Julia sat at Alec’s large mahogany desk and opened the ledger. She carefully selected a pen and settled in for a satisfying hour of genuine labor. One page at a time, she slowly worked her way through the labyrinth of numbers, deciphered the vicar’s spidery handwriting, and wrote corrected tallies in the columns. As time wore on, her neck began to ache, but she doggedly continued.

She was a quarter of the way through when she lifted the pen from correcting a total. Black ink dripped from the nib and soaked into the paper, blotting out the carefully written figure. “Confounded ledger,” she muttered, frowning at the frayed nib.

“What was that?”

Startled, she dropped the pen. Ink splattered across the page in a decorative spray.

Alec’s smile hinted at devilment. Arms crossed, he leaned against the doorjamb attired in the tailored coat and knee breeches required by Almack’s.

At the sight of his clothing, Julia turned to where the ormolu clock should have been. “Is it eight already?”

“Past that. Lady Birlington will be wondering what’s become of us.” Shoving himself from the door frame, he came to stand at her shoulder. “What has so absorbed your attention that you have forgotten the time?”

She sighed. “Vicar Ashton asked me to take a look at the records, but I’m not sure if I’m correcting them or just making them worse.”

He leaned forward, one hand resting along the back of her chair, the other placed flat on the table. His hip brushed her shoulder and the subtle aroma of sandalwood and leather encircled her.

Her stomach quavered and she leaned away. If she didn’t put some distance between them, she would become a babbling idiot. “I’m not very good at accounts, but the vicar seemed to think I could do it.” She looked at the blotted page. “He was wrong.”

Alec turned the ledger to face him, his sleeve brushing against her cheek. “Perhaps. Let me see what is to be done.”

With unsteady fingers, Julia tucked a few stray wisps of hair behind her ears, reminding herself that such casual contact was a commonplace occurrence, and she should accustom herself to such happenings. Yet she couldn’t resist leaning ever-so-slightly to one side until her cheek just grazed his arm. She held her breath, but he didn’t move, apparently immersed in the sea of blots and figures. Julia savored the moment, closing her eyes and absorbing his warmth.

After a moment, his stillness seemed unnatural. Julia opened her eyes and swallowed, casting a glance up at him. He stared at her, his eyes dark with some swirling emotion. “I was planning on saving our kiss for the coach ride home. But if you wish, I could deliver it now.”

Mortified, she managed to squeak, “No, thank you.”

Smiling, he watched her through half-closed eyes, then shifted forward to point at an entry on the page. “That should be listed in this column here.” His hard thigh pressed against her arm. As far up in her seat as she was, there was no escape from that steady, licentious pressure.

Her chest constricted. She forced her unseeing gaze to the page. “Oh. That.” Despite her determination not to succumb to the sensual lassitude spreading through her limbs, the air thickened with unspoken meaning. As if to tempt her further, he subtly increased the pressure of his muscled thigh against her arm.

A welter of desire radiated into her chest and lower limbs. Any moment now, she would toss caution to the wind and wrap both her arms about his tempting thigh and hold onto him with all her might. She closed her eyes and fought a flood of unladylike impulses until Alec muttered an imprecation and moved to the other side of the desk.

Bereft, Julia stared at the forgotten ledger. Numbers danced and swayed, blurring together until she could no more add than read.

It doesn’t mean anything to him, she reminded herself, in as calm and orderly a fashion as a woman on the brink of indiscretion could manage. You forced him to give up his mistress, and now all his heated impulses are collecting, pooling within him, simmering like a volcano ready to erupt. But no matter the result, she could not regret having made such a demand. “If he had a mistress, he would never even look at you,” she muttered, forcing herself to return to the ledger one more time.

“Pardon?”

The hint of disbelief in his tone left her with no doubt he’d heard every word. Drat her impulsive tongue. Smiling brightly, she said, “Just talking to myself. I said, uhm, ‘If he had a seamstress, he would never heave a book at you.’”

“What?”

Clinging to her pride, she added doggedly, “It’s a child’s song I learned in Boston. I daresay you don’t know it, but it’s quite common there.”

He answered this with a skeptical lift of his brow, a hint of laughter in his gaze. “Sing it for me,” he said softly.

Julia blinked. “I can’t. It is bad luck to sing the same song twice. Indoors. On a Thursday.”

He chuckled. “It is even worse to lie to your husband.”

She assumed the most innocent expression she could and waited.

“Stop that.” His mock scowl was as endearing as his grin. “You are as bad a liar as you are an accountant.”

