What Price Love?

19

He kissed her until she was gasping, until the scent of him, the taste of him, had overwhelmed and seduced her, until she had to cling to him to stay on her feet. The melding of their mouths, the twining of their tongues, was hungry, ravenous-ravishing. Every particle of her parched being seized, clung, and yearned, drinking him in as voraciously as he did her.

Regardless…she retained enough sanity to grasp the moment when his lips slid from hers to feather along her jaw. Sinking her fingers into the hard muscles of his arms, denying the compulsion to slide her arms up and twine her fingers in his hair-and hold him to her-she closed her eyes and whispered, “Let me go.”

“No.” He gathered her more securely, more fully against him.

Every nerve leapt at the contact. Her head spun as her body reacted to the hard promise of his. But…“Why?”

Her most urgent question. She opened her eyes, caught his, only inches away as he lifted his head. She watched as he studied her, both saw and sensed his search for words, for how to answer with the truth.

Then his lips firmed. “Because you’re mine.”

The words should have sounded merely dramatic, but his tone made them much more. Even more than a statement of fact-his flat implacability made them a statement of certainty, of life as he saw it.

She caught her breath, searched his eyes, struggled to put a name to what she saw in the dark depths. “This is madness.”

He paused, then closed those last few inches. As his lips brushed hers, he murmured, “And more.”

Dillon took her mouth again, laid claim to all she couldn’t deny him. She was right; having her was a madness, a humor of the blood, an addictive ache that only she could assuage. Having her was a madness he now needed and craved, knowing he could, knowing she would. That no matter her denials, her disbelief, when it came to him and her, together, alone like this, their needs and wants converged and became one.

One compulsion, one hunger, one overwhelming craving to taste the wild and reckless, the soaring, greedy, fiery, all-consuming passion that only with each other could they reach.

Her father had remarked to him that when it came to her, he possessed an advantage no other had ever had-he understood her. Not completely, but in many ways he thought as she did, felt as she did.

Wanted with the same fire and passion that coursed through her wild and reckless soul. And felt the consequent lash of desire every bit as keenly.

In this, always, they were as one. Well matched. The ladies had it right.

Yet even while she met him, matched him, even while he sensed the passion rising and welling and building inside her, he also sensed her confusion, her lack of understanding-her need to understand. Her struggle to hold against the inexorable tide, her innate caution holding her back until she’d learned where he was headed, until she knew what giving herself to him again would mean, until she understood where the road down which he was determined to lead her led.

He could sweep her resistance away; if he wished, he could simply overpower her senses and drive her into intimacy. She might be able to stand against his passion, but not his and hers combined. He knew well enough that telling her simply what his ultimate goal was would only lead to more arguments, to more resistance, not less. If he wanted to win her quickly and surely, before he revealed his goal, he had to establish the truth, as he’d set out from Flick’s parlor to do nights before, to state his reality in a way she couldn’t misconstrue.

But this was Pris-she, like he, mistrusted words. Deeds spoke louder, and more truly. And that was why he was there, with her alone, so he could show her the truth. So he could start revealing to her what she was to him.

They were both heated, the engagement of lips and tongues no longer sufficient to meet the rapacious hunger spiraling up within them. He spread his hands, let them rove, over her back, over the aqua silk screening her skin.

He felt her responsive shudder to his bones, ached when, against her better judgment, she sank against him, fingers tightening on his lapel as she fought the compulsion to urge him on. Fought to hold on to her wits even while she shifted closer, hips and thighs moving into him, making his control quake.

His fingers found what they were searching for. Her gown laced up the back.

Lifting his head, dragging in a breath, he turned her and drew her back-trapped her against him, her back to his chest.

Her luscious bottom to his groin. He bit back a groan, and concentrated-on her. Raising his hands to her breasts, he closed them, locked her against him as the contact made her gasp, made her momentarily more malleable.

Pris kept her eyes closed and battled to quell the shivers coursing down her spine. She wasn’t cold, wasn’t in need of more clothes, but less.

He kneaded her breasts, but there was no desperation in his touch, only a knowing confidence, one that screamed of how well he knew that each evocative caress sank into her mind, captured her senses, weakened her will.

