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and gone on his way, with no reason to speak to her again.
    Instead he would have to see her again, even seek her out. First, because he never abandoned a contest in defeat, certainly not to a woman. And second, because now he had her book and wanted to see her face when he presented it to her. He wondered if her blush was bright scarlet, or a dusky rose.
    By the time he returned to Bennet’s town house in Halfmoon Street, Bennet was already there. He rushed into the hall at Tristan’s entrance. “Did you get it?” he demanded.
    “The paper? No.” Tristan tossed his hat at the hook behind the door. It missed and rolled under a table.
    Bennet swore and plunged his hands into his already rumpled hair. “Curse Joan! Why the devil did you let her into the house?”
    “You didn’t warn me not to.” Tristan retrieved his hat and paced back to his original spot. He eyed the hook, and threw the hat toward it again. It missed, again.
    “Did I need to?” Bennet exclaimed. “A woman calls at the break of dawn, and you let her stroll into my bedchamber?”
    Tristan fetched his hat once more and retraced his steps. “If it had been a different sort of woman,” he said, adjusting his stance and staring down the hook, “you would have called me out for turning her away.”
    “It must have been excruciatingly obvious she was not that sort of woman.” Bennet frowned. “You’re cheating; that’s a full six inches nearer than before.”
    “It is not.” Tristan took a step backward anyway. “A pound I can make it from here.”
    “A guinea you cannot.”
    A wild and exhilarated grin touched his mouth. He bent his knees a little, turned the hat around, and let it fly once more. It sailed neatly through the air and caught the hook, swinging precariously for a moment before settling into place. Tristan made a fist of triumph as Bennet uttered another halfhearted curse.
    “Take it off my board.” Tristan peeled off his gloves and handed them to the servant who had belatedly come into the hall. “And I advise you to give your sister a wide berth. That female is trouble.”
    “As if I haven’t known that for twenty years.” Bennet stalked back into the drawing room and sprawled in one of the few chairs. Tristan followed, waving aside Bennet’s offer of a glass of brandy. “My thanks for trying to find her, Burke.”
    “I found her. Murdoch, bring some coffee and bacon,” he shouted into the hall before taking another of the chairs. “If we’re to be up at this hour, we might as well have breakfast.”
    “You found her? Then why don’t you have the paper? I thought you could talk any woman out of anything you wanted from her!”
    “Good Lord, Bennet, you make me sound like a confidence man.”
    “Only where ladies are concerned.”
    Tristan leveled a finger at him. “I am not concerned anywhere near your sister. That woman is trouble.”
    Bennet turned an astonished, and increasingly amused, face to him. “She refused you.”
    “She refused to give back that damned paper,” Tristan swiftly corrected him. “You were an idiot to sign it at all.”
    “So much for the celebrated Burke charm.” Bennet snorted with laughter. “Turned down by a spinster!”
    He glared at his friend. “She bade me tell you she looks forward to seeing you at the Malcolm ball tomorrow.”
    That punctured Bennet’s mood. His grin vanished and he took a large swig of his brandy. “Damn it. I’m sunk, then. I managed to avoid my mother, but my father warned me she’s serious this time. There will be hell to pay if I don’t go, once Joan shows Mother that bloody note—which she still has, no thanks to you.”
    “Have a pleasant evening,” Tristan told him. “I’ll make every effort to be out of the house before you bring your bride home.”
    “It’s just one bloody ball.”
    “It’s the end of your bachelor life. Once you give way to one woman, it’s only a matter of time before she has you shackled to another.”
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