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expression the strangest mix
of bewilderment and irritation.
    "I-I'm sorry. Did I say something to offend?"
    Offend? Jared knew he was staring at her like a
simpleton, but suddenly he felt like a blind fool.
    Damnation, if she hadn't said as much, then he would have been the one likely to
offend—a bloody virgin's honor, no less! Muttering an oath, he yanked the
blanket from across their laps and flung it upon the opposite seat, and would
have followed himself if not for the hand suddenly at his arm.
    "Jared? Have I done something wrong?"
    "No, Miss Somerset, you haven't, but I damned well
have." He leaned forward and rapped on the front shell of the carriage. "Back
to Piccadilly, man! And make haste!"
    "Back to Piccadilly?"
    He heard the disappointment in her voice but said
nothing, his own displeasure more akin to utter frustration as he shoved all
thoughts of seduction from his mind.
    How could he have so misread the chit? Sitting rigidly
beside her, he glanced at her lovely face and felt another raw stab of regret
for his foiled plans.
    Big blue eyes stared at him in confusion; a silken
tendril of white-blond hair loosened from its comb and brushed against a
flawless cheek that he had ached to touch, the tip of her tongue running
uncertainly across tempting red lips that he had fully intended to ravage and
kiss. But that was before he had realized—as if a doubled fist had slammed into
his jaw—that Miss Lindsay Somerset was no cunning wanton accustomed to enticing
men, but a young woman both reckless and dangerously naïve.
    "Jared—Lord Giles, please. Don't
take me back to my aunt's, not yet! I can't imagine what could have
brought on your sudden change of heart, but I can assure you, no one knows I'm
here. I'm very good at sneaking out of houses—I did it all the time in Porthleven —"
    "Ah, so this is a common thing for you?"
Jared had spoken sharply and he felt another pang of regret, Lindsay's face
growing pink with consternation. But the careless wench had to realize the
danger in which she had placed herself, her wide-eyed innocence suddenly
reminding him so vividly of Elise . . .
    "N-not common so much as a necessity, truly.
Olympia didn't like that I spent so much time with my friend Corie —she didn't like Corisande Easton at all, or her father and three sisters, for that matter, so what could
I do? And, of course, late at night, I couldn't simply announce that I was
leaving and then skip out the front door. Everyone had to be sleeping first,
and then I would climb out my window and down the elm tree—"
    "So you're accustomed to being about when most
young ladies are tucked safely in their beds? That might have caused you no ill
effect in a village in bloody Cornwall, but traipsing about alone at night in
London is another— "
    "But I'm not alone, Jared. I'm with you."
    Jared grimaced, Lindsay's simple statement hitting him
like a blow to the stomach.
    Yes, so she was with him, and if she knew how closely
she had come to . . .
    Shaking his head, he glanced out the window and
realized Hyde Park was fading from sight behind them, the very place where he
had hoped to indulge himself in Lindsay Somerset's obvious charms.
    He was no saint, but he was no ravager of innocents,
either, no matter his soiled reputation. But how many other "proper"
gentlemen with spotless reputations would have turned the coach around if in
the company of such a tempting companion? And perhaps an heiress to boot, given
Lord Ambrose Lamb's ardent pursuit—that spendthrift family making no secret of
its need to refill empty pockets in exchange for a lofty title—which made her
all the more vulnerable to masculine birds of prey. Not many, dammit , which caused his gut to knot.
    If he didn't indulge her insatiable curiosity about
London, no doubt she'd find another man more willing, which made Jared once
again think of Elise. His beautiful, trusting, younger sister, so vivacious and
full of life and its bright promise before she was