Hooking an arm over the side of the chair, Vaughn gazed reflectively into the mirror. He was, he realized with some surprise, suffering from an entirely unaccountable sense of disappointment. But, then, the whole evening had been entirely unaccountable. Enjoyable, even. Her opening jab about solitude had been nicely done, very nicely done indeed, although she had lost ground later on by letting herself be rattled by his abrupt switch away from seduction. Conversation, when conducted properly, wasn't unlike a good fencing match, a constant attempt to sniff out one's opponent's weak spots and throw him off guard. Under that carefully cultivated mask of vapidity, Miss Alsworthy harbored a natural knack for the sport. In want of training, certainly, but with an acid tongue that boded well for future bouts.

The last thing he needed just now was yet another black-haired beauty getting in the way of his plans. And yet, the complications might have been adjusted to his advantage. He might have sworn off raven-haired agents, but surely one more, employed in just the right way…What were vows for, but to be broken? No one knew that better than he.

Ah, well. After the way their little interview had ended, the point was decidedly moot.

Drumming his fingers against the blackened wood, Vaughn addressed his new friend, Yorick Redux. "Another lost opportunity, my dear chap. I would imagine you know something about those."

"My lord?"

It wasn't Yorick. Not unless Yorick had suddenly become a good deal more talkative and female. The voice was a woman's voice, low and imperious. A voice recently heard and even more recently remembered. A shadow swayed over the table, falling across Yorick's bald pate and the barbaric splendor of silver and gems.

Vaughn stilled, his hands closing over the arms of the chair. Beneath his languid demeanor, anticipation thrilled through him, sharp as a foeman's steel. It was merely an antidote to the grinding ennui of the past week, the anticipation of a verbal duel with an unexpectedly adept opponent, nothing more.

"Miss Alsworthy," he murmured, rising smoothly from his chair.

Lapped in shadow, her graceful figure looked insubstantial and oddly fragile. The hearth light picked out the hollows beneath her collarbones and the shadows under her eyes, whittling away the armor of the flesh to the brittle bone beneath.

He had, reflected Vaughn wryly, been spending altogether too much time in the company of corpses if he could look at a beautiful woman and think only of the grave.

He moved swiftly to shut the door behind her.

"What a pleasant…surprise."

Miss Alsworthy's shoulders stiffened as though the door had thudded into her back rather than its frame. She hid it well, though, taking the moment to stroll forwards, one pale hand trailing lightly along the edge of the table. Only her shoulder blades betrayed her, brittle as glass above the scalloped back of her dress.

"A friend of yours?" She nodded to the skull with commendable sangfroid.

Vaughn closed the short distance between door and table. Resting a caressing hand on Yorick's bald pate, he traced the brow with a deliberation that would have brought a blush to a more susceptible maiden's cheek. "I've only just made his acquaintance. A decent enough sort, although his conversational style appears to be somewhat lacking."

"I thought all men desired such a complaisant companion." Mary's deep blue eyes glinted up at Vaughn from beneath lowered lids. "Someone to offer unconditional agreement."

"'The grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace,'" Vaughn recited meditatively, lingering on the last word. "Rather a high price to pay for unwinking devotion, don't you think?"

"One pays a price for everything."

"And what, Miss Alsworthy, is your price?"

He had expected her to answer with coy digressions, but she surprised him. "A dowry," she said abruptly, the train of her skirt whispering against the table leg. "The cost of a Season."

"Is that all?"

"All?" Mary glanced back at him, bitter humor lengthening the corners of her lips. It was, he thought, more becoming to her than the mask of placid sweetness she donned in front of society. "You might ask the same of the young man who begs the cost of a commission, or a sea captain in want of a ship. Trifles to you, but ruin to those who lack them."

"Surely, you have a sister."

"And now a brother, too," Mary said grimly. "Would you take charity on such terms?"

Having spent the better part of a month in Dublin in enforced proximity with Miss Alsworthy's estimable relations, Vaughn would sooner bunk with Methodist missionaries. But he certainly wasn't going to afford her the gratification of saying so.

Vaughn stretched lazily, setting the silver strands in his lace sparkling. "I can only be grateful such a situation has never arisen."