Alec returned to her side and opened a drawer and pulled out a large leatherbound book. He set it before her. “Let me show you a better way to set up your accounts, love. If you enter the income here with expenses listed so, you won’t have so many errors. As bills come in and are paid, you just move the amounts from this column to this column. That way you know at any date how much you owe and to whom.”

His ledger had nary a blotch nor blot on it. Every number beamed up at her, orderly and legible. Julia regarded the neat tally with a sinking heart. “I could never get our books to look like that. I suppose we’ll just have to hire someone.” It was disheartening how little she’d been able to contribute to the Society lately. She no longer had time to work with the women and she had thought that here, finally, was a way for her to contribute something.

Alec’s hand rested on her shoulder, his fingers brushing against the skin at her neck in a most disquieting way. “If anyone can make the Society productive, Julia, it will be you.”

The quiet confidence in his tone brought tears to her eyes. It was all she could do not to throw herself in his arms. She cleared her throat. “When did you learn to do accounts?”

After the slightest hesitation, he removed his hand. “Grandfather was determined that I possess some useful skills. He believed that any man who would trust another to watch over his funds deserved to be cheated of them.”

“Sounds like my father. He was forever telling Mother she shouldn’t trust every soul who came through the front door. She would just laugh and say Jesus didn’t dwell with the saintly, and neither should he.”

Her smile quavered and fell. At times she missed her parents more than she could bear. Slipping off her spectacles, she swiped at a stray tear with the back of her hand.

“Julia, what’s wrong?”

She sniffed and slid her spectacles back on her nose. “I was just thinking of this mess.”

“I can see where that would make you cry,” he said in a dry voice.

“Well, it does. I hate to leave things undone.”

Alec handed her his handkerchief, his gaze never wavering as she blew her nose. “Would you like me to take a look at the books? I’m not sure I could help, but I’d be willing to try. Meanwhile you can go and get dressed.”

Julia looked at him over the fold of his handkerchief. “Can you fix them?”

His mouth quirked into a lopsided smile. “Yes, if you have the original bills.”

“I can get them from the vicar tomorrow.” She blinked down at the blotched accounts. “We need it done by Friday, though. You’ll have to work fast.”

“Yes, madam,” he replied, his meek tone belying the laughter in his eyes.

Ignoring everything but his offer of help, she nodded. “Excellent.”

Alec gave her a wry smile and pulled a chair to the desk, sitting far closer to her than necessary. “Let me see how bad they are.” He slowly turned the pages, stopping now and again to shake his head when he came across an especially blotted entry. “I’m not sure who was worse, you or the vicar.”

“Probably me. I couldn’t get the nib on my quill quite right.”

Alec didn’t answer, already lost in the sea of numbers. The silence grew as he began adding rows of figures. Julia admired his strong profile. His long lashes fanned across his cheek, at odds with the strength of his jaw.

She really should go and dress. The Duchess of Roth wished to consult her about holding a charity ball, yet spending the remainder of the evening making idle small talk held no appeal. What she really wanted was to stay here, beside Alec, and watch him as he helped her with the accounts. For this one instant, it was as if they were a family.

Julia propped her elbow on the table and rested her chin in her hand. Perhaps she could use this time to her advantage. She regarded her silent husband through her lashes and waited until he had finished adding a particularly long column of numbers. “I had a very busy day today.”

He turned a page and began a new column. “Oh?”

“Yes.” She slid the inkwell and a silver engraved paperweight in front of her. “I hired a maid to assist Mrs. Winston.”

Alec lifted his gaze from the ledger, a hint of unease in the smoky depths. “She’s not some misfit, is she?”

“Heavens, no. Whatever makes you think that?”

He didn’t look especially convinced. “Is she from the Society?”

That irked her but she let it pass, spinning the paperweight on the desk. “No. She has never even been in Whitechapel that I know of.”

“Good.” He returned his attention to the ledger. “We don’t need another incident like Muck.”

She thumped the paperweight on the desk. “Muck was not an incident.”

“No, you were,” Alec said implacably, moving the paperweight from her reach and placing it back into the proper position beside the inkwell. “Fortunately, most people seem to have forgotten your scrape with the sweep.”

Julia regained possession of the paperweight and added a box of sand to her collection of objects, arranging them in a triangle. “Muck is an excellent page. He has worked hard.”

Alec pinned her with a stern stare that reminded her of the portrait of his grandfather that hung in the morning room. “I shudder to think of the amount of furniture that child has broken in this house.”

