He leant across the table and, with just the slightest hesitation, conspiratorially lowered his voice. “Your sister mentioned that your party are planning to attend the gala at Vauxhall. Perhaps, in repayment of your debt, you could arrange for me to meet with her in the Temple of Diana-just while the fireworks are on. I’ll return her to you when the show’s over, and no one will be any the wiser.”

Not only a flat-a foolish flat. Toby hid his reaction behind a vacant expression. The poor light concealed the steely glint in his eyes. “But how will I get Clarissa to agree?”

“Just tell her you’re taking her to meet her most ardent admirer. Don’t tell her my name-I want to surprise her. Women like the romantic touch.” Gurnard smiled and waved a languid hand. “Dare say you haven’t noticed, but your sister and I are deeply in love. You needn’t fear I’ll take advantage. But with all the attention that’s focused on her we’ve found it hard to find the time to talk, to get to know each other as we’d like.”

Concluding that the captain was the sort of gentleman he should hand over to higher authorities, Toby slowly nodded. “All right,” he agreed, his tone bland. He shrugged. “If you’ll be happy with that instead of the money…?”

“Definitely,” Gurnard replied, his eyes suddenly gleaming. “Ten minutes alone with your sister will be ample recompense.”

“Toby, is anything wrong?”

Bringing up the rear as his exuberant siblings tumbled back into the house after their morning ride, Toby jumped and cast a startled glance at Sophie. Seeing the conjecture in her cousin’s open face, she nodded.

“I thought so.” With a glance at the horde disappearing up the stairs, Clarissa trailing absent-mindedly behind, she linked her arm with Toby’s. “Come into your father’s study and tell me all.”

“It’s nothing really dreadful,” Toby hurried to assure her as they crossed the threshold of his father’s sanctum.

“Then there’s probably no reason for you to be so worried about it,” Sophie returned. Sinking into one of the armchairs by the hearth, she fixed Toby with a commanding if affectionate eye. “Open your budget, my dear, for I really can’t let this go on. Doubtless I’m imagining all sorts of unlikely horrors; I’m sure you can set my mind at rest.”

Toby grimaced at her, too used to Lucilla to take offence. He fell to pacing before the hearth, his hands clasped behind his back. “It’s that bounder Gurnard.”

“Bounder?” Sophie looked her surprise. “I know Ned’s been calling him that for ages, but I thought that was just Ned.”

“So did I-but now I know better. Dashed if Ned wasn’t right.”

Sophie looked pensive, then cast a glance up at Toby. “I’ve just remembered. Your mother said she didn’t trust the man, and Clarissa agreed.”

“Did she?” Toby brightened. “Well, that makes it easier, then.”

“Makes what easier?” Sophie stared at Toby, consternation in her eyes. “Tobias Webb, just what is going on?”

“No need to get into a flap. At least, not yet.”

When Toby said no more but continued to pace the hearthrug, Sophie straightened her shoulders. “Toby, if you don’t tell me what this is all about immediately, I’ll feel honour bound to speak to your mother.”

Toby halted, his expression horrified. “Saints preserve us all,” he said. And proceeded to tell Sophie the story.

“That’s iniquitous!” Sophie was incensed. “The man’s worse than a mere bounder.”

“Undoubtedly. He’s a dangerous bounder. That’s why I want to wait until Papa gets back to lay this before him. I think it would be best for all concerned if Gurnard is stopped once and for all.”

“Unquestionably,” Sophie agreed. After a moment, she added, “I don’t think it would serve any purpose to tell Clarissa. She doesn’t like the man as it is; I can’t see her doing anything rash.”

Toby nodded.

“And I really don’t think telling your mama would be a good idea.”

“Definitely not.” Toby shuddered at the thought.

“I suppose,” Sophie suggested. “We could seek professional assistance.”

“The Runners? And risk a brouhaha like they made over Lady Ashbourne’s emeralds?” Toby shook his head. “That’s not a decision I’d like to make.”

“Quite,” Sophie agreed. “Still, at least we know Gurnard’s unlikely to make a move before the gala.”

“Precisely.” Toby’s blue gaze rested consideringly on Sophie. “All we really need do is hold the fort until then.”

AN HOUR LATER, Jack sat in his chair in his parlour in Upper Brook Street, the table before him spread for an early luncheon, and attacked the slices of sirloin on his plate with an air of disgruntled gloom. “Permit me to warn you, brother mine, that this wooing business is definitely plaguesome.”

Harry, who had looked in on his way down to the country, raised an amused brow. “You’ve only just discovered that?”

“I cannot recall having wooed a lady-nor any other kind of female-before.” Jack scowled at a dish of roast potatoes, then viciously skewered one.

