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"What if we’re recognized?"

Swinging her silk domino, a flutter of scarlet in the air, Lucy insisted, "No one shall know us

We will si Jane’s hand, Lucy dragged her up the carpeted stairs "You were quite ready for adventure e discussed this a week ago"

"That was before I knew our destination," Jane gruaze skiain as she pulled her into her lavish bedcha so"I wouldn’t want to draw undue attention"

"Can we ht All the best food will be gone"

Tucking Jane’s hand in her elbow, Lucy led Jane into her dressing roorand adventure Who knows? Perhaps soentleman will sweep you off your feet and carry you far away from your wretched relations"

Astrid snorted

Jane’s heart fluttered with panic at the mere idea She didn’t want to h And she wasn’t the sort to engage in a casual dalliance Especially with the type ofa courtesan’s ball

In fact, she couldn’t understand ho took lovers She had never found anything particularly exciting about the e bed On the contrary

And as for love…

Well, she had never been that fortunate

Chapter 2

Seth Rutledge, the Earl of St Claire, stood rigidly at the edge of the crowded ballrooainst the overpowering aro for the scent of sea and wind as he watched Madaht tosht sight of his face

She stopped abruptly in thea bit Her startled expression, followed quickly by a look of pity, was all too farowled low in his throat Bloody hell, how he loathed that look

For a fleeting ht only ait to root in his head, to weaken hiher, he better exposed his face to the light

The courtesan recovered and resumed her sendary reputation Stopping before hiardenias, roses, and a dozen other floral fragrances he could not distinguish Acrid as gunpowder, the scent of her stung the inside of his nose Yet he was glad to see her Whores didn’t judge

She pressed close, granting hi that she wore nothing underneath

"It’s been too long, mon cher, why have you not come to see me sooner?" she purred in an accent that was decidedly not French He wasn’t certain of Fleur’s exact origins, but he would wager Seven Dials

"I arrived in Town only yesterday"

He had departed his faht and twenty, he owed it to Julianne to marry and provide an heir His sister needed fah, he had survived pirates, war, pestilence, disease in foreign lands--survived only to return houe, no less No doubt his father cursed that quirk of fate frorave

It had been no secret that Seth’s father purchased his commission in the hopes that he would never return Rotten luck that Albert had died, leaving the wrong son to marry and bear responsibility for the family

Precautions had to be taken to assure his cousin would not get his claws on St Claire Priory--or his sister--again If soht sort of ould see to that The right sort of ould safeguard his sister against villains like Harold And the darkness Seth fought to s the sudden sourness coating his ulfed her The darkness Seth had created He owed her that much

A bride unlike the feo A feht of his, he dipped his finger between the swells of Fleur’s brsts

"Hmm, I like this fierce face of yours," she purred "My very own pirate" She trailed a long nail down the white-ridged scar that slashed across his face and cut into his upper lip

He shied away, unused to the contact, but bemused that she would think he resembled a pirate when it had very nearly been a pirate to cut his face to ribbons Half a breath to the left and the Portuguese slave sler would have had his eye

Fleur lifted her browsto celebrate your return What I have in er in Town I’ve an errand to dispense and then I’m off" Errand An adequate description of his task