Before she could gather her wits and respond-resist, break away-one hard hand left her already aching breast. His chest shifted back. A second later, she felt the quick, deft tugs as he unpicked her laces.

Why was he here? Why was he doing this-what did he hope to achieve?

Her mind wasn’t sure; her heated body didn’t care.

But she knew she should say something, do something, before-

Her bodice gaped; the tiny off-the-shoulder sleeves weren’t designed to hold it up. Drawing her fully back against him again, he slid one hand beneath the loose silk, tugged down the gathered top of her chemise, and lifted first one breast, then the other, free.

She sucked in a tight breath, had to lean back against him, had to grip the long muscles of his thighs as the remembered plea sure of his hands and fingers on her naked skin swept through her again. His hands sculpted and shaped. He pandered to her senses, openly, flagrantly, until her breasts were heavy, aching and swollen, firm and sensitive to every seductive touch.

His fingers circled her ruched nipples, then closed, squeezed.

She gasped, and he bent his head, with his lips traced the curve of her ear.

“Open your eyes. The mirror-look.”

It took effort, but she raised her lids, looked across the room, and saw what he saw. He was a dark male presence, clothed in black, holding trapped before him a slender siren in aqua silk, her bodice loose and lowered, revealing two creamy flushed mounds that his tanned hands possessed and caressed, as if he had the right, yes, but that wasn’t all she felt in his touch.

Wasn’t all she saw when she raised her gaze and in the mirror searched his face.

Soft light spilled over them, golden and flickering from the fire, muted and white from the lamp. In that gentle illumination, she both felt and saw something that made her breath catch.

She-the siren-might be trapped and helpless, but…

Her breath suspended, her body all his, she watched as he watched her watch him. As he caressed with a reined need that was powerfully reverent, as he worshipped her openly, without disguise.

Every touch, every brush of his fingertips across her taut skin was a testament, a prayer. It wasn’t simply the physical but something more ephemeral, as if he valued the needs raging inside her, without question appreciated the wild passion she longed to let free…

Her gaze had dropped to his hands; now she looked back at his face, confirmed that he did indeed worship that. The wild compulsive beat in her blood.

No other had ever heard it, let alone responded. No other had ever appreciated it, shared it, as he did.

That was what she read in his face.

That was when she felt the reins of her will start to slide from her grasp.

She dragged in a breath, tried to wrench her senses from the gentle but overpowering seduction. She licked her dry lips. “I don’t…”

He looked down at his hands. “Want this?” His fingers found her nipples and squeezed; she closed her eyes on a hiss of plea sure, and he murmured, “Don’t lie-you do.”

His voice was a dark rumble in her ear. His touch changed, became more flagrantly possessive. “What of this?”

Sudden pressure-burgeoning pleasure-made her gasp.

“Do you know…one thing I love about you is how you respond. To every touch, every brush, every caress.” He demonstrated, and her shameless body, her witless senses swooned, and proved him right.

“Yes, that.” His breath was another caress. “But not only that. With you, with me, it’s not just your body that rises and meets mine, that aches and hungers, but your senses, your soul. You come to me, join with me, fly with me.” He shifted slightly, his strength surrounding her as one hand left her breast and reached down. “And that’s something infinitely more precious.”

She heard her skirt rustle, felt it rise, felt the cooler touch of air as he drew the front up. Not in any rush, not bunching and crushing, but carefully sweeping it up and to the side; opening her eyes, she stared, mesmerized, as he released her other breast, draped her raised skirt in the crook of that arm, then his fingers returned to her heated skin, firming around one breast again while his other hand slid beneath the angled hem, and skimmed up one leg.

To the curls at the apex of her thighs. He stroked them once, then reached past, sliding his fingers along the swollen folds, then caressing.

In the mirror, he watched her face. “And this?” His fingers were slick with her arousal; he slid one into her sheath, lightly probed.

She shuddered and closed her eyes.

Felt his lips at her temple, felt his breath against her cheek.

“I didn’t tell you before, but I should have…this, having you in my arms, feeling you respond to me, is one of the things I most love about you.” Between her thighs, his fingers probed; at her breast, his fingers squeezed. At her ear, his voice deepened and roughened, and drew her deeper into his thrall.

