Francis Rohan mounted the dais in the grand ballroom, slowly, surveying his assembled guests. He could recognize most of them. There were a number of new members to be welcomed into their hallowed halls, and he’d long ago lost interest in vetting them. Rolande was in charge of such things, and the newcomers were lined up, dressed like monks, with the ropes around their waists tied to each other. They alternated male and female, conveniently, though he doubted it would remain that way for long. He would sit in his chair and try to keep from drumming his fingers beneath the flowing lace cuffs, and watch while they went through their silly rituals, drinking from the sacred cup, a tacky piece of glass that was shaped like a phallus. He wasn’t quite sure what Rolande had planned next and he didn’t particularly care, as long as he wasn’t required to watch. He would stay long enough for his guests to scatter to their various pastimes and then he would visit his unwilling guest for more interesting sport.

There was only one thing that caught his attention. Marcus Harriman, Baron Tolliver, appeared to be missing. He was supposed to be one of the new members. Apparently he’d been a guest out at Château de Giverney during their last festivities, and acquitted himself well. And yet he’d suddenly chosen not to partake of the legendary pleasures of the Spring Revels? It didn’t fit with what Rolande had said.

Still, he wasn’t going to worry. Elinor had only met him once, and there’d been no offer of help forthcoming. If he felt any responsibility as head of the decimated Harriman family he appeared to have forgotten it, or doubtless he would have demanded that Elinor remove herself from his lustful clutches.

Except that Lord Tolliver had just as much interest in lust as he had. Perhaps more. All Rohan’s lustful feelings went in one direction and one alone. According to reports, Tolliver was more generous.

All this—frolicking, hadn’t Elinor called it?—would be going on for two weeks. The thought wearied him. At least he wouldn’t have to make an appearance more than once a day, to proclaim the motto and begin the Revels. He did so now, rising, his cloth-of-gold coat magnificent in the candlelight.

“Fais ce que tu voudras,” he pronounced the ancient words. “Do what thou wilt.” The resounding cheer made the candles waver, and he smiled faintly.

And then he turned around and left, as the adjoining doors were opened, and the festivities began.

Charles Reading was in the library, sitting cross-wise on one of the leather chairs, his booted foot swinging, a glass of claret in his hand. “You didn’t stay?” he inquired idly.

“As you see. You didn’t attend?”

“As you see,” Reading replied evenly. “Are we getting old, Francis?”

“My boy, you’re a child compared to me,” he protested.

“Oh, give o’er, Francis!” he said in a lazy voice. “I’m eight years younger—scarcely a child. I wonder why you like to fancy yourself older and wiser than anyone else. His grace the Duke of Leicester is in attendance tonight, and I believe the old gentleman turned eighty.”

“I gather his main pleasure at that advanced age is to simply watch,” Francis said, pouring himself a glass.

“Nothing wrong with that.”

“Then why aren’t you there, watching? It might keep your mind off other things.”

Charles sent him a dangerous look. “Other things such as what?”

“Such as your pathetic affection for Elinor’s sister.”

“Elinor, is it? I hadn’t realized the two of you had become so…intimate,” he said with just the touch of a sneer.

Rohan refused to be offended. “I’m enjoying the approach to the summit, my dear. Once reached I imagine I’ll quickly lose interest, so I’m putting it off as long as possible. And you? I trust someone a bit more…approachable has caught your eye?”

“No.”

“No?” Rohan echoed in mock horror. “My dear boy, you are ill. ‘Tell me no more of constancy, that frivolous pretense.’”

“You know nothing about it,” Reading said in a less than equable voice.

“Faith, I’m ‘as constant as a northern star,’” Rohan quoted back cheerfully. “For ‘there is nothing as constant as inconstancy.’”

“I’m not in the mood to swap poets with you, Francis,” Charles said.

“My dear, that voice could almost be called surly. Perhaps you should ride to Château de Giverney and give in to temptation,” he suggested.

“And be her ruination?”

“When has our kind ever cared about such things? Fais ce que tu voudras, child. Do what thou wilt. She won’t object, I promise you.”

Reading swung his head around, gimlet-eyed. “What do you mean by that?”

“Are you going to call me out, Charles? I meant nothing but that the poor chit is enamored of you, and if you choose, you could take advantage of that fact.”

“No,” he said shortly. “Let us talk of other things.”

“Certainly. Do what thou wilt,” he said mischievously. “Did I just hear you growl?”

