Author: Anne Stuart

“I might be sleeping.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised, with you out and about at all hours … damn, it’s cold in here! Why don’t you have your maid set a fire?”

“Because I’m trying to be careful with money,” she said.

“Why? The family has plenty …”

“I’ve put you all through enough as it is,” she said stubbornly, wishing she’d thought to put on her slippers. It was hard to be noble when her feet where like blocks of ice.

“That’s what I’m here to talk to you about, Miranda,” he began. “You can’t …”

“You can’t stand there and lecture me while I’m freezing,” she interrupted him, knowing instinctively what was coming. “Go downstairs and eat a large breakfast and Jane and I will join you as soon as we’re dressed.”

“Jane?” He perked up. “What’s she doing here? I thought she’d be busy getting ready for her wedding to old Bore-well.”

“He’s not old. And his name’s Bothwell, and that’s exactly what she’s doing. Her parents are travelling, and she’s here in London choosing fabrics for her trousseau and keeping me company.”

Brandon looked at her critically. He was young—a mere seventeen and a half—but he knew her well. “I thought you disliked Bore-well as much as the rest of us did. What made you change your mind?”

She took his arm and dragged him to the open door, shoving him through. “Allow me time to get dressed and then we’ll talk, you reprobate.”

“All right. But don’t think you’re going to weasel out of this. I’m just the first advance—the rest of the family are going to descend on you the moment they hear about what you’ve been doing.”

She knew. Without asking, she knew what had put her family into an uproar. Lucien had warned her. Friendship, with the Scorpion, even for one such as her, was out of the question.

“We’ll talk about it once I’m dressed,” she said and slammed the door shut in his earnest young face.

She turned and caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. She hadn’t been ruthlessly kissed by a criminal last night, but she had the same vibrant look on her face that Jane had had after the masked ball. Every day she spent with Lucien she ended up looking just like that. The flush of color, the shining eyes. Damn.

Miranda’s was an entirely different matter, of course. Lucien was her friend, her first friend in a long, long time, and she wasn’t about to give him up without a fight. Brandon could lecture her about how awful he was, but it wasn’t going to stop her.

She rang for Martha, who helped her dress for battle in dove-gray with faux military trim, gray leather boots and her brown hair tightly pinned and pulled back from her face. As the moments passed her determination grew—her family had been wonderful to her, supporting her foolish choices, and she owed them everything. But she just couldn’t give him up.

By the time she walked into the dining room her heart was pounding and her hands were sweaty, which was ridiculous. It was her darling baby brother she was facing, not some ogre. Jane was already up, sitting beside Brandon at the table, picking at her food while he plowed through a heaping plate of eggs and kippers, and she could only hope food had moderated his stern frame of mind.

“There you are,” he said, rising automatically like the exquisitely polite young man that he was. “What took you so long?”

She waved him back down into his chair, heading for the sideboard. The sight of food made her stomach lurch in rebellion, but she filled her plate determinedly before turning to join the two of them. “Give me a moment, darling. If you’re going to scold I need to fortify myself.” She took a piece of dried toast and began to munch on it, trying to delay things.

“I most certainly am going to scold.” Brandon had abandoned his plate at the sight of her, convincing Miranda of the seriousness of the matter. It took a great deal for Brandon to ignore food. “What in God’s name do you think you’re doing? How long has this been going on? Jane says at least two weeks.”

She cast Jane a reproachful look, and her friend had the grace to flush guiltily. “I had to tell him, Miranda. You don’t realize what a close call you’ve had.”

Miranda resisted the temptation to tell Jane her own close call was a great deal worse. “All right,” she said wearily, picking up her cup of tea. “Tell me how evil I’ve been.”

“Not evil, Miranda,” Brandon said earnestly. “Just thickheaded. You didn’t know what you were doing.”

“You do realize that I’d rather be evil than stupid, don’t you?”

He grinned at her. “No, you wouldn’t. And I know you’d hate letting another man make a fool of you. But the truth is, you can’t go anywhere near the Scorpion, and someone should have told you earlier. Our family has an unfortunate history with the man, and even I don’t know all of it. Back when it happened they decided that you should be spared the sordid details, and everything was hushed up, and even Jane didn’t know.”