“This.” And her body answered.

“And this.” Her senses quaked.

The deep rumble of his words, explicit and evocative, kept her with him, held her to him-in those heated moments, through the rising flames, showed her herself through his eyes.

A revelation that made her ache. That made her want with a need she’d felt before but only now understood, only now saw for what it was.

And in that, he was right. She did want him-would always want him. Would always want to give herself to him in just this way-not just to please him, but to take for herself the joy of knowing she could, that she did.

His hands caressed, his voice ensnared, but it was her own needs that flamed within her. That drove her passion to ever wilder heights.

And she knew. She might have the strength to deny him, but once he’d stirred her senses and given them passionate life, she didn’t possess the will to deny them.

She couldn’t, now he’d revealed something of his fascination with her, quench the drive to know more-to take him into her body once more and experience again the connection…knowing what she now knew.

If she could understand what that connection was, what gave it its power, she would know what to do, how to deal with it. How to conquer it.

That, unquestionably, was what she most urgently needed to know.

Her body started to coil, to tighten-but she needed him inside her, needed the physical joining to reveal the ephemeral.

As if he heard her thoughts, his stroking eased, slowed.

Eyes still closed, she sensed his hesitation before he asked, his voice gravelly with desire, “Do you want me inside you?”

She opened her eyes, across the room met his in the mirror. “Yes.” She held his gaze for a second, then boldly asked, “How?”

The abruptness of his response spoke volumes. His hands left her; he urged her to an armchair-a high-seated wing chair. “Kneel on that-be careful not to crush your skirt.”

She could only just make out his words; she wasn’t the only one at the mercy of their shared passion. Lifting her skirt, she clambered up onto the seat, dropping the aqua silk over her knees.

“Lean forward and hold on to the top.”

His hands at her waist steadied her; when her fingers curved about the carved wooden edge, he released her and lifted the back of her skirt.

They were at an angle to the mirror; turning her head, she watched as he flipped her skirt over her waist, saw his face as his hands made contact with her bare bottom, as thumbs and palms caressed, then, still engrossed, he reached blindly for the buttons at his waist.

Two flicks, and his erection sprang free.

She caught her breath, held it, eyes wide as he guided the thick rod between her thighs…as she felt the broad head part her slick, throbbing flesh, as she watched his face as his lids fell, as he slowly, with blatantly reined strength, eased his way inside her. Then he thrust home.

She lost her breath on a gasp. The passion she’d held back rose and roared within her, howled and kicked as she clamped around him, embraced him, welcomed him.

For one instant, he held still, his thighs to her bare bottom, his face etched with passion, with ravening desire-and something more. Something starker, more powerful, more elemental.

More important.

For that one instant, she stared, drinking in the sight, trying to fathom just what it was that held him so effortlessly.

Then he dragged in a huge breath, withdrew, and returned. Her breath shuddered; her lids fell.

And she gave herself over to him, to pleasing him, and pleasing herself.

To being pleasured to oblivion.

Thoroughly.

Twice.

Pris woke the next morning, and stretched languidly beneath the covers. Relaxing, she lay there, wallowing in the lingering aftermath of the glory that had, last night, coursed her veins.

She’d missed it, missed this feeling of wonderful wholeness, of completion. Of feeling female in the most all-encompassing sense.

Last night…he’d held her, and loved her, gently cradled her until she’d recovered enough to stand, then he’d set her bodice to rights, smoothed her skirts down, and escorted her back to the ballroom.

No one, it seemed, had missed them. She’d had no idea how much time had elapsed, but not one grande dame directed so much as a cocked eyebrow their way. She wasn’t entirely sure what that meant, but she was twenty-four, an age by which society expected ladies of her station to wed.

And within the ton, dalliance was an accepted part of the rituals leading to the altar.

Frowning, she drummed her fingers on the comforter. She would need to bear that in mind-that help in avoiding Dillon would likely not be all that forthcoming. She couldn’t-patently could not-rely on society to erect hurdles in his path.

Of course, now her biggest problem was that she was no longer sure of his path. After last night…

They’d parted in Lady Trenton’s front hall; she’d uttered not one word of warning or reproach-either would have been hypocritical, and given his temper where she was concerned, so much wasted breath.

