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not lovesick swains.” Sarah scoffed at his belittling reference. He merely grinned. He liked needling her, liked getting a rise out of the oh-so-perfect Sarah Dryden. Once, he’d had more than anger from her, but those days were in the past, relegated to a time when he’d dared to dream a man like him could have a woman like her. Earls’ daughters weren’t for the faint of heart.

      “No, they’re not, are they?” He’d not come here to fight but he couldn’t seem to help himself. The line between passion and anger had never been so thinly delineated. “They’re heirs to titles and fortunes whose only job in life is to make themselves agreeable enough to catch a well-born virgin with wealth to match theirs. How would they feel if they knew you have neither virginity or wealth to give them?” Benedict paused, studying the defiant line of her jaw, the tilt of her chin. She would not like what he’d come to say. “You might be able to hide the lack of the one, but not the other.” He left it ambiguous as to which one he referred. The truth was she might not be able to hide either much longer.

      Her face colored as she took in his remark. “I do not have to answer to the likes of you. You led me to believe you had something of merit to say.”

      “I do, Sarah. Disaster is on its way, maybe three days behind me, maybe less. London knows you’re broke.” He’d ridden hell-bent for leather to tell her the news, to get to her first. He could tell himself he’d done it out of loyalty to Ren, but his conscience knew better.

      Sarah went pale beneath the heat of her blush. He hated being the one to put such fear there. He could see her mind calculating behind her blue eyes. Three days until disaster but the house party would be over in two. “How? Who?” She stammered her disbelief in incomplete questions. “Ren was so careful to give no sign.” He could see her weighing the risk. Maybe she could get away with it, maybe time would be on her side. His Sarah had become a shrewd analyst of the odds over the years, a very practical woman.

      Benedict shook his head, dispelling her calculations. “Rhys Camry was spreading it around the clubs. He said it was why you had left London during the Season.” He’d learned of it over a game of cards and he hadn’t been the first to hear it.

      “Plenty of people host small parties. This is no different,” Sarah argued defensively.

      “Well, true as that may be, Rhys’s rumor spiraled after that. Someone speculated it was the real reason Ren left for Barbados. Someone else recalled how the artwork in the town house had been rearranged, perhaps to cover up for a piece of artwork that had been sold. You know how it is.”

      “Rhys Camry didn’t like being refused,” Sarah said, fuming. “He can’t abide the fact that Ren rejected his suit on my recommendation, so he has to prove to everyone he didn’t want me in the first place.”

      Benedict spread his hands in a placating gesture. He’d suspected as much. Camry was a spoiled, petulant excuse for a man once one got beyond his good looks. Camry had made no secret of his intent to wed Sarah and his prideful boasting had made her rejection of him public. “Be that as it may, the damage is done and when the news reaches Sussex, your drawing room will be sparsely populated. We need a plan for dealing with this.”

      “We don’t need anything,” Sarah corrected. “I have a plan. I just have to get one of them to declare themselves.”

      “In two days? That’s fast work,” Benedict cautioned.

      “It’s plenty of time. I’ve been out for five years and these gentlemen have been about Town for nearly ten. I daresay we all know our business and we’ve all known each other, at least of each other, for years.”

      “Oh,” Benedict said with exaggerated nonchalance. “This is all merely a formality then? Good to know.”

      Sarah fixed him with a hard stare, then pitched her voice low in case anyone walked in. “Plenty of matches are made this way. So don’t stand there and pretend shock as if I’ve thrown away the rule book. If anyone has thrown away a rule book, it’s you.” She could tolerate censure but not from him, not from the one person who knew how desperate she was and the one person who knew she’d hoped for better once upon a time.

      His gaze hardened, his eyes losing some of their heat. “Who then? Badgley’s son, Caron’s heir? Devonshire? He’s already inherited. That would be convenient.” Benedict rattled off the extensive list. “Perhaps you’ll just work your way through the alphabet.”

      “You don’t have to be nasty. It hardly matters who.” Sarah’s retort was sharp. Was it all bravado or had Sarah actually persuaded herself such a statement was true? The Sarah he knew would not settle for just anyone. The Sarah he knew deserved more in a husband.

      Benedict recognized that stubborn look. She would not be dissuaded but he could try. She was putting herself in a reckless, dangerous position with that attitude. “I disagree. I think it does matter, a great deal. You don’t know them like I do. All you see are their clothes, their manners and their tokens of affection. I’d stay away from Caron’s boy. He’s the unluckiest lad I know at cards. So is his brother. The brother gambled away a lucrative property just recently. Marry into that family, and you’ll be homeless within the year.” He had that particular deed in his pocket as a matter of fact, a second reason he’d ridden pell-mell for Sarah’s husband hunt of a house party, but that news could wait until later.

      “Devonshire then,” Sarah challenged, undeterred.

      Benedict gave a casual shrug and fingered the paperweight sitting on the desk’s corner to hide his loathing. “I suppose he’ll do if you don’t mind sharing. There’s not a faithful bone in his body, nor a moral one.” Of all the men in the room, he wanted to see her with Devonshire the least.

      “How do you know such a thing?” Sarah asked, then she put her hands up as if to ward off the answer. “No, wait. I don’t want to know. What about Badgley? Surely there’s nothing wrong with him.”

      “Nothing is the operative phrase there, my dear,” Benedict continued, relentlessly slashing through her offerings. “He’ll never be much of anything in bed or out.” He let his eyes rest on her, roaming her body in a hot glance so that there was no mistaking his intent. “Could you live with such a man, Sarah, a man who could not rouse you? Forever is a long time when it involves a cold bed.” Even when the bed was warmed by some of London’s most, ah, talented beauties, forever was a hellish eternity, he was discovering.

      “Your crass assessment is unnecessary and unwelcome.” Sarah met his gaze evenly but the gaze was not without a hint of heat, not without a trace of memory of a time when she had roused to him, to his touch, proof that she knew what was possible and that she hadn’t forgotten, either.

      “You have to admit, Sarah, it does matter who you choose. You don’t know the first thing about those men out there. What if your plan fails?”

      Sarah began to move, circling him, her expression thoughtful and considering. Benedict shifted on the desk, keeping her in his line of sight. He’d been hunting her with his words but now he felt like the prey.

      “You’re right. I must choose carefully even if it must be quickly. I don’t know them, not like a man would know them. But you do.” She stopped her stalking and fixed him with a hard stare, like a schoolmaster who had come up with the divine punishment for an errant student. She tapped thoughtfully against her chin in contemplation and Benedict knew before she spoke he wasn’t going to like this.

      “You’re going to help me. You’re going to tell me everything about each one of them and I’ll weigh the pros and cons. Dinner is at seven. I’ll see you then for round one.”

      Benedict groaned as she swept past him in a froth of tulle and rosewater. This wasn’t punishment, this was purgatory.

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