They were more alike than she had realized.

It was instinct and an awareness of that affinity between them that had led her to offer Miles her sympathy and comfort, seeing in the grim and unhappy man before her someone so different from the urbane and confident Miles Vickery that she thought she knew. She had expected him to reject her. Cynical, sardonic Miles would have no time for her words of consolation, she was sure. And he had rejected her words and had sought comfort from her body instead.

A ripple of sensual awareness spread through Alice’s body at the thought of Miles’s kiss, turning her insides molten hot. Had Lizzie not interrupted them he would surely have seduced her on the desk and she would have been swept away by her desire for him, dead to any sense of propriety. This heated, feverish need that there was between them was dangerous because Miles was so experienced and she so ill-equipped to resist him. In truth she did not even want to resist the pleasure his touch gave her. Thinking of it now made the goose bumps rise along her skin and her whole body tremble.

I am no lady, Alice thought wryly, reflecting on the money and the time and the effort spent on expensive elocution tutors and etiquette lessons and dancing masters. It takes more than town bronze to make a lady. I suffer from what the Duchess of Cole would no doubt refer to as immodest impulses.

“Miss?” Marigold said, and Alice realized that the maid had asked her a question and it had gone straight over her head.

“I beg your pardon, Marigold,” she said.

“I wondered if you wished for the promenade dress to be laid out,” Marigold said. “Will you be going out with your handsome lord, miss?”

“No, I don’t think I shall,” Alice said, surprised by a catch of pain in her chest at the thought that Miles was only her handsome lord because of her fortune. “I doubt very much that Lord Vickery will be calling today,” she said. “I shall wear my old blue lavender and help Cook bottle some of the plums or make a cake.”

Sighing, she pulled the faded gown from the wardrobe and dressed slowly. She knew that Miles was an experienced rake and she would be the greatest fool in the world to imagine that there was anything more than lust and money between them. For a moment yesterday, at Drum Castle, she had thought there had been something more profound, something deep and sweet and emotional. She had hoped so, her foolish heart as susceptible as ever. Had there been any true emotion, then her feelings of wicked desire for Miles would have been no sin, no matter how unladylike they were. But without love and respect, they could count for nothing, and where there was blackmail and coercion there could be no love and respect…With another sigh Alice headed downstairs to the comfort of her cooking.

It was some two hours later that Alice emerged from the kitchens to answer the front doorbell. Jim the footman was fetching some hot water for Lydia, who had seemed more animated in the last week and was even talking of going for a walk by the river. Marigold was upstairs taking Mrs. Lister some hot buttered tea cakes, so there was no one else to do the servants’ work. Alice opened the door and Miles Vickery stepped over the threshold, shaking the snow from his hat. There were flakes of it dusting the broad shoulders of his caped driving coat, and his boots were soaked.

“Thank you,” he said. “It is an inclement day-” Then, as he recognized her, his tone changed. “Miss Lister! I did not expect-” He stopped. Alice knew exactly what he meant. She had heard it so many times before, most recently at one of the Fortune’s Folly assemblies when she had overheard Mrs. Minchin confiding in the Duchess of Cole, “And my dear Duchess, do you know, she actually opened the door of the house herself! So dreadfully inappropriate! But then, once a servant, always a servant, I say…”

“I am perfectly capable of opening the front door for visitors,” Alice said, feeling self-conscious. “It is simple-one turns the handle and pulls. Perhaps you could try it for yourself one day, my lord.”

She waited for Miles to make some stuffy remark about how that would not be suitable, but he just laughed. “Do you know-I might try that. If you promise to be my mentor, of course, Miss Lister.” His gaze swept over her appraisingly, from the hair escaping her hastily contrived chignon to the purple plum stains on her fingers. It felt like a physical touch. Alice started to feel very hot. “I called to ask if you would care to go driving on Fortune’s Row with me, Miss Lister,” Miles said, “but I see that you were not expecting visitors. Not that you do not look charming…”

“I did not expect to see you this morning,” Alice said, acutely aware that her ancient lavender gown and apron were more suited to a farmer’s daughter than a leisured heiress. “I know you mentioned that you would call, but the weather is so bad I assumed you would not come.”

