dared not take any chances and be more explicit.

  “I will be a perfect gentleman,” he said blandly, though his eyes still held a certain wicked look she well remembered.

  “Good.” She tossed her ruined coiffure over one shoulder. She had too many memories of furtive, heart-stopping kisses in country lanes when he would sneak away from Cambridge and ride down to Stilford to meet her. She was having no more of those. “Because the moment you misbehave, I will march out of the room and you will never get your answers.”

  That wiped the wickedness from his face. “I only want the truth.”

  With a nod, she turned and hurried to the retiring room. She wanted the truth as well, and she meant to get it. But not by letting him lure her into his snare once more. Oh no. She would never do that.

  Now, if only she could convince her battered heart to heed her warnings.

  Two

  AN HOUR HADN’T given Hart much time. He couldn’t ask his friends or brother about Anne without having to explain things he didn’t have time to go into. Fortunately, Fulkham was here, and the spymaster knew how to be discreet. He also knew everything about anybody in society. So he had at least been able to explain why Anne was suddenly Lady Anne.

  Although it did irritate Hart that it had never occurred to him to ask Fulkham in the first place. But who could have known that Mr. Barkley, an obscure provincial merchant who would’ve been beneath Fulkham’s notice otherwise, would have inherited an earldom from a far-distant cousin, taking society by surprise? Mr. Barkley had been far, far down on the list of potential heirs until several family members had died over a period of a few years. Out of the blue, the man had become the Earl of Staunton with a small estate in Lancashire.

  Thankfully, he was dead now, which meant Hart might finally have a chance with Anne. If she showed up in the library and if she still suited him. He wasn’t sure she did. Because beco
ming Lady Anne seemed to have changed her into someone who cared what society thought. Who’d actually believed he’d been a fortune hunter, of all things! That wasn’t the girl he’d once loved.

  What if she now wished to acquire a grander husband than he could ever be? A marquess’s son had substantial social credit, but a second son whose eldest brother was about to see his first child born didn’t have quite so much. Knowing Warren’s luck, it would be a boy, which meant Hart wouldn’t inherit.

  Not that he would mind; he’d never wanted the title or estate. He enjoyed spying, and he wanted to get better at overseeing it, too—to learn more about the complicated rules of navigating England’s political waters.

  Let Warren manage the Knightford empire. Hart had a different dream, and he meant to pursue it fully. But if Anne had become a typical stiff-necked debutante protective of her dowry, with her eyes set on a titled and landed husband, she might not want that.

  The only thing that gave him hope was the fact that she still wore her flamboyant hats. Surely that was a sign that the Anne he used to know lurked inside her somewhere.

  “I’m here,” said a resentful female voice behind him.

  He whirled to find her standing in the pool of light from the sconce by the door, and his breath caught in his throat. She’d restored her coiffure—and her extravagant evening turban—and she’d never looked more fetching. Brilliant red curls framed her features, and her gown plumped up her ample breasts while not quite hiding a waist that was slightly thicker than was fashionable . . . one he already knew fit a man’s hands perfectly.

  Especially a large man’s hands, like his. He’d always been conscious that he wasn’t a dapper, finely proportioned Greek god like his brother. He was big and beefy and bold, not society’s idea of a handsome fellow. So he appreciated a woman with some flesh on her who didn’t seem to mind a man of some size.

  She’d never been society’s idea of a beauty, and that was precisely why he’d been drawn to her. Because she’d stood out. Like a peacock among swans, she hadn’t been an elegant debutante dressed in virginal white and groomed to make an excellent match. She’d been showy, like her hats. And she hadn’t cared what anyone thought about it.