He should not have flirted with the girl.

West stood on the edge of the Worthington ballroom, watching Lady Georgiana dance across the room on the arm of the Marquess of Ralston. The man was rarely seen in the company of any but his wife, but there was no doubt that the Duke of Leighton had called in all of his chips – including his brother-in-law – that evening, in the hopes that the combined wealth and power of the Ralston and Leighton clans would blind Society into forgetting the lady’s past.

It wasn’t working.

She was all anyone in the room talked about, and it was neither her powerful champions nor her beauty that fueled the whispers.

And she was beautiful, all length and grace, smooth skin and silken hair, and a mouth – Christ. She had a mouth made for sin. It was no wonder she’d been ruined at such a young age. He imagined she’d had every boy for twenty miles salivating over her.

Idly, he wondered if she’d cared for the man who had taken advantage of her, and found he did not like the idea that she had. He had little patience for boys who could not keep their hands to themselves, and the idea of Lady Georgiana on the receiving end of those hands grated more than usual. Perhaps it was the child. No child deserved to be born into scandal.

He knew that better than most.

Or perhaps it was Georgiana, who looked every inch the perfect, pristine aristocrat, born and bred into this world that should be at her feet, and instead waited to eat her alive.

The orchestra stopped, and Georgiana had only a few brief seconds before she was in the arms of Viscount Langley – an excellent choice for husband.

West watched them with the eye of a newspaperman, considering their match from all angles. Langley was a big fish, no doubt – he’d recently assumed a venerable title that came complete with several massive estates, but he suffered from the great bane of the aristocratic existence – inheritances could be prohibitively expensive. Each of his properties had fallen into disrepair, and it was his responsibility to restore them.

A dowry the size of the one attached to Lady Georgiana would restore the earldom to its former glory, and leave him with enough money to double its size.

West did not know why the idea was so unsettling and unpleasant for him. She was neither the first nor would she be the last to buy a husband.

Nor to be sold to one.

For the price of a long-standing, irrelevant title. One valued only for its place in the hierarchy. Yes, it might buy her daughter silent judgment instead of vocal insult. And yes, it might buy that same young woman marriage to a respectable gentleman. Not titled, but respectable. Possibly landed.

But it would buy her mother nothing but snide barbs and hushed whispers. No additional respect, no additional care. Few of the aristocracy into which she was born would ever consider her worthy of their civility, let alone their forgiveness.

Hypocrisy was the bedrock of the peerage.

Georgiana knew it – he’d seen it in her gaze and heard it in her voice as she’d talked to him, far more fascinating than he would have ever imagined. She was willing to wager everything for her daughter, and there was tremendous nobility in that.

She was like no woman he’d ever known.

He wondered, vaguely, what it might be like to grow with the love of a parent willing to sacrifice all happiness for one’s sake. He’d had the love, but it had been fleeting.

And then he’d become the caretaker.

He resisted the memory and returned his attention to the dance.

Langley was a good choice. Handsome and intelligent and charming, and a skilled dancer, gliding the lady across the ballroom floor, underscoring her grace with his own. West watched her ivory skirts caress the viscount’s trouser leg as he turned her. Something about the way silk clung to wool briefly before giving in to gravity’s pull irritated him. Something about the way they moved, all grace and skill, grated.

He shouldn’t care. He was here for something else entirely.

So what had he been doing on a balcony making silly promises of social redemption to a girl he didn’t know?

Guilt was a powerful motivator.

The damn cartoon. He’d dragged her through the muck, as surely as her peers had done so a decade earlier. He’d been irate when it had run – hated the way it teased and mocked an unwed mother, a child who’d had no choice in the matter. He didn’t read The Scandal Sheet the way he read the rest of his papers, as he had little taste for gossip. He’d missed the cartoon, inserted at the last minute, before the pages went to print.

He’d sacked the editor in charge the moment he’d seen it. But it had been too late.

And he’d helped to further scandalize the girl.

