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“Yes,” she said, staring across the room as a memory reared. “Once. It ended badly.”

He let the second boot thump to the floor, then stood. Even in his stockinged feet, he was inches taller than her. The room smelled like warm brandy and some herb used to freshen the linens, and she might be intoxicated, for she felt the top of her head lifting away.

“So. How does one confirm a bet. Do you…shake hands?”

She held out her palm. Once, Rowden’s hand on hers would have been comforting, even in a friendly cuff. He’d been warm and strong and solid and there, her reliable prop. Now, she was terrified to touch him.

His eyes reflected the dancing candlelight. It was a glimpse into the infernal regions and all their temptations.

“No,” he said in that husky voice. “One usually seals a bet with a kiss.”

Her entire body flooded with heat, responding to that sensual invitation. “I— That’s— You’re being absurd. You must stop this talk of kissing.”

“You’re the one who invaded my room.” He stepped forward and took her outstretched hand. “We have a deal, Sophronia Edmons.”

“Hinton,” she whispered, for that was her name now. She tried to steel herself and failed. His firm, warm hand clasped around hers, his skin rough and yet soft at the same time, and the heat leapt everywhere at the shock of contact. She went weak at the knees.

Fortunately, it only lasted a second. His eyelids tightened and he pulled his hand away.

“May the best woman win,” he said.

She nodded dumbly, clenching her shawl to her throat.

She would win. She had to. Sophronia Hinton might look to the world as if she led a charmed life, but she had lost too much already.

And now, she must abandon that last, secret hope of ever getting Rowden back. He was ready to marry her off again. It was as if their years together had vanished from his mind.

She would not marry a stranger, not again. She had gone from her father’s rule to a husband’s and now, for the first time, she had the power to rule her own life. She would not give that up.

She would not lose this bet.

Which meant she would have to find Rowden a bride.

CHAPTER FIVE

Rowden did not recall drinking the previous evening, yet his head felt as thick as if he’d consumed an entire bottle of sack. He rubbed his aching temples as he swung his feet out of bed. The maid had opened the draperies as instructed—Rowden disliked sleeping the day away, even after the nights he worked late at the club—and the noise and smell and coal-tinged light of a London morning made itself known outside the windows. Clarges was a relatively genteel street, but Piccadilly, which lay close by, carried all the traffic of the Great Western Road into the heart of the city, and then back out.

His room overlooked the street, and voices, or rather, one particular voice, drew him to the window. Within five minutes Rowden was dressed and down the stairs.

“You cannot think to go riding,” he told Sophronia.

In a strange town, this time of morning, with no escort? It could only be just past dawn, the way his head felt.

He hadn’t imagined any of last night, Sophronia in his room. Or perhaps he had—certainly there had been visions that persisted in filling his mind well after she left the chamber, and he was unable, with his mind a thick stew, to sort out what was real and what he’d only imagined. God’s toes, had he kissed her?

No. He would remember that in full detail.

But he wasn’t imagining her now, Sophronia, in his house. Or rather, standing before it in a smart tailored riding habit, riding crop in one gloved hand, reins of a horse in another.

His horse.

For a doltish second he simply stared at her, the way he’d stared when she emerged behind the hangings around his bed the night before. Sophronia in a riding habit was no less a disordering sight to his senses than Sophronia in a delicate evening gown. A double-breasted jacket with a black velvet collar encased the swell of that magnificent bosom. The full olive-green skirt lent a shapely curve to her hips and her long, long legs. A ridiculous hat perched on her head, like a brimless helmet made of black velvet, with two feathers waving atop.

She was so much more than he remembered. Just…more. More beautiful. More woman. More stern, more mature, more imperious, more inscrutable.

More angry.

“Of course it is your horse,” she said, an edge of forced patience to her voice as if she’d been waylaid by a hectoring child. “I did not bring my own. Aunt Dobbs said I might make use of the Baron’s stable.”