She hadn’t missed the honesty-the raw reality-of his desire for her. Or hers for him. However, he’d said not one word about marriage.

So what was his direction now?

All he’d said was that he would see her today.

With a humph, she threw back the covers and rose. Briskly washing, then dressing, she glanced at the clock. Eleven o’clock. She stopped. Stared. Eleven?

She glanced at the window, paused to listen to the noises about the house. “Damn!” She’d slept in.

Grumbling, she rushed through her toilette.

Her immediate goal where Dillon was concerned seemed obvious enough. Until she knew what he was about, she would do well to avoid him, or at least avoid situations in which they would be alone.

Despite the forces arrayed against her, she was her own woman; she remained determined to dictate her own life. She was not going to marry any man who didn’t love her. Regardless of their beliefs, the ton would simply have to swallow that fact.

Primed for battle, she went downstairs, wondering a little at the silence. She turned into the dining parlor-and saw Dillon seated at the table.

Halting, she stared. She hadn’t expected any action before breakfast!

His chair was pushed back from the table, a coffee cup by his elbow. Lowering the news sheet he’d been perusing, he smiled. “Good morning.” His gaze swept over her mint green gown. His smile deepened. “I trust you slept well.”

She waited until his gaze returned to her face to blandly state, “I did, thank you. What are you doing here?”

“Waiting for you.” He waved her to the sideboard.

Reluctant though she was to take her eyes from him, she went. “Where are the others?”

“They left fifteen minutes ago in Flick’s barouche. I have my curricle-we’re to meet them in the park.”

She glanced at him; his attention had returned to the news sheet. The ham smelled wonderful; she helped herself to two slices, then returned to the table and sat opposite him. The butler appeared with a fresh pot of tea and a rack of warm toast; she thanked him, and settled to eat.

Adult males, she knew, rarely chatted over the breakfast cups; content enough with Dillon’s silence, she applied herself to assuaging an appetite in large part due to him.

The instant she lifted her napkin to her lips, he folded the news sheet and set it aside. “I’ll check on my horses. Come out when you’re ready.”

She inclined her head and rose as he did. It felt strange, walking out to the hall side by side, without ceremony parting at the foot of the stairs…as she reached her bedchamber, she realized what she meant by “strange.” Domesticated. As if he and she…

Frowning, she opened the door and went in to don her bonnet and pelisse.

She was still frowning inwardly when she went down the front steps, ready to pounce on any uncalled-for, too-possessive action he might think to make. Instead, while their private interactions-his comments, her replies as he tooled them through the streets of Mayfair-remained at a level that attested to their intimacy, his outward actions were impossible to fault. He behaved with unwavering propriety, as a gentleman should to an unmarried lady of his class.

She was still wondering what he was up to-not just what his direction was but what fiendishly arrogant steps he might take to steer her down it-when he guided his pair through the gates of the park. They bowled along under the trees, but then the Avenue, lined with the carriages of the fashionable, hove into sight, and he had to check his team.

They were the same beautiful blacks she’d admired in Newmarket; Dillon held them to a slow trot as they tacked between the stationary carriages and the smaller curricles and phaetons that passed up and down the crowded stretch.

“Flick’s carriage is royal blue. See if you can spot it.”

She looked around. When other ladies saw her, and smiled and nodded, she responded in kind. They seemed to be attracting a significant amount of attention, but then it was her, him, and his horses all together. She glanced at him, took in his many-caped greatcoat hanging open over a coat of black superfine, a gold-and-black-striped waistcoat and tight buckskin breeches that disappeared into glossy Hessians, and had to admit, all together, they must present quite a sight. Something akin to an illustration in the Ladies Journal-“fashionable lady and gentleman driving in the park.”

“What’s so amusing?”

His words brought her back to the moment, to the realization she’d been smiling to herself. “Just…” He glanced at her; she met his eyes, mentally shrugged. “Just the picture we must make.” Looking ahead, she nodded at the ladies in the carriages before them. “We’re creating quite a stir.”

Dillon merely inclined his head; inwardly, he grinned. They were creating a stir for a more potent reason than their glamorous appearance. He didn’t, however, feel any great need to explain that, not yet.

