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Asquith glanced back, startled. “Blackwell, you fiend!”

“A fiend who not only took a headache off your hands, but one who has just acquired a front-row seat to what is bound to be the Season’s best entertainment.”

“You know, Blackwell, your innocent face belies terrible cunning.”

“Oh, I know.” Blackwell straightened his jacket. “That’s why no young lady will ever get the better of me.”

“Nor of me.”

His neck prickled.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Lenora glancing in his direction.

Finally. But he didn’t have the chance to look back.

The conversation in the room had hushed. Every pair of eyes swiveled between Millie and Neville. Who would have thought Neville was so far gone he’d forget himself and stride across Almack’s assembly rooms with such obvious purpose?

Asquith hadn’t thought the night could get worse.

Then Willard appeared in his field of vision. Asquith’s nemesis assessed Neville with a dark, unreadable glance, then, he, too, started toward Millie.

Asquith stopped breathing.

His mother undoubtedly recalled Asquith’s enmity for Willard from his school days. And surely, she would find some way to respectfully decline her permission for Millie to dance.

Willard bowed to her. She lifted the quizzing glass that usually sent people running, but her subtle disdain had no effect on the villain.

He held one glove aloft, waiting for Millie’s hand, the other, he held behind his back. He placed himself directly in Asquith’s line of vision and crooked the little pinky.

The deuce.

As Millie took Willard’s hand and allowed herself to be led to the line of the forming dance, Asquith could do nothing but watch.

He could not create a scene. The patroness had pardoned the eldest Wainwrights for last Season’s indiscretion. A second disaster would be socially fatal.

As the entire assembly focused on the dark-haired, lavender-frocked lady and the perfectly pomaded gentleman, Asquith instinctively sought Lenora.

She was staring fixedly at him, expression stern. Her fury hit him like a clapper. The subsequent ring in his ears sounded like doom.

Neville returned.

“Back so soon?” Blackwell didn’t even try to suppress his smirk.

“Leave off, Blackwell,” Asquith snapped. He turned to Neville. “You realize she couldn’t refuse Willard, don’t you? Not after he approached her so blatantly.”

Too late, he understood. He’d refused to open his past wounds. If he had, he would have been able to give evidence about Willard’s true character to his wards.

And now, because of Asquith’s silence, Millie had walked right into the arms of a conscienceless scoundrel.

Chapter Eleven

Danger. The predator had found him. Asquith’s legs and hands felt distant—stupid—and the crowds, the music, the murmurs disappeared. A privy stench assaulted his nostrils. Shame became heat beneath his ears and haze within his vision.

He brought his hand up to his face in a series of abrupt, halting movements.

In his mind’s eye he saw himself, standing his ground as he always had, but curling inward, dipping his chin, making himself small. His skin crawled in the present as if he were physically shrinking. As if he had no choice but to surrender to Willard again.

His cheeks further heated as he recalled the dripping blood, the slack, bent pinky, and Neville yelling his name.