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“Afraid of your brother, then.”

“Bored at the idea of domestic bliss,” he drawled. “After all, given the little scene you created at Madame Rocque’s, I can always count on you to enliven the atmosphere.”

“I won’t do it,” she said flatly. “You must be cracked to think I would. The woman will likely kill me, and she would have every reason to do so. I may have lost my virtue, Rees, but I haven’t lost every crumb of common decency. I’m not staying in your wife’s bedroom while she sleeps upstairs. I wouldn’t enter the door while she’s here.”

“Don’t make a Cheltenham tragedy about it,” he snarled. “Go if you want to go.”

But she just stayed there, her eyes glinting at him. “You told your brother that you wanted me in the house to sing your compositions. I think it would have been easier for both of us if you had clarified that particular aspect of our relationship some time ago.”

“I know. I’ve been a bastard.” He said it impatiently: he’d had this sort of conversation with women before and it didn’t interest him.

“Well, if I’m to be here to sing for my supper,” Lina persisted, “do tell me: just what do you have in mind for your wife?”

“She’ll help with—” he stopped. Too late, he saw the trap.

“Help with the opera?” Lina inquired in a particularly sweet voice. “Ah, yes, we all know that the Countess Godwin is a brilliant musician, do we not? I thought there was something fishy about your sudden wish to beget an heir. But if we take your recent musical compositions into account…well, now I understand. So the countess will write the score, and I will sing the score, and you merely do your bedtime duty, is that it?” She laughed. “Your wife must be desperate indeed.”

Rees was at her side with a snarl of rage that startled them both. “Don’t you dare speak of Helene in that tone!”

She shook his hand from her arm. “I’ll pack my bags.”

Rees gritted his teeth. “If you stay and sing when I ask you to, I’ll make Shuffle give you the part of the Quaker girl.”

She paused, hand on the door.

“You are no courtesan, Lina. We both know it. What are you going to do with the rest of your life? There’ll be no second protector for you.”

Lina laughed briefly. “Not after what I’ve learned of men from you.”

“You’ll go back to the opera house, won’t you? So how would it feel to go back with a lead part under your arm, and the part already learned? Six weeks at most,” he said. “You can learn the Quaker’s part by then. Hell, I’ll even toss in a little of that coloratura that you do so well. And I’ll clear it with Shuffle and the rest of the management.”

There was a moment of silence.

“I’d rather have the role of Princess Mathilde,” she said. “Not the Quaker girl. I’m no Quaker.”

“You’d make an excellent Quaker. For all your beauty, there’s a deep down Puritan side to you.”

She pulled open the door. “Must be pretty far down. I haven’t seen a twitch of it in years. I want the Princess.”

He touched her arm. “It wasn’t that bad, was it, Lina?”

She looked up at him, remembering how deeply she fell in love with the big, shaggy earl, his dimples and his abruptness, his burly body and his secret kindness. He was the one with a secret Puritan soul, if anyone. She shook her head. “It’s been lovely,” she said flippantly. “Nothing more than constant gaiety.”

Rees had to let her go. What more could he say? What could either of them say?

Fourteen

An Outrageous Proposal

Helene had a shrewd feeling that she would be besieged with morning callers. No staid matron could chop off all her hair, put on a flagrantly outrageous gown, and disappear from a ballroom with the Earl of Mayne, without every single female acquaintance she had in the world—and several whom she did not—developing a burning ambition to partake of tea at her house.

So she instructed Mrs. Crewe to prepare for callers and then put on a recklessly daring morning gown sent by Madame Rocque, so that she could entertain all those who might have missed her appearance the previous night. The morning gown was of a style with the gown she had worn to the ball: the cut of the bodice was almost prudish, but the fabric was so fine that it floated around her body, allowing every curve to speak for itself.

But she felt no pleasure in shocking her visitors. In the morning she had discovered that she had her monthly, and only the fact that she had already darkened her lashes prevented her from bursting into tears. It wasn’t until she read the very first card brought in by her mother’s butler that Helene shed her listlessness like a snake sheds its skin.

Her heart started beating quickly and her cheeks suddenly turned a pink that had nothing to do with cosmetics. “How could you?” she cried, the moment the door opened. She had been thinking about blistering Esme’s ears ever since waking up.

Except Esme was followed by William, a plump, cheerful one-year-old. William didn’t see the point of solitary walking; he trusted his nursemaid, Ivy, to keep him upright while he tugged on her finger and pointed. And now he wanted to go to Helene, so Ivy walked him across the room. William had his father’s golden hair and blue eyes, but that mischievous twinkle in his eyes was all Esme’s.