Indeed, if ever. From the point of attaining his goal, there were some things it might be better she never learned.

He saw a flash of blue ahead. “There they are-to the left.”

The space beside Flick’s carriage was just wide enough for him to ease his curricle into. He’d borrowed one of Demon’s London grooms as a tiger; consigning the blacks to his care, he rounded the curricle and handed Pris down.

Eugenia and Flick were settled in the carriage. As he and Pris drew near, Rus assisted Adelaide to the lawn.

As soon as Pris had greeted Eugenia and Flick, Adelaide, all but bubbling with exuberance, said, “We’ve been waiting to stroll the lawns.”

Pris had to smile at her eagerness. “Yes, of course. Shall we?”

She looked at the carriage, received Eugenia’s approving nod, then turned-and found Dillon waiting to offer his arm. She hesitated for only an instant before laying her hand on his sleeve. It was only a walk in the park, after all.

A walk she frankly enjoyed. Strolling with just Dillon, Rus, and Adelaide was relaxing; she didn’t have to be on guard socially. Although other couples and groups crossed their path, all merely exchanged greetings, swapped comments on the weather or the entertainments they expected to attend that evening, then moved on.

Following Rus and Adelaide down the gravel path that led to the banks of the Serpentine, it was on the tip of her tongue to mention that yesterday, she’d had to fight off the gentlemen, both the eligible and the not-so-eligible, when caution, and suspicion, caught her tongue.

She glanced at Dillon; while she might know what lurked beneath his urbanity, there was nothing in his appearance as he gazed about to declare his possessiveness. Nothing she could see that could possibly be warning other gentlemen away-off, as if he owned her.

He sensed her gaze, turned his head, and caught her eyes. Arched a dark brow.

She looked ahead to where the slate waters of the lake rippled beneath the breeze. “I was just thinking how pleasant it was to walk in the fresh air.” She glanced at him. “I haven’t walked this way, or so far, before. Indeed, yesterday there were so many around, I got barely ten yards from the carriage.”

Dillon kept his smile easy and assured. “One day, a few appearances at balls, can make a big difference in the ton. Once people know who you are…”

She tilted her head, and seemed to accept the suggestion.

He studied her face, then looked ahead, and reiterated his earlier wisdom. There was absolutely no sense in explaining just how the good ladies and the interested gentlemen were interpreting his driving her in the park, and strolling with her over the lawns, at least not yet, not given the suspicion he’d glimpsed in her eyes.

After the standard half hour, he gathered Rus and Adelaide and steered the three back to the waiting carriages.

Flick beamed at him; she was thrilled to her teeth that he was behaving as he was. He could only pray she didn’t do anything to give Pris’s nascent suspicions some direction.

“Celia’s?” He did his best to distract Flick as Rus handed Adelaide into the carriage. He kept his hand over Pris’s on his sleeve.

“Yes.” Flick glanced at Eugenia, who smiled at him.

“Lady Celia insisted that we impose on you-her very words were: be sure to bring him, too.”

Dillon had no difficulty believing that. “In that case, Pris and I will follow in my curricle.”

Flick waved. “Go ahead. Your horses will hate to be held back behind us.”

He looked down at Pris. “Would you rather travel in the carriage?”

The look she bent on him was measuring. Turning, she surveyed his blacks. “Flick’s horses are well enough, but given the choice, I prefer yours.”

They parted from the others. He led her to the curricle and helped her up to the seat. He was climbing up to sit beside her when she asked, “Can I handle the ribbons?”

He grasped the reins and sat beside her. “Only after I die.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m perfectly proficient.”

“Really?”

While they rattled over the London streets, she tried to persuade him to entrust his prize cattle with their velvet mouths to her. In vain.

She was distinctly huffy when he drew up outside Lady Celia Cynster’s house, but the gathering inside distracted her.

He found it distracting, too; he was constantly on pins that one of the assembled ladies-those of the wider Cynster clan as well as many of their connections and a significant collection of their bosom-bows-would make some comment that would alert Pris to his strategy. While the ladies certainly saw and understood it, and were quick to twit him over it, while those like Horatia, Helena, and Honoria came tantalizingly close to saying one word too many in Pris’s hearing, all deigned to let him escape. For the moment.