She smiled up at Langley, and something tugged at West’s memory. He did not remember meeting the lady before, but he could not shake the idea that he had at some point. That they’d spoken. That she’d smiled at him in just the same way.

Lady Disrepute, they called her, in no small part because of him. It did not matter that she was everything they adored – young, aristocratic, and more beautiful than one woman should be.

Perhaps her beauty mattered most of all. Society hated the most beautiful among it nearly as much as it hated the least. It was beauty that made scandal so compelling – after all, if only Eve had not been so beautiful, perhaps the serpent would have left her alone.

But it was Eve who was vilified, never the serpent. Just as it was the lady who was ruined, never the man.

He wondered about the man in her case, again. Had she loved him?

The thought left a foul taste.

Yes, he would redeem the girl. He would make her the star of the season. It would be easy enough – Society adored its gossip pages, and easily believed the things it read in them. A few well-placed columns, and Lady Georgiana would marry her viscount and leave West’s conscience appeased and his focus on other, more important matters.

Matters that would ensure his freedom.

“You are not dancing.”

He’d expected the meeting – had attended the ball for it – but went cold at the words nevertheless, spoken with false cordiality at his elbow. “I do not dance.”

The Earl of Tremley chuckled. “Of course you don’t.”

West was mere days older than Tremley; he’d known the earl for his entire life, and hated him for nearly that long. But now Tremley was one of King William’s most trusted advisors, with tens of thousands of acres of the lushest land in Suffolk that earned him close to fifty thousand pounds a year. He was rich as a fictional king and had the ear of a real one.

West deliberately kept his focus on Georgiana, something about her helping to keep him calm. “What do you want?”

Tremley feigned shock. “So cold. You should show more respect to your betters.”

“You should be grateful that I resist pummeling you in public,” West said, taking his gaze from Georgiana, not liking the idea that his unwelcome companion might discover his interest.

“Big words. As though you would take such a risk.”

West grew more irritated, loathing the fear that whispered through him at Tremley’s words. Hating it. “I’ll ask again. Why are you here?”

“I noticed your column last week.”

He stilled. “I write a great deal of columns.”

“This one was in favor of abolition of the death penalty for theft. A brazen choice, for someone so… close to the situation.”

West did not reply. There was nothing to say here, in this room filled with people who did not worry about their futures. Who were not terrified of their pasts.

Who did not wait, every day, to be discovered. Punished.

Hanged.

Lady Georgiana spun away on the arm of her future husband, lost in the crowd as Tremley sighed. “It is so tiresome, having to threaten you. If only you would accept that this is our arrangement – I command, you act – it would make our conversations much more palatable.”

West looked to his enemy. “I own five of the most successful newspapers on the globe. You grow ever closer to destruction at the stroke of my pen.”

Tremley’s tone went cold and direct. “You own them thanks to my benevolence. That pen stroke would be your last, and you know it. Even if you got your law passed.”

As though he would ever forget that Tremley held such power.

As though he would forget that the earl was the only person in the world who knew his secrets, and could punish him for them.

Tremley had secrets of his own, however – dark secrets that would see him dancing on the end of a rope if West was correct. But until he had proof… he had no weapon against this man who held his life in his hands.

“I’ll ask again,” he said, finally. “What do you want?”

“There is a war on in Greece.”

“This is the modern world. There’s always a war on somewhere,” West said.

“This one is nearly over. I want the News of London to come out against the peace.”

A vision flashed, Tremley’s file in his office, filled with nervous speculation from men who were terrified of their names being published. Speculation about this war. About others. “You want me to oppose Greek independence.” When Tremley did not reply, he added, “We had soldiers on the ground there. They fought and died for this democracy.”

“And here you are,” Tremley said, the words snide and unpleasant, “alive and well. And free.”

West did not miss the earl’s point. At any moment, with a word from this man, West could be destroyed. Sent to prison for a lifetime.

Worse.

“I won’t write it,” West said.

“You don’t have a choice,” Tremley said. “You are my lapdog. And you had best remember it.”

The truth of the statement made it infinitely more infuriating.

