“All women care about such things, Jacob. Don’t worry about me. We all do things that are perhaps unwise. I should keep away from Lady Miranda. You should keep away from practicing your thieving skills and let your associates do the job. But what’s the fun in that?”

Donnelly laughed. “You have a point. Except you stand to benefit with a tidy portion of the proceeds from my little gamble. Whereas if you marry that girl I’ll get nothing but headaches.”

“You’ll get a business partner who’s more versed in dealing with revenge and business at the same time. Now go away and let me get some sleep.”

“It’s only four. The shank of the evening,” Donnelly mocked, heading for the French doors that led directly to the gardens, bypassing curious servants. “Don’t let that girl tire you out.”

“It will be the other way around, as soon as I can manage it. I expect I will be taking her away once I have her, rather than let her family interfere with our so-happy honeymoon. So you can count on my presence in London being sporadic for several months. I trust our business can survive without me?”

“‘Course it can, guv’nor,” he said, letting his voice drop into a thick cockney drawl. “Just be careful it don’t survive so well that we don’t need you back.”

Lucien smiled thinly at him, the expression that could put the fear of God into his servants, his associates and anyone he happened to run across. It left Donnelly completely unmoved. “I’m not about to give up my investments that easily.”

Donnelly snorted. “Then I’ll be wishing you many felicitations. Maybe I’ll have to give your blushing bride some of Lady Carrimore’s diamonds as a wedding present.”

“If my wife needs diamonds, I’ll see to it.”

“I’ll come up with something.”

A moment later he was gone, into the shadows with the same grace that he’d used since he was a boy, Lucien thought. Theirs was a strange business arrangement, complicated by an unlikely friendship.

They had known each other for many years. Young Jacob had found his way onto a ship borne for the tropics, indentured to a pair of wealthy male planters, and he’d run away, ending up at the decaying ruins of La Briere, the plantation house of the de Malheurs. Lucien had been living there alone, the only survivor of a virulent outbreak of cholera, and the two young men, barely more than boys, had bonded together, determined to escape.

Escape they had. Jacob had ended up back in London, and within a decade was responsible for the thieving kens and smuggling imports controlling half of the city. He no longer had to do the dirty work himself—he had scores of eager underlings.

And Lucien had gone on to Italy, where he’d made his first fortune at the gaming tables, and a second, as well. By the time he made his first appearance in London he was wealthier than his family had ever been, due to a gift with the cards and a willingness to cheat when need be. His partnership with his old friend Jacob only profited his overflowing coffers.

He’d lied to Lady Miranda, of course. He studied his enemies well and she was, by dint of her family, his enemy. He knew asking for friendship would touch her as nothing else could.

Friendship wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. If he needed one, Jacob would do.

But if anyone was going to be draping diamonds on Miranda Rohan’s beautiful white flesh it was going to be the Scorpion.

And it would drive her family mad.

5

The white vellum envelope lay on the silver salver, her name written with a perfect hand, a delicate, feminine one. Miranda looked at it in surprise when her butler brought it in, and Jane, who was sitting on the floor amidst a welter of brightly colored ribbons, looked up.

The arrival of Jane Pagett had almost broken Miranda free from the doldrums that had assailed her after her brief taste of friendship. Jane was engaged to marry Mr. George Bothwell, a worthy gentleman indeed, and she’d come to town for a visit and a bit of early wedding shopping. Her mood, however, had been almost as glum as Miranda’s.

“That’s an invitation,” Jane said, stating the obvious. “I didn’t think you ever got any. Do you think you’ve finally paid enough penance to be allowed back in society?”

“I doubt it,” Miranda replied. She was loath to open it. The obvious source would be Lucien de Malheur. It had been more than a week since she’d been to his house, and she hadn’t heard a word from him. She’d expected at least a note, perhaps flowers, some recognition of the wonderful evening they’d spent together, but so far there’d been nothing.

She’d come to the conclusion that it was not nearly as wonderful for him as it had been for her. Which shouldn’t surprise her. It had been her first adult, intelligent conversation in weeks, and the first with someone outside her family in almost a year, not counting Jane, who really was family.

She tapped the envelope against her other hand, reluctant. If it was the note she’d expected it was both overdue and something she wanted to savor in private. Jane knew her too well, and Miranda wasn’t even sure of her own feelings and reactions to Lucien de Malheur. She certainly wasn’t ready to share them.

“Aren’t you going to open it?” Jane demanded, rising and leaving the ribbons behind. Jane was tall, dark-haired like her mother, but lacking Evangelina Pagett’s extraordinary beauty or her father’s cynical grace. She was a little thin, a little plain and the best and dearest friend in the world.

