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and Langdon appeared suddenly, flanking him.

      “Who was that?” Langdon demanded.

      “You never mentioned a blonde,” Ellingsworth accused at the same time.

      Alex cleared his rusted throat. “That’s a story I won’t be sharing.”

      His two friends exchanged glances. Ellingsworth had, despite his vocal disavowals to the contrary, done very well at university. His mind was nimble, perhaps overly so. “The unknown lady.”

      “What of her?” Alex snapped.

      “Lady Emmeline was never truly your goal,” he deduced. “You courted her, yes, but it was she who held pride of place in your heart.”

      “Ellingsworth—” Alex said warningly.

      Yet his friend wouldn’t be scared off. “The wooing of Lady Emmeline was merely a way to overcome heartbreak.”

      “Stop reading your nieces’ sentimental novels,” Alex muttered, but he couldn’t outright lie and tell Ellingsworth he was wrong.

      “Cheltenham,” Langdon suddenly exclaimed.

      Alex jerked in response. “The hell are you talking about,” he growled.

      “You’re right,” Ellingsworth said with surprise. “You went away to Cheltenham, and when you came back . . . you’d changed. Turned even more serious—if such a thing was possible. And there was . . .”

      “What?” Alex snapped.

      “Pain in your eyes.” Ellingsworth looked nearly embarrassed to have noticed this much.

      “There wasn’t,” Alex said lowly, but his friends were too perceptive. He grabbed a drink from a passing servant, and his friends did the same. Alex threw back his wine, but Langdon and Ellingsworth sipped at theirs.

      Ellingsworth continued, “It was her. The blonde. She had to have been at Cheltenham, too. You weren’t yourself when you returned. Shoulder had healed but you’d been wounded another way. Took months before you came out of that cloud—and when you did, you started looking for a bride. Lady Emmeline. A girl to fill the gap left by the Cheltenham blonde.”

      “Enough of your fancies,” Alex muttered, but there was no denying how close his friends were to the truth. He tipped his glass back for more wine, but it was empty. Moodily, he set it on another passing servant’s tray.

      “Oh ho,” Langdon crowed. “A crack in the ducal defenses.”

      Alex scowled, glancing away.

      Langdon and Ellingsworth shared another look, this one fraught with unspoken words.

      “Let Ellingsworth and me take you somewhere else,” Langdon urged. “There’s a fine tavern in Leicester Square that hosts knife-throwing tournaments. Plenty of pretty wenches to turn a man’s head, too.”

      “No,” Alex said at once. “I’m in no humor for wenches or knives or anything else.” He craned his neck, looking once more for Cassandra.

      A thrill of panic juddered along his spine. Had she disappeared again? No—she was by one of the windows, smiling and talking with a gentleman and two ladies. The vise of his fear loosened. He took an instinctive step toward her.

      “Don’t blame you,” Langdon said, keeping pace beside him. “She’s a striking woman. Got a queenly aura about her.”

      Alex wheeled to face Langdon. “She’s not to be leered at.”

      Langdon’s brow raised as he held up his hands in surrender. “Not a glance. Not a peek in her direction.”

      “Why don’t you go to her?” Ellingsworth asked quietly.

      Alex felt his jaw harden. “It would jeopardize her employment here.”

      “She works here?” Langdon exclaimed.

      In response, Alex glared at his friend. He knew he was being churlish to Langdon and Ellingsworth, but there wasn’t a damn thing about this situation that he liked.

      Ellingsworth placed his hand on Alex’s shoulder. “Come on, old man. Let’s get you home. Nothing good will come of lingering.”

      A swell of gratitude built in Alex’s chest. His friends were impetuous and pleasure seeking. Ellingsworth continually made gibes and jests, and Langdon was always in search of gratification. Yet they clearly wanted to protect him from himself.

      He nodded stiffly, then turned and headed toward the exit. It took every ounce of his self-possession to keep from looking back. Toward Cassandra.

      From her vantage near the windows, Cassandra Blake watched the duke’s wide shoulders as he left the gaming hell with his friends. His posture was just as upright and proud as ever—a duke down to his very marrow, despite the shock he’d had tonight.

      She moved through the crowd, nodding, smiling, urging people to play. Yet her thoughts were leagues away.

      Alex wasn’t the only one who had been stunned by the night’s developments. Coming back to London, she’d braced herself for the possibility that she might, just might, see him again. Excitement and dread had fought within her, like two cats scrapping in an alley.

      Please let me see him, she’d think when falling asleep each dawn. Please, let our paths never cross, she’d think as she traversed London’s streets.

      Cassandra had heard through the usual gossip networks that he’d been seriously wooing a young woman of gentle birth. A strange, unexpected—and unwelcome—pain had lodged in her chest at that news. Then, yesterday, that lady had jilted him publicly.

      God, how he must be hurting. She ached for him, even as she secretly rejoiced that the stupid chit hadn’t possessed the good sense to make Alex her husband.

      A duke had to marry, but there wasn’t a single woman alive who was his equal.

      She’d seen the worst of humanity, its greed and selfishness and stupidity. She’d never known anyone who didn’t demand reciprocity in some fashion. Even saints wanted their halos admired.

      But Alex . . . he came by his integrity honestly. He never said what he didn’t mean. He gave of himself because he wanted better for others, without expecting anything in return. It wasn’t weakness—it was true gallantry.

      That had been her undoing.

      She shoved at the tempest of emotion battling within her. “There is a spot open at the hazard table, my lady,” she told a flush-faced woman with graying hair. “I understand the dice favor women.”

      “Do they?” the lady trilled. She walked on somewhat-unsteady legs toward the gaming table.

      Cassandra stifled a sigh. The tables were honest, but the players didn’t always have the best sense. Not my concern. She couldn’t stop people from being fools, and the more rash they became, the more her own profits would go up.

      People came to gaming hells because they wanted to forget themselves. They dropped their dignities at the entrance in exchange for the chance of winning significantly.

      Not Alex. He was a proud man. He’d never allow anyone to see him as anything less than flawless. He certainly didn’t want anybody to observe him hurting. After Lady Emmeline’s rebuff, Cassandra hadn’t known if he would hide. Or make himself visible as a way to let the chatterers know he wouldn’t be felled by a lady cutting him loose. Both were possibilities.

      Cassandra had mentally braced herself, but that had done almost nothing to shield her from the storm of feelings—happiness, terror, pleasure, sorrow—that hit when she saw him again. When he’d spoken her name. When he’d looked at her as though she’d truly come back from the dead.

      Or when he gazed at her as though he wanted to carry her off to the nearest bed and make love to her for days.

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