“I’m looking for you, Nellie.” He took care to remain in the deepest of shadows. Though few would recognize him in London, he expected that might change, depending on how long this business of retribution kept him here.

In the crush of the crowd, she pressed against him, curling her hands into his lapels. “I’ve a room upstairs, nice and cozy. What do you say? I’ll get us a bottle, just for ourselves.”

“Actually, I’ve become separated from friends and would like to rejoin them. I was hoping that perhaps you know them?”

“Friends?” Her eyes narrowed. “What sort of friends?”

He pressed a crown into her palm.

After a quick glance to assess the coin’s worth, a smile eased onto her lips. “Per’aps I do know them. I’ve known everyone ’ere at one time or another, it seems.”

He murmured near her ear, “They follow this club from place to place. Meet here on occasion.” He did not know that to be certain, but he had a strong hunch that’s how the men he sought remained…well, invisible.

“Oh…” Her face went slack. “Indeed. A mysterious lot, they are. Don’t come here for the entertainments, for the most part.”

The beat of his heart increased. “Can you provide their names?”

She glanced over her shoulder before whispering, “Never actually seen their faces, but gentlemen they be, all of them, with fancy clothes and carriages. They’ve not yet arrived, but soon, I think. Keep an eye over there beside the stage. They’ll come through the back.”

He stepped away, and her hands fell from his coat. “Thank you, Nellie.”

“Wot, that’s all?” She pouted, a saucy smile tilting her carmine lips. “You paid for better than just a bit of chitchat.”

“Forget about me, if anyone comes asking later. That’s all I ask.”

“Beshrew me, forget that ’andsome face?” Her gaze traveled over him longingly. Regretfully. She sighed. “Don’t think that’s possible, but Nellie don’t tell tales on her favorites, and you’ll forever be one of mine.” She came near, her voice lowered. “But be careful with those ones. They’re dangerous men.”

“How do you know I’m not one of them?”

“I know,” she answered softly, and with a shrug of her bare shoulder, she disappeared into the crowd.

Just then, the musicians struck up a tune. Beside them, curtains jerked apart on ropes to reveal a makeshift stage made out of wooden shipping crates, a common sight on the nearby quay. On each of the four corners stood a young lady, frozen in a dramatic pose. Elaborate scarlet carnival masks studded with paste jewels concealed their faces above their painted lips. Close-fitting, flesh-toned body stockings conveyed the illusion of nudity. Those men not otherwise engaged at the gaming tables surged forward to jostle for position along the edges of the stage, shouting out expressions of vulgar admiration. The stage rocked and several of the girls wavered from their poses.

A bulldog-faced man in an ill-fitted greatcoat and top hat strutted to the center of the stage and bellowed, “Gentlemen, gentlemen. Do control yourselves!”

Hands held high for quiet, he waited for the clamor to subside.

“We have assembled here for your personal erudition and viewing pleasure, four of the foremost actresses of Drury Lane presenting the finest in tableaux vivants.” He gestured toward the young women. “For your eyes only they will enact the most memorable scenes of the classics, the first being the story of Electra and the grievous murder of her father, the king, Agamemnon.”

Cormack chuckled. Actresses, indeed. Having studied the classics intensively at university, he could not discern what any of their poses had to do with Electra or Agamemnon, but he supposed that wasn’t the point.

Though he could not claim to be an expert on strumpets, these four were clearly of a higher quality than the others who crowded the room. Young and pretty, at least from this distance, they had bodies to match with high breasts, pinched waists, and flared hips.

His attention lingered on one in particular, a young woman with blonde hair and luminous skin. Something about her engaged him and refused to let go. Perhaps it was the bright blue flash of temper in her eyes or the querulous set of her pretty mouth. He could not help but feel he’d caught sight of an angel who had unknowingly alighted among lesser mortals and who, now entangled in mankind’s sin, had become helpless to escape.

Apparently he wasn’t the only one who had noticed her, for suddenly the young woman yelped and smacked the hand of the patron closest to her, a man who, after being so rebuffed, snatched his hand away from the girl’s well-turned ankle. The collective thunder of male laughter shook the floor beneath Cormack’s boots.

