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“Not to mention, she got herself kidnapped to save us and wagered at cards with the marquis right under the Devil’s nose.” Sybil lifted her glass in a toast. “To Lady Clara, as badly behaved as the rest of us.”

Clara smiled demurely.

“Hah,” Sybil said. “I don’t believe that smile anymore. You can’t fool me.”

*

Soon, as it turned out, was a very subjective word.

It had been two weeks and Bram had not returned.

The marquis was confined to his townhouse while the House of Lords and Parliament debated what to do with him. For his multiple murders he was forced to forfeit his title and his estates, and under the corruption of blood, his entire lineage would be stricken from the peerage. One of his men managed to sneak him out of London onto a ship bound for France. Rosalinde, not inclined to be forgiving over the murder of her grandfather, sent men after him. Clara did not ask any further questions. As the other five women who had disappeared under the marquis’s care or attention over the last decade had not been found, she was also not inclined toward forgiveness.

Meanwhile, Bram sent a message the first night: Don’t forget me.

The next day, flowers arrived: orchids.

And the day after that.

But no Bram.

Clara finally sent the household away for the night so they would stop shaking their heads sympathetically when she asked if that had been a knock at the door. She needed to work on her next book, to look over the publisher’s new contracts.

To obsess over Bram.

Was their time together that morning at the dower house their last time together? She was a dalliance. She’d known that from the start, despite his words to the contrary. She understood the ways of the world for a spinster.

She did not regret a single moment of it.

Not even now, floating aimlessly through her quiet and empty house. She ate bread and cheese for dinner and made a truly terrible cup of coffee. She had thought it would make her feel elegant and confident, like Selene. It might have, had she not had to chew so much of it.

She tried to read, tried to write a new book, now that she was no longer being blackmailed. She still did not quite know how to feel or what to think about Kitty. Part of her wanted a proper row about it. Another part of her could sympathize with running out of options and doing anything to protect your family. Clara did not have that, but she imagined she might be pushed to do the same.

She had hoped that Bram might be her family. That he might stay with her and she with him.

Silly.

Because here she was, back in her townhouse, alone with the candles. The light flickered on the window glass and the carriages rolling by in the wet streets. The rain was falling again, silver tossed over cobbles and roof tiles and lampposts.

And a man, leaning against that lamppost just as he had so many days ago, oblivious to the weather. A sturdy shadow with wide shoulders and thick, curling hair touching the collar of his coat.

Captain Bram Thorn.

He looked up as if she had said his name out loud, as if he had heard her even over the patter of rain and the clatter of carriage wheels and horses’ hooves on stone. His eyes burned through her, still and deep and as blue as the sea. Her breath caught in her chest when he pushed out of his lean and stalked down the path to her front door.

She threw it open with very little thought to decorum.

Inviting a man inside her house, at this hour. Marked by scars and tattoos. With that particular intense expression on his face.

“Lady Clara.”

“Captain Thorn.” Why was he being so polite? Why wasn’t he kissing her?

Perhaps he did not want to kiss her. Perhaps this really was goodbye.

Her throat tightened.

“Are you going to invite me in, lass? A man could drown out here.”