“Anne, let me give you the questionable privilege of introducing my friends. This is the Honorable John Godfrey.”

“My felicitations, Mrs. Bailey.” Thin and gingery, Mr. Godfrey bowed over her hand, and it surprised Anne that a man with a scandalous reputation could look so scholarly. In snatches of overheard conversations, she had heard her brothers and father make mention of him, that he was a figure of considerable influence within the government. There had been undercurrents of something tight and edged in the voices of her family, something she might identify as fear, but it had been more tone than actual words spoken.

How could such a bookish man also be a profligate and a political threat? Surely she must have misheard, and the reports in the papers were scurrilous.

She curtsied her greeting, murmuring pleasantries.

“Here we have Sir Edmund Fawley-Smith,” continued Leo.

“You illuminate the room, Mrs. Bailey.” Sir Edmund offered her a very charming bow, and she could not help but smile at him. He was a very pleasant young gentleman, of shorter stature than the other Hellraisers, with kindly eyes and a rather rumpled appearance. Certainly he could not be a rake.

“And lastly, this is the extremely dishonorable Abraham Stirling, Lord Rothwell.”

Anne turned to the final member of the group, fully anticipating that she would find him as undeserving of a rake’s reputation as the other men. But that was not the case at all. She had actually seen caricatures of Baron Rothwell in a few news sheets, usually depicting him with his arms around whole seraglios of women, and Anne had believed the illustrator to be exercising a good deal of artistic license when it came to Lord Rothwell’s appearance. Surely no actual man could be so darkly handsome, with a blade-sharp profile, black hair, and vivid blue eyes. Yet the illustrator had not exaggerated. With the exception of Leo, Anne had never beheld a man so physically arresting.

The only thing marring his masculine beauty was the large, ugly scar that traced from just beneath his right ear to disappear beneath the folds of his stock. It looked as though someone long ago had tried to cut Lord Rothwell’s throat, and very nearly succeeded.

That Lord Rothwell stood before her now, bowing, proved that not only had the attacker not succeeded, but it was highly likely that Lord Rothwell had dispatched the assailant. Killed him. Looking into his glacial eyes, Anne could easily believe him capable of violence.

Violence, or seduction. Doubtless both.

“You have done England a great service, Mrs. Bailey,” he said, straightening from his bow. Anne had to tilt her head back to look at him, for he was even taller than Leo.

“How so, Lord Rothwell?”

“By marrying this villain, you have removed a great danger from the London streets.”

Leo scowled as Mr. Godfrey and Sir Edmund laughed. “I’m no more a danger than you, Bram.”

Lord Rothwell spread his hands. “Thus you prove my thesis.”

“Quod erat demonstrandum,” said Mr. Godfrey, grinning.

Anne made herself smile, for though she did not understand precisely what the men discussed, she knew it would serve her well in married life to ingratiate herself as best she could with her husband’s friends.

Still, something, or rather, someone seemed missing.

“Is Lord Whitney here?” she asked. The scandal sheets had been very specific in naming five men as Hellraisers: the four who stood before her now, and James Sherbourne, the Earl of Whitney, or Lord W—y. Wherever one of the Hellraisers went, the others were certain to follow.

She may as well have dropped a moldering carcass in the middle of the room. Whatever lightheartedness the men might have been feeling disappeared immediately. Everyone looked grim, and something very like grief flashed in Lord Rothwell’s eyes.

“Oh, dear,” Anne stammered. “He isn’t ... that is, I didn’t know ... has Lord Whitney passed on?” Mortified, she wanted to sink into the ground. “I’m so ... sorry.”

“Don’t apologize.” Leo patted her hand, but the gesture did not soothe her. “Whit ... Lord Whitney is alive. Last I heard.”

“Have you seen him lately?” Lord Rothwell put the question to her with surprising keenness, verging on an interrogation.

Four pairs of eyes fixed on her, all of them sharp and demanding. And her husband’s gaze was hardest of all. Anne had to physically restrain herself from cringing.

“No,” she answered at once. “I have seen Lord Whitney but a handful of times, the last of which was likely a year ago.” She wished she could remember the specifics of the day, if only as an appeasement, but to be the object of such intense scrutiny rather unnerved her.

At her answer, the tension from the men lessened. Marginally.