“I take it all is not proceeding smoothly?”

For a full minute, Jack wrestled with a conscience that decreed that all matters between a lady and a gentleman were sacrosant, then yielded to temptation. “The damned woman’s being noble,” he growled. “She’s convinced herself that I really need to marry an heiress and is determined not to ruin my life by allowing me to marry her.”

Harry choked on his ale. Jack rose to come around the table and thump his back but Harry waved him away. “Well,” he said, still breathless, “that was the impression you wanted to give, remember.”

“That was then, this is now,” Jack answered with unshakeable logic. “Besides, I don’t care what the ton thinks. My only concern is what goes on in one particular golden head.”

“So tell her.”

“I’ve already told her I’m as rich as Croesus, but the witless woman doesn’t believe me.”

“Doesn’t believe you?” Harry stated. “But why would you lie about something like that?”

Jack’s expression was disgusted. “Well might you ask. As far as I can make out, she thinks I’m the sort of romantic who would marry a ‘lady of expectations’-her words-and then valiantly conceal the fact we were living on tick.”

Harry grinned. He reached for the ale jug. “And if things had been different? If we hadn’t been favoured by fortune and you’d met her-what then? Would you have politely nodded and moved on, looking for an heiress, or would you do as she suspects and conceal the reckoning?”

Jack shot him a malevolent glance. “The subject doesn’t arise, thank God.”

When Harry’s grin broadened into a smile, Jack scowled. “Instead of considering hypothetical situations, why don’t you turn that fertile brain of yours to some purpose and think of a way to convince her of our wealth?”

“Try a little harder,” Harry offered. “Be your persuasive best.”

Jack grimaced. “Can’t be done that way; believe me, I’ve tried.” He had, too-twice. But each time he resurrected the subject, Sophie turned huge eyes full of silent reproach upon him. Combined with a brittlely fragile air, such defences were more than enough to defeat him.

“I need someone to vouch for me, someone she’ll believe. Which means I have to wait until her uncle returns to town. He’s off looking over the Indies Corporation’s next venture at Southampton. The damnable situation is that no one has any idea of when he’ll be back.”

Viewing his brother’s exasperated expression, evoked, so it seemed, by the prospect of having to wait a few days to make a certain lady his, Harry raised a laconic brow. Everything he had heard thus far suggested that Jack was poised to take the final momentous step into parson’s mousetrap and, amazing though it seemed, he would have a smile on his face when he did so. Love, as Harry well knew, was a force powerful enough to twist men’s minds in the most unexpected ways. He just hoped it wasn’t contagious.

The sound of the knocker on the door being plied with determined force disrupted their peace.

Jack looked up.

Voices sounded in the hall, then the door opened and Toby entered. He glanced at Jack, then, noticing Harry, nodded politely. As the door shut behind him, Toby turned to Jack. “I apologize for the intrusion, but something’s come up and I’d like your opinion on the matter. But if you’re busy I can come back later.”

“No matter.” Harry made to rise. “I can leave if you’d rather speak privately.”

Jack raised a brow at Toby. “Can you speak before Harry?”

Toby hesitated for only an instant. Jack had spent all the Season at Sophie’s feet, concentrating on nothing beyond Sophie and her court. Harry Lester, on the other hand, was by reputation as much of a hellion as Jack had been and had not shared his brother’s affliction. Toby’s gaze swung to Harry. “The matter concerns a Captain Gurnard.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “Captain Terrence Gurnard?” The words sounded peculiarly flat and distinctly lethal. When Toby nodded, Harry settled back into his seat. “What, exactly, is that bounder up to?”

Jack waved Toby to a seat. “Have you eaten?” When Toby shook his head, his eyes going to the half-filled platters still on the table, Jack rang for Pinkerton. “You can eat while you fill us in. I take it the problem’s not urgent?”

“Not that urgent, no.”

While he fortified himself, Toby recounted his outings with Gurnard and the ultimate offer to discount his losses against an arranged clandestine meeting with Clarissa.

“So you won for the first two nights but lost heavily on the third?”

Toby nodded at Harry. “He was setting me up, wasn’t he?”

“It certainly sounds like it.”

Jack glanced at his brother. “I’ve not heard much of Gurnard-what’s the story?”

“That, I suspect, is a matter that’s exercising the minds of quite a few of the man’s creditors.” Harry took a long sip of his ale. “There are disquieting rumours doing the rounds about the dear captain. Word has it he’s virtually rolled up. Fell in with Duggan and crew. A bad lot,” Harry added in an aside to Toby. “But the last I heard, he’d been unwise enough to sit down with Melcham.”