Richard hastily scraped his chair back as Murat was ill all over Mme Rochefort’s prized Persian rug.

These were the moments, Richard reflected bitterly, as Marston handed his friend a handkerchief and a servant came scurrying with rags and water, when he envied Miles his nice, quiet desk job at the War Office. His nice, quiet, odorless desk job at the War Office.

“Be ri’ back,” Murat announced, reeling off, hopefully to find a change of linen.

“Another glass of brandy and you’ll be right as rain!” Marston shouted after him.

“Perhaps we might relocate to another table?” Richard suggested, his nose twitching.

“All right with me.” Marston shrugged. “I’m leaving in ten minutes. The girl will be waiting for me at midnight. I might keep her waiting a few minutes—the suspense always makes ’em more eager—”

“How about this table?” Richard had no desire to hear any more of Marston’s romantic advice. Before Marston could continue with his plans for the evening, Richard hastily complimented his jacket.

“I’ll give you the name of my tailor,” Marston offered generously.

Richard would rather face a firing squad than wear a peacock-blue frock coat with gold facings and cameo buttons, but the offer gave him just the opportunity he had desired.

“You’re pretty chummy with Balcourt, aren’t you? Couldn’t you persuade him to patronize a different tailor? One who isn’t color-blind? It’s deuced hard on the eyes for the rest of us.”

“Nature didn’t give him much to work with.” Marston snagged the brandy bottle and glasses from their old table, just as Murat wove his way back, minus his soiled cravat and waistcoat.

Richard feigned confusion. “I had thought you were friends.”

Marston shrugged, evading the implied question. “Who would’ve thought the man would have such a toothsome sister?”

Richard fought back the urge to stop Marston’s words with a fist. Richard had, admittedly, entertained much the same thought himself, but the gleam in Marston’s eye brought out hitherto unsuspected proclivities towards violence.

“The cousin is reputed to be the beauty of the family,” Richard threw Jane to the wolves without a qualm.

“Not my type. I like ’em little and cuddly, not cold and statuesque. Maybe you scholars lust after statues, but not me, no.”

So, he was lusting after Amy, was he? Richard rather hoped that Marston was involved in shady business on behalf of Bonaparte, just so Richard would have official reason to thrash him.

Meanwhile, Marston had begun enumerating those attributes of Amy which he had noted the night before, none of which happened to be above her face. Richard considered accidentally hurling the leaded crystal decanter at Marston’s head. Common sense intervened; he still had little idea as to Marston’s true connection with Balcourt, and would be decidedly less likely to find out if he bludgeoned Marston senseless.

Holding up a hand, Richard protested, “Enough! You don’t want to make the lady you’re meeting tonight jealous.”

“No danger of that!” Slapping his brandy balloon onto the table, Marston doubled over with laughter at a private joke. “Make her jealous! Ha! No danger of that at all!”

“Why not?”

Marston grinned wolfishly at Richard. “Because tonight’s lucky lady is Amy Balcourt.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Richard saw red.

He saw every shade of red imaginable, from crimson to scarlet, but mostly he saw himself driving his fist repeatedly into Marston’s face. It took all of his considerable strength of will not to turn that vision into a reality.

Only Richard’s hands, clenched into fists under the table, hinted at his inward struggle as he leaned back and drawled, “Really?”

“Some men have all the luck,” hiccupped Murat, from somewhere just below the rim of the table.

“It ain’t luck; it’s my handsome face.” Marston hauled his friend up by the collar and deposited him back on the seat of his chair. “Met the girl for five minutes last night, and already she can’t keep her hands off me.”

That wasn’t the way Richard remembered it. Clearly, there was some mistake. Marston must have invented the assignation to impress his friends. Or he was meeting some other woman and had her confused with Amy. There had to be a simple explanation.

Through painfully tight lips, Richard got out, “What did she do? Accost you in your chambers after the party?”

“Nah.” Marston flung a card on the discard pile. “She sent me an urgent message. Like that, do you? An urgent message?” Marston guffawed again. “She wants me badly.”

“Nobody shends me meshages like tha’ anymore,” mourned Murat.

Marston dealt him a brotherly whack on the shoulder that nearly sent him flying over the arm of his chair. “That’s because Caroline scares ’em all away!”

