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was like that shiny new coin she’d found in the gutter one day. She’d wanted to keep it. But at almost the exact moment she’d found the thing, Lizzie had walked by, her poor gaunt face lifting into a smile, though she’d had nothing to smile about since her husband had died, leaving her alone with four young bairns to raise. Before Anna’d known what she was doing, she’d handed the coin to her friend… and had occasion to remember that generosity every time her stomach growled for the next three days.
    But if he stayed, his blunt would pay for food. And since she’d missed half of her usual market time this morning in order to test her sail she’d paid the price for it. His half crown would more than make up the difference.
    She met his gaze, looked into the eyes of a man whose ilk she would likely never see again. Gentry. Perhaps even noble, for as she looked down, she caught a band of white around his pinkie finger, as if he’d worn a ring there until recently—a signet ring, perhaps?
    She looked back up at him sharply. Aye, he had the look of quality—what with his angular cheekbones and the lofty look in his green eyes—and the airs, though he was a bloody sight more handsome than that nobleman she’d once caught a glimpse of as he’d exited his club.
    Her gaze sharpened, too, as they stared at one another, and though something inside Anna screamed that she was mad, she found herself asking, “How much blunt?”
    “Twenty pounds.”
    Twenty pounds?
    “Of course, you shall not receive the coin until after my wager is won, but you have my word that you shall, indeed, receive such a reward.”
    Twenty pounds!
    “One night,” he said in a low voice, like a serpent come to Eve to tempt her with an apple. “Half a crown for your troubles, and another
twenty pounds
if that one night should turn into a month.”
    “One night,” she found herself repeating back, though she hardly believed she might agree to such a thing.
    “One night.”
    Half a crown for her troubles.
    She needed that bloody half-crown. “One night only,” she agreed, thinking she could be rid of him on the morrow. Surely nothing would happen in that short amount of time.
    “Excellent,” he said, and there came that feeling again. Gracious, she wished he wouldn’t look at her like that. She knew the ways between a man and a woman, had prided herself on keeping free of entanglements. The last thing she needed was a bairn. But this man… she knew intuitively that this man might pose a threat to her.
    “You shall not regret it,” he added.
    But Anna feared very much that she might.
    Anna’s misgivings only increased when she walked inside and spied the damage her grandfather’s invention had done.
    Blimey.
    Like a riverbank clotted with debris after flood waters had receded, her grandfather’s inventions dotted the carpet like uprooted shrubs. A few were either tipped back or covered with papers: the drawings her grandfather sketched in the middle of the night, the thick blots of ink—testament to his mad hurry to get the images down—strewn everywhere. Most of those sheets lay on the floor, or pressed against the sides of walls. Soot from the grate coated every surface, some of the smoke still hanging in the air, the light from the windows trying valiantly to punch its way through the dim gray fog.
    Lord, it would take her days to clean up the mess.
    She turned to tell Mr. Hemplewilt to tread carefully… and caught him staring at her backside. But instead of looking abashed at being caught doing such a thing, he gave her a slow, sexy smile that made Anna feel as if the white apron around her middle were suddenly jerked tight. Cad.
    Her eyes narrowed as she turned away, spying her grandfather near a window. Dealing with Mr. Hemplewilt would have to wait.
    “Where did he go?” her grandfather asked, his face and hair nearly as black as that chimney sweep who’d crouched over Mr. Hemplewilt earlier in the day, thanks to the