But it would not be true for long, if he found what he was looking for.

West’s fist clenched at his side. He was desperate to use it, to pummel this man as hard as he’d wanted to when they were children, and he’d spent his days being taunted and teased. Hurt. Nearly killed.

He’d escaped, come to London, built a goddamn empire. And still, when with Tremley, he was the boy he’d once been.

A memory flashed, tearing through the darkness on a horse worth triple his life. Five times it. His sister bundled in his lap. The promise of the future. The promise of safety. Of a life worth living for both of them.

He was tired of living in fear of that memory.

He turned away from the conversation, feeling trapped, as he always did. Owned. Desperate for something that would destroy this man now, before he was forced to do his bidding another time.

“Why?” he asked, “Why sway public opinion away from peace?”

“That’s not your concern.”

West was willing to wager that Tremley was breaking any number of laws of king and country, and that was his concern. And the concern of his readers. And the concern of his king.

But most importantly, proof of it was enough to keep his secrets safe. Forever.

Alas, proof was not easily come by in this world of gossip and lies.

It had to be found. Bought, if possible.

Bargained, if necessary.

And there was only one man who had enough power to get what West himself had not been able to find.

“You shall do it,” the earl insisted.

He did not speak, refusing to voice his agreement to whatever it was Tremley asked. He had done the earl’s bidding before, but never anything that would so clearly derail the crown. Never anything that would so clearly risk English lives.

“You shall do it.” Tremley repeated, firmer this time. Angrier.

As the words were not a question, it was easy for West not to answer. Instead, he exited the ballroom, hesitating at its edge as the orchestra finished its set, looking back over the crowd, watching the throngs of aristocrats revel in their money and power and idyll.

They did not understand what fortune smiled upon them.

He collected his coat and hat and headed for the exit, already at his club in his mind, calling for Chase’s messenger, calling in – for the first time – a favor.

If anyone could access Tremley’ secrets, it was Chase, but the owner of The Fallen Angel would want payment, and West would have to offer something massive for what he desired.

He waited on the steps of Worthington House for his carriage to emerge from the crush of conveyances waiting to be summoned by their masters and mistresses, eager to get to his club and begin negotiations with its owner.

“And here we are again.”

He recognized her voice immediately, as though he’d known it his whole life. Lady Georgiana stood behind him, with her clear eyes and her voice that somehow brought light with it – as though years away from this world, this place, had made her more than she could have ever been had she stayed.

He met her gaze, inclined his head. “My lady,” he let the words fall between them, enjoying the honorific, one he had never considered so possessive before now. Enjoying, too, the way her eyes widened at it. He repeated her words. “And here we are again.”

She smiled, soft and secret, and the expression sent a thread of pleasure through him. He stopped it before he could enjoy it. She was not for pleasure.

She came to stand next to him at the top of the Worthington House steps, looking down over the carriages assembled below.

It was early enough in the evening that they were alone, accompanied only by her maid and a collection of liveried footmen, all of whom were paid handsomely to disappear into the background.

“I realized after we parted that I should not have spoken to you,” she said, her gaze not wavering from where a footman scurried into the neighboring mews to locate her conveyance. She elaborated. “We have not been introduced.”

He looked to the crush of black vehicles. “You are correct.”

“And you are an unmarried, untitled man.”

He smiled. “Untitled?”

She matched the smile. “If you were titled, I would worry less.”

“You think the title would make you safe?”

“No,” she said, serious. “But as we established, a title would make you an excellent husband.”

He laughed at her boldness. “I would make a terrible husband, my lady. That, I can assure you.”

Her gaze turned curious. “Why?”

“Because I have worse traits than being unmarried and untitled.” That much was true.

“Ah. You mean because you have a trade.”

No, because I haven’t a future.

He let his silence be his reply.

“Well, it’s silly that we are taught to look down our noses at hard work.”

“Silly, but true.”

They stood for a long moment, each seeming to wish the other to speak first. “And yet it seems I need you.”