“Caroline,” Murat groaned, and reached for the brandy decanter.

“An urgent message, you say?” queried Richard.

“That’s women for you.” Marston tossed back another snifter of brandy. “Says she must see me urgently, because she had something terribly important to tell me. Said I’d know what it was about after our conversation last night. Ha! As if any fool couldn’t figure out what the girl wants, hey, chaps?”

“What about her brother?” Richard blurted out.

“What about him?”

“Won’t he object to his sister arranging assignations with you?”

“Balcourt?” Marston threw back his head and laughed. Richard hoped the weight of it would cause him to overbalance, perhaps knocking himself out on a handy piece of furniture—there was the nice sharp edge of a card table right there—but Marston’s luck was in and Richard’s was out. Marston’s head snapped back to center without Marston so much as wobbling. “Balcourt? He knows better than to come up stuffy about this.”

That was taking French nonchalance too far, decided Richard. Not to mention that Balcourt was half English and thus should bloody well know better.

“But it’s his sister,” Richard gritted out, pushing to his feet. “Rather a nasty trick to play on a friend, seducing his sister.”

Marston shrugged. “Balcourt owes me. Good night, gentlemen.”

“Do you need a ride?” Richard spoke rapidly as Marston began to move towards the door. “If you’re willing to wait a moment, I’ll send for my coach. I can drop you off on my way home.”

And make good and sure you never make it to your assignation, Richard added grimly to himself. So many things might happen along the way. His English coachman, not knowing the streets of Paris well, might get lost, and drive about in circles for hours. At least long enough for Amy to think herself abandoned and leave in a fit of pique. Or the carriage might encounter a fatal pothole. Or Marston might pass out from drink, with a little help from his newfound friend. Or—

“Very decent of you, Selwick.” Marston, who had paused for one glorious moment, set one foot in front of the other. And another. “But it’s a short walk.”

“Are you sure? Where are you meeting her?”

“The Luxembourg Gardens.” Marston paused again. “Women and their romantic notions. I’d’ve preferred a bed.”

Richard would have preferred to smash his fist right into Marston’s smug mouth. Instead, he forced himself to bid Marston a pleasant good night. He contemplated giving him a little shove—just the slightest nudge—on the marble stair, but too many potential witnesses were milling about. Damn, how to dispose of Marston without drawing attention to himself? Attention the Purple Gentian could ill afford.

As he snatched back his gloves and hat from the maid at the foot of the stairs, Richard contemplated racing ahead of Marston, lying in wait, and knocking him down from behind. The streets of Paris abounded with footpads. That gold watch chain of Marston’s shouted “grab me! grab me!” to any thief in a five-mile radius. Marston would be out cold, Amy would be safe, and no one would be any the wiser.

There was only, Richard realized, savagely crushing his hat in his hand, one slight problem. He had no idea which route Marston planned to take. Splendid. He’d lurk there in an alleyway by a street Marston might never walk past while Marston forced himself upon Amy in the Luxembourg Gardens.

What in the devil had Amy been thinking?

Bounding down the steps of the Rochefort town house, Richard saw Marston strolling towards the Seine, towards the bridge that separated them from the Luxembourg and Amy. Richard momentarily considered alerting Balcourt to his sister’s peril, and just as quickly dismissed the idea. Even if he were to find Balcourt at home, even if Marston were wrong about Balcourt’s indifference, he didn’t like to think what might have befallen Amy by the time he wrenched Balcourt out of a chair and shoved him into his coach.

Besides, he didn’t want to relinquish the pleasure of punching Marston.

There was only one thing to do. Damn, damn, damn. Richard rapidly changed course and headed for home. He stormed through the front hall of his house, capsizing a small table and knocking a picture askew. Charging into his study, he flopped to his knees and began flinging books from the bottom shelf of his bookcase.

What in the hell was Amy thinking, arranging assignations with strange men in the middle of the night? Had no one ever shouted any sense into her? Did she think she was invincible? When he found her, he’d shake her till she couldn’t stand. And then he’d lock her into a room with a dozen locks—make that two dozen locks—so she couldn’t send any more ridiculous notes to ridiculous men setting up ridiculous meetings at ridiculous hours of the night. Damn!