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forced a smile. “Please do.” So his own reputation had doomed the venture before he’d even begun it. A man as cynical as he knew himself to be should have expected that. In a sense it was even amusing that a ruined chit found him too scandalous. In another sense, what he needed was a damned drink. Several of them.

 
    Chapter Four
    “He asked you to go walking with him?”
    Camille nodded, finishing with the pins holding her hair in its simple bun at the top of her head. “I told him no, of course, but it was nice to be asked. Even by a notorious rogue.”
    “He’s the one who told you he was a rogue.”
    “I would have discovered that fact shortly, anyway.”
    In the dressing mirror’s reflection she saw Sophia White blink light green eyes beneath long, curved lashes. “You know, I think his reputation is worse than yours, Cammy.”
    “Well, thank you very much.” Camille put the rest of her toiletries back in the drawer of the dressing table she shared with the Duke of Hennessy’s illegitimate daughter.
    Sophia had people looking askance at her as well, but at least she hadn’t done anything to warrant the tongue-wagging. Except come to work at a gentlemen’s club, of course. But Miss White had grown up with the sideways looks and muttering, and it had never seemed to bother her—until she came of age and discovered that no one wished to hire a governess born to an indiscreet duke and an upstairs maid.
    “What I mean is, perhaps you could go walking with him as your companion,” Sophia pressed. “Everyone will stare, of course, but they won’t be staring at you. They’ll be staring at Bloody Blackwood.”
    “Yes, that’s what he said.” Camille shuddered. Not at Keating Blackwood’s nickname, but at the thought of people staring. Oh, she hated that. The staring, the behind-hand whispers, were worse even than being given the cut-direct. “I would prefer to forgo the experience, whoever they might be chattering about.”
    Sophia flopped backward onto her bed. “I don’t like being looked at askance, either, but I’ve learned to ignore it.”
    Sinking onto the edge of the bed beside her friend, Camille shook her head. “The circumstances of your birth are not your fault, Sophia. You have no reason to pay attention to the spitting cobras outside.”
    “Then your solution is to never venture beyond the walls of The Tantalus Club ever again? Ever?”
    “Not until everyone forgets me, anyway.” Sighing, she stood again. “If you think me going outside is such a wonderful thing, then you go with me.”
    “Very well.”
    That stopped her exit from their shared bedchamber. “What?”
    “You heard me. I’ll go for a walk if you go for a walk. With Keating Blackwood, that is. I’d like to meet someone more scandalous than I am. It’ll be interesting.”
    Oh, dear. Camille knew she was a coward; she only needed to remind herself about how long it had finally taken for her to stand up for herself to see it very clearly. And that certainly hadn’t gone well. But the other ladies here didn’t know about her faint heart. They’d embraced her when her own family had turned their backs. And she didn’t want her new friends deciding she wasn’t worth troubling themselves over.
    She took a deep breath. “I’ll send Mr. Blackwood a note, then. And if anyone else wishes to join us, they are certainly welcome to do so.”
    Sophia chuckled as she sat upright again. “Safety in numbers?”
    “We’re the scandalous females of The Tantalus Club. I daresay we’ll have ladies of good breeding fainting left and right.”
    There. That sounded brave. Sophia likely knew better, but out of everyone at the club, Camille trusted Miss White. Before she could change her mind she headed for the large upstairs common room and sat down to write out a note to Keating Blackwood. He’d said he was residing at Baswich House with the Duke of Greaves, and whatever her employer Lord Haybury seemed to think of the