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important a reason than love.
    If Harry went bankrupt, all those dreams would perish. Maris’s come out would be forfeit, since there wouldn’t be enough money for the clothes and the parties and the balls it took to launch a debutante. And though she wished she could help, her own finances would never come close to covering such an expense.
    My path is clear, Julianna realized. And in two days’ time, regardless of her private reservations, she would do what she must to keep her family happy and whole.

    After the shopping excursion, she and Maris drove back to Allerton House in Grosvenor Square.
    Hoping to catch Harry before he dashed out to spend the evening with friends, she agreed to stay and share a quiet dinner with Maris and Henrietta Mayhew, a distant cousin from their mother’s side of the family. Widowed with grown children, Henrietta had gratefully accepted the offer to act as Maris’s chaperone for the Season. Until last month, Maris had made her home with Julianna, but Julianna had decided her sister would be better off launching her coming out from the far grander family townhouse.
    The evening progressed, filled with good food and enjoyable conversation. However, Harry did not appear.
    Penning a note to her wayward brother, Julianna left instructions with the butler that Lord Allerton was to be given her message the instant he arrived. Saying her good-nights, she made the short carriage ride home and retired to bed.
    She was frowning over a barely touched plate of eggs and toast, tea growing tepid in her cup, when Harry finally strode into her dining room the next morning. She gazed up at him in relief.
    Disheveled and bleary-eyed, he looked as if he hadn’t slept. “Got your message,” he mumbled as he pulled out a chair at the table and sat down across from her. “What’s so urgent I had to run over here before I’d even had m’morning coffee? Feel dashed rotten, I do, despite some bloody awful concoction my valet poured down my throat not an hour since.”
    She motioned to her footman to bring her brother a cup of hot coffee. Once done, the servant bowed and departed the room, shutting the doors behind him.
    His eyes closed, Harry sipped his beverage as if for strength. “Devil take this head of mine.”
    “Out drinking, I see,” she observed, trying not to sound as disapproving as she felt.
    “Plague take me, yes. What else should a man do when his own ruin’s so near at hand? Just trying to forget my problems the best way I know how.”
    “Well, if you’d come home yesterday I could have saved you a great deal of anguish. I have good news.” She pushed her plate away and leaned forward.
    Harry reached out and shoved the plate even farther down the table, the scent of food obviously sickening him. “What sort of good news? Don’t see how anything can be good, not when The Dragon’s breathing down my neck, ready to destroy me day after next. Uncharitable as it might be to say, seems a shame somebody couldn’t do us a favor and run him over in the street.”
    Julianna cleared her throat, an image of Rafe Pendragon lying prostrate in the middle of some London thoroughfare flashing into her mind. Knowing Pendragon, even as little as she did, she suspected he’d live through such an attack, climb to his feet, dust himself off, then methodically set about hunting down the man who’d done it.
    “Well, put away your murderous thoughts because they’re completely unneeded.”
    She paused, knowing once she recited the lies she’d prepared there would be no turning back. Taking a deep breath, she plunged ahead. “Harry, the most miraculous thing has happened. I’ve found the money to pay your debt.”
    His dark brows shot upward. “What?”
    “Yes. After you told me everything last week, I began searching the accounts, trying to find some means of aiding you. And I came across an old box.”
    “A box?”
    “Something of Basil’s that I’d put away and quite forgotten. Inside, you