“I went and looked around the street where you were shot,” he said grimly, changing the subject. “And we will resist discussing whether I wish the bullet had come a little closer. You are damn irritating at times, Francis.”

“It’s part of my charm.”

“I could see no way the shooting could have been an accident. It would have been a tricky shot to make, and I wonder at anyone even attempting it. It could have just as easily hit whoever else rode in the carriage with you, and it was woefully inadequate.”

“Woefully so,” Rohan echoed lightly.

“So who would most like to kill you?”

“Apart from you at this particular moment? The two men who covet my titles come to mind. My dear French cousin Etienne would be delighted to see me dead. He’d come into the title, the estates, and he’d no longer have to sully his hands with common people. He really is the most insufferable snob. He thinks the canaille are subhuman, made only to serve him.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Oh, heavens, don’t tell me you’re a reformer?” Rohan said with deep distress. “I much prefer my creature comforts to a fair and just world. My servants are rightly terrified of me, and I never have to do a thing to prove how heinous I can be.”

“Everyone is rightly terrified of you, Francis.”

“With the exception of you, dear boy.” He thought for a moment. “And Elinor. I imagine that’s a great deal of her charm. Is Miss Lydia terrified of you?”

“We will not discuss her,” Reading said in a flat voice. “So tell me, do you think Etienne was behind the assassination attempt?”

“Probably not. He strikes me as someone more likely to use poison. I won’t say it’s impossible, but he wouldn’t be my first choice.” Rohan rose and poured himself another glass of wine. He held the decanter up in a silent question, and Reading responded by raising his glass to be filled as well.

“Who else?”

“There’s my dear English cousin, the one who currently thinks he holds my title.” Rohan’s lip curled. “The so-charming Joseph Hapgood.”

“If you were dead there’d be no claim on it. He’d have it free and clear,” Reading pointed out.

“He already has it free and clear, as long as I’m exiled from England upon pain of death,” Rohan said lightly. “And I don’t fancy ending up on Tower Hill, separated from my head.”

“Something could be done about that. You could apply to the king…”

“I doubt the so-called king has forgiven the rebellion. And my case might strike a little close to home. One man with a stolen title and the true heir wishing to claim it?” Francis shook his head. “I think his clemency is unlikely.”

“Francis,” Reading said in an uncharacteristically gentle voice. “Culloden was over twenty years ago.”

“A blink of the eye, dear boy. Shall we make a bargain? I will refrain from discussing Miss Lydia if you keep away from the subject of my lamentable ancient past. It is of no importance to me. Lost causes are distressing. Let us return to whoever is trying to murder me. It’s not going to be Joseph Hapgood. Did I tell you he visited me a few years ago? I don’t remember where you were at the time. Delightful fellow. Hates Yorkshire. He’s a farmer, you know. Already had vast estates in Cornwall, a plump wife and eight children. Probably more at this point—he seemed exhaustively procreative, both in agriculture and offspring. He says he never really wanted the title or the responsibility.”

“And you believed him?”

“Most certainly I believed him. I believe he still had a whiff of cow dung clinging to his boots. He would give up the title most happily if he could.”

“And what did you tell him?”

“That I never considered him to have it in the first place,” Rohan said sweetly. “Not the most tactful thing to say in the circumstances, but he’s the annoying kind of man who refuses to take offense, no matter how hard I tried to give it. So no, he wouldn’t kill to ensure there was no other claim on the title. He’d much rather do without it.”

“So we eliminate one suspect. Who else?”

Rohan shrugged. “I have no idea. I did have an entirely contrary theory, one that has absolutely no substance in any kind of common sense, but the idea has stayed with me. Suppose I was not the intended target?”

“You think someone was trying to kill me?” Reading raised an eyebrow. “I have to say, Francis, that I do not boast the number of enemies to your credit.”

“Not you, my boy. My dear Miss Harriman. I’d just delivered her in that selfsame carriage less than an hour beforehand. What if the assassin thought she was the one in the carriage beside me and was aiming for her?”

“And why should anyone want to kill Miss Harriman?”

“I have no idea. But you know I was ever a fanciful creature, and the idea has stuck. I wonder about the fire as well. Lady Caroline could barely move or speak except in moments of extreme agitation, and her bed was well removed from the fire. How did she manage to escape and start the conflagration?”

“Is that what they think happened?”