He cut her a look. He shouldn’t like those words. He shouldn’t want to be needed. Want to help her.

Shouldn’t find this woman so very compelling.

Shouldn’t need to remind himself that he did not think about her.

“It’s early,” he said, eager to change the subject. “And you are for home already?”

She wrapped her heavy silk cloak around her, blocking the chill from the night air. “Believe it or not,” she said dryly, “I have had something of a time tonight. I find myself quite exhausted.”

He smirked. “I noticed you found the energy to dance with Langley.”

She hesitated. “Would you believe he was forced into it?”

Not in the wide world. “I’m sure it was not a trial.”

“I am not so certain,” she said, her gaze clear and direct, “But he could do worse than my dowry.”

West hadn’t been thinking of her dowry. He’d been thinking of her – all long and lithe and lovely. He could have done without the ridiculous headpiece, but even with the feathers protruding from her coif, she was a beautiful woman.

Too beautiful.

He did not correct her misinterpretation of his words. “Much worse.”

For a long moment, there was silence but for the sound of approaching hoofbeats and carriage wheels. Her coach arrived, and she made to leave him. He didn’t want it. He thought of the feather from her hair, now in the pocket of his coat, and for a wild moment, he wondered what she would feel like there, against him. He resisted the thought. “No chaperone?”

She looked back to the little, unassuming maid standing several feet away. “I’m for home, sir. This conversation shall be the most scandalous thing I do all night.”

He could think of any number of scandalous things he might be willing to do with her, but blessedly, his curricle arrived and saved him from madness. She lifted a brow at him. “A curricle? At night?”

“I have to get through London streets quickly when there is news to be had,” he said as his groom leapt down from the conveyance. “A curricle works well.”

“And for escaping balls?”

He inclined his head. “And for that.”

“Perhaps I should acquire one.”

He smiled. “I’m not sure the ladies of Society would like it.”

She sighed. “I don’t suppose it’s proper for me to say, ‘Hang the ladies of Society.’”

She meant the words to amuse – spoke them with the perfect combination of ennui and wit to make a lesser man chuckle. A man who did not notice the underlying tone.

Sadness. Loss. Frustration.

“You don’t want it, do you?”

Her gaze turned surprised, but she did not pretend to misunderstand. He liked that about her. Her forthrightness. “This is my bed, Mr. West. In it, I shall lie.”

She did not want to return. She did not want this life. That much was clear. “Lady Georgiana,” he began, not entirely knowing what to say next.

“Good night, Mr. West.” She was already moving, trailed by an unassuming maid. Already down the steps headed for her carriage, which would take her away from this place, from this night.

From him.

She would regroup. Heal. And repeat the performance tomorrow.

And he would do his best to keep her safe from the horde.

He rarely took an interest in society, and even more rarely in its women, who were in large part more trouble than they were worth – all idle drama. But there was something in Lady Georgiana that seemed familiar, oddly. Something that echoed through him. Resignation, perhaps. Discontent. Desire – for what he did not know, but it was enough to intrigue him.

He watched her for a long moment, the way she moved, certain of her destination. Sure of herself. He found himself fascinated by the way her pale skirts seemed to chase after her, as though they might be left behind if they weren’t careful. The way one long arm reached out to keep her balanced as she lifted those skirts and entered her carriage.

He caught a glimpse of turned ankle in a gleaming silver slipper. For a moment, he was transfixed by that foot, slim and shadowed, until the door snapped closed and she was gone, her outrider – a massive man who had no doubt been hired by her wealthy brother to keep her safe – storing the stepping block away at the back of the carriage before climbing onto his perch and indicating to the driver that they should move on.

He imagined what he might write about her.

Lady G— is more than her reputation promises, more than scandal and past sins. She is something that we all wish we could have been – separate from our world. Somehow, ironically, despite her past, purer than all of us. Untouched by us. Which is perhaps her greatest value.

The words came easily. But then again, the truth always did write well.

Unfortunately, the truth did not sell papers.