“I’ll open it later.” Miranda set the note back down on the salver.

“Oh, no, you won’t,” Jane said, lunging for it, grabbing it before Miranda could stop her. “I’m the one with the stultifying life. At least I can live through you vicariously.”

Miranda leaped to her feet, reaching for the letter, which Jane laughingly held over her head, and fixed her with a stern look. “You’re about to marry a good man who adores you, and you’ll live in a lovely house and have wonderful children and … what’s that face for? Don’t tell me you’re not happy?” Miranda stopped reaching for the invitation, falling back to look at her troubled friend.

Jane tried for her usual smile, but Miranda could see the pain behind it, the pain she should have recognized before, and she forgot about the letter.

“Things are never quite what they seem,” Jane said carefully. “Mr. Bothwell feels that I’ll make a suitable wife and that I should breed quite easily. He’s most desirous of an heir. He likes that I’m quiet and well-behaved and conduct myself just as I ought, and he thinks I’ll do very well.”

“You’ll do very well?” Miranda echoed, incensed. “And you agreed to this affecting proposal?”

“I’m three and twenty, Miranda. I’d had five seasons and no other offers, and Mr. Bothwell is a gentleman with a significant income.” There was a faint wobble in her voice.

“And your parents agreed to this iniquitous match?”

“Don’t be absurd. I told them I was madly in love with the man. I can’t live with them forever, and I want children. I want a life of my own. Mr. Bothwell will do very well, I’m sure.”

For a long moment Miranda said nothing. And then she put her arms around Jane’s waist. “Dearest, you should have told him no. You could come and live with me, and we can become two strange old ladies who keep a great deal too many cats and wear eccentric clothes and say things we shouldn’t. It would be grand fun.”

Jane shook her head. “No, it wouldn’t. You can’t convince me you’re any happier than I am.”

“I do well enough. And besides, I deserve my banishment. I’m a lightskirt, remember? You deserve a man who adores you.”

“You aren’t a lightskirt. And we all deserve a man who adores us. Haven’t you yet learned we don’t always get what we deserve?” Jane said. She handed her the vellum envelope. “Why don’t we see your invitation? It might be something diverting.”

Miranda cast one last troubled glance at her dearest friend and then turned her attention to the envelope. It was addressed with a feminine hand—she knew it hadn’t come from de Malheur, but she was nevertheless disappointed when she tore open the envelope to find a card inviting her to attend a ridotto given by the Duke and Duchess of Carrimore, in honor of their fifth wedding anniversary. She showed it to Jane, then tossed it back onto the salver with a negligent air, taking her seat by the fire.

“It was very sweet of them,” she said. “At least, sweet of his grace. He was in awe of my shocking grandfather when he was young, and he’s always gone out of his way to be kind to me no matter what. I won’t go, of course.”

“You will go,” Jane said firmly. “I’m invited, as well. You know it’s impossible to drag my parents back to town and I could scarcely go alone. If Mr. Bothwell was in town he’d refuse on the grounds of propriety—he doesn’t hold with masked balls. If I don’t go with you I’ll never have the chance to attend one again, and besides, I’m dying to see Lady Carrimore’s diamonds. Apparently she has one the size of a pigeon’s egg.”

“They’ll have other parties that aren’t shocking to your fiancé‘s delicate sensibilities. Bothwell can accompany you.”

“Bothwell doesn’t approve of the Carrimores at all. Says they’re bad ton and he doesn’t want to associate with them.”

“And what does he say about me?”

“He wouldn’t dare criticize you,” Jane said, a little too swiftly, and Miranda knew he’d done just that. “Please, Miranda. It’s been ages since you’ve been out. And if anyone dares cut you I’ll kick them. You’re acting like it’s something shocking, like, like an orgy given by the Heavenly Host.”

“Assuming they give orgies,” Miranda pointed out. “No one really knows what they do.”

“Orgies,” Jane said flatly. “I would be too disappointed if they indulged in something tame, given their atrocious reputation. But that’s neither here nor there. It isn’t the Heavenly Host, it’s a perfectly respectable gathering hosted by a duke and a duchess. Besides, most people will wear a mask and domino. They needn’t have any idea who we actually are. We’ll show up, wander around and laugh at all the ridiculous people, and then come back here and drink too much champagne and thank God we don’t live like that. Mr. Bothwell says diamonds are much too gaudy. He prefers me in something more subdued, like jet.”