The Captain was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs. He followed her with his eyes the whole way down.

Evening dress looked good on him. His breeches were the color of the desert in North Africa. His coat like night over that same desert, rich and black. He tied his cravat plain, the way they did in Paris. He’d put himself exactly where she’d have to walk right to him. A man who seized his opportunity, the Captain.

“Miss Whitby.” He was being polite. Of course, he would be polite in the open hall of his own house, with these scholarly nobs milling about. He had a different set of behavior at, say, four in the morning in the upstairs hall, or in her warehouse. Or on his ship, for that matter.

“Captain.” She stopped a step up from the bottom of the stairs to see if Sebastian Kennett looked less formidable when she met him level and eye-to-eye. Turned out it didn’t make any difference at all. “Eerie, all these blokes standing around in steel plate. I’ll be just as glad when they leave.”

“They’ll pack up and take off tomorrow morning. That dress is from Paris, isn’t it?”

“Madame Claudette, on the Rue de Rivoli.”

“I would have hated to go through life without seeing you in that particular dress. I don’t suppose there’s a stitch on you that isn’t smuggled.”

“The dress fabric’s from Lyon. Illegal as hell in England. I’m not going to talk about the rest of it, sparing your modesty and all.” Impossible to be distant and cool to the man. She never seemed to manage it past the first couple words. She touched the pearls. “You’ll be interested in this, since you trade in baubles.”

The Captain knew what he was looking at. She could tell from the way he slid his fingers under the pearls, reverent. But then, he’d seen them before. “Mushajjar. The veil of sunrise, pierced by the ivory.”

“They’re a lyrical people, down on the Gulf.”

“I’ve seen pearls like this, once, at a reception in the palace of the doge in Venice.” He drew his fingers down the line of pearls, touching them above and her skin below, caressing both. “Not this fine. I admired these when I searched your bedroom yesterday.”

There he was, at it again, rolling the conversational wagon off a cliff.

“I like the way you have your hair up in those braids, all swirled together like that. It looks simple. Then you study it, and it gets more and more complex. Like you. Every time I think I have you sorted out, I pick up another line of complication. ”

He was the devious one. She was a pat of plain butter compared to him. “I admire a man who knows what these beads are and still has something nice to say about my hair. I was expecting to get your trading instinct roused up with the bauble, you dealing in decorative rarities and all.”

“Not rarities like that. Beyond my touch.”

“Mine, too, if we’re being candid about it. Every time I fasten them on, I think about the unholy amount of capital tied up and shudder. Anyway, you make your money on loose stones more than decorative pieces. Thirty percent net profit. I admire that.” She’d pulled that out of the ledgers at Eaton’s. Not that she’d gone looking for his profits, but she couldn’t help seeing. “Lightning-fast turnover, too.”

“Thank you. Jess, has it crossed your mind it’s not tactful to remind me you’ve been going through my ledgers?” But he was laughing at her. He did it entirely in his eyes, not twitching his lips at all.

“Roight you are, guv’nor. A flapping gob’s been the downfall of many a foine prig and ruffler.”

“And you will refrain from shocking my aunt’s guests with your mastery of the vernacular. Lean a little closer. Yes. Just there.” He traced the course of a braid around her head, following the path of it with his index finger.

“Am I coming apart? I have about a million pins in. Will you just stop playing with my hair? Crikey, what if someone comes by?”

“They’ll be shocked witless. Let’s draw you in a mite closer and we’ll truly astound them.” He nudged her down the last step, and she was looking up at him again. Inevitable, wasn’t it? He said, “I’m trying to figure out how it all works.” She felt his breath on her forehead. His finger brushed her earlobe.

“It’s magic. You’re not supposed to look too close.” I like it too much when he touches me. I’m getting used to it. Pretty soon, I won’t be able to do without it.

She set her hand in the center of his chest, but she didn’t get to the pushing-him-away part. She just stood with her fingers mixed up in his cravat, acting like they were standing on the edge of some cliffs in a desert with nobody to see but the camels. The house was crawling with historians and Sebastian’s family and there was a maid—the woman with the murderous pimp, actually—holding a tray and peering at them from a corner. The Captain didn’t let go.