Now would not be a good time to mention the sadly bent silver epergne Mrs. Winston swore was a special favorite of Alec’s. The poor child was really not at fault, having fallen on it when he was trying to reach a spider hanging from the chandelier. “He is improving.”

“That boy is a hellion and deserves to be horse-whipped on a regular basis,” Alec said firmly.

Julia prudently held her tongue and tried to balance a silver-handled letter opener across the inkwell. Despite Alec’s grumbling, she had already seen him sneaking Muck candy on two occasions. Julia suspected her husband was more like his grandfather than he knew, all grumbly and gruff on the outside and soft and warm on the inside.

If she could only convince Alec to open his house to one Miss Desiree L’Amour. To Julia’s amazement, she’d found Nick’s estimation of the actress entirely correct; Desiree was as innocent as she was simple. Worse, the young girl was not more than seventeen, with a fatal addiction to trinkets that could only be described as vulgar.

To anyone familiar with the ways of the world, it would not be long before Miss L’Amour was importuned into a life of sin and corruption. And Julia would not put it past Nick to be the one to do it. Thus she had no choice but to offer Desiree immediate employment in the Hunterston household.

Convincing the girl to give up an exciting career in the theatre had taken some doing. But once Julia had promised a genuine diamond bracelet for her efforts, Desiree had agreed, arguing only that she could not possibly leave the theatre until the current production ended its run. Julia suspected the girl’s loyalty sprang more from admiration for the silver costume she wore than anything else, but Julia had agreed, knowing she needed time to alert Alec to the arrival of this newest addition to his staff.

She glanced at Alec. “The new maid will be of immense help with the dinner party.”

The quill hovered over an especially blotched page. “What dinner party?”

“Lady Birlington seems to think we should hold a small gathering here. Nothing large, just five or so couples. I thought next week would serve.”

“If she says it is important, then I suppose we must. Be sure to invite Lucien, would you? He returned yesterday.”

“Of course.” Julia turned her efforts to balancing the letter opener between the inkwell and the paperweight and said casually, “It would be very small, just the thing for Desiree.”

Alec frowned. “Desiree?”

“The new maid.”

“Oh, yes.” He turned the page. “Sounds French.”

Actually, she suspected Desiree was from Cornwall. Julia frowned. Despite her belief that the new maid was a complete innocent, she could not rid herself of the idea that somewhere lay a trap. Nick was not the type of man to assist anyone, no matter how beautiful they happened to be. Still, it was gratifying to be able to help the poor girl and soon Julia would be in a position to help others like her.

Her heart swelled at the thought of hiring more servants. If all went well with Desiree, Julia would hire a cook, a kitchen maid, and maybe even a lady’s maid. Of course, she would choose only the worthiest candidates. It would be difficult, as they all deserved another chance. Deep in thought, Julia propped her chin back in her hand, her elbow jiggling the table.

The box clattered off the makeshift bridge onto the table and sent a spray of sand across the ledger. “Oops. Sorry.”

Alec regarded the trail of white grains that crossed the page and sprinkled the front of his black coat. “You, madam, are worse than Muck.” His gaze rested on her for a moment, traveling slowly across her face, resting on her mouth. “Only much, much prettier.”

Despite her determination to remain unmoved by his casual flirtation, Julia’s face flushed. “I meant to say something about that.”

He lifted his brows, a faint smile hovering over his mouth. “About how pretty you are?”

“No. About the new maid. Desiree was cruelly persecuted for her appearance at her last place of employment.” Julia scraped the loose sand back into the box, careful not to meet Alec’s gaze. “I just thought you should know.”

Alec sighed, already seeing where she was heading. Before Julia was through, they would be forced to remove all of the mirrors in the house lest they crack in horror. “Everyone suffers from something, Julia.”

“You don’t know how it is to be judged by your appearance.”

Hurt darkened her green eyes. Alec stared at her for a long moment, trying to discern whether she referred to herself. It was difficult to remember that the elegant woman who now sat across from him had once been a poorly turned out, dowdy chaperone. Dressed in a pretty pink-striped muslin ornamented with cherry ribbons and a graceful fall of lace, she would appear perfectly at home in the most elegant salon. He wondered if she even realized how attractive she had become.

Julia caught his gaze and offered a tentative smile. “I know you don’t like a lot of servants falling over themselves and getting in the way, but Mrs. Winston needs some assistance.”

“I hope your protégée is thankful you put her in the way of such a respectable position.”