Leo gave a tight nod. “It seems Lord Whitney is gone from here.”

Gone from here could mean any number of things, yet Anne knew better than to press for an explanation. Whatever had happened, wherever Lord Whitney was, it left a cold shadow over the four men with her now. Including her husband. At his last mention of Lord Whitney’s name, Leo absently rubbed at his shoulder, and frowned at the floor. What he saw was not the Axminster carpet, but dark, ominous scenes. Scenes from his past, shared with the other Hellraisers—but not her.

She had thought it before, but she truly believed it now: her husband was a stranger. A stranger with secrets.


“She’s a bit undersized,” said Bram. He and Leo stood off to the side of the drawing room, watching as dancers made their figures. As the day had worn on, and the sun had set, musicians had arrived. Footmen had moved the table, the carpets had been rolled up, the candles were lit, and dancing had begun.

A fine tension ran through Leo. He felt it in Bram, and the other Hellraisers, yet none of them wanted to speak of it on this day. Anne, unknowing, had spoken of the very issue—the very person—none wanted to discuss. The one who had been their closest ally and now threatened everything.

“Delicate,” Leo corrected, forcing his mind toward less troubling subjects.

“I would have thought you might favor a more robust girl.”

Over the rim of his glass, Leo watched his new wife move through the patterns of a dance. It was the Friar and the Nun. Or maybe Gathering Peascods. He could never remember all the names of the dances, nor their figures. It mattered little—he never stayed at assemblies and balls long enough to dance, and other, more important thoughts filled his brain. The cost of transporting pepper from Sumatra. The profitability of shipping English ale to India.

Today, he’d done his duty and danced one figure with Anne, then quickly retired to the side of the chamber, leaving the celebrating to others, including his wife.

She was a delicate thing. When Leo had first seen Anne Hartfield at an assembly, she’d made little impression on him. Small of stature, her hair somewhere between blond and brunette, eyes more distinctive for their liveliness than their hazel color. There were other girls, girls of more vivid beauty and sparkling dispositions, who giggled and artfully fanned themselves whenever he made mildly flirtatious remarks. Anne had only smiled and looked away, as if uncertain how to respond.

Even now, partnered with one of her elder brothers, she moved tentatively through the steps of the dance, though it was part of every genteel girl’s education to have a dancing master and learn to make pretty figures at assemblies. Her family’s reduced circumstances were no secret, however, so perhaps she never had a dancing master.

“I’ll own,” he said lowly, “that when I decided it was time to wed, there had been other girls that first attracted my notice. But I came to see that Anne was perfect.”

Bram looked skeptical. “Some of your Exchange logic?”

“I’m never without it. It was simply a matter of the best return for my investment.”

“An aristocratic bride—I see the reasoning behind that decision.”

As one of Leo’s closest friends, Bram could read his heart well. Nor did Leo make much secret of his demands. He burned for entry into a world long denied him. That could only be achieved by marrying a peer’s daughter rather than a daughter of one of the wealthy ironmongers or heads of a trade corporation. Such a marriage might net him wealth, and valuable business connections. But he already had wealth. He had connections. What he wanted, demanded, could only be gained through blood ties.

He would not gain a title, but by the Devil’s fire, he would have what his father had been denied: a place in Society.

And he refused to let Whit endanger that.

“Yet why not pick a bride with a fortune?” Bram asked. “Why the daughter of a baron treading the waters of genteel poverty?”

“For that very reason.” When Bram continued to look unconvinced, Leo continued. “Had she come with a fortune of her own, one that matched or was greater than the one I possess, it would serve only to divide us. She would hold it over my head as proof of her superiority.”

“I had no idea you were so mercenary, young Leopold.”

Leo looked askance at Bram. “A lecture? From the man who has debauched most of the female populace of London?”

His friend chuckled, though the sound was more a shadowed representation of laughter rather than the thing itself. “No lecture. All of us Hellraisers live in glass houses.”

“Damned drafty, those houses.” Leo shrugged. “Yet they’re better than dull, dense piles of stone.”

Bram patted an ornate plaster embellishment on the wall behind him. Everything in Leo’s home was new, this portion of Bloomsbury having been developed within the past few years. He had considered purchasing a townhome in Mayfair or Saint James’s. He had the money. Yet he wanted his own place, something entirely his.