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next week or two.”
    He had her attention, at least—and he kept her hand as well. “We need to address your wardrobe, too, Miss Worthington. You are not attired as befits a successful woman of the world, and you must know how to clothe the women who work for you as well.”
    “Of course, but none of this is…” She blushed and might have glanced out the window, except common sense dictated they were tooling through Town with every shade firmly tied shut.
    “None of this is getting us into bed?” he finished for her. “We’ll have time for that. I propose when you have the business situation well in hand, say in several weeks, we begin on the more intimate details.”
    She looked him over, and not with the sort of interest he usually merited from the gentler sex. “You want me to become familiar with you first. That is kind of you.”
    The woman was daft.
    “Kind? I can assure you, deflowering a stranger who finds my touch unpleasant holds no allure for me. I intend to use the next weeks for us to become accustomed to each other’s company.”
    She held up their joined hands. “That’s why you do this? You touch me, when you don’t have to?”
    The carriage came to a halt in the alley behind her house, and he regarded their hands. “Touching you serves that function, but in truth, I touch you because it brings me pleasure.” And wasn’t that a curious thing? “I would ask one concession of you, however.”
    “What concession?”
    He did not release her hand. She turned her head, so the brim of the awful bonnet obscured her eyes from him. The bonnet was going onto the rubbish pile at their very next outing.
    “If we are to become intimate, then you must allow me the use of your given name, and I invite you to use mine as well.”
    “You have the eyes of a wolf.”
    He had just offered her the use of his Christian name, and she came out with that?
    “You have the eyes of a wolf, Gareth,” he instructed.
    “You have the eyes of a wolf… Gareth.”
    He gave her a terse nod, freed her hand, and let her leave the coach. He kept the vehicle waiting until she’d crossed the alley and made her way through a bleak, dormant back garden, and disappeared into her home.
    The dratted woman was pretty, soft, fragrant, and intelligent, and she appeared not the least bit interested in him on an animal level.
    Despite all that, he could hope she’d been disappointed that he hadn’t kissed her again—because he certainly was.

Three
    “I don’t understand why we must spoil the customers so,” Felicity began. “They are provided with beautiful women willing to do their every bidding. Why do they need expensive drink, a French chef, and Flemish tapestries? It isn’t as if they’re paying attention to the furniture when they’re ogling a décolletage.”
    Three weeks had seen a considerable thawing of Miss Worthington’s reserve, and the emergence of an odd, protective attitude toward Callista’s business. Felicity had been introduced to the house staff and the ladies who worked there. She had accompanied Gareth to the milliner’s and learned about fancy French undergarments until her blushes could have lit a bonfire. She had won the argument over whether she should acquire some for herself, but lost when Gareth insisted on selecting evening gowns for her.
    She had reviewed the wine list and the buffet menus, and could give a fair account of herself regarding several games of chance. She had learned the “guest” list and made suggestions regarding the music provided each evening. Her aptitude for the managerial aspects of her role suggested that she had, indeed, been running her father’s household long before she’d left the schoolroom.
    Gareth met with his protégé in the library of his town house, because it was more comfortable than his estate office, and better suited to the next phase of Felicity’s education.
    She wanted to know about spoiling the customers, while he was more interested in