Well, to be fair about it, neither did she. She was being stupid. He was probably being clever. Life was odd like that.

She looked past Sebastian’s shoulder. Colonel Reams had arrived. She could see him reflected in the black glass of the parlor windows. His regimentals made a broad, blurry-red pillar in the middle of the dark coats and pale dresses. Pretty soon she’d go tell lies to him. “It’s time I went off to snag myself a couple pastries.” Eunice had cakes and tarts laid out on the table in the dining room, next to a display of iron cod-pieces. “If I leave it too late there’ll be nothing left but liver and turnip.”

“I recommend the apricot ones.” He ran his fingers along the shoals and reefs of her elbow, and there was nothing else in the world she could think about. Perverse on his part, and a revelation to her of why her governesses said to keep a goodly distance away from men.

I don’t have time for this. I have to go cheat the colonel. She couldn’t think of a time she’d bargained in bad faith, but she was doing it with Reams. It didn’t make it any better that Reams was a pig and planned to cheat her, up, down, and sideways, the minute she signed a marriage contract.

Three men and a tiny, white-haired woman strolled out of the front parlor and across the hall, headed for the food, arguing about Greeks. And Claudia appeared out of nowhere.

“There you are, Sebastian.” Claudia must have been scouting along from column to column like a Mohawk slipping through the primeval forest. “You’re needed. They’ve mixed up the topknots on the suits and Coyning-Marsh is having fits. Eunice requires oil on the troubled waters.”

“I don’t know anything about plate armor.”

“You’re an expert on troubled waters. I want to talk to Jess. You’re in the way.”

He just grinned. In a good mood tonight, the Captain. “All right. Keep it above the belt. And you . . .” Right in front of Claudia, not caring what anybody thought, he reached out and trailed his index finger from her temple to where she’d been bruised on the cheek. “Behave yourself. I’ll find you later. Try not to draw blood with that tongue of yours.” Then he walked off, leaving her to Claudia’s tender mercies.

Claudia said, “My cousin can afford to make a spectacle of himself. You can’t. I advise you to be discreet in public.” She had to look up and up to Claudia. All these Ashtons managed to make her feel like a small dab of paint.

“Now you see . . . I agree with you. We probably have lots in common once we get to talking.”

“My brother tells me you were in the hall last night, outside Sebastian’s door. That was unwise.”

“That’s another thing we agree about. Look, why don’t we go snabble a few of those pastries before this crowd goes through them like a flock of locusts. Somehow or other I missed dinner. It’s been a trying day and the number of sharp objects lying about just fills me with trepidation. I’ll just—”

“You’re out of your depth in this household, Miss Whitby, however clever you may be in the shop. I would tell you to leave, but I doubt you’d listen. You’re filled with the scrambling self-confidence of the parvenu class. It is sadly misplaced. ”

That was one of those veiled threats, very probably. Claudia was the kind to issue veiled threats. “I won’t say no to any of that. Especially not the part about being out of my depth. I feel like a shallow water craft tonight.”

Another pack of historians wandered by. A shabby man with a German accent and frayed cuffs limped along between a pair of dandies right out of Upper Brook Street. They were talking about disemboweling. Not in favor of it, as far as she could tell. Just talking.

Daunting, she’d call this lot. And she still had to deal with Claudia.

“Your pearls are a bit showy.” Claudia just went right on being critical. “They’re . . . yellow. Do you have a dozen sets, dyed to match your dresses? So very clever.”

Had to be on your toes with Claudia, didn’t you? “More pink than yellow, but I see your point. I do it the other way round, though. I buy the dress to match the pearls, being thrifty. This,” she pinched up a bit of her skirt, “is couleur d’aube from DeMile Frères in Lyon. We keep a few bolts of their silk in the warehouse in Broad Street, under the counter, for special customers.” She was letting herself get carried away, but nobody with ebony-black hair should wear the shade of blue Claudia had on. “You might go by and see. Give my name and tell them to show you the bronze lustring.”

“Always the shopkeeper,” Claudia said. “That’s admirable in its way.”

“It is when I’m picking out silk.”

The front door opened and closed while she was talking to Claudia. More historians. Three women, very stern-looking. And a man who came in alone. Sometime, as he was walking across the foyer, she realized who he was.