Miles laughed. “You must think me a poor fellow to be put off by a bit of snow when you are at the end of the journey, Miss Lister,” he said. “After our encounter yesterday I was anxious to see you again.”

Alice bit her lip. She did not want to start thinking about that encounter again. She had only just stopped thinking about it.

“I fear that we are not receiving visitors as Mama is indisposed,” she began, stopping as she caught sight of her reflection in the hall mirror. There was a large smear of flour on her cheek. She gasped, her fingers flying to cover it even as she saw Miles laughing at her.

“It becomes you vastly,” he said, but there was an intent look in his eyes that brought the color flaming into Alice’s cheeks.

“I was making a plum pie,” she said. “If you will excuse me, my lord, I think it best for you to leave for now. Perhaps we might meet this evening, in company-”

“I am sorry to hear of your mother’s indisposition,” Miles said, ignoring her blatant attempts to get rid of him, “but perhaps she might agree to your joining me for a short drive? The snow has stopped and the Row looks very pretty. I would ensure you were wrapped up against the cold,” he added. “You would take no chill, I promise you.”

Alice felt even more flustered now. There was something ridiculously seductive about Miles offering to wrap her up and take care of her. She wiped the palms of her hands down her apron.

“I don’t think-” she began, but stopped as Miles laid one palm against her cheek where the flour still dusted her skin.

“Don’t think,” he said softly. “Come with me.”

Alice closed her eyes. Her skin tingled beneath his fingers.

Come with me…

How easily he could make her forget that he was an unprincipled scoundrel. This unexpected sweetness between them felt like a true courtship rather than the coercion it was.

“I know you do not have to ask-you have the means to command what you are requesting,” she said, angry that with no more than a smile and a touch, Miles could seduce her into liking him.

Her words were sharp and she saw the smiling light die in Miles’s hazel eyes and the coldness return in its place.

“Then you had best go and fetch your cloak and not oppose me,” he said, harshly now. Their gazes clashed and Miles raised his brows. “Why do you wait? As you have reminded me, I can demand whatever I want of you, Miss Lister.”

Feeling a little sick, Alice hurried up the stairs well aware that Miles’s gaze followed her. She felt tense and tired all of a sudden. Just for a moment it had felt as though there was something so tender between them that it had made her tremble, but it had been just another illusion.

Slipping into her mother’s room, she found Mrs. Lister propped against her pillows and deeply engrossed in her book with her lapdog, Bertie, curled up beside her in his knitted jacket that bore the Lister coat of arms.

“Mama, Lord Vickery is here,” she began. “He asks permission to take me for a short drive on Fortune’s Row. The snow has ceased now but I am not sure that it is a very good idea to go with him.”

Mrs. Lister looked startled. “Lord Vickery has come all this way from Drum in the snow to see you, Alice?” Her face broke into a smile. “What devotion!”

“To my money,” Alice murmured, determined to remind her mama that Miles’s reasons for seeking her out were scarcely disinterested.

“Hmm,” Mrs. Lister said. She reached for her empty teacup. “The leaves show me an anchor, which means constancy. Yes, by all means go, my love.”

“Constancy indeed,” Alice said. “A constant interest in saving his own skin. Are you sure I should go, Mama? You are my chaperone and as you are indisposed I would be alone with Lord Vickery, which is most improper-”

“Lord Vickery does not want me there, Alice,” her mother said in tones of one addressing a small, stupid child. “Really, my love, have some sense! It would be the greatest drawback to Lord Vickery’s courtship if I were to accompany you.” She looked at Alice over the top of her book. “You might think about showing him some kindness, too, Alice, whilst we are on the subject.”

“Kindness?” Alice said. “Whatever do you mean, Mama?”

A flicker of irritation crossed Mrs. Lister’s face at having to spell matters out further. “Lord Vickery is a man of somewhat…ardent…emotions,” she said. “He will probably find it difficult to wait the three months or more until you are wed, my dear. That is what I mean by kindness. If you are discreet…” She let the sentence hang suggestively and looked at Alice, her eyes bright, brows arched.

“You mean that he is a rake,” Alice said, sitting down heavily on the edge of her mother’s bed and feeling quite scandalized at what Mrs. Lister was advocating, “and you think he will stray if I do not allow him to sleep with me.”