"Harry—"

"Hurry, Augusta." He took her hand and hauled her over to the window. "We must get you back to Lady Arbuthnott's without further delay. The last thing I want is gossip about you."

"Indeed, my lord." There was a hint of frost in her tone now.

Harry ignored her irritation. He climbed through the window and reached up to help Augusta down onto the grass. She felt supple and warm in his hands and he groaned. He was still painfully aroused. He thought briefly of carrying her straight upstairs to his bedchamber rather than taking her back to Sally's. But that was quite impossible tonight.

Soon, he promised himself as he took her hand and led her through the gardens toward the gate. This marriage would have to take place quite soon. He would not survive this kind of torture for long.

Good lord, what had the woman done to him?

"Harry, if you are so concerned about gossip and if you do not believe you love me, why on earth do you wish to marry me?" Augusta wrapped her cloak securely around herself and skipped to keep up with him.

The question surprised him. It also annoyed him, although he knew he should have been expecting it. Augusta was not the type to let a subject drop easily.

"There are any number of sound, logical reasons," he told her brusquely as he paused at the gate to check that the lane was empty. "None of which I have time to go into tonight." Cold moonlight revealed the cobbled pavement' quite plainly. The windows of Sally's house glowed warmly at the far end of the narrow lane. There was no one in sight. "Pull your hood up over your head, Augusta."

"Yes, my lord. We certainly would not want to risk anyone seeing me out here with you, would we?"

He heard the prim, offended note in her voice and winced. "Forgive me for not being as romantic as you might wish, Augusta, but I am in somewhat of a hurry."

"That is obvious."

"You may not care about your reputation, Miss Ballinger, but I do." He concentrated on getting her safely down the lane to the back entrance of Lady Arbuthnott's garden. The gate was unlocked. Harry urged Augusta inside. He saw a shadow detach itself from the house and start forward with a crablike motion. Scruggs was still in full costume, he noted wryly.

Harry looked down at his new fiancée. He tried to see her expression but found it impossible because her face was hidden by the hood. He was very aware of the fact that he was probably not behaving like every maiden's dream of a romantic husband.

"Augusta?"

"Yes, my lord?"

"We do have an understanding, do we not? You are not going to try to cry off tomorrow, are you? Because if so, I must warn you—"

"Heavens, no, my lord." She lifted her chin. "If you are content with the notion of marrying a frivolous female who wears her gowns cut much too low, then I expect I can tolerate a stuffy, sober-minded, unromantic scholar. At my age, I rather suspect I should be grateful for what I can get. But there is one condition, my lord."

"What the devil is that?"

"I must insist on a long engagement."

"How long?" he demanded, suddenly wary.

"A year?" She eyed him with an assessing gleam in her eye.

"Good God. I do not intend to waste a year on this engagement, Miss Ballinger. It should take no more than three months to prepare for the wedding."

"Six."

"Bloody hell. Four months and that's my final offer."

Augusta lifted her chin. "So very generous of you, my lord," she said acidly.

"Yes, it is. Too generous by half. Go on into the house, Miss Ballinger, before I regret my generosity and do something quite drastic for which we will both no doubt be extremely sorry."

Harry turned and stalked out of the garden and back down the lane. He seethed every step of the way over the fact that he had just bargained like a fishmonger over the length of his own engagement. He wondered if this was how Antony had felt when dealing with Cleopatra.

Harry was inclined to be more sympathetic with Antony tonight than he had been in the past. Previously he had always considered the Roman a victim of his own unbridled lust. But Harry was beginning to understand how a woman could undermine a man's self-control.

It was a disturbing realization and Harry knew he would have to be on his guard. Augusta was displaying a talent for being able to push him to the edge.

Hours later, safe in her bed, Augusta lay wide awake and stared at the ceiling. She could still feel the commanding warmth of Harry's mouth on hers. Her body remembered every place he had touched her. She ached with a strange new longing to which she could not put a name. A heat seemed to be flowing in her veins, pooling in her lower body.