“It is. It was quite clear the fire was started by artificial means. Which means your sweet Lydia was put at risk as well.”

He could see Reading stiffen for a moment, then deliberately relax. The man was pathetic, Rohan thought. In love, like a calfling, besotted by a pair of blue eyes and a pretty face. Lord save him from ever becoming so obsessed.

“Which still begs the question,” Reading said. “Why would anyone want to kill Miss Harriman?”

“What do you know of the new Baron Tolliver?” Rohan countered.

The contract lay on the table, elegant foolscap written in a fine hand. Miss Elinor Harriman agrees to remain in residence at Maison de Giverney until the end of Lent, while her sister resides at the château. And her signature on the bottom, written with a hostile flourish.

It was far from the first contract she’d signed. While most of working-class Paris made do with a handshake, there were still any number of issues involving her mother and their motley family that had required contracts of one sort or another.

And she was about to break one.

She could tell herself it was his fault. He’d forced her, blackmailed her into this position, and she was simply doing what she had to do. They were his just deserts.

So why did it feel so dishonorable?

It didn’t matter. Someone in this vast household had taken pity on her. The ordinary cloak and new boots had appeared hidden in her bed, like one of the pillows, with a note and purseful of coins. Escape when you can, the note read, and Elinor would be a fool not to.

She had friends in this household. She could even count Willis and Jeanne-Louise as people with sympathy toward her situation.

But it was unlikely that any of them could write, particularly with a fine, masculine hand.

And then it came to her. Mr. Reading. He was enamored of Lydia, though for some reason he’d kept his distance. Maybe rescuing her gauche older sister was his way of winning Lydia’s favor. Except as far as she could see, Lydia’s favor was a foregone conclusion, and it was Mr. Reading who was diffident.

Escape was all well and good, she thought, feeling particularly cranky. But where did one go, if one managed to actually leave the house? Obviously she’d head for the château and extricate Lydia. Mrs. Clarke certainly wouldn’t stop her. But how did one leave in the first place when one was a prisoner? She had no idea how to get out without running afoul of Jeanne-Louise, or, heaven spare her, Rohan himself. He seemed to roam the halls like a bat, waiting to pounce.

She had no idea whether bats actually pounced or not. And Rohan wasn’t at all like a bat, which were horribly ratlike and not to her preference at all.

Rohan was like some kind of cat. When she was very young Nanny Maude had taken her to an exhibition of wild animals in Hyde Park, and there were all sorts of huge, exotic cats. Rohan wasn’t a lion, he was one of the others. Sleek and black and dangerous, with hard eyes and a strange beauty. Rohan was like some kind of cat.

And she was a mouse. A mouse who snarled. And had teeth. An angry little mouse who fought back.

For the first time in what seemed like forever she giggled.

“What’s so amusing, my precious?”

She jumped. She’d given up locking and barring her doors—he always seemed to find a way past them. This time he’d simply strolled in from her dressing room, moving as silently as…a cat.

She couldn’t help it, she giggled again. Once started, it was very hard to regain her composure. “I was thinking about you, my lord,” she said in a dulcet tone.

He raised an eyebrow. He looked particularly elegant tonight, and she remembered it was the beginning of the Revels. “You were thinking about me and laughing? How very damaging to my self-esteem.”

“Actually I was laughing about me. I was envisioning you as some kind of cat, playing games with me, but that, unlike a timid little mouse, I fought back with hisses and fangs.”

“Hisses and fangs, dearest? Oh, surely not. You really do have the strangest notion of your charms.”

Elinor snorted, an act Nanny Maude had always deplored. “To what do I owe the honor of your visit, my lord? Your vast orgy begins tonight. Shouldn’t you be planning on ruining some innocent?”

“But you see, poppet, I am.” He took a seat on the divan, glancing around him with great interest, and she could only thank God she’d had the sense to hide the clothes and money. “How have you been entertaining yourself? I sent an array of books to entertain you.”

“And lovely they were, though certain illustrated volumes were not to my taste. I don’t know what antiquities those drawings were taken from, and I doubt that such interesting contortions could actually take place. And I took leave to doubt the size of various portions of the anatomy of some of the people represented.” She managed to keep the flush of color, which had flooded her face when she first opened the volumes, away.

“Well, many of them were gods,” Rohan said carelessly. “Those were drawings taken from Roman ruins and temples in India. If you like, we can look at them together and I can explain which are exaggerations and which are not. I do believe most of the positions are feasible. I could be persuaded to attempt some of the more unlikely.”

