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they met what would lure her in. With Lily St. Claire, he was baffled, thrown off his game. She was like no other woman he had ever met.
    He drew up outside his lodging house and tossed the reins to a footman as he leaped to the ground. Soon enough he would get to see Lily again, when he went to her brother’s gambling club—two birds with one stone.
    And then he would start to slowly unravel the delicious mystery of Lily St. Claire.

Chapter Four
    “I wish I could see the club when it opens. It’s so unfair.”
    Lily laughed at the wistful sound of her sister Isabel’s voice. She glanced at their reflection in the dressing table mirror as Issy lodged pins into Lily’s upswept hair. “It will be very dull. Just work.”
    “Of course it won’t be dull!” Isabel protested. “There will be music and dancing and handsome men. It will be fun, and I’m missing it as usual.”
    “You do have fun, Issy.” Lily reached for her pot of rouge and carefully smoothed swaths of pink over her pale cheeks as Isabel finished her hair.
    “I don’t. I work at the theater and then I go home to sit by the fire all evening while everyone else goes out. I’m almost eighteen! James gets to go out far more than I do,” Isabel said, referring to her twin brother.
    Lily laughed. “Eighteen is not old enough to spend the evening at a gambling club.”
    “As if I would be in any danger. Not with you and Dominic and Brendan there.”
    “Maybe next year.”
    Isabel gave a pout and snapped off three red roses fromthe bouquet on the table to wind them through Lily’s hair. “Everyone always says next year.”
    Lily smiled at her, studying Isabel’s loose fall of strawberry curls, her pretty oval face, the bright, angry glitter of her green eyes. Isabel was the baby of the St. Claire family, younger than James by a half hour, and they did rather shelter her too much. But Lily would never want sweet Issy to see what was really out there in the world beyond the circle of their family. She never wanted her to lose that shining innocence.
    “It will be all work tonight,” Lily said. “There will be time for fun when you go to the seaside next month. Aren’t you looking forward to your holiday?”
    “I do like the sea,” Isabel admitted. “But I’m tired of children’s holidays.” She put the finishing touches on Lily’s hair and smiled. “There, now, all done. What do you think?”
    Lily twisted her head to the side to examine the elaborate creation of curls and waves, entwined with ribbons and the red roses. “Amazing, Issy. You have quite transformed this little brown wren.”
    Isabel laughed. “Hairdressing is one of my many talents. But I only gilded your beauty.”
    “And you are also the sweetest sister in the world.” With her hair done and the kohl at her eyes and diamonds sparkling in her ears, she looked almost pretty.
    Would Aidan think so when he saw her? Would he appear tonight at all? She had made sure he received an invitation, but that didn’t mean he would come. It didn’t mean she hadn’t imagined the dark, intent look in his eyes when he helped her from the carriage. It had been many days since she saw him.
    She shook her head. She was being a fool, mooning over a handsome man like that. He was a Huntington, her family’s enemy, and a distraction she did not need. She had seen the way the women in the cafe looked at him. He could have any of them, pretty women who didn’t carry the weight of their dirty past around with them like iron shackles.
    Yet still she had taken the extra care with her appearance tonight. She had tried to cover up the nightmares and sleepless nights that had plagued her since she thought she saw
him
again.
    “I am a very good sister,” Isabel said with a laugh. “And don’t ever forget it. I will expect a full account of the evening tomorrow. Now, let’s get you into your gown. Which one did you decide on for tonight?”
    An hour later, Lily stood in the main salon of the