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my inner longings, my lord.”
    The pang of lust was sudden and swift, taking him by surprise, darkening his soul.
    â€œYou display deep, sensual longings by posing nude, Miss Leland,” he said, his voice hoarse.
    She didn’t look at him. “It is none of your business who or what I might be longing for.”
    â€œNot just adventure?”
    She didn’t answer.
    They reached the rest of the party too swiftly, and she left him with a perfunctory smile. He’d been hoping to gradually win her trust, but knew their clash had not helped his cause. He was a meticulous planner, and always held to his plans. Until Rebecca Leland. Somehow, she’d goaded him to a place where his brain couldn’t seem to catch up with his mouth.
    Other guests glanced at them with interest, and heads came together for whispers. Susanna gave Rebecca a wide-eyed look; Lady Rosa preened with satisfaction.
    And Rebecca did not look at him again.

Chapter 3
    R ebecca marched boldly into the overheated ballroom that night, and was grateful that her sister and cousin did not hang back. They were announced, along with her mother, and the crowd barely glanced their way as the conversations whirled around them.
    â€œSee, no one cares or knows,” Rebecca hissed between smiling lips.
    She’d spent the early evening insisting to Susanna and Elizabeth that they could not cancel their engagements and hide at the Madingley town house forever. She would not have thought them so tentative; she was learning much these past two days.
    Elizabeth took her arm, leading her away from the crowd to skirt about the edges. Lady Rosa disappeared within, but Susanna followed them.
    Elizabeth ducked behind a potted fern and pulled the sisters with her. “I know what you’re thinking, Rebecca, but he visited me today!”
    â€œSo you said.” Rebecca put her hands on her hips. “You have spent your entire life around Peter Derby. He grew up as your brother’s friend. He is not a bad sort.”
    Susanna gave a soft snort.
    After a warning glance at her sister, Rebecca reminded them, “He has matured, as have we all. You can handle him, Elizabeth. Of all three men, he seems the one who would treat you the gentlest.”
    â€œWhat does that mean?” Elizabeth demanded, eyes going wide. “How did Lord Parkhurst treat you?”
    Susanna pushed her way between them and lowered her voice. “He was alone with her for a quarter of an hour. Mama was practically swooning with excitement.”
    â€œI hope you told her not to,” Rebecca said crossly. “It means nothing. He may be an earl, but he is the most staid, dull—”
    â€œDull?” Susanna pulled her spectacles out of her reticule, donned them, and examined Rebecca as if she were on a dissection table in the professor’s laboratory.
    Rebecca tried to will away her blush without success. “You heard me.”
    â€œI don’t need my ears, because I have eyes!” Susanna said with force. “I saw the way he looked at you last night. And today he was in a hurry to have you alone.”
    â€œHe is trying to see into my mind, to discover the truth—to win his silly wager.”
    â€œIt’s true, men will do much to prove themselves to other men,” Susanna said.
    Rebecca rolled her eyes and said to Elizabeth, “Now she wants us to remember how much older she is than we are. That she has so much more experience. I have been out of the schoolroom and in Society for some years now. I may have been sick, but that was several years ago—”
    â€œNo, it wasn’t,” Susanna said softly. “You had a fever only a few months past.”
    Rebecca dismissed it, though inside herself she knew the unwelcome reoccurrence had…changed her. “A cold, nothing more. You all simply overreacted.”
    Susanna and Elizabeth exchanged a worried glance.
    â€œStop this!” Rebecca said, throwing