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Not twenty minutes after his fruitless interview with Jane Fawkener, Clive watched from his barouche as Hazelwood drove off with the girl, and without the chaperone.

Clive’s plan to offer his orphaned cousin the shelter of their family’s home and name had gone badly wrong. It had been a mistake to bring Allegra along, but it had been Hazelwood’s unexpected arrival that caused the most trouble. How the devil had such a disgraced wastrel come into the girl’s life? And what did the dragon of a chaperone mean to let Hazelwood drive off with her charge?

Clive tried to think of the last place he’d seen Hazelwood. Clive was sure that the man had neither been sober nor perfectly upright at their last encounter. His claim of a long-standing friendship with Jane was a problem. Their mother would not want to take in the girl if her ties to Hazelwood were generally known.

Hazelwood’s carriage turned the corner. The barouche could not follow the lighter vehicle easily, but Clive noted a fellow in a slouch hat on a hired horse who took off in pursuit. The thought that Malikov arranged it crossed his mind. Malikov’s information about Jane Fawkener had been incomplete at best, and now perhaps his Russian friend wanted to know more. The question was why.

Beside him Allegra twitched her cloak around her knees, and settled her muff in place. “Can we go now? I’m freezing, and Mama will not be pleased when I tell her what you got us into this morning.”

“You won’t tell her anything.”

“Won’t I? You take out the barouche and offer an invitation to my party to a plain girl with no fashion sense and very bad taste in friends.”

“She’s our cousin.”

“Humpf! She’s old. She should be wearing lace caps, and she’s nothing like us. Did you see her bonnet? Really, my maid wouldn’t wear such a thing. Worse still, she’s a friend of Hazelwood’s. Mama won’t like it at all that you exposed me to his company.”

Clive signaled the coachman to start his team and turned to his sister. “Jane Fawkener is family, and we’re going to keep her close.”

“Since when have you cared about family? You’re always wishing you had any family but ours.”

“You mistake me, Allegra. I want only the best for our family.”

“Well, Mama will be vexed. You know Hazelwood’s reputation better than I, I dare say, and I have to be so careful, you know. It’s my Season.”

Clive took Allegra by the shoulders and pressed her back against the carriage squabs. She had no idea in her pretty little head how much her season depended on George Fawkener’s fortune remaining in their father’s hands.

“Forget Hazelwood, Allegra. You may tell Mama that we invited our poor, orphaned cousin to a party, our cousin who desperately needs Mama’s guidance as she has no idea how to get on in London.”

Allegra tried to squirm out of his hold. “Clive, stop. You’ll bruise my shoulders.”

“Give me your word, Allegra, that you’ll say nothing to Mama.”

She nodded, glaring at him, and he let her go. In one way Allegra had helped him. He found his mind quite clear. He had to get Jane Fawkener out of Mivart’s Hotel and into his mother’s house.

It is a rare woman who can rate her merits as others do. She can consult her mirror or her fond friends in vain for a true estimate of her personal recommendations, for both will flatter her. She can note with what care persons unknown to her scrutinize her visage in the crowded sphere of public life. Again she is likely to miss the mark in estimating her worth on the marriage mart. So how is a sensible woman to determine whether her aspirations in regard to a certain gentleman are reasonable, or likely to invite private disappointment of the sort that may diminish her bloom and lessen her chances for real happiness?

Is she a gentleman’s daughter? Is he a gentleman? So far, all is well. Or perhaps she is the daughter of one of the great merchants of London, and he is the son of another. All is well. It is not unreasonable to look for a rough equality in the station of one’s parents and the parents of a prospective husband as a first indication of the appropriateness of a match. On the other hand, it is dangerous to set one’s sights on a gentleman whose rank far exceeds the rank of even a lady’s most distinguished relations. In such cases all the initiative in the acquaintance must come from the gentleman, and all caution, must be exercised by the lady.

—The Husband Hunter’s Guide to London

Chapter Six

Viscount Hazelwood was proving to be a bigger problem than Jane had at first anticipated. He had seen through her effort to escape her cousins, he’d made it impossible for her to escape his company, and he had separated her from her chaperone.

She concentrated on overcoming the sensation of being lifted into his carriage by a pair of strong hands at her waist. As the impression of those hands faded, other sensations intruded. Hazelwood’s shoulder under the capes of his wool coat rubbed against hers with the movement of his hands on the reins. Their hips met on the narrow seat, and their bodies leaned in unison each time the carriage took a corner. With her face deep in the poke of her bonnet, Jane had to turn her head to see either her companion or the landscape, and it was much safer to look at the scenery. Hazelwood was too near.

At least at the moment he was attending to his driving and not looking at her. She’d already figured out that he was like Papa in the way he appeared to take no deliberate notice of others, while seeing a great deal, too much really. And then there was the problem of his voice, the pull of it, the warm gravelly undertow of it that came and went with his audience. It had been instructive to hear him speak to her cousins in a different voice, an icy drawl that disappeared as soon as they left.

His vehicle, drawn by a matched pair of coffee brown horses with black manes, rolled smoothly over the cobbles. She concentrated on the feeling, which was nothing like riding a swaying camel. The height gave her a view of velvet curtains framing elegant rooms in rows of houses pressed together like the spines of books on a crowded shelf. By the time the first street opened into a wide square where the cold wind hit them, she felt herself ready again to deal with her companion. They angled across the square’s end, turning south a block until Hazelwood pulled up across from the columned portico of substantial church.

“St. George’s, Hanover Square,” he said, the distinct drawl back in his voice. “The husband hunter’s ultimate destination.”

Jane regarded the church’s columned portico jutting into the street, and its heavy stone recesses overshadowing small windows. “It looks suitably solemn and dignified.”

He laughed. “You mean it looks gray and dull, as institutional as a bank or a prison. A fitting place to begin a life sentence.”