She realized with a shiver of awareness that she wished Harry were here with her now to finish whatever it was he had started there on the floor of his library.

This was what was meant by passion, she thought. This was the stuff of epic poems and romantic novels.

For all her vivid imagination, she had not truly understood how enthralling it would be, nor how dangerous. A woman could lose herself to this kind of glittering, compelling excitement.

And Harry was intent on marriage.

Augusta felt a wave of panic rise up inside her. Marriage? To Harry? It was impossible. It would never work. It would be a terrible mistake. She had to find a way to end this engagement, for both their sakes. Augusta watched the shadows on the ceiling and warned herself that she would have to be very careful and very clever.

4

Harry propped one shoulder against the ballroom wall and sipped meditatively at a glass of champagne as he watched his fiancée step into the arms of yet another man.

Augusta, glowing in a gossamer silk gown of dark coral, was smiling with pleasure as her tall, handsome, red-haired partner swept her into a dashing waltz. There was no denying the couple made an attractive sight on the crowded dance floor.

"What do you know of Lovejoy?" Harry asked Peter, who was lounging beside him with a bored expression on his handsome face.

"You'd do better to ask that question of one of the ladies." Peter's gaze wandered restlessly across the crowded ballroom. "I understand he's got quite a reputation among the fairer sex."

"Obviously. He's danced with every eligible female in the room tonight. Not one of them has turned him down yet."

Peter's mouth twisted briefly. "I know. Not even the Angel." His eyes lingered briefly on Augusta's demure, golden-haired cousin who was dancing with an elderly baron.

"I don't care if he dances with Claudia Ballinger, but I may have to put a stop to his waltzing with Augusta."

Peter's brow rose mockingly. "You think you can accomplish that feat? Augusta Ballinger has a mind of her own, as you should know by now."

"Be that as it may, she is engaged to me. It's time she learned to behave with a bit more propriety."

Peter grinned. "So now that you've selected your bride you intend to turn her into the sort of wife you think you want, is that it? This should prove interesting. Bear in mind that Miss Augusta Ballinger comes from the wild branch of the Ballinger family. From what I have heard that lot never could do anything with propriety. Augusta's parents scandalized Society by making a runaway marriage, Sally tells me."

"That is an old piece of business and need not concern anyone now."

"Well, then, how about more current news?" Peter said, beginning to show some interest in the conversation. "There's the rather mysterious manner in which Miss Ballinger's brother was killed two years ago."

"He was shot dead by a highwayman on the way home from London."

"That's the official story. Things were hushed up, but according to Sally there was some speculation at the time that the young man was involved in highly questionable activities."

Harry scowled. "Bound to be some speculation and gossip when a young rakehell is cut down by violence. Everyone knows Richard Ballinger was a hotheaded, neck-or-nothing sort, just like his father before him."

"Yes, well, speaking of the father," Peter murmured with relish, "have you pondered the reputation the man had for fighting duels because of his wife's penchant for drawing the wrong sort of attention? Aren't you afraid that sort of problem might continue in the current generation? Some say Augusta is very much like her mother."

Harry set his jaw, aware that Peter was deliberately baiting him. "Ballinger was a reckless idiot. From what Sir Thomas has told me, the man exercised no control over his wife. He allowed her to run wild. I do not intend to permit Augusta to get into the sort of trouble that will oblige me to go about making dawn appointments. Only a fool finds himself fighting a duel over a woman."

"Pity. I think you'd be rather good at them. Duels, I mean. There have been times when I have actually believed you had ice instead of blood in your veins, Harry. And everyone knows cold-blooded men do better than hot-blooded ones on the dueling field."

"That is a theory I do not intend to test personally." Harry frowned as he watched Lovejoy whirl Augusta around in a particularly uninhibited turn on the dance floor. "If you will excuse me, I believe I shall claim a dance with my fiancée."

"Do that. You can entertain her with some elevating lectures on propriety." Peter levered himself away from the wall. "In the meantime, I believe I shall ruin the Angel's evening by requesting a dance. Five to one she turns me down flat."