“Wot are ye staring at? Surprised I look like one of yer ladies?”
“I tried to help you,” he said, voice lowering.
She shook her head. “I didn’t want yer pity then and I don’t want it now.”
He’d been such a fool to ever suggest she become a servant in his uncle’s house. Even then he’d known she would never do it, and if she had, she would have been sacked in a week. Jenny was no one’s lackey, and she didn’t abide by anyone’s rules but her own. He’d just been so desperate to save her. Clearly, she had saved herself—as usual. “I didn’t offer pity, and you know it,” he said because he had never pitied her.
“Charity.” She made a face that brought him right back to the streets again. “But it was my fault for thinking we were friends. Ye always thought ye were better than me. Walked away and never came back.”
“I did come back. I looked for you.”
Her eyes widened in what he thought was genuine surprise. And then they narrowed again. “Sure ye did. No matter. It was too late.”
“I came as soon as I could.” Aidan reminded himself to lower his voice. “I spent years in the army. I was risking life and limb—”
She waved a hand. “Will ye keep yer potato ‘ole shut or no?”
He gave her a long look. “I’ll keep my potato hole shut.”
She nodded and straightened. “Thank you, sir,” she said, her façade back in place. “And might I suggest we avoid each other if we’re ever in company again?”
“You sound ridiculous,” he said.
“Must be a bit like hearing yourself.” She began to move past him, but he caught her arm. He didn’t grasp it tightly. She could easily shake him off, but she paused, turned her head, and looked at him. He saw the challenge in her eyes, and God knew he’d always liked a challenge. He leaned forward, anticipating the feel of her lips under his, the way she kissed as though it might be the last thing she ever did. The way she did everything as though it were the last time wrecked him. But just as his mouth brushed hers, she put a hand on his chest, staying him.
“I told you, sir. I am betrothed to Lord Chamberlayne.” And she parted the curtains and disappeared back into the ball.
Aidan didn’t move, partly because he didn’t want to be seen emerging right after her. Partly because his erection would have made his appearance even more scandalous. Instead, he leaned a shoulder against the wall and took a breath and then another.
It wasn’t until he arrived home an hour later that he realized he’d forgotten all about the prime minister.
ROLAND SAT DOWN IN the chair across from Jenny and buttered a piece of toast. They often breakfasted together at his town house. They worked there together as well when they weren’t called away to the countryside to paw through the contents of an old castle or a newly discovered trunk in the attic of a deceased great-grandmother. Jenny was aware most men of the upper class would have disdained work of any sort, but Roland was obsessed with antiquities, especially anything Roman. He’d dragged Jenny to the middle of more than one windswept field in the interior of England to inspect an item a farmer found that might be a Roman coin or a piece of pottery.
Jenny hadn’t minded. For a woman who’d never been out of London, she had traveled a great deal these past twelve years and seen much of the world. It was a big world, much bigger than she’d ever supposed, and yet she liked her little corner of it best.
“You didn’t tell me you knew Aidan Sterling,” Roland said, nibbling his toast.
She shrugged and tried to ignore the old anger that welled up in her whenever she thought about him. “Didn’t realize the Aidan Sterling I knew was the same one in all the papers.” The Aidan Sterling she’d known would have starved to death or been killed by one gang or other if she hadn’t stepped in to help him. Who would have thought he would one day emerge as one of the wealthiest men in England?
“You almost jumped out of your skin when Lady Birtwistle introduced you last night. How do you know him, dear girl?”
She would have answered, but the door opened then and Mr. Oscar Lexum strolled in, wearing Roland’s banyan and a sleepy smile. His light brown hair was tousled, and he looked as though he’d spent a thoroughly enjoyable night. He leaned down, kissed Roland on the cheek, and then moved to Jenny to do the same. “Am I interrupting?” he asked.
“Always,” Roland said, “but you’re so pretty we tolerate it.”
Oscar Lexum was pretty. He had unruly curls and green eyes and full lips. He was the son of a nobody, like she, but his nobody earned a bit more blunt, and Oscar had an education. He fancied himself an artist, and Roland had met him at a museum in Paris. Like any reputable artist, Lexum suffered for his art. He’d been poor and hungry, traits immensely appealing to Roland, who liked to save people. Jenny knew that from first-hand experience. But while Roland had wanted her for a business partner, his intentions toward Oscar had been wholly different. Jenny had watched as Oscar and Roland entered dining rooms or drawing rooms. Every woman’s eye was instantly drawn to one or both of the men. Little did the women know, the men only had eyes for each other.
“I heard you were brilliant at the ball last night,” Oscar told her. He hadn’t attended, having not been invited and unable to attend as Roland’s betrothed, though he fit that role more than Jenny ever would.
“I think we fooled them,” she said, sipping her tea.
“She didn’t drop a single H,” Roland said. “She was flawless. The only problem might be Sterling. Will he keep your secret, do you think?”
“Sterling?” Oscar asked, filling his plate and taking it to his usual place beside Roland. “Who is Sterling?”
“Aidan Sterling,” Roland told him. “The man who owns most of London and half the rest of the world. Apparently, our Miss Tate knows the man and never even breathed a word. And she knows how much I want to get my hands on those antiquities found buried away in his town house.”
“I told ye I didn’t know they were the same man. When I knew ‘im, ‘e were so thin a breeze would have blown ‘im over and even the beggars felt sorry for ‘im.” And that was as much as she wanted to say about the man.
Roland lifted his brows. “Are you saying he owes you a debt?”
“Did you save his life?” Oscar asked.
“I wouldn’t say that, exactly.” They’d saved each other, and in the end, he’d saved himself—and only himself. But in the early days, she had done more saving than he, to be sure.
“You must have known him during the lost years,” Roland said. “That’s what the newspaper men call them, at any rate. The years after his father died, and he disappeared. Then his uncle found him, and he went into the army.”
She nodded. “ ‘E didn’t talk about ‘is father much, but ‘e mentioned ‘is father was one of the nobs. Not that I was surprised. ‘E talked like one of them.”
“You should be practicing your dialect too,” Roland chided. Jenny refrained from rolling her eyes, but just barely. “His father was indeed one of the nobs, as you say. He was the Earl of Cranbourne. Sterling was said to be a bastard he got off a pretty chambermaid, but the earl acknowledged the baby. I never knew his father, but I’ve seen his uncle a time or two, and Sterling is definitely a Cranbourne.”