He ascended the stairs to his curricle, pulling himself up into the seat and taking the reins, dismissing his groom for the night. He liked to drive himself; found solace in the rhythm of hoofbeats and the circling of wheels.

He followed behind the lady’s coach as it trundled at a snail’s pace, attempting to leave the Worthington property, and had no choice but to think of her, inside that carriage, with her thoughts. He imagined her staring out the window at the lanterns that hung on the carriages that remained along the street. Imagined her wondering how her carriage might have been with the others – might have been one of the last to leave that evening, after she had danced again and again and again, with a myriad of gentlemen until her feet were sore and her muscles straining from exhaustion. Imagined her thinking about the way she might have left the ball – not to escape Society, but as a queen of it.

If only she hadn’t been ruined.

He imagined her pretty eyes filled with regret, for all the things she might have been. All the things she might have done. All the life she might have led.

If things had been different.

He was so lost in thinking of the lady that he did not realize that she had missed her turn – the one to her brother’s home – and instead, she was headed through Mayfair, oddly, in his same direction.

He certainly wasn’t following her intentionally.

The carriage wheels clattered along the cobblestoned streets of Mayfair, turning down Bond – where the shops had closed for the evening – and then onto Piccadilly toward St. James.

It was then that he began to question where she was headed.

He allowed his curricle to fall back, for no reason at all, he told himself. He allowed a few carriages to come between them, barely able to make out the lanterns on her conveyance as it made the turn onto Duke Street, then cut into the labyrinth of streets and alleyways behind the men’s clubs of St. James. He sat up in his seat.

She was behind The Fallen Angel.

Duncan West was arguably the greatest newspaperman in London, but it did not take an investigative mind such as his own to recognize the truth.

Lady Georgiana Pearson, sister of the Duke of Leighton, with a dowry big enough to buy Buckingham Palace, and supposedly desperate for a restored reputation – one he had offered to secure for her – was headed straight for Britain’s most celebrated men’s club.

Which just so happened to be his club.

He stopped his curricle before making the final turn to the rear entrance of the club, leaping down and heading the rest of the way on foot, not wanting to draw attention to his presence. If she were seen here, her reputation would be destroyed forever. No man would have her, and her daughter would have no future.

It was a risk of outrageous proportions.

So what in hell was she doing?

West remained in the shadows, leaning against the alley wall, watching the great black carriage that had stopped, its occupant still inside. He realized that the carriage boasted no markings; there was nothing about it that would draw attention. Nothing but the enormous outrider, who climbed down from his perch, moving to bang on the heavy steel door that marked the back entrance to the club. A small slot opened, then closed when the servant spoke. The door opened, revealing a great black chasm – the dark rear entry to the club.

Still the doors to the carriage remained firmly shut.

Good. Perhaps she was reconsidering whatever idiocy this was.

Perhaps she would not exit.

Except she would. No doubt, she had before. No doubt, that was why she had such easy access to this club, run by London’s darkest men, any one of whom could destroy her without hesitation.

He should stop her. He moved to, coming off the wall, ready to cross the wide mews, tear open the door to the carriage, and give her what for.

But the outrider was closer than he, opening the door and setting the step on the ground below.

West hesitated, waiting for her, for her white skirts, and that innocent silver slipper that had been his last, lingering glimpse of her.

Except the slipper that emerged was in no way innocent.

It was sinful.

High-heeled and dark – too dark to tell the color in the spare light from the carriage – showcasing a long, slender foot that arched with perfection. He came off the wall where he’d been leaning, gaze focused as the foot gave way to ankle and then a sea of silk the color of midnight, the mass of fabric ending at the point of a corseted bodice, threaded and tightened to showcase a glorious bosom designed to make a man salivate.

He swallowed.

And then she stepped into the light, painted lips, kohled eyes, and blond hair gleaming platinum.

Blond wig gleaming platinum.

Recognition flared, and he swore in the darkness.

Shock soon gave way to the acute pleasure that came with uncovering a remarkable story.

Lady Georgiana Pearson was no innocent. She was London’s finest whore.

And she was his answer.