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“Your sister is a successful dressmaker. Surely the shop is pulling in a tidy profit,” he said.

Caleb’s eyes darted down to the left, and Andrew knew the next words out of his old friend’s mouth would be a lie. “It’s a more expensive enterprise than you’d think. She’s barely keeping her head above water.”

Andrew frowned. “That doesn’t make sense. I’ve seen the number of orders she’s working on.”

This time it was Caleb to raise his brows. “You have?”

Andrew’s cock thickened as he thought of her spread out on the workshop floor, hair spilling down over her shoulders and cheeks flush from her climax. A vision. A delight. A danger.

“Actually,” Caleb said, “I suspect I’d rather not know. Just remember that she’s had a life these last twelve years without you, and she doesn’t need you now.”

Her brother might as well have growled, Stay away. She’s not for you. But what Caleb didn’t know was that it wasn’t that easy for Andrew when it came to Lavinia.

Andrew grunted rather than giving his consent, but that seemed enough for Caleb, who rapped his knuckles on the counter. “I’m off. They expect me to show up at my place of employment from time to time. It’s rather a bore, if you ask me.”

Andrew watched Lavinia’s younger brother saunter out of his shop and down the street and shook his head. A crumpled piece of paper on the ground caught his eye, and he rounded the corner to pick it up. He smoothed it out on the counter, his lips thinning into a hard line when he realized what it was.

Although I received your banknote of £20, you will find that you still have an outstanding debt of £130. I took you to be a man of your word, Malcolm. I expect the debt to be settled by the end of the month.

Caleb always had been enchanted by games of chance, even when they were small children. Now, Andrew hated to think how many hounding notes from his creditors Caleb had for him to be so casual with the ones he carried.

He folded the note carefully and slipped it into the pocket of his jacket. If Lavinia’s brother was ensnared by debt, she should know. He’d go that night, tell her, and leave. It would be easier that way.

Yet even as he promised himself that he’d steel himself against the temptation of another blissful night together, Andrew knew that one day away from her was already too much.

Andrew didn’t come to Lavinia the night after their reconciliation. She tried not to let that bother her. She had enough to worry about, what with the prince’s ball growing ever closer and the stack of orders that needed finishing seeming to multiply by the hour. After Wark had left her shop, she’d locked herself up in the frantic world of Mrs. Parkem’s workshop, her needle flying and mounds of tissue and string littering the floor as she and her seamstresses sent out package after package. She hadn’t even had time to scribble out a coded message to Andrew, informing him and Gillie of Wark’s invitation.

Now, however, one day later as she walked back from her last delivery of the day with aching feet and a sore neck, she found her unoccupied thoughts slipping to Andrew. Her stomach tightened as she remembered flashes of his lips grazing over her skin, drinking her in as though he’d never be able to have enough. Being with him had felt right, like returning home after a long time away. It frightened her because she knew there was more history there than one night together could brush away—but then, it didn’t have to be only one night. Did it?

She chewed on her lip as she walked, lost so deep in her thoughts that she hardly noticed a large black carriage with gold detailing around the windows pull up to her until it stopped and the door flew open.

“Mrs. Parkem, how fortuitous,” said Douglas, his silver-haired head emerging from inside the carriage.

“Mr. Douglas, you surprised me,” she said, her heart ramming against her rib cage.

The man smiled all too knowingly and stepped down from the vehicle. “Perhaps you would like a ride home. You must be tired after all of your deliveries.”

Something about the knowing way he said it set her on edge. “Thank you, but I’ll walk. I could do with the fresh air.”

“Come along, Mrs. Parkem. There’s no need to be coy.” Mrs. Wark’s voice pierced through from the darkness of the carriage. The lady shifted, the fast-falling twilight showing just the faintest outline of her features.

“Join me,” Mrs. Wark continued. “There are details I wish to discuss about my ball gown.”

That, Lavinia knew, was a lie. They’d been over the design of Mrs. Wark’s gown three times since the lady had commissioned it several months before, and they’d had two fittings. The dress, which would be wrapped in tissue and delivered to the house the following day, was perfect.

Still, she found herself delicately lifting her skirts and placing her hand as lightly as possible into Douglas’s to climb into the carriage. Andrew needed her help, and thus far Wark had turned up little to no useful information. It was time to begin to broaden her strategy.

As Lavinia settled onto the plush bench seat across from Mrs. Wark, the door swung closed, plunging them into near darkness.

“There, now we’re alone,” said Mrs. Wark.

“Will Mr. Douglas not be joining us?” asked Lavinia, wishing her eyes would adjust to the dim light faster.

“He knows that some matters must be spoken of woman to woman, and this is one of those. Mrs. Parkem, you’ll be aware by now that I’m not a woman who minces her words, so I will ask you plainly: what are your intentions toward my son?”

There are some women who speak to their dressmakers as they might to a confidante, hardly able to stop their secrets and worries pouring out of them. Mrs. Wark had never been that sort of woman, instead skewing to the other end of the spectrum. She treated Lavinia at best like a member of staff who had a skill that ensured her continued employment. Yet since Andrew had arrived, their roles had shifted somewhat. Lavinia could feel Mrs. Wark’s grip on the power in their relationship loosening, and she knew the lady must be desperate to clutch it to her.

Perhaps that’s why rather than apologizing or denying, Lavinia simply said, “I believe that’s normally a question directed at the other sex.”