It did no good to glare at him. “I found the books very…instructive, but now you may take them back. They are irrelevant to the life I intend to lead.” She could feel some of the color begin to creep up. Unfortunately she was remembering a particular plate, where the young lady, dressed in nothing but a silver girdle, was astride an Indian gentleman of quite astonishing proportions. She seemed quite happy about it, and Elinor inadvertently pictured Rohan in the place of the Indian gentleman.

“Indeed,” Rohan murmured. “You don’t intend to procreate?”

“Those books aren’t about procreation, they’re about…” Words failed her.

Rohan was ever helpful. “Lechery? Degeneracy? Ruination?”

“Pleasure,” she said.

She’d managed to startle him, which was almost worth bringing up such a dangerous word. “I beg your pardon, my dear Elinor. Did you just equate pleasure with coupling?”

“It must provide pleasure,” she said frankly. “Otherwise why would they continue to do it? Why would you hold these ridiculous parties where people can fornicate in public, if they don’t find pleasure in it?”

He smiled at her, an enchanting smile that must have seduced a hundred women. Or more. “There is great pleasure in it, child. I’ve offered to show you more than once.”

“It’s a pleasure I can do without, my lord,” she said.

“I don’t think so,” he said softly. There was a gleam in his hard blue eyes, at odds with his faint, charming smile, and she was held captive by that look for a long, breathless moment. And then it was past. “So why don’t you tell me the truth about your lurid past, my dear? You know I don’t believe your tales of music teachers and actors. You would be far more receptive to my delicate overtures if you’d ever consorted with…how did you put it…pleasure?”

She was going to escape, she reminded herself. She would have enough money to get away from him, enough to book passage back to England if that’s what she wanted. He could never return to those shores—she would be well and truly safe.

If telling him the truth, which she’d never told another living soul, would keep him occupied for the evening, then so be it. She took a deep breath, determined to be calm and unemotional.

“My mother sold me as a bed partner to a friend of hers, a gentleman who was so terrified of the clap that he only bedded virgins. I remained in his service for three months before he found a replacement.”

“Indeed,” he said, not sounding particularly shocked. “Was he kind to you?”

“No. He didn’t speak to me. He rutted.”

“And how old were you, my pet?” His voice was silky soft.

“Just turned seventeen. There’s no need to feel sorry for me. I agreed to it. Agreed to become a whore.”

“And why was that?”

“My mother said he preferred Lydia.”

“Ah. And what was this gentleman’s name?”

If he’d shown pity it would have been unbearable. His calm curiosity had the desired effect—it kept her recital calm and matter-of-fact. “Why would you want to know that?”

“Simple curiosity, my pet. His name?”

“Sir Christopher Spatts. He went back to England, I believe, and married.”

“Did he indeed?” Rohan was very still and calm, almost unnaturally so. “And did your mother continue to barter you to her acquaintances?”

“Hardly. I’ve lived a life of blissful celibacy ever since. I’m not made to be a courtesan. My only value to Sir Christopher was my virginity. Without that and lacking a pretty face I had no value to anyone.”

For some reason she wanted him to say something. To tell her she had value to him. God, she wanted him to tell her she was pretty! How pathetic!

He rose, graceful in his cloth-of-gold coat. “I was going to continue your education, my dear Elinor, but I find I have something more important that has arisen. I know it will desolate you to know I’m not going to teach you about your breasts tonight, but there will be other times.”

Odd, but his words set a sudden, ridiculous tingling in her breasts, almost as if he’d touched them. In the pictures, grown men had suckled on the breasts of women, something that surprised her. Now, with the sudden tight sensation his words had inexplicably caused, she could begin to understand.

He crossed the room to her, graceful as ever, and she didn’t move from her chair, managed not to jerk away when one slim, elegant hand reached out to touch her face. “Poor poppet,” he said softly. “With no one to avenge her.”

She wanted to turn her face into his hand, to press her lips against his palm. She was mad. “My mother is dead, sir. I believe she was the one who sold me.”

“Indeed,” he murmured noncommittally. “I’ll let you rest tonight. Tomorrow is time enough to continue your education.”

“What if I don’t want to learn?” she said, trying not to tremble at the gentle touch.

His smile was genuine. “You will, my child. I assure you, you will.”