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Catriona reached out to flick the end of one of the scarves that draped the stone walls. “What sort of prison affords you the luxuries of wine, tobacco and women of easy virtue?”
    “I hate to corrupt your delicate sensibilities, my dear, but incarcerated men of means have always honored the age-old tradition of bribing the gaoler.” He hefted the glass in another toast, giving him a valid excuse to drain it dry. “God bless his money-grubbing little soul.”

    She frowned. “I don’t understand. If you have means, then why are you locked up as a debtor?”
    He winced. “Perhaps I should have said the illusion of means. Everyone here knows that the Duke of Bolingbroke is my father. And they believe that surely not even the most icy-hearted of noblemen would be so cruel as to allow his bastard son to rot away in Newgate. They expect him to charge up to the gates in his coach-and-four at any minute, tossing coins from his overflowing purse to the slavering peasants.”
    “Is that what you expect as well?” she asked lightly, trying to hide how critical his answer might be to her plans.
    The ghost of a bitter smile tugged at his lips. “I expect him to provide the rope for my hanging. I’m afraid I’ve always been a dreadful disappointment to him. My most recent transgression was to survive my encounter with Napoleon while my brother Richard died an ignoble death from dysentery on a mud-soaked battlefield in Malta, leaving him with no proper heir.”
    “I’m sorry,” Catriona said softly.
    “That my brother died? Or that I survived?” He leaned back on the settee and patted the cushion next to him. “Enough about the rot in my family tree. Why don’t you trot over here, rest your pretty head on my shoulder and tell me just how word of my sordid crimes reached ears as refined and lovely as yours?”
    Ignoring his audacious invitation, Catriona gingerly settled herself on a rickety three-legged stool a few feet away. The thing tottered wildly, nearly upending her before she recovered her balance. She sought to reclaim her dignity by briskly removing her bonnet and resting it on the floor next to the stool.
    “As I’m sure you’re well aware, your most recent incarceration is the talk of every drawing room in London.” She drew off her gloves and placed them on top of the bonnet. “But you really shouldn’t be so modest about your accomplishments, Mr.
    Wescott. Or should I call you Sir Simon? You didn’t just survive Napoleon. You were knighted for valor after Trafalgar because you saved the life of your captain on the Belleisle by throwing yourself in front of a musket ball intended for him. Upon your return from Spain, you were hailed as a hero before all of London.”
    He snorted. “This city has always been quick to embrace any fool with a handful of shiny medals and a bit of braid on his shoulders.”
    “Oh, but it wasn’t your rise to glory that truly captured the city’s imagination. It was your rather spectacular fall from grace. Or should I call it a plunge? Instead of accepting the promotion to commander that the navy offered you, you resigned your commission and proceeded to wench, drink, and gamble away every ounce of respectability your valor had earned you.”
    He stretched out on the settee and folded his hands behind his head, looking thoroughly bored. “You left off brawling and dueling. I haven’t killed a man yet, but I’ve winged several.”

    She continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Not a fortnight has gone by since then without some torrid mention of you in the scandal sheets.”
    “Which you no doubt pore over every night in your virginal white nightdress before you slide between the cold sheets of your lonely bed.”
    His taunt struck uncomfortably close to home. He would never know how many times his memory had warmed both those sheets and her dreams.
    She lifted her chin. “How do you know I sleep alone?”
    “Because you look like you’re in desperate need of a