“Back when what happened?” she echoed. “What in the world are you talking about?”

“I told you, I don’t know the details, I just know he’s trouble. Particular trouble for the Rohans. You need to take my word for it.”

“Well, I’m not taking your word for it. What mysterious connection is there between our family and Lucien?”

“Lucien?” Brandon practically spat his tea across the table. “You call him Lucien?

“We’re friends. And why do you know about this history at all when I’m six years older than you are?”

“I’m a man,” he said simply.

“You were a boy.”

“Don’t try to distract me. You can’t go anywhere near Lucien de Malheur, and if you happen to see him in public you need to cut him dead.”

“I’m not going to do that.” She set down the dry piece of bread, untouched. “I’ve been cut dead by people I counted my loyal friends, people I’ve known all my life. I would never do that to another human being. Not without a very good reason, and you have yet to give me one.”

“He’s not a human being, he’s the Scorpion.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, why is he called that?” she said, annoyed.

“Because he’s elegant, slithery and lethal. He stings without warning and his stings can kill you.”

Miranda made a rude noise. “Someone’s been reading too many Gothic stories. What evil thing did he ever do to our family that makes him so dangerous?”

For a moment Brandon looked blank. “I told you, I don’t exactly know details. I do know he’s reputed to be hand in hand with King Donnelly.”

“Who’s King Donnelly?” At least the tea was soothing her. She added more sugar for sustenance.

“Jacob Donnelly is the king of the London underworld. He rules the thieves and the fences, the smugglers and the pickpockets. He can arrange a murder at the drop of a hat, steal a diamond ring off your finger, all with a smile and an ‘if you please.’ Rochdale has a hand in his criminal activities, so they say, and that’s part of how he’s built his family fortune back up.”

Jane had turned an alarming shade of white, but Brandon hadn’t noticed, still intent on his sister. Miranda rose, ostensibly heading for more food, and put a reassuring hand on Jane’s shoulder as she passed her. “Well, Lucien would hardly bring such a man into society, now would he?”

“There’s nothing he wouldn’t dare.”

“I don’t care, Brandon. He could be running prostitutes from out of his house and it wouldn’t matter to me. I find him a pleasant, charming companion who certainly means me no ill, and I intend to keep seeing him.”

“If you do, I’ll be forced to call him out.”

She couldn’t help it, she laughed, a blow to Brandon’s somewhat shaky amour-propre. “You can’t,” she said. “He has a bad leg.”

Brandon immediately retreated into sulks. “He’s a cripple? No one told me that.”

“I don’t know that I’d call him a cripple, exactly,” Miranda said. She turned to Jane. “Do you know anything about our family and the earl?”

“Of course not,” Jane said as she nervously tore her bread into tiny pieces that fluttered down onto her untouched plate like snowflakes. The immovable diamond ring flashed on her hand. “If I had I certainly would have told you. I tell you everything. I trust you.” There was no missing the subtext in her pleading eyes.

“True, we would never betray each other,” Miranda assured her. She glanced across at her brother. “Then clearly there’s only one answer for it. I’ll have to ask him myself.”

Brandon was in the midst of taking a sip of coffee and proceeded to choke on it. She rose to her feet, determination washing away her doubts. “I’m certain you’re making a great deal of fuss over nothing, and I despise seeing someone else treated as I have been, for an error in judgment. If you could simply tell me what Lucien de Malheur had ever done to harm our family then perhaps I might be willing to listen.”

“He hasn’t,” Brandon said.

She froze on her way out the door. “He hasn’t done anything to harm our family?” she repeated in a dangerous voice.

“The fear is that he might.”

She allowed her disgust to show on her face. “I would have thought better of you, Brandon,” she said in stern accents and swept from the room.

The day was overcast and chilly, but Miranda was in a white-hot rage, with no patience to wait for either a horse or a carriage to be summoned. It took her but a moment to acquire a pale gray pelisse and bonnet, and she was out on Half Moon Street, striding forward with determination, her footman valiantly trying to keep up with her.