“Oh, she is!” Julia stared at the paperweight, as if mesmerized by the lights playing across the silver surface. “I don’t know if you are aware of it or not, but there is a lamentable shortage of good help in town. Aunt Maddie and I alone know of three households desperate to find trained servants.” Julia folded her hands, met his gaze, and announced, “That is why the Society is opening a servant referral service. It is the perfect solution for the women.”

Alec caught the inkwell just before it, too, tumbled across the ledger. He placed it firmly out of reach. “Nonsense. You cannot pass those women off as virtuous housekeepers and maids.”

“Pass? Heavens, no. By the time we get through training them, they will be virtuous.”

“But how—” He caught sight of her expression. “You are serious.”

Julia’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “We had the most horrible time trying to find the proper employment for the women.” She chuckled, a delicious, throaty sound. “We even thought of opening a sausage plant.”

“Good God!” he said, realizing what a close escape he’d had. The idea of hiring out servants suddenly seemed more reasonable. He noted her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. It was amazing, really. His wife was thrilled at the prospect of teaching a group of soiled doves how to make scones and serve tea. Nothing delighted her more than her charity work.

In a way, it was a very lowering thought.

Julia propped her elbow on the table and leaned her chin into her palm, a glowing smile lifting the corners of her wide, sensual mouth. “We will hire existing servants, excellent ones like Mrs. Winston and Burroughs, and pay them to do the training. Perhaps I should invite a few leaders of the ton to see how very well the servants perform and then—”

“Invite them? Invite them where?”

She turned a bewildered face to him. “Here, of course.”

Alec shut the ledger. “Julia, you cannot bring your Society work into this house.”

“Someone must sponsor this project, and it may as well be me.”

He pushed away from the table. “We cannot afford a scandal.”

“There won’t be a scandal. All we have to do is find one or two genteel women and train them to—”

“They are not genteel women, Julia. They are prostitutes and whores. You cannot change that.”

She stiffened. “They are reformed women, Alec. Forced by circumstances to do what was necessary to survive.”

For a second, a pang of something uncomfortably close to jealousy pinched at him. He wondered what would happen if she ever committed her heart to him with the same fervor she spent on her reform efforts.

Sighing, he leaned back in his chair. “I am not saying these women didn’t have a reason for what they did, nor am I suggesting they don’t deserve your compassion. It’s just that you cannot continually foist your projects onto the ton.”

“But the Society—”

“The Society knows you as Julia Frant, not Viscountess Hunterston.” He frowned. “I must have been crazed to have allowed even that. If I’d thought you would carry this so far, I would have put an end to your association with the Society from the first.”

She stood, eyes flashing sparks of outrage. “Of all the insufferable….” Her hands balled into fists. “I should remind you that it was my idea to keep my identity concealed. And that was only because you were concerned there would be talk about my visits to Whitechapel.”

Alec’s determination rose to meet hers. The season would be over in less than a month and the majority of their social responsibilities would be at an end. They were too close to success to take chances.

He shoved back his chair and faced her, hands splayed across the desk. “If the Society decides to pursue this path, Julia, it will be without you. The cost is too high. You won’t be able to help anyone if we lose the funds.”

That froze her in her place. He sat down, pulling the ledger to him. “Get dressed, madam. Lady Birlington awaits us at Almack’s. The doors close at eleven.”

A frosty silence met his command, but he forced himself to keep his gaze on the ledger before him, holding the quill so tightly that it bent.

Finally, when he’d begun to believe she would flout him, she sniffed. “I will be ready within a half-hour.” With a flip of striped cherry muslin, she disappeared out the door.

As soon as it closed, Alec tossed down the broken quill and raked a hand through his hair. He had little doubt he could have won the argument based on sheer logic, but it was a relief not to have to engage Julia in battle. She would fight to her last breath and confound him with emotional appeals until he forgot his purpose—something he could not afford to do.

Sighing heavily, he pushed the ledger away, the leather cover grating on the sandy surface of his desk. Life with Julia was filled with unexpected twists and turns—not all of them pleasant, but at least there was never a minute of boredom. Between her disrupting his household with street urchins, firing his chef, and blithely stumbling from one potential scandal to the next, Alec was never sure what each day would bring.

But he had dealt well with her this evening, he thought, suddenly proud he had stood firm. She had presented him with one of her outlandish ideas and he had told her no, just as a husband should. An odd feeling of triumph flittered through him, and yet…he glanced at the door.

He could not reconcile himself with Julia’s sudden acquiescence. Somehow, he knew he hadn’t heard the last of this.