The implication was obvious. They expected action. They expected success.

“The truth,” he growled, in response to Flick’s query regarding progress, specifically his, “is that I’d rather be reporting to the Jockey Club Committee on yet another substitution scam-one I had no notion existed-than face this inquisition if I fail.”

Flick arched her brows at him. “But you aren’t going to fail, are you?”

“No. But a trifle less pressure would be appreciated.”

She grinned and patted his arm. “Gentlemen like you respond best to artfully applied pressure.”

She swanned off before, astonished, he could reply.

“Artful?” he grumbled to Vane, Flick’s brother-in-law, when he unexpectedly appeared. “They’re as artful as Edward I-the Hammer of the Scots.”

Vane grinned. “We’ve all had to live through it. We survived. No doubt you will, too.”

“One can but hope,” Dillon muttered, as Pris came up to join them.

He introduced her to Vane. Straightening from his bow, Vane shot him an intrigued glance-as if he now understood Dillon’s uncertainty. None of those who’d run the Cynster ladies’ gauntlet before had had to deal with a lady quite like Pris.

One in whom the wild and reckless held quite so much sway.

“I wanted to congratulate you”-Vane included them both, and Rus nearby, in his glance-“on your success in bringing the substitution racket to such a resounding end. It was a significant risk, so Demon tells me, but from all I’m hearing, the results have been extraordinary.”

“What have you heard?” Pris asked.

Vane smiled at her. Watching, Dillon noted that the legendary Cynster charm had no discernible effect on Pris; she waited, patently undeflected. Vane glanced briefly at Dillon, so fleetingly Dillon was sure Pris didn’t catch his infinitesimal nod.

Looking back at her, choosing his words with a care Dillon appreciated, Vane replied, “The atmosphere in the gentlemen’s clubs is one of open glee. Further down the social scale, there’s much nodding and wise comments, and a gratifying spreading of the word to beware of being drawn into such schemes.”

Glancing at Dillon, he continued, “Lower still, and comments are rather hotter and a great deal sharper. It’s like a seething cauldron, with everyone looking for who to blame.”

Dillon raised his brows. “No word on who that is?”

“None that I’ve heard, although there’s quite an army searching.” Vane looked across the room. “But here’s one who might have some light to shed on that.”

Turning, Pris beheld yet another tall, elegant, patently dangerous gentleman. All the Cynster males seemed to be cast from the same mold; glancing back at Dillon while they waited for the other to finish greeting Lady Celia-from her comments he was one of her sons, by name Rupert-Pris found no difficulty seeing Dillon as part of the crew.

The same elegance-languid in repose, like a sated cat, but that could change in a flash to a hard-edged ruthlessness that the outer cloak of civilized behavior did little to mute or disguise. The same strength, not just of muscle and bone, although that was plainly there, but a strength of purpose, of decision and execution.

She narrowed her eyes at the pair of them-Dillon and Vane-trying to put her finger on the other similarity that hovered at the edge of her perception. The same…was it protectiveness?

Glancing across at the newcomer, she saw that same element in him; as he detached from his mother and made his way toward them the description came to her as an image without words-a knight fully armored, sword drawn. Not in aggression, but in defense.

Knights sworn to defend. That’s how they appeared to her.

All three, including Dillon.

“Lady Priscilla?” The newcomer reached for her hand, and she surrendered it. He bowed. “Gabriel Cynster.” He nodded to Dillon and Vane. “I have news-not as much as I’d hoped, but something.”

“I was just telling Lady Priscilla and Dillon that the underworld is seething.”

Gabriel’s gaze remained on Vane’s face for an instant, then switched to Dillon’s. After a fractional hesitation, he said, “I see. Well.” He smiled at Pris. “What I have to report tallies with that.”

Pris listened as Gabriel-whose mother called him Rupert, just as Vane’s mother called him Spencer and Demon was Harry; there was doubtless some story there, but she’d yet to hear it-described how his contacts in the world of finance had confirmed that numerous criminal figures had been badly singed if not terminally burned by the collapse of the substitution scam.

