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heart.” Without taking her gaze off Gillian, Sally returned the
wave of a young couple who danced past. “She’s awful, and she’s after one of my
dearest friends. I heard she made quite a scene chasing after him at a ball
last week. Chased him right to the front door, which I’m told he dashed out of
to escape her.”
    “I wouldn’t worry about him.”
    Sally narrowed her eyes at Gillian.
    Blast! She’d not meant to let
anything slip, but the surprise of realizing Sally was talking about the man from
the curtains had stolen her senses.
    “Why?” Sally raised her eyebrows. “Is
Lionhurst the man she thinks you’re after?”
    “Lionhurst?” Gillian frowned. The
name unleashed an old memory. “Do you mean Alexander Trevelle?” She pictured
the boy she remembered from childhood. Face streaked with dirt and hair filled
with straw from the haystack he had been hiding in to avoid being whipped by
his father, the duke.
    “One and the same,” Sally said. “I
see by your frown you remember him.”
    “Oh, I remember him.” Didn’t all
women remember the first boy who ever kissed them? She was no exception, even
if the kiss had been when she was eight, and she had considered his warm lips
extremely disgusting. The way he’d barged behind the curtain and thought she
was a woman who had been waiting with bated breath to fall into his arms made
perfect sense now. The little she recalled of the boy she’d barely known was
someone who assumed everyone pined for his attention. “I can’t believe after
all these years he’s not changed in the way he treats women.”
    “Oh, he’s changed some,” Sally said
with a chuckle. “He steals quite a bit more than just kisses nowadays.”
    “What does he steal?” Gillian asked,
intrigued by Sally’s statement.
    “Hearts, darling.” Sally pulled
Gillian to her side, their heads close together. “He steals hearts.” She
grinned at Gillian. “You’ve given me an idea.”
    Gillian didn’t like the sound of
that. Sally had never been known for her sound ideas. “What sort of notion?”
    “You have to help me.”
    “Help you?” Gillian tried to extract
herself from her friend’s embrace. “How can I help you?”
    “Why to save Lion from Lady Staunton,
of course.”
    “What fun,” Whitney exclaimed, a grin
lighting her face. “I’ll help too.”
    “I’ll find a small role for you.”
    “A small role?” Whitney’s lips poked
out in a pout.
    “Darling, you’re gorgeous,” Sally
exclaimed to Whitney. “But Lionhurst likes dark hair.”
    Whitney and Sally both stared at
Gillian. She ignored her sister and focused on Sally. “I can’t afford to
embroil myself in helping your friend. I’ve too much on my mind.”
    “You only need act if Lady Staunton
comes near him.”
    “I’m sorry.” Gillian shook her head. She
could not slip into such an entanglement. “I just can’t.”
    All the animation in Sally’s face
disappeared. “Why not? Are you afraid of losing your heart to him?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous,” Gillian
snapped, picturing the man he had become. She could imagine with his gorgeous
smile and, no doubt perfected seduction methods, how a woman might be in danger
of losing her heart to him, but she was not your average woman. She was on a
mission to save her sister and herself. “My heart is in no danger.”
    “Then you’re perfect. I don’t have to
worry you’ll get hurt this way, and I can quit fretting about Lionhurst falling
back into Lady Staunton’s clutches. The last time almost killed him.”
    “From my conversation earlier with
Lord Lionhurst,” Gillian said firmly, “I suspect he can handle himself with any
woman.”
    “You don’t truly know him.” Sally
shook her head. “He never shows his true self when he is out in Society.”
    “No doubt because the women would run
screaming,” Gillian retorted.
    Sally’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t
remember you being cold and mean.”
    Heat flooded Gillian’s face.