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“You think I mean so that men can look her over?”

Devin frowned at him.

“It’s so that she can look over the men on offer, you ass,” Jonah said. “Regina doesn’t need advice from me.”

“That’s what you think,” Devin said. “One of my sisters almost eloped with Rothingale.”

“That fool?”

“Yes, but he wears a coat to advantage, and all her friends thought he was handsome, or so she admitted later. You have no idea how influential clusters of women can be. They talk each other into any manner of idiocy.”

Jonah hadn’t danced with a woman in ages, knowing how people would start twittering about his dance partner. Except for Beatrice. Miss Valentine. No, Beatrice …

He would never marry one of his sister’s friends, no matter how her joyful laughter had fired his belly.

There was something shocking about Beatrice Valentine. She was delectable, plump, and curving in all the right places, her hair glossy and soft looking, her lips pillowy.

She was sensual, the way an opera dancer is sensual, with the kind of body that makes a man’s jaw clench. He was surprised that Miss Valentine hadn’t many suitors, at least according to his sister.

“If you’re going to Almack’s in place of your mother, you cannot hide away,” Devin was saying. “You’re like a male version of a wallflower.”

“I don’t know why not,” Jonah retorted. Last night he’d had an uneasy sense that if he returned to the ballroom, he might make a fool of himself by searching out Miss Valentine.

God knows, he couldn’t ask a woman to dance with him twice. It was tantamount to asking her to marry him.

“You must ensure that Lady Regina is not making irresponsible decisions,” Devin responded. “I have four sisters, so trust me on this. They can get into trouble before you blink an eye, whether they’re betrothed or not. It’s her first Season, so she’s sure to put a foot wrong.”

Jonah managed not to snort. Regina had been breaking hearts since she was thirteen years old. He pitied Lord Peregrine. He didn’t know what hit him, the poor sod.

“Did you even dance with your sister last night?” Devin said, scowling.

Jonah only danced with Regina when she commanded it. “No.”

“You have to look at her dance card and cross off any bounders who managed to sneak their way on. She’s a duke’s daughter, you idiot. She’s prey to any number of fortune hunters.”

No, she wasn’t. Or if she was, they’d back away slowly once they got a closer look at the miracle that was his sister.

“All right, I’ll do it for you,” Devin said, rolling his eyes. “I’ll dance with her, ask to see her card, and cross out any man she shouldn’t dance with.”

“No!” Jonah snapped, not thinking. “Stay away from her.”

Devin’s mouth curled into a smile, but years of friendship told Jonah that his friend was offended. There was just the faintest shade of injury in Devin’s eyes.

“I wouldn’t want my sister dancing with me either,” he said lightly.

True, Devin was a rakehell and had been since the age of eighteen. But he was also rich as Croesus; his father had so much money over and above the entailed estate that he’d endowed all his children with a duke’s ransom.

That was one of the things that had bound Jonah and Devin together as children. They knew what it was to grow up amid extreme wealth and discover it’s a hindrance to becoming a man. Though one signal difference was that Devin’s father was devoted to growing his estate and Jonah’s father to wasting his.

“Nothing to do with your reputation. You don’t understand.”

“I do.” Devin’s eyes were perfectly sunny. “I have four sisters. I don’t know that I’d want you to marry one of them, either.”

“Damn it.” Jonah wrestled with the right words, but Devin was already at the door.

“If I’m not reviewing Regina’s dance card, then you must. You’ll have to be on duty the rest of the Season.”

“As I said, she has a chaperone,” Jonah said.