“Boswell is under the hatches and unlikely to resurface, and at least three others are close to plunging underwater permanently, too. While no one is openly cheering, many, including the new police force, are exceedingly pleased.”

Neither Gabriel, Vane, nor Dillon appeared quite as thrilled as she’d expected. Indeed, they all looked a trifle grim.

“Whoever was behind the scam, they’ve taken a good portion of London’s criminals down with them. Some will survive; others won’t. All, however, will want revenge.” Gabriel cocked a brow at Dillon. “Any word from Adair?”

“Not yet. He’s out of town, hot on the trail of Mr. Gilbert Martin, supposedly of Connaught Place.”

Vane humphed. “For Martin’s sake, let’s hope Adair and the police catch up with him first.”

Pris had remained silent throughout, judging it wise to leave those protective instincts she’d sensed unstirred. She’d been expecting them to try to exclude her; instead, she’d caught Dillon’s surreptitious signal to Vane that he could speak freely in front of her.

She appreciated that. Appreciated the fact he hadn’t sought to treat her like a child, to be protected and cosseted and patted on the head and told to go and play with her dolls. She knew there were dangerous people involved in the substitution scam; she hadn’t, however, until Gabriel had spoken so soberly, understood just how dangerous they were.

Instincts of her own were stirring, even before Vane glanced at Dillon, and said, voice low so the ladies around them wouldn’t hear, “One thing. While I was trawling for news, I heard your name often. If not general knowledge yet, it’s at least widely known that you were the crucial player in bringing the scam crashing down. Everyone, grudgingly or otherwise, regardless of which side of the street they inhabit, is acknowledging your strategy as brilliant-as just the sort of response the villainous least want to see from the authorities.”

Dillon grimaced. “Once the club stewards were told the truth-by Demon, I might add-it was impossible to put the lid back on the pot.”

Gabriel shifted. “As matters now stand, you’ll need to stay alert.”

Dillon met his gaze, then nodded. “I know.”

Pris wasn’t sure she caught the full implications of that exchange, but Vane nodded, too, then, with his charming smile, gracefully took his leave.

“You might have a word with young Dalloway,” Gabriel murmured, “although as far as I know, his involvement has remained unremarked.”

“I will,” Dillon said. “Come-I’ll introduce you.”

With her by his side, he led Gabriel to Rus. A few minutes later, they left her brother chatting to Gabriel about horses and his future assisting at Demon’s stud.

A number of ladies waylaid them; when they finally won free, she suggested they stroll by the long windows giving onto the gardens.

Few ladies present were interested in horticulture.

She paused to gaze out at a manicured lawn. “Mr. Cynster intimated there was some threat…?”

Halting beside her, Dillon replied, “Not a specific threat-a potential one.” He caught her questioning gaze, lightly grimaced. “Now it’s become known that I engineered the collapse of Martin’s scheme, it’s possible those who’ve suffered major losses might feel moved to revenge, and in the absence of Martin, or even after they’ve dealt with him, there’s a chance they’ll lash out.”

“At you?” She searched his dark eyes, calm as night-shrouded pools; she didn’t like the cold, deadening sensation that had locked about her heart. “That’s…monstrous! They took a risk-if they lost, they should…”

Dillon smiled ruefully. “Be gentlemen enough to accept their losses?” Once, he’d been naïve enough to think the same.

But her outrage on his behalf warmed his heart, and his smile, as he lifted her fingers to his lips, and kissed. “Unfortunately not, but don’t worry about them.” He brushed her fingertips again and saw her mind shift focus, watched her eyes fix on his lips. He let his smile deepen. “You’ve enough on your plate.”

She blinked, lifted her gaze, narrowed her eyes at him, but he merely smiled imperturbably and turned her back into the room. And set himself to distract her until she forgot Gabriel’s warning.

He hadn’t needed to hear it; he’d already seen the threat. But as he intended to spend every waking hour-and as many of his sleeping hours as possible, too-by Pris’s side in the immediate and subsequent future, he would be there to deflect any action against her, which was what Gabriel had meant.

A threat against him he would have viewed with dismissive nonchalance; a threat to him that might evolve into a threat against her was another matter entirely.