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“I thought it would be best if your mother didn’t discover you alone on the balcony with a stranger.”

“But—” What could she say to that? “You never told me your name,” she said, suddenly wishing she hadn’t agreed to anonymity. And he did know her name; he had known Mama was calling her.

“No, I never did,” he said absently. She could hear rustlings in the garden below, but it was even darker down there than on the balcony. “Damn,” she thought he muttered. “Where is it?”

Where is what, she wondered, and then it dawned on her. She felt around the floor of the balcony and found a gentleman’s shoe, a bit old-fashioned with a raised heel and square toe. No wonder it pinched. She set it on the balustrade and leaned over, smiling broadly now. “Do you mean this shoe?”

“Yes!” He sounded relieved. “Would you be so kind as to toss it down?”

“I don’t believe I shall. Not until you tell me your name.”

There was a long silence. “Not even if I ask very politely?”

“No.”

“Perhaps if I were to beg?”

“No.”

Another long silence, very long. “My friends call me Harry.”

Mariah waited, but he said nothing more. “And your family?”

“Oh, they call me Harry as well,” he said at once. “Except my mother, when she’s angry with me.”

“Your family’s name,” she said, exasperated enough to laugh.

He laughed, too, his tone easy again. “Come now, one shoe, one name. Toss it down, please.”

“I shall discover it anyway,” she declared. “My mother will have the guest list.”

“No doubt. I wish you luck.”

Mariah’s eyes narrowed. “Do you think I cannot do it?”

This time his laugh was too confident, with that underlying darkness in it again. “I know you cannot.”

Her mouth fell open in surprise. “Of all the cheek!” Without thinking, she hurled the shoe, rewarded with a faint, “Ow!” But her moment of satisfaction was brief.

“Thank you, Lady Mariah,” he said, his voice growing fainter.

“Oh, wait!” She hurried along, trying to follow the direction his voice was going, and was brought up short by the end of the balcony. “How did you get down there?” It must be fifteen feet to the ground at this point. She reached out blindly and felt leaves and vines: the ivy that crawled up much of the house’s exterior. He had climbed down the side of the house. She was impressed against her will. She would have to come back and take a better look in the daylight to see how he’d done it.

But now the scoundrel was walking out on her. “Where are you?” she demanded.

“Good-bye...” He was heading toward the terrace. Mariah tried to think how long it would take to go back through the house and around to the garden. Too long to catch him. She strained her eyes into the blackness below.

“Harry?” There was no reply. All she heard was the murmur of noise from inside the house and the swish of the breeze through the tree branches. “Harry!”

But he was gone.

* * *

Harry held his breath as he waited in the deep shadow of a tree until she turned and went back into the house, the flash of light from the ballroom illuminating her figure for a second as she threw open the drape. For a moment he had feared she would try to follow him over the balustrade and down the ivy, and he told himself that he’d waited to make sure she didn’t; he had almost certainly damaged the vines’ grip on the wall in his mad scramble down.

But finally she did leave, and his shoulders slumped in relief. He must have lost his mind. Not only had he spoken in his real voice, he’d gone and told her his real name. He’d be sacked at once if Phipps found out. Lord Wroth had been painstakingly constructed and brought to life, and he’d almost thrown it all away for the pleasure of talking to a pretty girl.

No—not merely a pretty girl, a beautiful one. Tall and slender, dark-haired and spirited. Harry wondered what color her eyes were: blue, or perhaps gray? He could imagine the way they flashed as she fought down her temper in annoyance at him. His mouth curved as he remembered the shock in her voice when he teased her. And the frustration in her tone as she confessed to feeling like an object. And the trill of her laughter. And the faint scent of her perfume. And the feel of her waist beneath his palms, and the touch of her hands on his shoulders⁠—