"Not all of us have that luxury."

"This sudden interest in my company…" Vaughn propped a shoulder against the wall, affecting an expression of well-bred surprise. "Are you trying to tell me that you have reconsidered the merits of my little offer?"

"Yes," said Mary shortly, her head bent low over the illuminated manuscript on the table.

"Despite your, er, earlier objections? I wouldn't want to force you to anything you find unworthy of your energies."

"It is I," murmured Mary, "who am unworthy of such solicitude from so great a personage as yourself."

"Brava," said Vaughn gravely. "There are few who condescend so well to condescension."

Without looking up, Mary flicked over page of the manuscript. Sturdy peasants cavorted in a pastoral fantasy on the red, blue, and gold page. "It is not, however, a marketable skill."

"Not on the marriage market, at any event," agreed Vaughn. "Philistines, the lot of them."

Mary lifted her chin, her gaze like a gauntlet. "Are you offering to remedy their lack of discernment?"

With the words quivering in the air between them, Vaughn caught her gaze and held it. He met her stare for stare, challenge for challenge, before saying, slowly and very deliberately, "No."

Mary smiled without humor. "I didn't think so."

Well done! applauded Vaughn. He found himself seized with a most unusual desire to render genuine praise. Since praise might be taken for approbation and approbation for encouragement, he quashed the impulse and turned instead to the assortment of barbaric drinking vessels. Raising the decanter, he poised it above a misshapen silver goblet.

"May I offer you a glass of brandy — in the spirit of our future partnership? Our future business partnership, that is."

Mary closed the Book of Hours with a decided snap. "Hadn't we better come to an agreement before we celebrate it?"

Vaughn lifted his glass in a toast. "A lady as shrewd as she is beautiful." It wasn't intended as a compliment, and she was astute enough to know it. "To business, then. I assume you have no objections if I prefer not to commit the terms to paper?"

"As long as I can trust you to abide by them." Her tone suggested that she couldn't.

It was lovely to see cynicism in one so young. It positively restored his faith in human nature. Vaughn placed his hand over his heart. "You may trust to my honor, dear lady, as you would to your own."

She rose beautifully to the insult, like a trout to the hook. "Do you ever come to the point, my lord?"

"Not when I can avoid it." Vaughn toyed with the stem of his glass, sending the amber liquid swirling within the bowl. The metal, while picturesque, lent the brew a tinny flavor. "I prefer the circuitous route. The scenery is more entertaining."

"Linger too long," Mary said, angling her head pointedly towards the door, "and the scenery may change."

"The gods would weep," replied Vaughn politely.

A branch cracked in the hearth, sending reddish sparks flaring upwards. Mary's eyes strayed from the hearth towards the skull. "I doubt God has anything to do with this."

"You don't believe in divine providence, Miss Alsworthy?"

"Only when He is on the side of the strongest battalion."

A glimmer of Vaughn's pale eyes acknowledged the quotation and the point. "The clash of arms is merely a diversion. The real battles occur in little rooms such as these. That," he added smoothly, "will be your task."

"What sort of little room did you have in mind?" Mary asked warily.

"Not a bedchamber, if that was worrying at your conscience."

Vaughn had to give her credit; she didn't flush or affect maidenly flutters. Having determined to do business, Miss Alsworthy was nothing if not direct. "My conscience," she said levelly, "isn't the problem. My reputation is."

"Not virtue, but the appearance of it," Vaughn agreed with all seriousness, saving the sting for last. He smiled pleasantly as he added, "One wouldn't want to risk being compromised…again."

Mary's fingers clenched almost imperceptibly within the folds of her skirts, but there was no sign of it in the perfectly sculpted lines of her face. "I don't believe you would enjoy the outcome any more than I would."

"Touché," Vaughn acknowledged the point with a fragment of a nod. "Your solution?"

Mary addressed herself to the fire rather than him, her expression remote. "It would be the last word in foolishness to obtain the means to get a husband only to render myself unmarriageable. In order to prevent that occurrence, I must insist on the presence of a chaperone at all times."

"As you are chaperoned now," murmured Vaughn. "Our presence in this room is in itself highly suspect. Alone. A closed door. Tsk, tsk, Miss Alsworthy."