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I hope,” he said. “If you ever hear of my bathing in milk or discarding a neckcloth because every fold and dent is not precisely where it ought to be, I hope you will be so good as to shoot me.”
    She smiled then, a slow upward curve of her lips.
    Visions of this exotic, grown-up version of Zoe dancing in veils crept into his mind, along with the first part of her qualifications: I know all the arts of pleasing a man.
    Perhaps, after all, he should have said yes.
    No, absolutely not. Though he wasn’t altogether sober, he was well aware that the little brain between his legs was trying to take charge of the situation. He told himself not to be an idiot. He shoved the visions into the mental cupboard.
    â€œIn short,” he said, “you need me, but contrary to your sisters’ hysterical assumptions, you don’t need to marry me. You don’t need to marry anybody until you’re quite ready.”
    Another little whoosh of air. “Oh,” she said. “Thank you. You are very handsome and desirable, and I was so glad of that—but I was married from the time I was twelve years old, and it seemed a very long time, and I would rather not be married again straightaway.”
    â€œYou may leave everything to me,” he said.
    â€œThat is one of the most horrifying sentences I have ever heard,” said Augusta.
    â€œEverything?” said Zoe. She gazed at him expectantly, her eyes like two dark seas, deep enough to drown a man.
    He set down his glass. If his mind was sliding into metaphor, he’d had quite enough to drink. “Everything,” he said firmly. “Come with me.”
    â€œGo with him?” cried a sister.
    â€œGo where?”
    â€œWhat can he be thinking?”
    â€œThinking? When does he ever think?”
    While the harridans recommenced playing the Greek tragic chorus, Marchmont took Zoe’s arm and led her out of the room.
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    The long-fingered hand wrapped about Zoe’s arm was very warm. The heat spread out from there and raced up and down, from one side of her body to the other.
    Zoe looked down at his hand and wondered how he did it.
    But as soon as they were out of the drawing room, he let go of her. He folded his hands behind his back and walked on. His legs were long, but he did not hurry. She had no trouble keeping up with him.
    Aware of servants watching while they pretended not to, she would not let herself stare at him. This wasn’t easy. For one thing, the provoking boy she’d known so long ago had turned into someone else: a tall, strong, hauntingly beautiful stranger. That took some getting used to.
    For another, this stranger had effortlessly awakened in her feelings she’d heard talked of endlessly but had never experienced. She was still reeling from that discovery.
    Still, he was a stranger, and she was relieved not to have to marry him. He seemed to be very conceited. He was nothing like the boy she’d known so long ago.
    All the same, she couldn’t help wondering what he looked like naked.
    She couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like if he put those big, warm hands on her womanly parts.
    She shivered.
    â€œIt is unseasonably cold,” he said. “We’re in for a filthy night, I don’t doubt. The sky was overcast as I left White’s and continues to darken. Do you know what White’s is?”
    She towed her mind back to the moment. “I heard my sisters say you had friends there,” she said.
    â€œIt is a gentleman’s club in St. James’s Street,” he said. He told her the names of various members, describing his friends in detail, quoting Beau Brummell, and explaining the latest set of wagers in the betting book.
    It was interesting, and he spoke in an amusing way. Yet Zoe was aware that he was…not drunk exactly, but in a haze.
    She was familiar with the haze of intoxicants. In the harem, opium helped bored and frustrated women pass