Cormack did not laugh. Instead, he maneuvered closer to the stage, fixated. Inexplicably smitten. A bright flush moved up the girl’s throat into her cheeks to disappear beneath her mask. She resumed her pose, and yet…her hands trembled.

He knew in an instant she didn’t belong in this place.

With each step forward, a tangle of memories and regrets welled up inside him, along with a sudden impulse to protect her, to make whatever had gone wrong right. Something he’d been helpless to do for Laura.

So distracted by the girl was he that he almost…almost missed the man ducking down the back corridor, dressed in the clothes of a gentleman, his top hat tilted so as to conceal his face.

* * *

Daphne cast another glare at the filthy creature who had grabbed her leg and resumed her pose. Was it only her imagination, or did her skin now itch where he had touched her? Ugh. A shiver of revulsion rippled through her.

Perhaps it had been unwise to take Kate’s place after all. Not that Kate even knew she was here, of course. The girl would never have allowed her to walk out the door if she’d realized Daphne’s intentions. Unwise decision or no, she wouldn’t change a thing. Given the urgency of the situation, taking Kate’s place had seemed the only alternative. A true friend would never balk at doing the same.

She simply had to be home by the time Clarissa and her mother returned from the Heseldons’, else her intricate tangle of not-necessarily-untruths would fall to pieces.

“Pirouette.”

Mr. Bynum’s command jerked Daphne into the present. She mimicked the movements of the young woman on the stage beside her and twirled like a ballerina. More like a drunken ballerina. She had been the only one of the four who had declined to imbibe from the fortifying bottle of gin that had been passed from girl to girl in the moments before the curtain was drawn. While spirits would no doubt take the edge off her present humiliation, she believed it best to keep her wits about her. To her good fortune, no one seemed concerned about talent or proper form, only that they prance around under the pretense of being actresses, wearing unseemly costumes for the illicit pleasure of the men salivating at their feet. Coming to a stop, she sashayed to the next corner and took the place of the girl who had just vacated the spot.

According to the foul-mouthed bully of a stage master, Mr. Bynum, who was also the very same sot who had threatened Kate, they would perform the same salacious rotation ten times before taking their leave of the stage. Only then would Kate’s debt be satisfied, at least for the evening. Given a day or two, Daphne was certain she could come up with some other solution for satisfying the remainder.

Mr. Bynum shouted a French command. “Parader!”

Truly, he displayed the most appalling accent. Daphne executed a different “classical” pose.

He blathered on, this time about Helen and Paris. In that moment, she desperately tried to forget where she was and imagined herself as Helen, the face that had launched a thousand ships. Why, she had always had a flair for the dramatic. She and her sisters had always put on productions for the family, and in secret she had dreamed of a life onstage. In some ways, tonight’s daring venture was exceedingly diverting, and she might actually enjoy herself if not—

If not for the fact that she, Daphne Bevington, the Earl of Wolverton’s granddaughter and quite possibly this season’s declared incomparable, was at this moment standing on a stage in London’s most notorious bawdy house, half-naked and making a naughty spectacle of her jiggly bits for the entertainment of strangers.

Daphne bit down a gasp. Not all strangers, for there, having just come through the doorway, was Lord Rackmorton, a hopeful suitor who had sent her flowers just yesterday, two dozen perfect white roses. He’d seemed like such a nice gentleman. Obviously, she’d been fooled, and she would rebuff him at the earliest opportunity now that she had seen him here in this palace of iniquity.

She couldn’t shake the feeling of terror that had chilled her blood from the moment she’d stepped through the door of the Blue Swan. What if, even though her face was half-concealed by the mask, Lord Rackmorton saw and recognized her? What if her mother and grandfather learned of her not-very-smart, but well-intended adventure?

Yet in a blink, two women plastered themselves to his lordship’s side and escorted him off, laughing, into the shadows, past another gentleman she also recognized, sneaking in the back—

“Pirouette!”

Just then, a big hand smacked her buttocks, latched there, and squeezed.

Daphne squawked and jumped. A glance over her shoulder confirmed her assailant to be the same cretin as before, looking rather pleased at getting such a solid handful of her. Indeed, in the next moment, with the help of a friend’s knee, he hurled himself half on the stage, reaching for her, his tongue hanging out of his mouth like a hound on the street. “Come on, sweet. How about a little ballum-rankum?”